Archives September 2004

I need a couple bolts for the Vette. Of course I can’t just buy the bolts, they come in a kit. The kit costs 25 bucks. So for 2 bolts I am paying 25 bucks. If that isn’t bad enough, the dealers make it as inconvenient as possible for you. I called the local Chevy dealer for the part, here is how the conversation went:

Me: Hi I would like to order this part number over the phone
Dealer: We don’t take orders over the phone
Me: Oh ok how about if I give you my CC number?
Dealer: We don’t accept CC over the phone
Me: Why not?
Dealer: Company policy
Me: (Repeating) You don’t take credit cards?????
Dealer: Not over the phone
Me: What the? Ummm Ok…..
Me: Well ok if I come in and order the part, can you at least ship the part to my home address so I don’t have to come back in?
Dealer: No, company policy….
Me: Goodbye

F’in ridiculous. So I called 3 different dealers and finally found one that was brave enough to accept my CC over the phone AND ship it to my home. How can a company nowadays not accept credit cards unless you are there in person? Crazy.

Last night after work, Ali suggested that we go take a look at the lot that we were in the process of buying, what a novel idea. So we drove out to where it was. The first thing we noticed was it was in an increasingly remote area. On the block where the lot is there is exactly ONE other house. Second, I looked at the lot and saw it had a bunch of cypress trees, which is a pretty sound indicator that the property will be classified as wetlands by the DEP, making building on the lot a complicated and possibly expensive proposition depending on the permitting and mitigation required. I called up the realtor and expressed my concern. I told him that I trusted his evaluation of the lot but what I saw didn’t agree with what he told me. He went back out and looked again and saw more cypress but he still thought it wasn’t enough for it to be classified as 100% wetlands. Then I told him I did some research and found out that the one house on that block was sitting on a lot that was classified as wetlands which the realtor was surprised to hear. So I need to let him know if I want to back out of the deal. I believe we will pull the plug on this deal, neither Ali or I had a good feeling about this lot after seeing it.

I have been on a holding pattern with my invisalign braces for a month and a half while I was waiting for my new set to come in. All this time I was wearing the last of the old set. I probably had them in for 2 and a half months. They are IMPOSSIBLE to keep clean after that amount of time. They were cracked, had a hole in them and were just a mess. Once I got my new set I threw the old ones in the garbage, good riddance. When I saw the info for the new aligners I saw 28 for the top and 20 for the bottom!!! IF things go without delay that would mean I have like another year and a half to go ON TOP of the year I already have put into it. F’in unreal. I would have been better off just biting the bullet and going with a metal mouth.

My soon to be former gym is closed all week doing “renovations” so I have been trying to do some sort of minimal exercise to keep things on par until I get to resume my normal workout routine. On Monday night I did some pilate exercises with Alison along with some other stuff she learned from the trainer she is working with. It was surprisingly tough and my legs definitely felt it when we were done. Last night after we spent an hour or so finishing up weed blocking the orchard, we both jumped in the pool and swam laps. Again it was much tougher than I expected. I have a new found respect for swimmers. Pulling yourself through the water exerts forces on muscles that is totally foreign to me. I tried to do the equivalent of 100 meters each of breast stroke, side stroke and freestyle. That little bit was as tiring as any cardio machine I’ve done in the past couple years. It’s cool to mix things up once in awhile. Tonight I may do some rollerblading.

I finally got my first win in fantasy football this week. I’m now 1-2. Ironically I scored my fewest amount of points of the 3 weeks but still managed to get a W. My team has had some bad luck with injuries. On my team I had Kellen Winslow, Rich Gannon and Charlie Garner. All 3 of these guys are either out for the season or have sustained serious injuries that will make them miss extended time. So I have been scrambling to find replacements. I am not feeling very hopeful about a win this week. You know my team is hurting when 3 of my starters are Emmett Smith at RB, Chad Lewis at TE and Ben Rothlisberger at QB.

The result of the for sale ad in the Sunday paper for the vette so far has been 2 phone calls. The first one was an older gentleman that looked like he was close to retirement age. He came out to the house on Monday night with his wife to look at it. I let him and his wife take it out for a drive. I pretty much knew the moment I saw him he wasn’t going to be a buyer. The feeling was cemented when he pulled back into the driveway and as he pulled in, the car stalled and he drifted to a stop. He was very nice about it but said the car was a bit too rough for what he was looking for. He was all armed with printouts from Kelly Blue Book showing the value of the car to be substantially less than what I have it listed for. (which I already knew) But the car wasn’t even worthy of a lowball offer from him. Oh well. Any guy that comes to see it with internet printouts in hand isn’t going to be a buyer.

