Archives 2005

When I was a kid I always had a fascination with moving vehicles. The first recollection I have of my own wheels was the famous Big Wheel. The Big Wheel was a solid performer and was easy to ride. Mine was equipped with the optional piece of metal that bounced off the rear wheel to make a cool click click click sound as you were riding. Big wheels did have some draw backs. If you really tried to pedal fast with them, there was a good chance the large plastic wheel would just start spinning in place, especially once the wheel started to wear a bit. Also if you were going downhill, you had to pull your feet off the pedals and hold your legs awkwardly up in the air because once the big wheel picked up speed there was no way your feet could stay on the madly rotating pedals. I had several instances where while “freewheeling” down a hill, a loose shoelace would get ensnared in the run away pedals instantly attaching my foot to the front wheel in a manner that was sometimes a little painful. I am a bit fuzzy on what the braking system was on the big wheel but I think it was a simple lever that grinded against a back wheel.

We had a standard course which started up at the garage, then about 200 feet down the rough asphalt driveway we would throw it left 200 degrees onto a grassy hill behind the shed. If we were overly agressive on that turn it was very easy to roll right into the shed. If we felt really daring we would go straight down a steeper hill with little thought of how to stop. The object was to hit the narrow gulley between the outhouse and the workshop. A miscalculation meant either a painful impact or an equally painful dive off the vehicle to avoid the impact.

After the big wheel I moved up to the corvette of plastic, kid powered vehicles, the Green Machine. The Green Machine was very unique. It had a large front wheel like the Big Wheel but it was fixed in place and could not be turned. Instead the steering was done by an innovative rear wheel getup that was controlled by 2 levers. Steering with the Green Machine was much less precise than the Big Wheel. It was extremely easy to oversteer the unit and wind up in a ditch when you were simply trying to make a slight turn. However in straight line performance, the Green Machine was a hands down winner. However the best part about the green machine was the twitchy rear steering made it a natural skidding machine. You could throw the levers and instantly send the Green Machine into a wicked power slide. I loved that thing.

Before I graduated to bicycles there were a couple other gravity powered machines I was the proud owner of. One was a homemade soap box derby type of vehicle my dad made for me. It was done from plans and it was an impressive contraption. The steering was done with a conventional steering wheel that controlled the wheels by spinning wash line that was carefully wrapped around a rod attached to the front wheels. The only drawback was as the rope stretched the steering would get sloppy so it required regular maintenance. Unlike the Big Wheel and Green Machine, downhill travel was easy and fast, no pedals to contend with. However the draw back with a vehicle like this was the lack of any self propulsion so every fun trip down a hill, required an equally demanding push back up the hill.

The other gravity powered vehicle was an old lawn tractor that we had laying around. It was basically complete except it didn’t have the mower or engine anymore. This was sort of cool because the steering was car like. However the remnants of a transmission caused resistance when it rolled so you only got good performance down steeper hills. This was also very heavy so the push back up was enough of a pain that the tractor saw limited use in my childhood motoring.

Eventually I graduated to bikes and when I was old enough my dad let me drive the big tractor we had. That tractor was my car, or at least I thought it was. I remember going all out in that thing, maybe 10 mph and thinking it was quick. I took several extended trips out on the road with it. One time I bet I took it on at least a 6 mile loop. It was a blast.

Why in the world would I bring this up? No reason, just was running through my mind. If I ever have a kid they will own a Green Machine. 🙂

This work week started off in an odd fashion. As I pulled into the parking lot and was parking, I glanced up and saw 2 of my coworkers stop abruptly in the parking lot right next to a white malibu driven by an old lady. After looking further, it was obvious the one woman was upset. I thought to myself, “That old lady didn’t hit her….” Yep. Evidently the old broad bumped into my co-worker as she drove past, taking no heed to the basic , pedestrians have the right of way, principal. I got out and went over. My co-worker was crying but not so much because of the pain from getting bumped by the car but the shock of it all. She was a step away from much more serious damage. We told the old woman to park, which she did. As she pulled into a spot I immediately noticed the entire hood was covered in words that were scribbled on by black magic marker. What the hell?

