Archives November 2005

I was all ready to go into my 5 day hiatus roundup when an event happened this morning that pissed me off and saddened me to the point that it trumps it all. At Ali’s work there has been a family of ducks that we have watched grow up from little babies to adult ducks. Most days we see them waddling accross the parking lot or yard to get to a bird feeder they have outside the building. Even though they are adult birds now, several of them still stick together and march single file all over the place. When we say the word “ducky” to Nicki, she knows exactly what we are talking about and she looks for them.

This morning as I turned left into Ali’s work, we saw a horrible sight. One of the ducks was lying dead in the road, right in front of the stop sign. I was instantly enraged and disgusted that some asshole either wasn’t paying attention or didn’t care enough to slow down to allow the ducks to pass. It was right at a stop sign of a road where the speed limit is only 25 to 30 mph so I have no idea how someone couldn’t avoid a big duck in plain view. My heart sunk as I saw 2 of the other ducks on the other side of the road just looking at their fallen sibling, waiting for it to get up. They just stayed there and watched, it was so sad, we both felt horrible. As I unloaded the bike from the car I was swearing up a storm, reaffirming how disgusting the human race can be, to not be able to step on the brake pedal for 5 seconds so an animal can pass, it is ridiculous. After I dropped Ali off, I stopped at the edge of the lot and looked at the dead duck and the cars coming up to it and swerving around. I thought how the poor thing didn’t need to be steamrolled under another idiot’s tires. After sitting there for a brief moment. debating, I hopped out, walked over and scooped the duck up with my hands and gently laid it in the grass by the road. It was a horrible feeling. I called Ali and told her I moved the duck and she said she had already called animal services and they would come out and take the duck away. Eventually the other ducks moved away, realizing that the fallen animal wasn’t going to get up. I don’t know if it was my feelings of sorrow that transferred, but the other ducks looked sad, in a duck sort of way.

My 5 day Thanksgiving vacation was quite nice, I enjoyed the time off. We started off turkey day getting up with our normal work day alarm clock to get up for our Gobble Gobble 4 mile run. Unlike the 5k we ran a couple weeks prior, I was not 100% confident if Ali could grind this one out without stopping. Jumping up your distance by 25% in 2 weeks time is an ambitious goal. The race was well attended. Before the race I had a nervous bladder and had to hit the mens room. Unfortunately the bathroom facilities were very inadequate for the amount of people there. The line for the mens room was 10 deep, the line for the womens was at least 30, so I decided I would be fine and skipped it. However 5 minutes before the race the urge was worse so I ran back and waited through a shorter line and was able to relieve myself and get back a couple minutes before the start.

This race had a unique group competing, the youth D.R.I.L.L. team. It is a military style drill program for teenage boys run by the county sheriff’s department. Before the race it was impossible to miss them as they all wore identical t-shirts and shorts and counted out loudly as they held stretch positions. It was really cool to see and hear.

This time we were more towards the front of starting pack so as opposed to passing people, we were the ones that got passed more often. Our intial mile pace was fast for us, but it is tough to run very slow at first with all the adrenalin kicking you along. We were amazed to hear the drill team behind us, chanting continously as they ran. It was a good diversion from running. We settled into our pace. Things went smoothly until somewhere between mile 2 and 3, where I could tell Ali was really struggling. However the DRILL team by that time had caught up to us and hearing them chant and chant really helped Ali along. I wondered how the chant leaders could come up with all this shit to say without missing a beat. As they passed us, I could not believe that on top of the chanting, there were two kids in the front of the squad carrying flags, above their heads! Holy shit. They all ran in unison, like a well oiled machine, it was very impressive and motivating. We found ourselves running to their cadence. The kids got Ali through that tough mile and once we hit mile 3, the finish line was close enough that it pulled us home. As we hit the line the clock was just turning 42 minutes, a great time for Ali. She had set a pre-race time goal of somewhere around 45 minutes which she smashed. In fact, we ran the 4 mile race at a much faster pace than the 5k. I was so proud of her. The week prior at the track she struggled to do 2 miles but in a race environment she doubles it, a tribute to the power fo competition. After the race we went over to the DRILL team and Ali told them how motivational their effort was. The kids responded with a very polite, “Thank you ma’am.” More kids need to go through a program like that, imagine the difference it would make in their lives to have that sort of discipline instilled into them at a young age. After the race we grabbed a few post race snacks and headed out to pick up my mom for our official dinner.

