Archives 2004

Well I have the day off even though in hindsight it probably wasn’t necessary. It looks like the storm won’t hit the mainland until late Saturday at this point. The winds have diminished as well. Hopefully this isn’t a head fake. Even though the storm is over a day away, today we already have some strong winds coming from the north as the outer limit of the system is starting to spin over us.

Last night I didn’t get back home for good until close to 9. We stopped at Sam’s, the grocery store, the gas station and then after I dropped Ali off I went back out to get gas for the generator. Each stop was busy and required waiting although it wasn’t mobbed. The only grocery item I was unable to score was bread, there was none to be found. Gas was also rather hard to come by. There were a large number of stations that had run out. When I got the generator gas I waited a good 20 minutes till I could get to the pump, ugh.

This morning I started my prep work. The low areas that have been under water for weeks have finally dried up so I took the opportunity to mow them down tight since there is a good chance that they shortly will be back under water for a prolonged period. I attached steel poles to several thin trees and cleared off the lanai again.

It seems like with as slow as this system is moving we could get a ton of rain, more than I have ever seen at one time since moving here. I used to freak about getting a foot of snow. They are talking about the possibility of a foot of RAIN. So we’ll be in a holding pattern now for the next 24 hours or so. I am almost afraid to say that things are looking not as bad as they had been because Charley smacked us in the face after we were all but assured it was going to hit Tampa. I plan on getting caught up today on all utility power required chores so if we do go dark it won’t be such a big deal.

I have my fingers crossed.

Look at this and this, both clean, both VERY funny

I came into work today and the hurricane shutters are down already. This hurricane is a monster and even though we are on the west coast, we could still see hurricane force winds over here. With where I live, since I am east and north will actually see more of it. Hmmmm. I wasn’t all that concerned other than getting a lot of rain. The winds this time will be hitting the back of the house, the pool cage could be at risk. The other day I just got my adapter cord that will allow me to run our water equipment off the generator so if we lose power we should be able to get by much better than the last time. Our office could be closed again tomorrow.

I FINALLY finished Doom 3 last night. The last bad guy wasn’t the most difficult one in the game oddly enough. After he went down I was a bit disappointed by the cinematic ending, after putting so much time into the game they could have made the ending a bit longer. I was relieved when I finished it but also a bit regretful. Along the way I got hooked into the game. Not because the gameplay was ever great, it remained repetitive through out but the detail in the environment was so immersive that it really put me into game. I still don’t think it is worth 60 bucks, but it is an instant classic just because it sets a new standard in FPS visuals (and sound).

I had another very odd dream last night. Actually I think I have lots of odd dreams but I don’t remember many of them. Last night was especially strange. Ali and I were in store, an electronics store looking at phones. For some reason we decided we were going to steal/shoplift them. Even though I don’t remember having a weapon, they evacuated all the customers out of the store. So by the phone counter was me, Ali and Howie Long. Howie Long worked there. Somehow I knew him. We grabbed 2 phones, 1 black corded model and a wireless one. Howie said he didn’t care if we took them. We joked about how it was nothing since he made so much money. So we put the phones in the bag, said bye to Howie and walked out of the store. We walked right by all of the evacuated customers. We smiled and picked up the pace and tried to blend in with the crowd. I remember worrying that we would be stopped but for some reason we never were. The last thing I remember was we were driving in the car as I was thinking about how it was weird that noone stopped us and how I felt guilty about stealing the phones. At that moment I woke up enough to realize I was dreaming and didn’t have to be guilty since I didn’t really steal anything, what a relief.

Well we got outbid on that land we were looking at. It isn’t a huge surprise but disappointing none the less. I saw the current available list and was not very interested in anything else I saw up for sale.

I am trying to be optimistic about hurricane frances. However, it already has caused the cancellation of the vball tourney I was going to play in this weekend. Our area is still in the possible path of this thing. At this point it seems more likely to hit north of us. Even if it does miss us, it is so large it could still cause a big mess for us and most of the state.

I am very close to finishing Doom 3. I am embarrassed to say I played the game from about 7pm to 9pm straight last night, pushing to get it done. I even played it another half hour early this morning before work. I’m very close, maybe tonight the nightmare ends.