We escorted our co-worker back to her car and sat her down as she was shaking. The old woman crawls out of her car and pulls out her walker and shuffles over. I figured she would be saying something like “I’m really sorry.” or “I couldn’t see because the sun was in my eyes” but no instead we got “It’s not my fault, she walked into my car.” I chastised the woman and told her that people don’t walk into cars and in a parking lot you always yield to pedestrians, there was no excuse. She kept blabbing on about it’s not her fault, she walked into the door… We finally just asked her to sit in her car and wait for the deputies that I called to show up to sort it out.

While we were waiting, I glanced at the hood to see if I could read it. Some of the magic marker was sunfaded, but from what I could make out it said something about a bank spending her social security money. I found out later that this woman has a few screws loose (no kidding) and regularly parks her wheelchair outside the courthouse with signs denouncing some local judge that somehow wronged her.

Everyday can be it’s own little adventure.

It was a fine weekend. Ali started working 4 days a week so she had Friday off. It works out well because it allows her to relax and do a few things around the house so we have less to do over the weekend.

On Saturday things started off real slow, I spent most of the morning playing WoW while Ali spent most of the morning in bed. It’s quite different from day’s past where I was ripping into chores at 7:30 in the morning. Eventually we got started on the chores. One of the things I wanted to get done was clean up the rat nest of hoses I had in the shed. It is the collection of hoses I used when I had the complex drip irrigation system set up. However I have had better results just going from plant to plant and soaking it real well with a hose once a week. So I had about 300 feet of tangled hose piled up in the back of the shed. So slowly I started to untangle and wrap up the hoses. As I was doing this, I managed to reaggravate the wrist that I had been resting for a week and a half. I hurt it doing nothing more than holding and wrapping hose. I was pissed. It is just ridiculous.

Later in the afternoon we had to run some errands. I stopped at Sports Authority to get new lifting gloves (with wrist wraps). As we went in, Ali pointed out that the Teddy Bear Museum was right next door and we could stop in. Ever since we moved to Naples, Ali has asked about going to this museum. She loves teddy bears. It is north mmerica’s only Teddy Bear Museum. Everytime she asked I would say something like “We can’t go today, they are closed right now”(they weren’t) “We can’t go, Nicki will miss you” or something silly like that. Obviously I don’t share her love of Teddy Bears. However this time I relented. I heard that the musuem was closing so if we didn’t do it now she would not get to see it ever. Plus, Ali certainly is accomodating of what I want normally so it was the least I could do. It was as you would think, a big area filled with teddy bears behind glass. No it was not exciting. The best part for me was seeing the collection of really old bears. They had some from the early 1900’s. I always find really old things interesting. I don’t know why. We found out the museum is closing the end of May so it was good that we saw it when we did.

During the weekend, Nicki did something she hadn’t done in over a year and a half, crapped in the house. The first time it happened on Saturday while we were out. Before we left I walked her for an extended period and she made no signs of having to do a number 2. However when we got home after being gone 3 hours or so, there was a big pile behind the bird cage. When we scolded her for it she ran off, embarrassed and sulked for awhile. The second time, it happened in the morning when I was up on my puter and Ali was in bed. Prior to this I had her out for an extended period and again she did no number 2. This time she crapped out on the lanai. She made no effort to come get me to let me know she had to go. I have no idea what the deal is. Hopefully it is a one weekend thing. Nothing will get me more riled up than the continued use of our living room as a bathroom by the mutt.

On Sunday we decided to take an extended walk down to the convenience store to pick up the paper and eat lunch. It was good exercise and nice change up in the routine. If I were to guess I would say the total distance was between 4 and 5 miles. Walking along side a busy road like ours gives you a first hand look at the laziness and ignorance of mankind as we stepped around countless beer bottles and other assorted trash.