The next guy worked down around where I work. He asked if I could bring the car to work so he could check it out. I haven’t driven the Vette that far in awhile and definitely not since my latest repairs so I was a bit nervous about it. It made it in fine but unfortunately I had to drive through rain which reminded of one of the Vette’s warts, deteriorated weather stripping that leaks like mad in rain. The prospective buyer met me in the parking lot later in the morning, looked at it a bit, asked me to start it up and then that was it. I offered him to drive it, but he said it sounded like it ran good. Hmmm ok, I really would prefer that any prospective buyer drive the car but whatever. He said he had another Vette to look at this afternoon and he would call me back later.

I had to take the Vette to the orthodontist later in the morning when another flaw was apparent, weak AC. By the time I had to leave, the external temperature was around 90. The AC works but wasn’t blowing very cold and the fan seems to run at one speed, low. By the time I got to the ortho office the back of my shirt was soaked through. So I decided if this latest buyer fell through I at least need to get the AC blowing a bit colder. On the drive back one more wart popped up, stalling. A couple times as I slowed down to stop the Vette would stall. This is a side effect of my TPS sensor replacement that is not yet properly adjusted. So again, I decided to fix that as well if this buyer disappears.

Last night I got a call from the guy saying he looked at the other Vette. He asked me what was the lowest offer I would accept. I told him a number a couple hundred higher than what I really wanted as a minimum. He said the other car he looked at was also an 88 and the guy wanted 4700 for it. However the buyer only looked at it from the outside and nothing else so he doesn’t really know very much about it. He said he was going back tomorrow morning to look at it closer. I told him to go look at it and get back to me. If he liked my car more I may be willing to move on the price a bit more. It’s a big pain in the ass, I’ll be glad when the car is gone. I should have trusted my initial instinct before I even bought the car and left it alone.

Out of the blue yesterday, I got a call from the real estate agent that sold us our lot that we built our house on. I had called and left a message for him weeks ago regarding our interest in finding a piece of land for an investment but he never returned my call. I pretty much wrote him off. Well he called me up regarding a hunk of land that just came available out around the area where we were looking before. It is a smaller parcel but if it comes back as being all “upland” it would be a good deal. The deal is contigent on this report coming back as favorable. I should know in a day or two if the offer was accepted. I’m not holding my breath, but if it all works out it should pay a handsome return if we resell it in 2 or 3 years.

I just read about and tried out a new seacrh engine, A9.com . It is backed by Amazon and is pretty cool, go take a look.

Sometimes it really doesn’t pay to try to be a nice guy. As a continuation to the RAV4 story, I decided to drop it off at a nearby garage to see if certified mechanics with a larger array of tools would have better luck with the door. I dropped it off this morning and hoped for the best. Unfortunately I got a call that they couldn’t get it open either. So the one hour of attempted repair will cost 70 bucks. Oh well, I sort of figured they would strike out too but I wanted to at least make the effort. I told them to just put it back together and I would pick it up. I walked over to the place at lunch, paid the bill and then got in the car to leave. I looked over at the panel. the 2 screws that are used to hold it in place were on the floor, a trim piece that goes over an area where the side view mirror is was on the floor as well as another small plastic piece. And then, as I looked closer I saw the top trim piece now has a big ass crack in it!!! What the hell? How could they return the vehicle to me like this and expect me to not notice? I marched right back inside and the guy asked what was up? I could tell they already knew what I was going to say. “You broke the door panel” I said. The guy behind the counter immediately dished to the guy that was involved in the repair. He also put on the fake bewildered act as I lead him out to the car. He acted like he didn’t even see it at first even though I knew he knew exactly what happened. It really burned me up. So the first thing he responds with is well as soon as you can get the door open, we will replace it for you. I said , “No, regardless of whether I get the door open or not, you guys have to replace the part” We went back and forth, the guy saying that they couldn’t replace/install the part if the door was closed. I acknowledged that was the case but continued to drive home the point that I wanted the part in hand regardless. The guy took a condescending stance towards me running out excuses that maybe there was a stress fracture in it already from my attempts to fix it, blah, blah blah. All total BS. So we left it at he would order the part, great. I’ve dealt with this place multiple times. At first they seemed to be very friendly and accomodating. My past few experiences have been increasingly negative. Needless to say, I am finished dealing with them after this experience. So now not only do I get to return the car to my Mom with the door still locked, it has a broken trim panel as well. F’in great.