The Sentra is back at the dealer AGAIN for the damn water leak. Last night was the first time I drove it in the rain since the repair “that fixed it for sure” Of course I am very frustrated by the continued ineptitude. If I get it back one more time and it isn’t fixed, I am going to rattle some chains at Nissan. To add to the frustration, I got another shitty rental car. I have now rented from our Enterprise office 3 times as a result of the car being in the shop. 2 of the times I had a little runt of a guy and both times he gave me the shittiest car they had. The latest being a 2 door Sunfire base model. The other time I had one of the women clerks and she gave me a nice full size Malibu. What is up with that? This time I decided to just walk the three blocks to the Enterprise office from the dealer. The last 2 times I waited for their “we’ll pick you up!” service, I waited a half an hour for the 2 minute ride. Jerks. We’ll pick you up whenever we feel like it.

My 1st fantasy football team is now drafted. The autodraft snagged me some good and not so good players. Here is my team:

Culpepper, Daunte QB MIN
Garner, Charlie RB TB
Westbrook, Brian RB PHI
Johnson, Chad WR CIN
Moulds, Eric WR BUF
Winslow, Kellen TE CLE
Vanderjagt, Mike K IND
Buccaneers, DST DST TB
Gannon, Rich QB OAK
Hearst, Garrison RB DEN
McCareins, Justin WR NYJ
Mili, Itula TE SEA
Nedney, Joe K TEN
Bills, DST DST BUF

I feel like I am weak at the RB and receiver positions, otherwise I think I came out ok. I’ve already put some players out there for trade offers but have gotten no response. So far my fellow owners don’t seem to be very active on our site.

Last night we checked out some land to buy as an investment property. It was classified as wet by the DEP but it looks just fine. There are houses on either side of the lot and it is filled with pine trees. We are planning to put in an offer on it today. If the owners agree to it I think we could have a nice little deal in 2 or 3 years.

This weekend was another tough one. After weekends like this it is almost a relief to go to work on Monday. I wanted to get a jump on my to-do list so as soon as we got from work on Friday I threw a load of laundry in the washer and had the bird cages cleaned just as the pizza came out of the oven. I really wanted to knock the stuff out asap so I could relax for at least part of the weekend. My list got another item on it Friday night when my neighbor across the street called and said he was ready to take down his old fence on Sunday. He is generously giving me his old fencing so I can use it to create a run area for Nicki.

I got started bright and early on Saturday. One of my items was not laborious, just time consuming. I had about 10 items that I wanted to get listed on ebay ranging from a Tampa Bay Bucs jersey to corvette parts. The process of taking the pictures and going through the listing process took me close to an hour. Has anyone else noticed thast Ebay has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive to list on? They nickel and dime you to death. Ali had to work Saturday so I was free to plow through chores as I pleased. Next I went outside and did the first oil change on the new tractor. Afterward, I did some wet and muddy mowing of the areas of the property that were still wet but passable enough that I could run the tractor through with the blades on the highest setting. It was a delicate operation to cut off the blades just as they started hitting heavy water. It also required a keen eye to avoid the muddiest areas to avoid getting stuck. Next up, weeding. During the heart of summer, weeding is a pretty thankless job. The ground is so wet that weeds spring up everywhere. In some areas there were so many little sprouts I stopped trying to pull them individually and instead resorted to scraping the areas with a tool to try to just rip them up as much as possible. By the time this was done I was drenched in sweat. It was only mid morning but already it was close to 90 and very humid. Then I dug up the Jacaranda tree we had only bought a month earlier. Even though I moved it to higher ground it was basically dead. I threw it in the back of the truck to return to Home Depot.

Next on the hit list was the Vette. I wanted to try to fix the engine error codes that have been causing the stuttering and hesitation. So I popped the hood and identified the parts that needed attention according to some advice I got on the corvette forum. So I made a list and headed out with Nicki. I returned the jacaranda tree without a fuss and picked out another one. Then I headed to the auto parts store and grabbed 2 relays, a throttle position sensor, a fuel filter and a fuel pressure gauge. It wasn’t cheap, around 100 bucks for everything. I headed home to plant the new tree and install the parts.

As I was removing the old parts from the car, I noticed something strange when I went to remove the TPS. It was held on with a plastic tie wrap. This can’t be good. After I cut the tie wrap I saw why. Yet another rig job. No wonder I was having problems. I installed the new sensor and relays but still got an error, which I expected until I could repair the connector. So I left the car to go plant the tree. I planted the new tree up on high ground, hoping to avoid the same fate of it’s predecessor.