Ali prepared a nice spread of food. It is a tough proposition to coordinate the various food items to get done around the same time. All that prep came down to us devouring our meal in 15-20 minutes and then I happily volunteered to clean up as my part of the process. We got to catch some of the Macy’s parade and then some of the dog show afterwards. It felt good to have Thanksgiving at our place, albeit with 3 people. I took mom home and then when I got back, Ali was zonked out asleep from our run and the food prep. As she napped I watched some more football and found myself dozing off repeatedly as well. The day ended with my feeling content with the 2005 Thanksgiving experience.

On Friday I decided I would tackle the xmas lights outside while Ali mowed. What was fun at first, drug on and wound up being a lengthy chore at the end. Each year I forget how I rigged the lights in certain areas and have to rethink the process again. Plus this year I added lights around Nicki’s area. I had ideas about putting additional lights in additional areas but after 3 hours of working on it I wrapped it up, feeling very wiped. I think the end result looks pretty good. I’ll try to get a few pictures of it.

On Saturday we went to Home Depot to get a bunch of stuff from a list we had been building for a few weeks. When we got back we spent a good chunk of the afternoon spreading dirt and mulch, planting mums and putting wire fencing around the deck in Nicki’s area to prevent snakes and critters from getting under there. Saturday night we went out for a quick dinner at Applebee’s and then saw the new Harry Potter flick. I enjoyed the movie like all the other Harry Potter movies. Ali said there was a lot of stuff from the book that was greatly condensed for the movie but even so, the flick was still well over 2 hours long.

On Sunday Ali had to work. I started my day by by hitting the track to do a speed mile where I push myself to see how fast I can do a mile. I pushed myself hard but it still took me 7:35 to complete the mile. I was very winded and it took me most of the next walking lap to get my breath back. I vaguely remember being able to do a 7 minute mile at some point in my life so missing that mark was a bit of a downer. I’m old. I spent some time banging out any household stuff that was left to do so I would have basically a free day on Monday to do what I wanted (play WoW). Ali got home to catch most of the Eagles game which was unimpressive at best. Mike Mcmahon is a great athlete but he is less accurate than Donovan, which is tough to be. The Eagles, who were a pass happy team for most of the year have now transformed into a run first team to minimize McMahon’s burden. They managed to scrape by and beat the lowly Packers at home. It was not a good win but it was their first win in a month so I’ll take it. I think the league really has to do something about the officials calling all these penalties. It really is taking away from the game. Late in the 4th quarter of the Eagles game, on a play where Farve threw what appeared to be a game ending INT, the referee called a total bullshit late hit call on the Eagles. The Eagles player was diving and hit Farve a split second after her released the ball, it was IMPOSSIBLE for the defender to avoid hitting Farve yet the official throws the flag, in a critical, game changing situation no less. I was furious, screaming at the TV. I have seen this scenario repeated throughout the season and just can’t believe they continue to call it. There is no way a defender can go from full tilt towards a QB to throwing on the air brakes to stop the contact. The league needs to wake up, I understand they want to protect the QB but with the current rules they may as well put flags on him, it’s that bad.

We got our camera model of the Treo on Friday, finally. I dug into it, installing apps. One thing I noticed with most good Palm apps, they aren’t free. I dropped another 60-70 bucks installing additional apps on the thing. However it continues to impress me. I installed Voice Dial software that does an incredible job of voice recognition with no training. I can tell it to dial a certain phone number or tell it to dial a name which it looks up in the address book. Ali and I both tried it various times with various scenarios and it didn’t screw up once. It is a great feature when you are trying to dial from a car. I installed a movie player and copied Monsters Inc to the SD card. The version of the movie was compressed for phones so the quality wasn’t great but I can play normal PC divx movies on it as well with the only limit being having the available space on the SD card. I took a stupid picture of myself and associated it with my address book entry so when I call Ali from my cell phone she gets the dumb picture on her screen. Yesterday I threw on an IM client that allows Ali to hop on instant messenger anytime, anywhere and shoot of a message to one of her “buddies” I have only scratched the surface of what can be done on the device. It is just awesome stuff.