I placed a for sale ad in the paper for the Vette in Sunday’s paper. I was underwhelmed with the response as I got zero calls yesterday. However, today I got 2 calls of possible interest. Hopefully one of them leads to a possible sale, it will be nice to have one less thing to be concerned with.

Here are the pics from volleyball and here is a funny picture of Nicki in her Eagles jersey, supporting the team.

Dark is the adjective I would use to describe my mood and state of mind right now. I woke up this morning just feeling like things sucked. I think it is a combo of things contributing to my mental disposition. The weekend vball tournament that was supposed to be the grand finale of the season as well as being some nice time away, instead turned into a compressed affair that ended with yet another bad finish in the playoffs and a marathon day. I think I am feeling lost again as well. My weekly routine is getting old and I feel like I should be doing something new or at least have something exciting to look forward to. Right now I see nothing remotely like that on the horizon. I am feeling some pressure to make a decision on if I want to have kids or not. That decision alone is enough to tie me in knots. And finally I am sure my ever present anxiety about getting old, sick, frail and death is making a healthy contribution to my aura of blah. I wonder if having a kid is the next logical step? Is that what adults use to divert their attention away from the parts of going through life that suck? I don’t know.

The Eagles had another fine performance and big win on Sunday. I hate to get my hopes up too high because I know how things normally go with the Birds. But beside a defense that is allowing a ton of yards but not a ton of points, there is very little to feel bad about with this team. Could this finally be the year? Does anyone else think it is odd that ESPN put Pat Summerall on the ESPN Sunday Night football crew? I liked the other guy much better. Pat is older than dirt and was supposed to have retired 2 or 3 years ago but yet here he is. I wonder if Madden pulled strings to get him the job. It’s too bad, adding Pat and subtracting the other guy really hammered the chemistry of the broadcast IMO.

My mom has been up in PA visiting with my brother and her newborn grandchild. While she was gone I picked up her RAV4 to fix what I thought should be a simple problem. Her passenger side door is stuck in the locked position. A simple fix I figured, just get a coat hanger down in the door and pop it open. Well after three prolonged, frustrating attempts over the last week, the final attempt being yesterday, I gave up. I jammed, twisted and prodded the mechanism with screw drivers, coat hangers and even metal supports from hanging file folders and could not get the door open. I felt defeated because I assured my mom that if I got her car to my place with my arsenal of tools, I should be able to get it open no problem. I also wanted to wash and wax it for her since I had it. Well on Sunday after I made my last attempt at opening the door I still hadn’t washed and waxed the car. We were still getting pelted by the affects of Hurricane Jeanne. I was so frustrated I didn’t give a shit. I opened the garage door, backed the RAV 4 out and washed it in 40 mph winds and intermittent driving rain. The people driving by must have thought I was insane. After I washed it, I pulled it back into the garage to dry it and wax it. Ridiculous I know, but I at least wanted to get something accomplished on it for her.

For whatever reason, I did absolutely ZERO prep for Hurricane Jeanne. I didn’t put away a single thing. For some strange reason, I just didn’t care or believed the forecast that her impact on us would be minimal. Even though we were pretty far away from her center we had substantial wind and rain for a good 20 hours. The wind was enough to dump a plant stand on the lanai and send our garbage cart for a short trip. Other than that we survived just fine, no power loss, no extensive flooding.

On Saturday morning I was feeling very down and decided to medicate myself by working outside. Sometimes that helps take my mind off of things. I decided to start weeding. What a mess. I sat down by the areas and pulled and pulled and pulled. After the first 2 and a half areas took well over an hour to weed I decided I had enough. I went to Lowe’s and bought a shitload of weedblock and mulch. I was determined to make these damn beds as low maintenance as possible. Once I got home I started on the project and Ali came out to assist. It was far from ideal weed block installation weather. The winds from Jeanne had already started spinning up. About an hour into it the rain started. Brief periods of hard rain soaked Ali and I in no time. We continued to work in these conditions for awhile but soon I I got sick of it and told Ali we would just bag it. Repeatedly I told her to go in and I would finish but she insisted in staying out there with me until I was ready to go in. It’s strange how a man’s mind works. Somehow, plodding through the rain, covered in mud, sand and wet mulch computes into something worthwhile. (see washing cars in hurricanes above) It’s baffling.

