Archives 2004

My gym reopened after being closed for the past week for renovations. I stepped in and was underwhelmed. Instead of a color scheme of black, teal and purple, it is now a more subdued black and gray setup. They replaced the rug on one side, replaced the rubber floor on the other and are in the process of redoing the bathrooms with tile. It certainly is an improvement over what it was, but they didn’t bother to take the time to clean the mirrors, organize the weights and they still had one person behind the counter, surfing the internet. They could have gold plated the equipment in there, it wouldn’t make a difference if they still neglected the upkeep on the place like they obviously will. They just don’t get it.

Even though I hadn’t lifted for only a week, it felt like 6 months. My chest workout was anemic, I felt weak as a baby. There was an older gentleman there, probably closer to 50 than 40. He was doing HUGE amounts of weight with dumbell curls. More than I ever saw anyone do. He was doing these seated on a bench which prevents cheating like you can do when standing. He maxxed out with 70 pound dumbells doing at least 8 reps with each arm. It was impressive. It made my curl reps with the 70 pound barbell look totally anemic. Oh well it was good to get back into the gym. With volleyball done, I can add my legs back into my routine without fear of residual soreness that could affect my vball game.

On the way back I saw a pickup with a bad attempt at political wit on a bumper sticker. It read, “Democrats are so full of crap, they need 2 John’s” Har har har.

We worked very hard this weekend. But, I didn’t really mind. We laid out 90 bags of mulch and 250 feet of weedblock. I already have pictures up to see the result of our labor. Although it was hot, sweaty and dirty work I didn’t really mind that much. I think the fact that Ali was out there with me working side by side helped make it easier. We normally work well together on projects.

By lunchtime on Sunday, we had most everything done, including mowing the grass. Perfect timing as it allowed me to watch the Eagles game. It was sloppy. The offense couldn’t finish drives, the team had TONS of penalties and even though the Bears looked hapless for most of the game, they still had a shot late into the 4th quarter. Far from a stellar effort by the Birds, but they got the W and go into the bye week 4-0, can’t ask for much more than that.

After the game I decided to work on recharging the AC on the Vette. Of course what I would expect to be a 30 minute job turned into close to 2 hours of screwing around. And even after all that time, I don’t think my efforts really resulted in much difference. I am so ready to be rid of this car. The ad ran for a second Sunday but I received 0 calls on it. Grrrrr… I have a feeling I will have to sell this for less than I paid for it to get rid of this big, red fiberglass headache.

Last night was weird dream night. I had several but can only remember details of one. For some reason I found myself back home in PA. I had taken the southwest Florida Fox 4 news van for a joyride. This actually was the size of a motorhome, full of AV equipment. I was driving it around the roads of Gouglersville, by myself. After my brief journey, I parked it in center city Gouglersville, right outside what used to be Brightbill’s family store. I remember I was nervous that someone would ask me what I was doing but there was nobody around to care. However after ditching the van, I could not find my car. My dream ended with me walking around town looking for my car. Perhaps someone took my wheels for a joyride…..

That debate went long, longer than I thought it would. My first impression was that W looked strikingly like Alfred E Neuman as he stood there at the podium. I thought Kerry did quite well in the debate and he clearly came off as a more educated, polished and informed candidate then President Bush. However in the 2000 elections Gore stomped Bush in the debates as well, yet with a little help from his friends, W made it into the white house. Bush had 3 or 4 catch phrases that he must have memorized before the debate and he simply kept repeating them. It seemed like no matter what Kerry said, Bush would somehow come back to his core phrases. Bush basically said he would keep us safe and he is steadfast. To me his strategy is very simple. He feeds off people’s fear of terrorists. Since there hasn’t been another 911, people assume he is doing a good job. Second he is in bed with big business and the upper class of America who love the fact that he pads thier pockets with lower taxes and looser constraints on industry. The huge money that supports him buys a lot of votes. If he manages to get reelected it will be a testament to the power of fear and money.

Kerry pointed out one untruth after another and all Bush basically would respond with was “wrong war, wrong time, wrong place” It was just ridiculous. I have no idea how grown adults with a basic education could look at President Bush and honestly think he has done a good job. I can only hope that there are enough voters out there that actually engage their brain before voting and look beyond their fears and 6 figure incomes to do what is right.

I hate Sprint. I recently took a second to get pissed off about how much I pay each month for a lousy local land phone line. In the past year, we have paid over 650 bucks for local phone service. The reason it is so high is Sprint will not allow you to add on only the extra features you want. In our case, Caller ID and call waiting would be all we would need. The only way to get these things is to buy an entire package which gives a ton of features that we don’t need or use. They charge 25 a month for this BS. It’s absolutely insane. So I started to try to find a way to stop giving Sprint money. I came across some info regarding IP Phones. Wow it sounds great! 25 per year and then pay 3 cent per minute as you go. The 70 minutes of long distance time we had last month cost us 11 bucks with Sprint. With an IP Phone it would cost 2.10. Plus the phones include caller id & voicemail. There are some downsides, there is no 911 service with an IP phone. If you lose power you have no phone and calling into a IP phone from a regular phone requires a process similar to using a calling card. Also an IP phone will not have a phone number in your local area code. So my original idea to throw Sprint out the window and use an IP phone exclusively was not going to fly. So I called up Sprint and found out how much it would cost for a bare bones line with no extra junk. After taxes it would be about 20 bucks. Hmmm ok cool, then I can have the best of both worlds and still save around 400 bucks a year. So I plan to order the stuff soon and happily call Sprint to cut back my service to bare minimum. Expect some reports on the IP phone experience shortly.

The weekend is here. I have a bunch of stuff to do. I feel like I have to make up for lost time since so many weekends have been cut in half by volleyball over the summer. Ali and I were talking about getting a pool heater. Ali is cold blooded and doesn’t like going into the pool unless the water is at least 85 degrees. However I was thinking about how much Ali actaully goes in the pool over the summer when the pool water is that warm, very little. I started running numbers in my head. The cost of the heater was steep but the real cost is the electricity to run it. I ran it through a calculator and to keep a pool our size at 84 degrees would cost approximately 100 bucks a month. Woah. There is just no way I can justify that right now with us trying to minimize monthly expenses. So as a compromise we are going to go look into solar blankets that help keep pools warmer by not allowing the heat to dissipate overnight. I am hoping this will help keep the pool swimmable longer while not costing us any money besides the initial expense.

I’ll be grabbing another 30 bags of mulch to continue my landscape low maintenance project. It’s a big job but will be well worth it if it cuts my weeding times down significantly. Saturday night we are going to go out to dinner with mom. It should be a nice time, we haven’t gone to dinner with her for awhile.

Eagles/Bears on Sunday. The Birds are big favorites and Chicago is racked by injuries. It makes me nervous. The games where the Eagles are huge favorites seem to be the ones they struggle in the most. If they go into Soldier Field and take care of business like they should with little fuss it will say a lot about this team to me.

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……