A month ago I commited to Ali to go to a month of ballroom dance classes that are held at one of the city rec centers. This is something that Ali has talked about forever and something I have avoided equally long. Ali loves to dance and is very good at it. I don’t enjoy dancing. Even though I am coordinated in most athletic endeavors, dancing is very tough for me. For some reason my brain short circuits trying to put steps together. However I have been gritting it out for the past month, every Monday night from 7-8. I’ve even been practicing outside of class a bit and I’m able to do most of the basic steps ok now, but I am far from being good. It’s a struggle for me every minute I am doing it, but I have plugged through it. Our instructor is very nice and the handful of other people in the class have been supportive. Last night was the final class of the month. Our instructor wanted us to sign up for the next month, which I resisted. First I commited to Ali to do a month of the classes, which I did. Second, it is a major pain in the ass to get home at 9pm every Monday and then have to haul ass to get stuff done for the following day. I told Ali that we can do more classes but I did not want it to be a 12 month a year thing. Our instructor was disappointed that I wanted to take December off however I told her that I would keep practicing. I think she thinks that I won’t be back but I plan to do it more, just not hardcore, I don’t enjoy it enough to do it that much. My drive to do it is more driven by not wanting to suck at something more than any hidden desire to be Fred Astaire. At this point I am confident enough that I could take Ali out on the dance floor and at least display some semblance of dancing. I know Ali appreciates my effort and as I said from the beginning, I know it is a good thing to experience things outside the box of your comfort zone.

I hope you and yours have an enjoyable Thanksgiving Day. Ours will begin at the crack of dawn. We have a 4 mile race that starts at 7:30 am. After that we pick up mom, go to our house, and make a feast that we will consume in 10-15 minutes. Then we will clean up, mom will get antsy and I will take her back home. After that, hopefully I will get to catch some of the football games.

Thanksgiving always was an important milestone in the year when I was a kid. It was the starting line for the immense anticipation that preceded Christmas. It meant that I had presents, days off from school and time to play all waiting ahead for me. Going to grandma’s to eat off the gold lined plates and gold plated silverware was a familiar favorite activity. When we arrived I was always greeted warmly by my grandfather who would shake my hand, slap me on the arm and sometime hug me as well. Before we ate, grandpa would always say a quick prayer that began differently each time but always ended the same way “… for without you Lord were nuthin…, Amen” I miss him.

Over the years Thanksgiving mutated into more of a pain in the ass. As an adult, Thanksgiving meant I better get my ass in gear and start buying endless presents. It meant a whirlwind day of going to 3 different homes for 3 different dinners as a result of my now extended family situation. I wound up hanging around some people that annoyed me and as I moved more into adulthood, the pure gluttony of the event disgusted me more and more. Soon, I was relieved when the event was over with and didn’t look forward to it rolling around next year.

Since we moved to Florida, Thanksgiving has mutated once again. The only family we have down here is my mom so there are no large get togethers. The year round great weather makes the holiday season sneak up on you. Even though it is 80 degrees outside, it is time to celebrate the holiday before you know it. Our celebrations have been steadily less involved as time has gone by. Hell the last 2 years we didn’t even cook, we just went to a restaurant, had some turkey and went home. We both commented on how quick and easy that was, how convenient it was to pay some cash, get served and don’t have to clean up afterwards. However for whatever reason, this year, I don’t want to do that. Thanksgiving isn’t supposed to be about convenience. So after we run, we are having mom out (against her will) and making dinner. Mom didn’t want us to drive her all the way out because it was “so far”, which I scoffed as crazy. 16 miles isn’t far and it isn’t like we see her every week, or even every month for that matter. This year I want something more traditional, I’m not sure why, but I need it.

Last week I got the ultimate tech toy, a Treo 650 smartphone. Techincally I got it for Ali. Why, you ask? Because it is damn cool. Ali and I both have had Palm devices for years, when I lived up north, I used mine all the time, at my job down here I have much less need for it since I have access to all of my home data from the office anyway and I don’t leave the office very often. Ali uses hers to store a bunch of stuff related to her job as a dietitian. However the Treo is a whole new experience. It combines a cell phone with a PDA and a digital camera. It is always connected to the internet as well which allows her to do things like read and respond to her home email real time, surf the web and be productive during the 2 hours + a day we spend in the car.

The display on the Treo is top notch, it’s bright and very easy to read. The chiclet keyboard takes a bit of dexterity to manage, but after a short period of time I was able to punch out an email with reasonable speed. The internet performance is pretty impressive considering the form factor. The speed is probably around the same as a 56k modem, not bad and if you do optimizations like turning off graphics, things speed up quite a bit. As we were on the way to work today Ali checked her email, looked at the headlines on the Naples News site and looked at the local radar imagery to see if the rain we were driving through covered the entire area.