Ali came home and then I got inspired to install the fuel filter I bought for the Vette. I read up on the procedure, it sounded a bit difficult, like most maintenance chores on the vette, but I was inspired to get it done. The instructions I had said the entire job should take no longer than a half an hour. The fuel filter is under the car, right next to the exhaust (odd place), so I put the car up on ramps to get to it. The car sits so low that even on ramps, there is precious little space under the car to manuever. So little that as I slid under the car, my chest was brushing the floorpan. As I squirmed under there, thoughts of the horror of the car rolling off the ramps ran through my head. If the car was on my chest I would probably be unable to yell for help so I would just lie there and then Ali would come out and find my dead body pinned under the car. Of course these pleasant thoughts didn’t stop me. I went at it anyway. This job sucked, bad. With the close quarters it was VERY difficult to get leverage on the nuts that had to be broken free. There were 2 nuts that had to come off the filter. The first one took me at least a half hour to get free. Once that was free, I started to have a small trickle of gas run down my arm. No big deal, I continued on, trying to get the second nut free. I have no idea how long it has been since the fuel filter was changed, maybe it never was. All I know was it felt like the nuts were welded on. Having better tools would have helped since I had to use 2 adjustable wrenches simulataneously to perform this miracle. As the gas continued to cover my left arm it started to burn and tingle, I ignored it and continued to try to get the proper angle to break free the stubborn nuts. At one point I tried to come under the car from the front. This was mistake as my head was positioned almost directly under the filter. As I pulled I took a good shot of gasoline into my right eye. This one I couldn’t ignore. My eye seared with pain as I wiggled out from under the car. I hurried inside and flushed it with water. The pain subsided and I could still see, so back outside I went. Unfortunately I had little choice but to continue my struggle. If the fuel filter is unhooked the car is dead in the water so I was in this till the bitter end. After a prolonged battle where I hit my head, strained from every imaginable angle and used almost all the energy I had left, it finally broke free. Damn I was happy. However, getting the new one in wasn’t very easy either. The metal fuel line had bent a bit from my efforts to release the nuts. To get it back in the proper angle so I could connect both lines to the fuel filter took many, many tries. Finally after a good 2 and a half hours, I fired it up, checked for leaks and was able to park the car. I threw my sweaty, grimy clothes directly into the laundry. My left arm still tingled. I unwound from the day by playing some Doom 3 which I’ll comment on more later.

Sunday morning I was awakened at 5:15 am by the dog. Evidently she had to go to bathroom so I trudged outside and let her relieve herself. I was determined to fall back asleep. After some tossing and turning, I fell asleep just in time to be woken up again at 7am by the alarm clock I forgot to turn off. Argh, screw it, I got up. After more early morning Doom playing, I went outside to pick up stuff so Ali could mow. As I was outside I saw my neighbor and he was ready to start disassembling the old fence. The disassembly was tough. The fence posts were right on the drainage ditch so they were in muck. The poles were buried at least 2 feet deep, some of the support posts were almost 4 feet into the ground. The smaller posts came out with some rocking back and forth followed by a hard pull to break the suction of the wet earth. The big ones required digging out around them and then some very strenuous rocking and pulling. The biggest one, the size of a dock piling, required us jacking it up with a floor jack. Of course it was hot and humid and there wasn’t a dry spot left on my shirt by the time the last post came out of the ground. I brought my truck over and loaded it up with the fence materials. I decided it would be a good idea to pressure wash them to get the junk off and then let them dry off in the shed for a few weeks. As I was blasting each one I came across a post that evidently was home to a huge ant colony. As soon as I moved the post, the ants poured out of several holes in the wood, ugh. That post got set aside. In order to store the posts in the shed I had to do some quick, makeshift organizing to make room. I backed the truck up to the underwater, muddy ground in front of the shed and unloaded it. Whew.

I came in and jumped in the pool to cool off. We ate some lunch, cleaned up a bit, then took a break as we went out to run a couple errands. Ali wanted to hit the pet store for some dog supplies and I wanted to go to an auto parts store to see if I could find a replacement for that connector that is damaged. I struck out at the auto store but we got our dog supplies and headed home. During the drive it was extremely painful for my arm that was covered in gasoline to be in the direct sun. It stung like hell. Chemical burn? Who knows.