On Sunday I did a few things around the house but a good part of the day was spent playing online tennis, watching football and watching Sopranos episodes. Even though I enjoy doing these things, by the time Sunday evening came around I was feeling stir-crazy, like I wasted the day being lazy. I hate that feeling. I pity Alison because she has to deal with me acting like a nut, complaining that I feel like a lazy bum. Ali has no problem just vegging out for a day so she has a hard time understanding why it makes me so crazy. I have a hard time understanding it too.

So here I am at the start of another week, a week much like every other week for the past 3 years. I don’t expect anything major to happen to rock the boat, I’m sure the 7 days will pass quickly and without much fanfare. There were times that I would wish for nothing more than that. Right now I am yearning for something to look forward to, something to wake me up. Life is funny.

Quick sidenote, read the comments from the last blog entry, good stuff. 🙂

Hurricane Jeanne screwed up this weekend. The volleyball tournament was supposed to be big. It was my first time in South Beach. South Beach is unlike anywhere I have been before. All the buildings along the water are painted in bright pastels and it makes you feel like you just walked onto the set of Miami Vice. I was digging it. The little park that was in front of the beach was filled with artists when we arrived as they were holding some sort of art festival. These people were just sitting under the palm trees, painting whatever they wanted. Some painted the view of the ocean, some painted the buildings, some just painted an abstract. Even though I am far from the artistic type, I still could appreciate how good some of it was.

There was a wide range of people in the area from the ultra-beautiful to the homeless. In the first 5 minutes I saw a couple things that caught my eye. One was a HUGE, sand castle that I guess these guys make, destroy and rebuild on a regular basis. One of the creators friends was on guard. I threw a couple bucks in the tip jar as it was really an amazing spectacle. Ali and I both wondered how in the world they did certain aspects of it, the detail was incredible. The second oddity was a guy riding around the area on a Segway, those 2 wheel oddities that were supposed to be the next hot mode of personal transportation. The odd part was in the basket in the front he had a little dog. He was just tooling around the area checking out the art, the volleyball and seemingly enjoying himself. Cool stuff. I had to find the bathroom as the long drive had done a number on me. It was down the beach a bit. When I went inside, there was a rastafarian sort of dude in there. The bathrooms had no mirrors and soap dispensers. It looks like their ommision was intentional but I was not sure what the reason for it was.

Play was not supposed to start until 12. Well in true Bud Light fashion it didn’t start until after 1. Our very first game was tough. We got down 18-12 and were playing poorly. In rally scoring games a 6 point lead is very hard to overcome. (game was to 25) However we managed to claw back and win the game 25-23. It was a nice way to start the day. The original format of the tournament was to play until 5 pm, call it a day and finish up pool play and playoffs on Saturday. When we started we were told we were going to try to finish up ALL of pool play because of Hurricane Jeanne. However as we got later into the afternoon we got word that they had put the area under hurricane WARNING and now there was a mad dash to finish EVERYTHING today because we simply would not be allowed to play beyond 7:30 Friday night. So everyone kicked it into high gear, there were minimal breaks between games. We won our remaining 3 games with some up and down play. But the end 4-0 result put us as the top seed in the playoffs.

Right around then we had noticed a black lab mix that reminded us of Nicki just roaming the beach. He had a collar and a tag but his owner was nowhere to be found. All pets have to be on leash at south beach so we thought he may of just gotten away from his owner. Ali was going to try to catch him but he took off down the path. Later he shows up again as I am playing. He comes over and pees on my partners cooler. Ali got ahold of the dog and was trying to figure out where the owner was. She called the number on the dog tag. A woman answered and said it was her boyfriends dog, he was playing volleyball, he always just lets him run around when he is playing. What the hell? She offered nothing beyond that and hung up. Well we weren’t going to just let the pooch run around. It could dart into the traffic and get hit. So we found something to leash him with and were walking him down to the main tournament tent so they could make an announcement and the owner could come and get him. Just before we got there a guy comes running up behind us saying he is the owner. Ali said she found the dog running loose and how he pissed on our stuff. The guy had big ass crooked teeth and a spanish accent. He said “Oh he is fine, I let him run around. He is a puppy” Ali told him you can’t just let the dog run loose, he has to be on a leash. The guy pretty much repeated the same thing and took the dog by the collar and started to walk him back up. He didn’t seem to understand our point. As soon as he got 10 yards away he let the dog loose again and chased him back up the path. Eventually he collared him and then leashed him up by his court. Dumb ass.