For whatever reason on Sunday I also got inspired to get back up in the air. I haven’t touched my RC planes in well over 6 months. I decided I wanted to try to get my aerial photo rig up in the air and snap some pictures. So I charge up a few battery packs and the radio. I hook stuff up and have to try several configurations until I remember exactly how I had it all working together. I carefully carry everything out back, throw some grass into the air to test wind direction, snap a few photos on the ground to verify camera operation and then apply full throttle and TOSS. The plane gets maybe 20 feet out of my hand and the motor shuts off and the plane crashes lightly into the ground. Argh, dead battery pack. I charged 2 other packs. The best I got was maybe a 20 second flight. Evidently all my packs have taken a shit from being discharged for so long. Damn it. Time to buy new packs.

For those turned off by MMPORPG talk you can change the page now, this will be meaningless to you. On Sunday I was minding my own business, mining for minerals when I got attacked by a horde player. At first I just ran on my horse, figuring he would get the hint that I didn’t care to fight him. Well he continued and by the time I decided to return fire it was too late and he killed me. This set me off. So once I recovered my body I went on a rampage, killing any horde players that stood in my way, regardless of their level. The funniest episode went like this. A horde hunter decided to try to sic 2 computer controlled characters on me. As they attacked me, he stood not far away, evidently wanting to see me die from his prank. Well I killed the first one, and then when he saw I was going to kill the second one he turned and ran for his life up the hill. Once I dispatched the second bad guy, I hopped on my horse and chased the horde player all the way up the hill. I hopped off my horse, stunned the guy and killed him in a few hits, then spat on him. I really never partake in this sort of stuff because I hate when it is done to me, but for some reason the attack on me set off a feeling of revenge that had to be satisfied.

Anyone else think it is ridiculous and disgusting that the Terry Schiavo ordeal has gotten equal, if not more press than when the tsunami struck? People are more outraged about a woman that has been a vegetable for 15 years, being allowed to die than the daily casualties of our soldiers in Iraq? This is some f’d up world we live in.

I have done nothing but cardio at the gym for the last week and a half in an attempt to let some of my aches and pains in my joints heal up. It’s a bit of a bore and doesn’t feel as satisfying as lugging iron.

This weekend is pretty open. Next weekend my brother-in-law and his wife come down for a quick visit. I’ll take some pictures of the sodding I did last weekend. Everynight this week I’ve been running sprinklers in the areas to ensure all my hard work doesn’t wind up being dried up hay.

Julio Franco of the Atlanta Braves is 46 years old and still playing major league baseball. That is simply amazing. Hell I remember when I was still in school, he came up with the Phils in the mid 80’s. I guess it as a testament to what can be done with some good genes and a good conditioning/fitness routine.

Terry Schiavo, I don’t want to sound cruel or to go to hell or anything, but please, die. This has reached a level of coverage that is just obscene. Her parents are being self centered bastards because they can’t deal with the idea of their daughter dying, hiding behind the pro-life army of zombies. Catholics don’t want to practice birth control because it interferes with nature’s course but they are ok with artifically continuing the life of someone that would have died a decade ago if nature took it’s course. It’s been 15 years, she has shown zero signs of improvement. Let her go. It needs to end. She is the brain dead version of Elia Gonzalez or whatever the little cubans kids name was.

I have a habit of making assumptions that are based on little more than what I devise in my mind. Friday was a painful example of that. I took Friday off to tackle sodding Nicki’s area. I estimated that 2 skids of grass would fit the bill (estimation based on no facts) and I pictured me easily dropping the 2 skids into the back of my pickup truck and happily carting them home and installing them at my leisure. What a delusion that was.