My list was ALMOST complete, all I had left to do was vacuum the house. (Ali was handicapped all weekend because of a severe quad strain from her PT session on Thursday) Just as I started, our neighbors stopped by to tell us of their plans to try to buy a house in a development. They asked if we wanted to buy the house next to them. Of course to do so would not be inline with my long term plans. We currently are on a 15 year mortgage and are sitting in a position of strength as far as home equity goes. To move would probably require us dropping back to a 30 year mortgage and would more than likely scuttle any chances of Ali not having to work full time for the next 20 years. However, we totally understood why the neighbors want to move. They are 2 women in their 50’s who have to pay for the majority of maintenance for their house. They just can’t afford it. It’s too much work. So after a nice chat they left and I resumed my vacuuming. By 6 or so I was finally done with my list. Yuck.

Now even though I was quite busy working I did find a few hours to spend on Doom 3. Just when you think the game couldn’t get any more hideous or disturbing, it does. I have managed to battle my way into Hell, literally. Hell is a very scary place and evidently there are no flashlights there so I can no longer peer into those dark corners and see what is waiting for me. Although I still have awhile to go till the end, I am getting close enough I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Some of the visuals in this game have to be seen to be believed. Who thought this up?

The olympics ended last night. We watched a good chunk of it over these couple weeks. When they started we were in blackness still from hurricane Charley. We missed the first few days of it because of the round the clock news following the storm. Once it was available, I really enjoyed it. I always like the Olympics, summer or winter. It must be such an awesome experience to be an athlete in a world wide event like that. I’m jealous. I saw the marathon incident where a guy from the crowd jumped out and pushed the then leader into the crowd. That was wild and evidently simply a stunt for this loser to get attention. I also watched tape of the speed walking event. These walkers looked ridiculous. I think speed walkers make synchronized swimmers look cool. However it was compelling to watch, the race was 50k, over 30 miles long!!! The guy that came in second place literally looked like he was moments away from passing out. I genuinely felt bad for these guys as they entered into the stadium to finish. There was literally NOONE in the stands to cheer them on. I guess race walking is not a big crowd favorite. Even though it is silly looking, I have a new found respect for the sport.

The closing ceremonies were weird. The greek part of it was pretty much lost on me. To me, it was boring and silly. If you didn’t happen to see the video of the announcers towards the beginning of the closing ceremonies, you would have never known that one of them was a woman. She had a very man-ish voice that was very annoying to listen to. I never heard or saw either of these announcers before. You would think NBC would have at least put some familiar faces in the booth for the closing ceremonies. The funniest moment of the night was when Yao Ming spit on the guy interviewing him (accidentally) and then said “Oh Sorry” as he wiped his shoulder. That got replayed on the tivo a few times, it was really funny. There were tons of great moments in the games but the things that stick out to me are a couple bad ones. The US basketball team was an embarrassment. Yea they won the bronze but damn, NBA pro’s should DOMINATE. What a bunch of clowns, hopefully they learned a lesson. The USA 4×100 relay team were a bunch of cocky a-holes. Before the race they pretty much dismissed the rest of the field and made predictions of setting a new world record. Instead they got beat by a hair and took silver. I was almost glad they lost, I hate cockiness with a passion.

There is a another hurricane churning out there that has the potential to hit south florida. It used to be taken for granted that any hurricane will miss our area, now the exact opposite is true, everyone seems to be holding their breath on each new storm that has the potential to hit anywhere in the state. I guess we all fear that we could be getting payback for 40 years of hurricane free existence.

Over 5 thousand hits on the blog now, someone must be reading it besides the gnome.

Do I ever have a blog entry on Monday that is short?

Very simple, I don’t have anything really planned besides house/yard/maintenance work. I’ve already prepared my list and am ready to rip into the tasks asap so I can get it all done, allowing me to devote serious time towards finishing DOOM 3. It’s driving me crazy.

Last night while I was playing, the doorbell rang. It was some kid selling stuff for school. My first inclination was to blow him off when he said he was selling magazines, since I don’t have time to read the ones I already receive. However then he added “and candles”. So I grabbed the catalog and asked him if he wanted to come in while we quick looked at it since the mosquitos were attacking me through the small space I had the door open. He said he was sprayed down so they weren’t attacking him and he would just wait outside. Smart I guess, never know if we were crazy killers. So Ali picked out a candle she liked and I went outside to tell him what we were ordering. I had to give him a check on the spot so I had Ali hand out the checkbook. The mosquitos welcomed me outside by attacking me mercilessly. It was very difficult to try to swat them off as I was trying to fill out the order form and write the check. The kid was polite and patient as I hurriedly tried to complete the transaction so I could get back inside. He thanked me as I ran back inside to have ALi give me a pat down to make sure no blood suckers camped out on me after I went in. It was the first time we had a kid come to the door selling stuff in the 3 + years we have been out there. I hope our name doesn’t get on some list now. In the middle of the night Ali heard the mosquito control plane buzzing our house. It’a about f’ing time, I emailed their office the other day complaining that we pay for mosquito control in our taxes but have not gotten sprayed once this year. We have had standing water for over a month so even with the spraying, the mosquito population has such a headstart I doubt it will help all that much.