The Treo has literally thousands of 3rd party applications available for it which I haven’t even started to play with yet. It accepts SD cards which is used to hold data files, mp3’s and even movies. Yep, it makes a damn fine MP3 player and portable video rig as well. I can install clients that allow me to do things like remote control servers and workstations from the pda. This thing is truly techno-nirvana. I was going to originally see if I could upgrade my phone that I have with Cingular, but they said I had a bunch of time left on my contract so if I upgraded I would have to pay the full 500 dollar plus price which I scoffed at. I think it is foolish of them to turn away a customer that was willing to pay the much higher monthly fees required for data access but hey, their loss. I wound up getting the phone through Verizon Wireless and wound up paying less than half of what I would have through Cingular. I’m sure I’ll be reporting much more on the Treo in the future as I unlock more of what this little gem can do. Here is a good site that will tell you a whole lot more about it.

The Eagles lost again, pretty much assuring that without a stellar 6-0 finish, they are going to miss the playoffs. The game was ugly during the first half, very ugly. Mike McMahon looked terrified to make a mistake and the offense did basically nothing. In the second half Mike did better and had a spectacular run for a first down and dove over the pile for a touchdown later. I think the more he plays, the better he will be but unfortunately the Eagles don’t have time for him to learn on the job. Lito Sheppard is out for the year, which based on his play this year, may not be a bad thing, he has been Izel Jenkins this year, toasted on a regular basis. I never would have guessed pre-season that the Eagles would fall victim to the same curse as so many other Super Bowl teams, that is the SB team(s) miss the playoffs the following year. McNabb also got bit by the damn Madden football curse which seems to follow whomever is on the cover of the game for that year, look it up, whomever is on the cover has a serious injury that year, it is staggeringly consistent. Like I said before, I am ok with the Birds having a down year after so much success. It still stings to watch them fall game after game but I am trying to be realistic about it.

Fantasy football does strange things to the way you watch the game. Even though I was rooting for the Eagles hard core, Eli Manning and Amani Toomer are on my ff team. So as I cursed as Eli threw TD after TD, a small part of my mind was registering that it was adding up for my fantasy team. As a matter of fact, the strong performance of the those 2 Giants were a big part of me winning my game this week, over a hated rival no less. I started the season 0-6 and have come around to win 4 of my last 5 games.

The weekend was shortened because I had to come to work again on Saturday to reattempt the upgrades that went bad the week before. I got all the issues ironed out this time but still didn’t get out of the office till 1:30. Then when I got home I plowed right into house cleaning, so before I knew it, Saturday was basically spent. On Sunday we did a 2 mile prep run for our next running race which is at 7:30 am Thanksgiving morning. This race is going to be tough, it is a 4 miler. Ali was gung ho about this but doing 4 miles is a different animal from a 3 miler. I haven’t run 4 miles since I lived in Wernersville, I was probably right around 30 when I last did it. I think I can do it, but my feet and knee have been complaining a bit about my new running routine, I am hoping they will fall into line. Ali will be pushing into territory I never expected her to cross into at this point. It will be a big milestone if we both cross the finish line without going into a walk at some point.

The rest of the day on Sunday was spent doing some outside yard work and then watching football. During the day, the dark mood I sometimes feel, crept in. It is the mood where I feel discontent and stagnant. I feel like I don’t have a direction I am going and instead am standing still. I try to argue with myself saying that I am doing many things right, trying to expand my horizons by doing different things like traveling more, running, taking dance class with Ali and more. We have a nice home, are financially stable, have the family dog and all that jazz. Yet I feel blah. I think to myself that maybe we need to move to a different house, need to pick up yet another hobby or just need some sort of major event or change to lift this cloud I feel from time to time. I’ll be 38 in 3 weeks, that doesn’t help. My mom mentioned that when she was 38, I was 18 years old already, that simple statement gives me pause.

The Eagles looked strong for most of the game. I was extremely tired and dozed off for the 4th quarter. I woke up at the end to see the final 21-20 score and didn’t know what happened. It’s just as well. When I read about the collapse it made me sick. At 0-3 in the division and a 4-5 record, the prospects of them even making the playoffs is seriously in question. It’s been an awesome 5 year run so if they stink it up this year, it’s hard for me to complain. However, to throw away a game like that (literally) hurts all the same.