The word came down that we were going to be doing rally games to 11 for the playoffs. This meant the games would go incredibly quick and left little room for error. It was already getting dark. We had a bye the first round and then played our semi-final match. Things started out ok but then we had a series of unforced errors that just kill you in a rally game. We lost a close game. I was pissed. But I had litle time to dwell on it as daylight was almost gone and the team we were against for the 3/4 playoff was waiting for us. It was the team we beat in the first round of pool play with the big comeback. We got up on them early but then again they came back on us and beat us after even more unforced errors and poor play on our part. Tournament/season over. I was really frustrated by yet another poor showing in the playoffs. I was good on offense when I got a chance to swing at the ball but I didn’t get enough chances to make a difference. It was yet another big disappointment.

During all the hoopla about the tournament only running this one day Ali and I figured that even so, we could have a nice evening at South Beach, stay at the hotel we booked and then sleep in a bit and have a casual drive back home tomorrow morning. Well after the loss we got word that they were going to be ordering mandatory evacs Saturday at 7 am. SHIT! That meant that the roads would probably be clogged with people Saturday morning. It was already 8pm. So we agreed it made little sense to stay there. By the time we would have went to the room, showered, eaten dinner and walked around it would have been close to midnight. Then to wake up early to fight the traffic would have been dreadful. So I got to double up my disappointment. I was really looking forward to a dogless day or two away from it all.

The traffic in Miami SUCKS. People drive like assholes. As we were walking to the parking garage we noticed that South Beach motorists aren’t big believers in yielding to pedestrians. We saw one unbelievable maneuever where an SUV went through an intersection, stopped, and while traffic was coming behind them, threw it in reverse full speed to park in a spot across the intersection. I never saw anything like it. As I tried to get out of the city it was a stressful, white knuckle experience trying to avoid the idiots tailgating, changing lanes like mad and speeding up if they saw you were trying to go into their lane. I guess all the asshole drivers from the northeast simply migrate their bad city driving skills to the south. Once I got out onto the open highway and alligator alley I dropped the pedal and did 85-90 most of the way home. I just wanted the day to be done with.

Of course Nicki was thrilled to not have to spend the night alone without us. I jumped in the pool to clean the layer of sandy grime off and then took a shower and went to bed. As I lay there trying to fall asleep I tried to not dwell on being pissed about the day but had a hard time doing so. It bugged me enough that first thing Saturday morning here I am on the puter blogging it. Happy hurricanes to all.

I am not sure what spurred this train of thought but here it is anyway. Health care costs have skyrocketed over the recent years. There are many reasons for this. I know in our area one aspect of it is all of the illegal immigrants that use the emergency rooms for common colds because the emergency room HAS to care for them even if they have no health insurance. So if they don’t pay for the care, the hospitals absorb the cost which gets passed onto us in the form of higher insurance premiums and higher costs for those of us that DO pay. Unless our government decides to stop looking the other way with these type of individuals there is little that can be done about that part of the problem.

I think a much larger part of the problem is how fat and out of shape tha majority of americans are. This chronic obesity has all sorts of health ramifications that result in astronomical health care costs for many of these people. What I don’t understand is with my car insurance if I am a bad driver or have an accident my premiums rise as a result because I am more of a risk. When you live in a house that is in an area at risk for hurricanes you pay a higher premium as a result. However, you can be as fat as a house and pay the exact same premium as everyone else. It’s BS. The only health related question that insurance companies consider is whether you smoke or not. I just don’t get it. Maybe if people had to be penalized financially for the neglect of their bodies in the form of higher insurance premiums they would think twice about doing it. I mean really, this makes sense. If you are a higher risk you should pay for that risk, especially if the risk is a result of your personal laziness and gluttony.