I popped out of bed nice and early, excited to get the project underway. The grass place was all the way in town, a 45 minute drive. I find the place abd go in and pay for the 2 skids. When I got a look at the skids as I went in the office, I thought to myself, “Hmmm they are pretty big, maybe I’ll only be able to take one at a time” No big deal. The woman that took the money, to my surprise, was also the one to run the forklift. She came out and took one look at my truck and immediately proclaimed that she didn’t think there was anyway it would fit. I said that I’d like to try anyway, feeling that she underestimated the payload ability of my mighty toyota. She inches the skid up to the bed of the truck. It fits inside the walls of the bed but not inside the wheel well. No problem, I told her to try moving back and setting it down behind the wheel well, I coould just leave the tailgate down. Her face told me that it was a joke to even try, but she obliged. As she lowered the weight of the skid onto the bed, the truck fenders immediately sunk to the tires, it was practically doing a wheelie. “Get it off!!!”, I tell her and she raises the grass to relieve the crushing weight off my poor truck. “These weigh 2500 pounds each” she tells me. “You need at least a 1 ton truck to haul one” And I thought I could throw 2 in. This is something that could have been discovered if I dug a little bit beforehand but oh well, like so many other times, I learn the hard way. She puts the grass back down and I tell her I will have to go get another truck.

As easily as I said that I was unusre of exactly how I would find another truck. I didn’t know anyone that had one that heavy duty and even if I did, it was Friday, how would I get it? Well a stroke of genius came to me. Rent the Home Depot truck! Luckily it was close by. As I drove up I saw it was on the lot and it said it had a weight capacity of 3000 pounds, perfect! I go in to the rental desk and anxiously tell the guy that I want to rent the truck. “What for?” he asked. I told him I needed to haul 2 skids of grass. He asked if they were from Home Depot, and I said no. He points to a sign that says something about the truck only being rented to HD customers as a convenience to transport stuff they buy there. I panicked for a sec, this was my only feasible option, albeit a pricey one. I told the guy that I was also going to be buying top soil to mix in to the dirt. I think he could see the stress I was under and agreed to rent me the truck. Whew. The truck is typically rented for quick trips. I did some quick calculations, 2 trips all the way out to my house, unloading 2 skids of grass myself, oh boy, this is going to be costly. However the bug up my ass has to be satisfied and it was going to get done, today.

I hopped in the truck and chugged back to the grass place. The woman was much more pleased with my transportation this time. She placed the skid on the truck with little effort. However, as soon as she pulled the forks away, I heard an ear piercing noise from the truck. What the hell?? I start looking around, as I open the door, the noise is even louder. The old mexican man that was cleaning up some extra sod came over and looked as well. Then I see the sign on the dash. “This vehicle is equipped with an overweight alarm, to disable alarm lighten payload.” I was freaking. I had the 4 50 pound bags of cow manure in the back so I grabbed them and threw them in the cab, as I threw the one in it snagged on the seat belt, ripping the bag and spilling some manure in the cab. I was too flustered to care. The siren keep screaming. I pop the hood to see if I could simply pull a wire to silence the madness. I didn’t see anything obvious and I certainly didn’t want to disconnect something crucial. I was angry cause the truck should support the weight no problem and it appeared to hardly flinch when the skid was put on it, yet an overly aggressive alarm was incessantly requesting that I lighten the load. Well again the bug was driving me, “F it, I will just have to drive with this f’in thing wailing the entire time, I don’t care.” I fire up the truck and put it in drive, silence… Ah I’ve been blessed, the alarm cuts off once you put the truck in drive…

The ride home was slow as the grass had a bit of lean that the old mexican pointed out to me. I took the turns real slow to prevent an inadvertent dumping of my precious sod on the roadway. All the time I am plodding along I am thinking how much this truck is costing me to rent. I got to our house, and backed up to Nicki’s area. As soon as I turned the truck off, the alarm is going off again. The noise added to the stress as try to hurriedly unload and place the turf. At first I was taking it off piece by piece and placing it. Soon I realized this would take forever so I hopped into the back of the truck and tossed the grass off, piece by piece, trying to throw it into some semblance of piles on the ground. Once it was down on the ground I had to handle each piece a second time to place it. It was hot and humid on Friday and I was rushing trying to get this done. I was running out of gas fast.

The one skid of grass was enough to do the area that I estimated would take two. So skid number two would be used to sod the area in front of the shed that also was bare dirt currently. By the time I got the first skid unloaded I had taken almost all the time I had given to the HD guy as my estimated time of rental. So I had to call him back and explain it would be another few hours yet. He was ok with it and I went back for load two. I picked it up with the alarm once again piercing my ears. This time at home I simple threw the grass off in piles off the back so I could hurry up and get the truck back to keep the rental charge as minimal as possible. By the time I got the truck back I had rung up another 110 bucks in charges. Ugh, oh well at least the grass is at my house.

