Ali did a nice job of snapping some vball action shots, you can see them here.
Here are some other pics from the trip.
One of the cutest pics is when Nicki met up with a miniature version of herself. 🙂
I also got around to reposting some videos from my vball and rc site if you never got a chance to see them.
It seems a bit odd here today. Collier County has declared a state of emergency and we are in the hurricane warning area, yet it is basically business as usual. Schools are open, businesses and homes are not boarded up, it’s just another day.
It has been windy since last night and it should pick up quite a bit during the day. It seems that people have a bit too much faith in the forecasters. I’m not quite sure why, their track record of predicting paths of these things is far from stellar.
This weekend was the tour vball championship in South Beach. Last year it was shortened because of Hurricane Jeanne. It is a weird format starting at noon on Friday and wrapping up on Saturday. I was leary of it because I haven’t played back to back days of volleyball for probably at least 6 years. I think the last time I did it was at Rehoboth when I played with Rich and Heather on a Sunday after playing men’s on Saturday. South Beach is a dog friendly area so we took Nicki with as well.
The drive over took longer than I expected, nearly 2 and a half hours. The traffic was heavy. I commented to Ali about how heavy the traffic was on the east coast. I was on a section of I-95 with 5 lanes and every single lane was jammed with vehicles. I guess it will be good prep for driving in LA. We got there and surprisingly arrived there the exact same time as Randall whom had a nice and tidy half hour drive to get there. South Beach is a very unique venue to hold a tournment with the sidewalk restaurants and clubs fronting the beach you are playing on. The activity is constant with currents of people flowing in all directions. Oddly the worst part of South Beach is the actual beach itself. It is in a word, horrible. The sand is hard, filled with rocks, coral and broken glass and looks to be basically construction sand. It really is surprising that they don’t clean it up, it was downright dangerous to play on.
When we checked in we were disappointed to see there were only 2 nets of BB. Hell last year with a hurricane coming there were 4 nets. I don’t know why the turnout was so low. Getting all of the supplies in place was a large pain in the ass. We had a shitload of stuff to drag to the beach and then once we got it all setup, we found out they were moving our nets about 200 yards down the beach because the sand at our original court was unplayable. So we carried 2 shelters down the beach and then came back to get the other bags/coolers/chairs. We got play underway around 1:30 or so. Our pool play was a struggle but we were one point away from being undefeated in pool. We had a team down 24-20 (game to 25) and we managed to lose. I was pissed about the loss but we shook it off to win the last pool play game which cemented our position in the playoffs. We ended the day there around 6 and we would do the playoffs the next day.
I was dirty, sweaty smelly mess. The sand, besides being filled with sharp objects was also very dirty so I was basically different shades of brown. We lugged our stuff back to the parking garage and headed out to find our hotel, the Aqua. The hotel was easy to find and when we stepped in the lobby we thought it looked cool. It is a South Beach trendy type of place. It has a wall mount aquarium, subtle blue lighting everywhere and a surfboard as the front counter. I thought for that minute that maybe this place was worth the high price ($140 a night) which may be the most I ever paid for one night at a hotel. We got our room key and headed up the stairs to our room. The hotel had a quaint courtyard and upstairs was an open area with furniture including 2 outdoor bed type things. There was a group of guys hanging out up there drinking beer as they looked over the wall at the activity on Collins Avenue. We made our way back to our room, opened the door and then we were a bit taken back at the sight. We looked down and were a bit shocked that it was a bare cement/concrete floor. Hmm ok I guess that is trendy or something. Looking around the room we saw bright colored plastic furniture and tables. The back part of the room had some laminate wood flooring and the tiny bathroom had bright blue tile below a toilet that looked to be right out of a public bathroom. We were underwhelmed with the room but it would do. I was sunburned so I felt warm. I looked for the thermostat but there was none to be found. Evidently you had no control over the AC, wtf…. Well I had to use the bathroom. I lift the lid on the public toilet and it promptly falls off in my hand. The lustre has quickly worn off by now. Well at least it has a shower. It was a very loud shower. As the water came out of the shower head the pipes vibrated making a very loud noise throughout the duration of the shower. Oh well at least the water was warm. Ali and I both cleaned up and then we went out to meet Randall for dinner.
The amount of people and activity picked up significantly as nightime approached. One thing I noticed about South Beach is it is one of the few places I can remember where the national epidemic of obesity is not apparent. South Beach is filled with in shape, good looking people. Fat asses are outnumbered by hard bodies. It really is amazing. Navigating through the crowded sidewalk with Nicki was a bit of a challenge. Some people wanted to interact with Nicki but for the most part, Nicki’s skepticism of anybody new or different kept her firmly by our side. She held up well at the beach. It was cute how she would come out to see me whenever I came close to the shelter. I’d give her a quick pat and tell her to go back to mom. Anyway, as we walked we stopped at a place that had outdoor seating and some of the tables had benches, which Ali thought Nicki could sit up on. Well the pooch wasn’t into sitting on the bench but instead found shelter under the bench and table as she watched the endless feet shuffle by. We had a good dinner. If we were there for a non-volleyball event, didn’t have the dog with, and didn’t feel dead tired, we may have explored the nightlife further. Instead we said our goodbyes and agreed to meet up the next morning for day 2 of vball action.