At lunch, I am in the express check out line at Wal-mart with my 4 or 5 items. In front of me is an old man, if I were to guess, 70+. Initially his only item was a box of panty liners. Then he walked to the cooler and grabbed a quart of milk. You figure it out….

I had off Friday but I earmarked that day as they day we would do some server upgrades at work. I envisioned it being a very simple upgrade as I had done it many times before. I had no worries about getting done before the 5k that evening. Of course, nothing went as planned. I had issue after issue with the upgrade and after being there 7 hours I had to bag it and roll back because I had to get home to get ready for the race. It was frustrating as hell. The initial fix for the issue would have been to copy some new drivers off the floppy. I discovered that FDD’s are no longer standard equipment on Dell servers as my brand new box didn’t have one. I tried using a USB drive to get around it which worked initially but did not work when I tried running the Win 2k upgrade routine. So I took off and then had to run to the grocery store and get home. I pulled in about a half hour before we had to leave. Then as I get out of the car I feel pain in my right knee. I am like, WTF!, where did this come from? My knee has been fine for months and then the day of the race, for no apparent reason, it starts to hurt? Luckily it subsided before the starting gun.

We got to the course about an hour before race time and were immediately taken back by how many people were there. It was a BIG event. As we walked towards the registration desk, we passed an old man, 70’s or 80’s old that wore the number 1, we wished we knew his history. We got signed in and we both were getting more excited about the race. We walked up to the bridge to look around. We walked a bit of it to get loose, as we did we saw dozens of runners running already to get loose. The bridge looked a bit formidable with a long hill towards the middle. We don’t run inclines, so seeing this put more doubt in Ali’s mind. I pounded a Red Bull to try to shake some of the cobwebs from being up late the night before, even so, I found myself yawning regularly.

As start time neared, the horde of runners moved towards the start line. One thing I noticed immediately that overall, the running crowd is a much healthier looking bunch than the volleyball crowd. I’d say a good 80% of the people were lean. There was a wide mix of people from 10 years old to 80, people pushing strollers and even one guy carrying his kid in a backpack. We made no effort to move up in the crowd and were ok with starting near the back of the back. The gun sounded and we were off, sort of. At first people were almost running in place until things started to move. The first quarter mile or so was very tight as you tried to just not bump into other people that were shoulder to shoulder with you. Soon it opened up a bit and we were able to find some free lanes to run in. It was very cool to be in our first race, at night, on a bridge. I found that running inside this mass of humanity was very motivational and gave us extra energy. Ali was running a very good pace, much better than I expected. It was good enough that we passed many more people than passed us. At the 1 mile mark, Ali was going strong as we passed the time keeper. Our time was surprisingly fast, faster than what we would run on a flat track. We hit the hill and Ali plowed right through it, hardly losing a stride. We were amazed when we saw the race leaders, on the way back already at the 10 minute mark. (winner ran it in 15:55) They were hauling major ass.

We hit the halfway turnaround and Ali was still doing well. We had found our stride and were running more or less with a group of people. We hit the other side of the hill and Ali was winded but still managed to get through it without slowing down much at all. Before we knew it, we were within a half mile of finishing. I could tell Ali knew she could do it, do what she told me the week prior what she thought she had no shot of doing. I was very proud of her. As we got closer, our pace actually quickened. Towards the end we had enough breath to discuss the woman who was running while talking on her cell phone. The last couple hundred yards were downhill to the finish which further helped our pace. Even though we were squarely in the middle of the back, there were tons of people surrounding the finish line, cheering everyone on, it was fantastic. Ali said she almost felt like crying as she came to the line. She did it, and pretty easily at that. Our time was 34:21, a strong pace for her. My pre-race estimates put our time at 37 minutes or more so I was really impressed. On top of that, our actual time was probably in the 33’s because the time started when the gun sounded, yet it took quite awhile till we actually crossed the start line. After grabbing some water and some bagels they provided, we went back to cheer on the last few people that crossed the line, the last of which crossed at the 56 minute mark.