After I dropped off the truck I went back into the store. I wanted to find an Easter plant for my mom. As I went in I noticed some cool palms that were on sale. It was a great deal, I found a triple pygmy palm that I thought would look great in the middle of Nicki’s area. So I bought that too. The HD guy loaded the heavy tree into the back of my Toyota. It sunk under the weight, but nothing close to the what a skid of grass did to it. I leaned it back and wedged it into place. So I returned home with my latest prize, with a huge pile of sod still waiting to be laid down. I get home and start ripping into phase two of the grass project. It had clouded up, making it feel a bit more bearable. I was tired but didn’t have to work at a fast pace since the truck rental was no longer over my head. I got the grass down in about an hour. Then it was time for the tree. Ali had dug a sizeable hole already. I backed the truck into the area. We tried various methods to get the tree off the truck gracefully but wound up doing a semi-controlled crash off the tailgate instead. It was at least 300 pounds. Once on the ground we rolled, tugged and pushed it’s way into the hole. We got it straight and filled it in. It looked awesome. The grass looks great as well. It was an exhausting, ass busting day but I am pleased with the outcome. Pictures will be coming.

On Saturday we cleaned up in prep for having our new neighbors over for dinner. They have lived next to us since December but we couldn’t work out having them over till now. Ali made a great dinner and desert and we had a nice time with them.

For Easter we went to mom’s for ham and fixings. While I was there she had a list of stuff for me to work on while I was there, the biggest of which was installing vertical blinds by her back sliding door. The food was great and it was nice to see mom. I talked to my bro and grandma while I was at mom’s as well.

I had a lot of WoW time as well throughout the weekend. Up till 1am on Friday night. No matter how late I go to bed and even though I walk Nicki right b4 bed, she insists on waking me up at the crack of dawn regardless. So I stumble outside in a zombie-like state as she wastes time just sniffing every blade of grass. It gets to be a bit annoying.

I missed the start of Spring. It’s odd how the seasons melt into one another down here. I remember when I lived in PA, the countdown to Spring was BIG. It meant that warmer weather was on the way sooner rather than later and things like baseball, playing volleyball outside and being to walk outside without a coat were going to be possibilities again soon. This morning I glanced at the calendar and saw we were 3 days past the first day of spring, oops.

I’m off Friday. Yes!

It’s wonderful getting older. My right wrist, right shoulder and left elbow/forearm have been hurting for a good couple months. Throw my right knee into the mix. It seems I aggravated it from being on my knees a lot building the deck and crawling around on floors, connecting and disconnecting PC’s. At the gym I try to be smart and stop an exercise if I get to the point where the pain is more than mild. Today I was doing incline presses and it sounded like I was popping jiffy pop in both my shoulders. I suppose it has little hope of getting better as I age does it? 🙂

I suppose I could try to take more than a couple day break from lifting but that is easier said than done.

It was another spectacular weekend weather-wise. Saturday was sunny and in the lower 70’s, Sunday was sunny again but closer to 80. On Saturday Ali had to work and I had to go into another branch in the afternoon for more weekend work, ugh. The conversion at this branch didn’t go quite so smoothly. Even though I know very little about the new setup, I went in there and took care of 4 or 5 issues that the installers were spinning their wheels on. I didn’t get home until 7:30. We spent Saturday night watching the Money Pit on tivo. Damn that is a funny movie. But I slept through the last half hour or so. Every few days after staying up till 11-12 playing WoW I am incredibly tired and just have to crash early. Saturday was one of those nights.

On Sunday Ali and I went to the beach again. Unlike last time, it was great beach weather. The sun was warm, the wind was light and the water was a bit warmer. I really enjoyed just sitting out there reading a book and then walking the beach for a bit. All in all we were only on the beach for an hour and a half. However with no sunblock on, this was more than enough to get fried. My chest is beet red. It seems odd to get sunburned in March. Oh well we all look better with a little color.