After we got back to the room I walked down to a gas station a couple blocks away to grab some milk I could have with my pop tarts the next morning. I then collapsed into bed hoping for a good night sleep. Nicki laid on her dog bed next to us on the concrete floor. Even though I was exhausted I couldn’t sleep. There was constant noise from outside from both sides of the room, I was warm with no way to lower the temperature and then later in the night there were 2 tremendous blasts of thunder that shook the room. I doubt I got more than 2 or 3 hours of actual sleep.
Even with the lack of sleep I woke up Saturday around 7 and got up feeling sore from the day before but somewhat energized by the prospect of playing part 2 that day. I took my pop tarts and milk and went down to the hot tub in the courtyard and soaked my legs in the super warm water while eating my breakfast. I thought it might help with the aches and pains. I got Ali up and while she went down to eat the continental breakfast, Nicki and I hung out upstairs by the benches and outdoor beds. Nicki walked around and explored while I just sat back and relaxed and watched over the balcony. I saw what looked to be 2 hookers strolling down the street. I watched the doorman at the fancy hotel across the street flagging down taxi’s for guests. I wondered why they made these guys wear long pants as he was constantly running up and down the driveway. He must be a sweaty mess in no time. Ali came back upstairs, we packed up, checked out and agreed that it was our first and last stay at the Aqua.
We got to park a little closer to the beach this time and we took a little less junk with us, learning from the prior day. We ran into Randall who was eating his breakfast. We went down to our net and were happy to see that the one team on our net had spent the time to do a thorough raking of the court in an attempt to get some of the debris out. It was in much better shape than the day before.
We got playoffs started. Our first game was against two younger guys who were no older than early 20’s. They were both good, high energy players. Early on they jumped ahead. They made several incredible saves, running down balls that I thought were our points for sure. But slowly we chipped away and played consistent, smart ball. The other team made too many unforced errors and we wound up winning the game by a few points. We played well, better than the day before. I was surprised that I was able to move much but the adrenalin from playing masks aches and pains pretty well.
Our next playoff game was against a team from our pool that we beat the prior day. They normally play A but we handled them on Friday and figured we could do the same today. We didn’t. They played much better than the day before and we had a few key errors at bad points in the game and wound up losing 25-20. After we lost, I chucked my hat in frustration, I was able to throw it from our side to beyond the endline on the far side. Throwing it upside down gave the hat better aerodynamics.
Well we still had the 3/4 playoff game. It meant something because 3rd place gets prizes, 4th place does not. Again we were playing some younger guys that took 1st place off their net. We pretty much dominated this match. We played very well and won the game easily. It turned out that the 3 teams from our net wound up taking first, second and third which is a nice accomplishment. It took a loooong time until the tournament officials to get around to handing out the prizes, probably and hour and a half. We got some decent stuff for third. Once play was over and the adrenalin subsided, the aches and pains returned. My knees were covered with brushburns from some dives into the hard sand. My hitting shoulder was dead weight and I was just pooped out. After we got our prizes we threw our stuff into the car and then had one last meal at South Beach. This time at Johnny Rocket’s, a 50’s style burger and shake joint. It was a nice lunch. I had a burger and a milkshake, a combo I haven’t had forever. We said our goodbye’s to Randall and made our way through the beautiful people heading towards the beach. We exited South Beach without incident and drove back across the state, getting home a little after 6pm Saturday.
I was a bit stressed because I knew there was a lot of stuff that should get done and I only had Saturday night and Sunday to do it. The Eagles played at 1 so I needed to get most of it done prior to that. When we got home I was inspired and put away most of the stuff from the trip and cleaned the bird cages, but after that my inspiration waned. I was tired as hell and fell asleep like a rock at 10.
On Sunday I got up early and went outside to do some weeding. I told Ali that I would be willing to try our run even though in reality I would have been fine with skipping it that day. Ali came out in her running gear a little before 10 so I threw on my running shoes and we headed to the track. My knees were covered with band aids so it was tough to do a quad stretch without pulling off all of them. The first 2 running laps were not fun, my legs were just tired. But I just kept plodding along, happy that Ali is into running. Ali set another record, running 7 laps continuous. It was tough for her but she did it, I’m impressed with her desire to improve at running. After walking 2 laps we tacked on another 3 running laps to give us 2.5 miles ran. (plus 1.5 walked)
When we got back I dove right back into the outside work, finishing weeding and then weed whacking while Ali mowed with the tractor. The grass is getting brown as we have had almost dry season conditions at our place even though dry season normally isn’t until November. I got done just in time for the Eagles game. We watched most of the first half from the pool on the little TV I installed outside. It was a different kind of way to take in a game and the pool felt good on my overheated body. The Eagles ran wild over the Niners, it was a great game.