I’m off tomorrow for my last volleyball tournament of the season. This is a weird one because it starts on friday. We play from 12-5 on Friday and then finish up on Saturday. It is supposed to be a BIG tournament. I am looking forward to seeing South Beach. There should be a lot of “interesting” individuals hanging out there. I have not played volleyball on consecutive days in at least 5 years because of my bad knee. Hopefully vioxx can help me through the 2 days. I have played more volleyball this year than the last 3 years combined. In some ways it was really cool to be back in the mix, traveling around the state to play in the different tournies. In other ways it was a pain in the ass getting frustrated by my play and spending substantial bucks in tournament related expenditures. Besides the 25 buck entry fees I spend at least another 50 bucks per tournament for supplies and gas. Multiply that times 9 tournaments and the financial impact is more than you would expect. I’m not sure what I will be doing next summer.

It was a nice win for the Eagles last night. It’s amazing that the Vikings only had 16 points, they drove up and down the field all night. I think they may have punted only once. The Eagles got some breaks but they were agressive and played well. It’s been a great start to the season so far. The game ended around 12:15, when my alarm went off at 5:45 it was a struggle to get out of bed. I need to get to bed at a decent hour tonight.

Last night before the game, we watched the Big Brother show from friday on Tivo. During the show the F bomb was dropped as plain as day. I wonder what sort of penalty is in store for CBS?

I am so sick of people using the “I’m so and so and I approved this message” spoof in their own commercials. I see/hear this all the time. Damn lemmings.

Another beheading video is out there to disgust and enrage us. The mentality of these terrorists is outside the scope of what I can comprehend. How can they grab people that are there in civilian support roles and brutally murder them? I mean is there any possible way this can ever stop? I don’t see how. The war in Iraq has been the best thing to happen to terrorists. Now they have a huge herd of possible targets in their backyard to pick off daily as they please. This all has just gone so wrong. Is there a point where we say enough is enough? As I’ve said before, the second we pull out of there, the country immediatley will resort back to it’s former chaos. (not that it isn’t chaotic now) I have no idea how we are going to ever get out of Iraq at this point. 87 million a day……

It was a really draining weekend. Alison didn’t come back until Sunday evening so I was solo all weekend. Saturday was my volleyball tourney. I was up at 5am, took care of the pets, packed the car and was out the door around 6. Clearwater was a lengthy drive. This was the first time I have headed north on I-75 since Hurricane Charley. It was pretty scary. I-75 is several miles inland yet the results of the storm were clearly evident. All of the road signs were gone, the billboards looked like someone took a huge baseball bat to them and I kept seeing these bent over poles but didn’t know what they were at first. I realized the were the big steel light poles. The were bent over like plastic straws, amazing. You saw blue tarp covered roofs everywhere along with many buildings with even more severe damage. Huge trees were down everywhere. It made me appreciate how lucky we were even more.

I got 2 sets of directions to the tournament, one from mapquest, one simple abbreviated set from the tournament website. I decided the set from the tournament site would be better since they should lead me right to the playing area. Of course you know where this leads, the wrong way. The directions were intended for people heading SOUTH although there was no indication of that. SO I wound up passing where I could have exited and added another 45 minutes to my already long commute.

After the long drive I had to use the bathroom. The public restrooms at Clearwater beach are unique. They are unisex. It is a square of 6 toilets in a small square building, each with simply a toilet. Plus they are open at the bottom and the top so you can hear everything going on around you. Not an ideal arrangement especially if a guy/girl next to you decides to have a melodic number 2.

The tournament didn’t go well. I haven’t touched a ball since my last tournament which was almost exactly a month ago. It showed early. All phases of my game were off. We lost our first match badly to a team that we had no business losing to. Almost every game we got down early and then had to try to battle back. We had a 4 team pool and only went 1-2 in the pool. That sucks. The good news was we were tied with 2 other teams that were 1-2 so we had a chance to still make the playoffs. To do so we would have to win 2 mini-playoff games. The first was against the team that we beat in regular pool play, barely. We won that game 16-14 after being down 14-11. In the mini-game to 7 we got down 5-2 but somehow managed to come back on them again and win the game 7-5. The second mini-playoff game was against the team we lost that first game to. We got our revenge and took care of them pretty easily 7-2. So we managed to get off our net and into the playoffs.