This past week we had like 3 inches of rain. The water had an adverse affect on the tile creation that we have built into Nicki’s deck. The water warped the plywood and in turn made a couple of the tiles pop loose. 🙁 That sucks. It sucks not only because that means the unique part of the deck is broken, it sucks because we have to pull it out and then rip up all the cut pieces of decking and replace them with full boards. Another 80-90 bucks at Home Depot and the labor to pull up the existing wood and lay down the new stuff. Sigh…

Does anyone else think this controversy about the woman having her feeding tube pulled is absolutely f’in ridiculous? I sure do. The woman has been a vegetable for 15 years, she told her husband she didn’t want to be kept alive like that but someone found it necessary to escalate this all the way up to the president’s desk to make sure she can continue to “exist” indefinitely? What exactly is the point? It makes no sense to me. If I wind up that way, kill me, please. So stupid.

Those 5-6 pounds I put on during my pre-holiday cookie eating blitz are long gone. I am back to my November weight and maybe a pound or two less. I actually am trying to shave off another 4-5. I’m in good shape but I think losing a kilo or two will get me to a point where I would be happy to maintain at. To help me get there I have made a change in my dinner routine. For forever my routine was eat dinner and then shortly afterward have a glass of milk along with something sweet as desert. I had no nutrional or hunger needs for this, it’s just something your body gets accustomed to. What I have been doing for the past week and a half is after dinner I get a big glass and fill it with ice water. I continue to drink these throughout the night. Besides curbing the feeling I need to eat sweets by making you feel full on water, it does a good job of hydrating me to the max. The only downside are the frequent bathroom trips. So far it’s working well. On weekends I allow myself to grab deserts, it’s all about balance. It’s funny, many times Ali will proclaim how easy it is for me to stay thin, it comes naturally. Hah, hardly. I have made so many modifications to my exercise and eating habits since I turned 30 it is like night and day. The only throwback I have to my old eating ways are the pop-tarts I allow myself to have for breakfast during the weekends. Those are total garbage food but it’s just about the only junk I eat routinely.

That leads me to a related idea. Goal setting or more specifically how you measure yourself. To me there are three schools of thought, up, down, or don’t care. There are people like me that set my goals above me. I want to always try to keep improving in something I work at, physically, financially, or competitively. There are those that use people below them as examples. For instance, well things may not be great for me but at least I am better off than so and so. With these people, this attitude is usually a convenient way to not do things, to do less and feel ok about it. Then there are the don’t care people. The people that have a family history of cancer, diabetes and heart problems and decide to be fat chain smokers anyway. These people I have little sympathy for as they deserve whatever comes to them. My point? There isn’t really one other than it has been on my mind.

It’s funny how things can lead you down memory lane to trigger something you hadn’t thought about in a long time. The American Idol exit of that Mario guy meant that Nikko Smith was put back in the show since he was the last one voted out. As I was looking for info on the situation I read that Nikko is the son of former great Cardinals shortstop Ozzie Smith. Then it hit me how much he looked like Ozzie and I never realized it. That then got me to thinking about how Ozzie Smith used to be on this baseball skills show that used to be hosted by Johnny Bench on a regular basis. The show was on every Saturday and I hardly ever missed it. It went over basic baseball skills with various major leaguers. It was at the time in my life where I seriously thought I was going to be among them someday. I loved that show and I loved Ozzie Smith.

Speaking of reality TV, you would think with my WoW obsession that I wouldn’t have time to watch any TV. Well it has been scaled back for sure (not a bad thing) but I keep up with American Idol, Survivor, The Apprentice and the new show The Contender. I love the Contender. It’s a boxing show that has Sugar Ray Leonard and Stallone as hosts. It is just a very compelling show. They have a great mix of personalities and the first 2 elimination fights have been nothing short of fantastic. It’s gotten poor ratings thus far but I would give it 2 huge thumbs up. Check it out, Sundays at 8 on NBC.