They had an after race party with music and where they hand out awards for 1st through 3rd in each age class. We hung out for a bit and then headed home, thrilled with the entire experience. Ali was lukewarm about running in a race before Friday. After Friday, she was on the local track club websites, looking for what race we will run next. It is really cool to see her into it like that. She signed us up for a run on Thanksgiving day, a 4 miler! It will be a challenge but I am confident she can do it. Running is a different kind of thrill for me than volleyball is. Instead of cause and effect battle with other players, running is more a mental battle with yourself. It’s a different kind of challenge that influences other aspects of your life. I think it builds a sort of confidence in yourself because the mental toughness running encourages, only helps other aspects of your life. I only hope my twice repaired knee doesn’t let me down. So far it has been a non-issue. (besides the Friday glitch)

The weekend was a pretty relaxed one in most ways. We are entering dry season so the grass isn’t growing very fast, so we didn’t have to do the regular mowing routine. However the extra time was used by Ali to mow the back 2 acres for hopefully the last time in 4 months. While she did that, I spent a good 3 hours inside cleaning the floor surfaces through out most of the house with the steam cleaner. Everytime I do it I say to myself I need to do this once a month as I look at the black water I pour out of the waste tank, it is that nasty. We probably spent about 4 hours on Saturday, and another 2 or 3 on Sunday doing house stuff but the rest was basically free time.

I did some hardcore WoW’ing. I started a new character, a rogue. A rougue is unique because he can disappear and sneak around enemies undetected. I wanted to make this character for no other purpose but to go into enemy territory and make life miserable for horde players. I look forward to sneaking up on unsuspecting victims and taking them out before they even know what happened. I found a new way to expedite the process of leveling up characters, use 2 accounts. No, I am not paying for 2 wow accounts. I am using Charlie’s, when he isn’t using it. So I have 2 WoW windows on my screen at once. On one screen I have one of Charlie’s higher level characters on it, on the other I have my lower level character, who is set to just follow Charlie around. So I run Charlie’s character through the quests, killing things in a fraction of the time it would take me to do it with my low level character. It allows me to complete stuff that otherwise would require me finding others to help me, solo. Exciting stuff huh?

I am ashamed to admit I wasted 4 hours of my life watching Cat 7. I should know by now that if a natural disaster movie is made for TV, it sucks. Big screen versions of these movies I enjoy but every made for TV version of this scenario has consistently been terrible. CAT 7 was filled with actors that mostly made their fame earlier in their careers. Randy Quaid was in this. The years have not been kind to Randy, he is a big, fat, old looking, ugly man nowadays. A far stretch from the Christmas Vacation Randy I loved. Shannon Dougherty was in it also, damn what a mess. I hadn’t seen her in awhile. She now has nasty old lady face, it was scary. The movie was filled with bad acting, ridiculous story lines and improbable outcomes. I felt bad for waking ALi as I laughed out loud at one of the final scenes. Old Randy and nasty Shannon who were teamed up as storm chasers during the movie, went back to the bar where Shannon worked. Randy sees a picture of Shannon pouring drinks in a guys mouth and say’s something like, “Ah I didn’t know you had a bit of redneck in ya…” Then Shannon says, “It sounds like you are hitting on me..” Then Old Randy says “Well, do I have a chance?” and Nasty Shannon says “No, (pause), if you don’t stop pussyfooting around you don’t..” Then they enagage in an incredibly disturbing open mouth kiss. It was f’in incredibly moronic. I kept it on the Tivo so I could show Ali the scene.

I finally got around to ripping the AFHV scene I sent in at least 15 years ago. The quality is shit. I couldn’t dub directly off the Tivo so I had to shoot the TV screen which causes the top half to appear greenish. Then the quality is further distorted by the compression to get it on the web. Still, you can get the gist. Check it out here.

My wife has a lot of great things about her, but being observant is not one of them. The other day we dropped the car off at the tire place because one of the tires was almost flat due to a screw being in it. We dropped it off and then agreed Ali could pick it up later since it was only a couple blocks from her work. Well she picked it up and all was fine, until this morning when I asked her where my key was that I gave the garage for the car. She had no idea, in fact she realized that they never gave her it back when she picked up the car and she instead just pulled out her set of keys to drive away. This struck me as incredulous but hey, no big deal, we will stop by the place on the way to work and pick it up.

So I stop by the place and explain the car was there Tuesday but we didnt get a key back. The guy looked and looked and found nothing, great. He said he could ask some other guys when they got in and call me if they find it. I was annoyed but still figured I could just run to the dealership and drop 5 or 10 bucks and have them make me another one. Ali apologized for her oversight and all was fine.