Our first playoff game was against a team that I wasn’t very impressed with. Normally I would think we would take care of a team like this pretty easily. I had started to play better as the day progressed, being able to serve a bit better and hit for points. In the playoff game I hardly got to hit at all as almost everything went my partners way. Even so, we had a lead 2/3 of the way through the game. But then things went bad with a bunch of unforced errors that knocked us out of the tournament in speedy fashion. It was frustrating because I didn’t get served but that is part of the game. So we limped out of the tourney in 6th place, our worst finish since the very first time we played together. The last two tournaments have been pretty shitty. Hopefully the last one this upcoming weekend will wind up on a positive note. Here are a few pictures from the beach.

On the drive home I decided to use the mapquest directions in reverse to get back home. Traffic was bad. One of the early roads I needed to take was route 19. I was driving awhile in traffic and didn’t see a sign for 19 yet but I saw one for Alt 19. For some reason I figured Alt19 must get me in the same general direction as 19 so I would be smart and take that. What a dumb ass I am. My “shortcut” basically took me on a 45 minute circle that wound up putting me slightly north of where I would have been if I just took 19. I was furious with myself by the time I actually hit open highway. 3 hours later I was home. I was tired, dirty and bummed about the bad vball day when I got home around 8 pm. I had no inspiration to start cleaning up my vball gear and putting stuff away. So instead I just fed the dog and vegged, I figured Sunday I would bust out all that had to be done.

After yet another bad night’s sleep I was awakened by Nicki at 7. From 7:45 am till 5 I did non-stop house crap. Mowing the grass, removing the storm shutters ,weeding the garden, cleaning inside, blah blah blah. I was spent by the time came to go to the airport to pick up Ali. It was great to see her and she was very happy to be home. Sunday night I was so tired from the weekend, I showered early and was in bed before 10. However with as tired as I was I had a horrible time falling asleep and even once I did I think I woke up at least 10 times. I got up this morning feeling like death. The Eagles play tonight which means midnight at the earliest, damn………

After a good month or two of honing my online tennis skills I am finally able to win more than I lose. When I started I was ranked as high as 32,000 out of the 41,000 online players. Currently I am up to 2800 in the rankings. I really enjoy it. It’s funny how you can tell the difference between countries when playing online. Every single Brit I have played has been great. Every a-hole I have played is either Korean or American. Last night I was playing some kid that dropped racial slurs constantly, later I played someone who didn’t talk the entire match until after he beat me in a tough match. Then he popped on for a second to scream “WHO’S YOUR DADDY?!!” I just laughed and said “good game”. It’s cool that I actually know enough about the game now that I can offer tips and advice to the players ranked below me.

Alison is still out of town, she won’t be back till Sunday. It’s not much fun doing everything alone. Naturally it takes much longer to get the stuff done by myself. Nicki is depressed since Ali isn’t around. When I get home and let her out she sprints back to the door anxiously looking inside, hoping to see Alison there. She’s all bummed when she runs around the house and can’t find her. In mid-October Ali is going to be going back up to PA for almost 2 weeks so it’s going to be more of the same.

Last night when I got home, I noticed the drainage ditches in the front were almost dried out, meaning I could actually mow down the high, white trash looking, grass that was in there. I took the tractor down and went to work. After I knocked down the grass I noticed movement in the wet muck, more FISH! My property has this weird phenomenon where fish appear wherever there is standing water on the property. There were tons of catfish flopping around, trying to bury themselves into what was left of the water. Well of course I couldn’t just left them suffocate. I went and got my fish net and started retrieving them. 2,3,5,10…… I dumped over 10 of them into the goldfish pond. When I went back I saw a ton more. So I got a bucket, filled it with water and snagged a bunch more, at least 20. There were more but they were in areas that still had some water and were burying themselves deep in the muck so I wasn’t able to get all of them. I took the bucket out to the fill pit/pond in the back of the property to relocate them. I drove out there on the tractor. It was just about dusk. As I disturbed the high grass I set off a mosquito rampage. As I am trying to drive the tractor and hold the bucket I also am furiously trying to swat off the mosquitoes that saw me as dinner. I dumped the fish into their new home and felt happy for doing my good deed for the day.

My neighbors are going to be able to let out the dog tomorrow while I am in Clearwater playing volleyball which is a big relief. It is the championship weekend for one of the two Florida tours. I really want to do well but I haven’t played in close to a month so I am afraid there will be a lot of rust. One thing I am determined to do is keep my emotions under control. I don’t need any more embarrassing outbursts.