I watched the Eagles preseason game last night. I don’t have a great feeling yet. It looks like a lot of the same issues they had last year are still there like not being able to stop the run and Donovan still being inaccurate. I know it is only the preseason so you certainly can’t make firm judgements but in the past, bad preseason performances by the Eagles have rolled into bad regular season starts. It felt weird seeing Duce in a Steelers uniform. It was cool the fans gave him a warm welcome.

Nothing exciting going on. I returned the Nissan to the dealer for the third time to attempt to fix the wheel well leak. The car permanently smells like someone has a box of open magic markers in it from the seam sealer they used in the attempt to fix it. I hope it dissipates sometime, I feel woozy if I don’t have the AC blowing on my face at all times.

Speaking of dealers, my buddy Mike posted a link regarding a guy that went undercover as a car salesman for three months. It is a long but good article about the car sales business. It brought back memories of when I sold cars in my early 20’s. It was one of the most stressful, most boring, most hectic and most interesting jobs I ever had. I could identify with almost everything in the article. My dealership was a high pressure joint. The salespeople I worked with were some of the most diverse, funny, interesting and entertaining bunch I ever worked with. However, by the end of my tenure I was a wreck. However that job was my first that didn’t require me to use my body to earn a living so it opened doors to other opportunities. If you want to get a good feel of what it was like, read the article.

Yesterday I finally received my replacement batteries for my APC 1250 UPS. This is a very large capicity UPS that I have hooked up to the big screen TV and AV equipment. It is also a very OLD UPS. I have had lots of battery backup units over the years. Replacing the batteries is never a very big deal. Normally you open a door, slide out and disconnect the old battery and slide in and connect the new one, a 5 minute job. Well evidently the 1250 was before APC endorsed user replaceable batteries. I looked up the manual for it and they gave no instructions to replace the batteries, rather just instructions to have an authorized center do it. I found out why. The battery replacement required lengthy and delicate disassembly of the unit. With no instructions I wound up taking apart some things I didn’t need to. By the time I got done it probably took close to 45 minutes till I got it all back together again. It appears to still work but I will have to wait for the next power glitch to know for sure.

Last night I watched more of the Olympics. The USA vs Greece vball match was OUTSTANDING. What a comeback by the USA team. It amazes me how fast the indoor game is.

Oh yea, not hacked again yet, I have my fingers crossed that I have the issue fixed.

My site was unblemished last night for the first time in a few days. Maybe the steps I took actually addressed the problem, maybe not.

Well after working with my web host provider, they could provide little insight besides pointing out that several of the packages I had installed had potentital security vulnerabilities that could lead to a compromise of security. So I updated 2 of the suspect packages to newer versions that addressed these issues and totally wiped out the third. So if I wake up tomorrow to another hijacked home page I will have to force the issue with my provider some more.

If I had to guess, it probably is somehow related to the blog and the new anti-spam stuff I installed. I see constant notices of it blocking potential spammers which probably is pissing people off. I found out the reason behind the blog spamming. Evidently it is a way to increase page rankings in search engines. The more pages that these sites show up on, even blog comment pages, the higher these sites get ranked.

My ass has been dragging from staying up and watching the olympics nightly. I really find it interesting, probably because I only see these events once every 4 years. If they were on every week I would tire of them quickly.

I decided to finally step into the dangerously addictive world of fantasy football. Keener has run a league for over 10 years so I knew about how involving it could be. I already have the NFL Sunday Ticket package on my dish so I have the main tool to keep up to date on the games as they occur. I joined the nfl.com league. I hopped into a public league that is for beginners. Hell I don’t even have to draft my own players, it will auto-draft for me. I figured it was a low effort, low expense way to test the waters to see if I enjoy it. If I do then I’ll move onto greater things next season. I always used to chastise fantasy football geeks, now I am becoming one of them. I have been assimilated.