So I go to the dealership at lunch to get my key. The parts guy was unsure but thought that maybe 2003 Sentras had “smart keys”, meaning they have a chip embedded in them as a security measure. He asked 2 or 3 people if the 03’s had these chipped keys and some thought they did, others said no. However the final vote was yes, it needed a smart key which costs 30 bucks! But that isn’t the best part of it, in order to get a new key, you have to take the car into the shop, where they give you 2 new keys after they program them to work with the car which surely they would not do for free. To make things better, they didn’t have time to do it now so I would have to schedule an appointment to get it done. Now I was pissed that Ali’s oversight could wind up costing me 50 bucks or more, plus another trip to the dealership.

Well I had time left on my lunch hour so I thought I would save myself car washing time this weekend and go gas the car and run it through the car wash at the station. I fill up and notice that it never gave me the option to purchase the car wash at the pump, wtf? Then I get more angry as I see the pump doesn’t have a working receipt printer so I have to go inside to get a receipt. Then I had to buy the car wash seperately, grrr. It was one of those shitty, touchless car washes that never really get your car clean so I came out of that with just a less dirty car and 7 bucks poorer.

On the way back to the office I was digging through every compartment I could find in the car to see if either the tire place or Ali dropped the key inside and forgot about it. No luck but I did find some used ink cartridges that must be a year old at least. I still had some time to kill so I decided to go to Office Max and turn in the used cartridge to get a ream of paper, a cool trade in program Office Max does. I was still bent out of shape about the whole key thing. I ran through my head how I was going to call the tire place again and ask if they found the key. How they would say no, and then I would inform them that their f up is going to result in me having to pay a wad of cash to get it replaced. I wondered if they would do the right thing and offer to pay for it or if I would have to argue with them and just wind up getting more furious. I did some emotional buying while I was there, I grabbed a 5 pack of DVD-R’s and then dropped 80 bucks on a sweet laser mouse. I didn’t care that we probably have a 5k hurricane deductible bill coming from insurance and a 500 dollar medical bill from getting the cancer cut out of my head, not to mention the holidays around the corner, f it, a new tech toy would make me feel better.

So I get back to the office and make the call to the tire place and ask if they had any luck finding the key. Someone different answered the phone than whom I talked to this morning. After a long hold time he comes back and said he found it. I was happy to hear it and told him I would pick it up later. After I hung up I realized that I should have been pissed off because obviously the guy from this morning didn’t follow through and look for it more. I’ve had several bad experiences with this place but keep going back because it is conveniently located. Maybe I will learn this time. Ali is off the hook.

3 days ago, they finally opened 2 westbound lanes in the area by my house that has been the source of my traffic nightmare for the last year or so. It has made a DRAMATIC difference. The 3 miles that used to take us 50 minutes to clear can now be done in 5. It is almost to good to be true. Even though this happened almost a full 3 months later than it was supposed to, now that the relief is here it hardly matters. I got to work in 45 minutes. I may actually be able to move that alarm clock up a bit past it’s current 5:36am setting.

I heard TO’s press conference live on Sirius yesterday and then saw the video later. You can’t read a statement like a first grader and sound sincere. Furthermore after reading your statement, poorly, you can’t hide behind your loud mouthed, stand offish agent who got you into this mess, and don’t answer any questions. Rosenhaus was a joke. He basically avoided any tough questions with a condescending “NEXT QUESTION” answer to anything he didn’t want to address. My favorite part of the session was when the reporters quieted down enough to allow the one writer to ask exactly what Rosenhaus did for his client in the past 5 months besides get him kicked off the team? TO couldn’t help but crack a smile when that was asked. Of course the reply again was NEXT QUESTION. It’s a shame that someone as talented as TO didn’t engage his brain before destroying the rest of his season and in most likelihood, costing himself millions dollars for whatever is left of his career. I do believe that not playing IS very tough for him. But not just because he likes to play football as much as he loves the ego stroking and accolades associated with it. Tough luck bud.

Word came down Saturday that TO was suspended and I was damn glad to hear it. I was happy about it even before I knew that he got into a fight with Hugh Douglas and challenged the rest of the team as well. I really wonder about his mental health. This moron went from having the world at his feet after the Super Bowl to being the league black sheep in less than a season. He has destroyed his money earning capacity for the remainder of his career. Any team foolish enough to take him on certainly will not pay him nearly what he could have gotten if he kept his mouth shut and was a good soldier.