Yesterday I got a census from the Republican National Committee. It was basically a questionnaire on various topics asking if I agreed, disagreed or was undecided on a bunch of issues. I disagreed with more than I agreed. One question that struck me as odd was if I supported Bush implementing President Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense plan. I thought that idea was scrapped for good. At the end of the survey they asked if I wanted to donate money. I checked NO and instead wrote in “VOTE KERRY” I guess I need to get around to changing my party affiliation, Reagan was the first and only republican candidate I ever liked.

Yesterday the cat was still showing some disturbing effects from her trauma on Monday. She could hardly walk. She would take a few shaky steps at a time and then lay down to rest. However she was eating some and able to get in the litter box. This morning she was still walking funny but was able to do more of it so that’s progress.

After work I took Ali to the airport. It was sad to see her go. I know she is going to have to deal with an emotional mess up there with Pop Pop. Her flight on a new airline, USA 3000 went well. She arrived in Philly early and in one piece.

When I got home I had a ton to do. I was happy to see my hurricane-ready window unit air conditioner had arrived. I had to unpack my stuff, eat dinner, clean up, make Nicki her dinner and then tackle a mountain of bills/cc receipts. The bill paying process took over an hour and a half. I have redundancy in my record keeping which is good, but it makes things go slowly when paying bills. I pay the bills, normally online with my bill pay service. I record the transaction in the checkbook. Then I record the payments in a 3 ring binder that has all my budgeted categories. Then finally I reenter all those transactions into Quicken as well as any CC receipts. I only do this once a week so sometimes I get a pile to go through. Last night was about as much as I can remember having to muddle through at one sitting. Hurricane related receipts clogged my wallet. I finished up everything about 9:15.

About 10:15 I got a call from Ali saying her flight landed safely and everything was well. I am in a bit of a bind with dog care for this weekend. Before the vball tournament was cancelled the first time, our neighbors said they could come over and let the dog out during the day on that Saturday because we would be away most of the day. Since it was rescheduled, I called during the day yesterday and left a message on their answering machine about it, asking them to call me and let me know if they would be around to let her out this Saturday. When I got home last night I saw that they were home so I figured I would have a message on the machine. Nope. So I called their house again and they didn’t answer (they don’t like to pick up the phone) so I left another message saying how I was out dropping off Ali so if they tried to call I wasn’t home, but I was home now. I was doing that deliberate, drawn out type of message because I was expecting them to hear me and pick up the phone. Nope. They didn’t pick up and didn’t call back. This really buts me in a bind because if they can’t let the dog out I need to scramble and make some sort of other plans. It has me rather perturbed. I’ll try to get ahold of them tonight. Worse case I will have to kennel Nicki and pay 40 – 50 bucks to pick her up late saturday night. That would suck. Another side effect of Ali being away is Nicki has to stay home. I can’t leave her home for 11 hours without a bathroom break so I will be going home every day at lunch to let her out. When the drive is around 45 minutes each way it is a rather large pain in the ass. Luckily I have a very flexible boss and she is fine with it.

I got my first ever email from my Dad. It was rather strange. He and my step-mom just moved out to New Mexico to retire. After close to 40 years of working, my Dad finally has gotten the chance to live out his dream of retirement. I remember years ago my Dad talking about hopes of retiring by age 50. Well he is about 7 years behind schedule but I think it’s great all the same. He sounded very happy when I talked to him on the phone the other day. He actually has time to do things he wants now, even things like learn how to use email. It will be cool if he keeps with it. If he can use email, I will be able to communicate with him on a much more regular basis. The house they bought is beautiful.

I finally got to stop by the new World Gym that is under construction. They are selling memberships already even though they will not open for at least a month yet. They had blueprints up as well as pictures of the equipment they will be getting. It looks AWESOME! All brand new, state of the art stuff. Plus it will be cheaper than what I am paying at that dump, Powerhouse! The timing should be just about perfect as my membership is due to expire mid-October. Powerhouse is scrambling. The actually bought some new cardio equipment a few weeks ago and I heard reports they were closing for a few days at the end of the month to do further renovations. Too little, too late. All Powerhouse needed was someone that kept after the place to keep it clean and organized. Instead they have one person working there at a time that does nothing but sit behind the desk and surf the internet. Their fix for the chronically broken AC has been to buy 2 big, deafening industrial fans. They are in big trouble, this new gym will blow them out of the water. I can’t wait to join. The only negative to leaving Powerhouse is the few relationships I have with some of the regulars I see everyday. Hopefully I can convince some to jump ship with me.