The Eagles did little against the Redskins. Westbrook ran 16 or 17 times and gained a pathetic 24 yards. I have no comprehension of how this team can not run the ball. They have the biggest offensive line in the ENTIRE league, crazy. However, since TO has been taken out of the picture, I am fine with whatever results the Eagles are able to produce from here on out. If they finish 4-12, so be it, at least TO will be history, yea, I am THAT sick of him.

The weekend was mellow, we hung out and did stuff around the house. I talked to the insurance adjuster. He told me that he is concentrating on the customers with roof damage first, which I can understand. There was an article in the paper estimating that there are between 5000 and 6000 pool cages with damage in the county from the storm. Plus, October 1st they started with new, stricter building codes for cages which will further delay the rebuilding process. The bottom line is, it could be this time, next year until we get a cage back 🙁

This Friday we are entering our first ever running race. It is a 5k but is unique. It is run back and forth across a bridge in Fort Myers and it starts at 7pm in the evening. The bridge has a sizeable hump in it that will be a challenge since all of our training has been on flat surfaces. Ali is convinced she won’t be able to run the entire race without stopping, but I think she may surprise herself. There are a number of events coming up in the next couple months and we hope to enter several of them. The experience is a bit different for me as instead of running as fast as I can, I will be trying to help pace Ali. And at the end of a 5k whether I run my pace or Ali’s, I’m still tired. My big clod hopper feet have been aching through the arch a bit. Ali says it is from my 6 or 7 year old running shoes. The great part is my knee is basically a non-issue, thanks flax seed oil!

On Saturday I decided to attack the remnants of the pool cage. My plan was to rip it apart and cut it up to get a few bucks from the scrap yard. I wasn’t sure if it had to be bare aluminum so I was ripping out the rubber and screening which was taking a loooong time. After a half hour of work I may have gotten 5% through it. Then in an amazing coincidence, some guy with a truck comes walking around the back, asking if I wanted him to rip it up and take it away. I quickly measured the prospect of spending half a day breaking it down and then more time to take it the recycle center to make maybe 100-200 bucks versus just letting them do it. The decision was easy and with me and the 2 guys breaking up the cage, it took all of 45 minutes. Of course all they did was tear the screen off, they didn’t remove the rubber, which if I did, would have taken less time. They had driven down to the area from north Florida. I thanked them for their work and they drove off. Ali suggested that maybe I should throw some money their way which I immediately dismissed, saying they will get paid at the recycle place. We picked up the screening and screws, filling 6 large trash bags.

I ripped off the video I took of Wilma and trimmed it down to 14 minutes. If you want to see a hurricane in action take a peek. Broadband only, the file is between 20 and 30 meg. The visuals and especially the sound is impressive. There are a few minor expletives in the tape. 🙂

It’s been a hectic week at work, fighting multiple fires. The other day at my wife’s workplace, the nursing home, I got yet another reminder of why I would rather swallow a shotgun than wind up in one of those places. As I was walking back to pick up Nicki, I entered an area that stank of shit, strongly. The residents and the staff were carrying on like nothing smelled odd. Ali has already told me stories of residents that let loose in the middle of the hallway. When I mentioned to Ali how bad it stank, she said that a residents colostomy bag broke. OMFG.

I don’t recall if I mentioned that Ali ran an official 5k at the track with me last Sunday. The weather was great, in the 60’s. It was on the windy side but she made it through a full 13 consecutive laps of running. I was very proud of her. I am now finding some local 5k runs we can enter. I think it will be a fun thing to do together that gives our fitness routine a nice boost as well.

Most of my buddies that I played WoW with aren’t in the game anymore. They have either moved on, are playing different characters or are just playing less frequently and/or at times I am not on. The game is dragging a bit for me. There are still so many things I can do and see in the game but most of the content is high end and requires the player to invest a lot of consecutive hours to accomplish, something I just don’t do all that much anymore. Could it be the beginning of the end?

I still have not heard from the insurance adjuster, a bit disappointing. We just got our landline phone service working on Wednesday. It is fitting that Sprint would be heading up the rear for service restoration. Yea, they still blow.

This weekend has no major events on the calendar, not a bad thing. Between the Cali trip, hurricane expenses and the upcoming holiday season, we will be grinding through cash so a low cash impact weekend is sounding pretty good right now.

Can you believe what TO said about Donovan and the team? That f’in guy needs to go. I don’t care if the Eagles don’t make the playoffs this year, suspend that son of a bitch, let him sit home. I am sick of him to the point that his talent doesn’t even matter, I want him gone. Self centered, greedy, immature, ego maniacal prick…..