After the game there were a few little things I wrapped up but I even found the time to play some WoW. I have been feeling increasingly guilty when playing the game. In the back of my mind I keep thinking about how much time I have poured into the game and how that time could have been used differently. I even ran scenarios through my head about what it will be like when I decide to shelve the game and how difficult it will be.
I woke up this morning tired and sore but happy from an exciting weekend that wound up pretty damn well.
It’s an odd thing how people do things in cars that they wouldn’t do otherwise. For example if you were standing in line at the bank, would you be ok with walking to the front of the line and jumping in? Of course not, you would probably be verbally and possibly physically assaulted. Would you be ok with waiting for a half hour in line waiting to get the latest and greatest of something and having someone from the back of the line come in and stand in front of you? No way, you would strangle them. Why is it that when people are in vehicles they think nothing of this behavior? I am witness to this every morning.
The traffic on the main road out of our place is backed up for over a mile every morning. The delay is made worse by assholes that will make a right turn towards the back of the line, go a 1/4 mile, make a left and then another left to reenter traffic a mile ahead. These people have no qualms in delaying the others waiting in traffic. Somehow they think their time is more valuable than others. As I see these idiots lining up to reenter traffic I fume as the ignorant people in line in front of me let these line jumpers back in without issue. I am amazed that these people don’t realize that the cars they are letting back in line have just figuratively flipped them off by jumping from the back to the front of the line. When my vehicle approaches the reentry point I leave inches between my vehicle and the one in front of me to give no illusions that any of these offenders will be allowed to jump in on my dime. I NEVER let them in. I will normally shoot dirty looks their way even though with the darkness and tinted windows, they probably never see. I instantly have severe disdain for any human being I see behind the wheel of one of these vehicles pulling this stunt. They are forever branded as self centered, thoughtless, idiots in my book. These idiots would never do something similar outside the protective shell of their automobile. F’in lemming jerks.
It’s great that the Eagles are such a good team that they get showcased in national games regularly. But in reality, games like MNF are just a pain in the ass for the fan. They start too damn late and get done on Tuesday mornings. For those of us that get up at 5:30 to enter daily gridlock, such timing is not beneficial. I am rather tired. Now to the game itself.
Of course I am not pleased with the outcome. Trotter getting thrown out of the game before it even started was inexcusable. The Eagles made too many big mistakes to be able to win that game and even so they still had a chance to win it at the end. In a backhanded way, that is a compliment. Somehow Akers missed 2 field goals indoors. McNabb fumbled twice and was picked once and they still could have won. I was annoyed that McNabb did not run a single time. That element of his game is a huge plus to the team because it keeps the defense guessing, yet he seems to have put that part of his game away for the most part. I don’t understand it. TO had some drops but still was the primary weapon. It was good to see him with a smile on his face from time to time. When the game was over, Atlanta celebrated like it was the Super Bowl. The little cornerback got in TO’s face and was talking it up. It was game 1, let them have their Super Bowl now, we will have ours when we stomp these punks in the playoffs if they get that far.
This volleyball season has been my worst EVER. This past weekend my regular partner was out of town so I played with someone new whom I had played against a few times. He is 11 or 12 years younger than I am so his energy level is high. Unfortunately it didn’t translate into good results on the court. We went 1-3 and missed playoffs. The game we did win we had to come back from being down 20-18 to win. Unfortunately the scene was much the same as most matches this year. The other team constantly serves to my partner forcing me into being a setter which is something I don’t excel at and the results are poor. I lost my temper several times. One noticable incident was after I got a rare serve, Jeremy made a good set tight to the net. There was no block and I decided I wanted to crush the ball straight down to relieve some frustration and instead pounded the ball into the net. I was screaming the lord’s name in vain, grabbed the net and shook it violently and just made a general ass of myself. The whole day was more or less like that with us losing to teams that a year ago I would have written off as sure wins for me. It sucked. Jeremy is a good kid and despite the bad results, it was fun to play with him and we got along well off the court. His skills are raw and we would need a decent amount of practice time to iron out our game. This week are the finals for the other tourney in South Beach. I’ll bust my ass and pray for better results. I’d hate to have my season end with play similar to this week. It would make me seriously doubt if I wanted to keep at it.
My mom had the weekend off since she ended her old job Friday and starts the new one today so she came out. She went shopping with Ali on Saturday and then stayed over till Sunday. It was nice having her out as we don’t see her nearly enough. Her new job has much better hours which we hope will translate into more regular visits from her.
On Sunday I knocked out a few housechores but since Mom was there for a good chunk of the day and the fact that wanted to watch football, I blew off cutting the grass. I’m sure I’ll regret it when I am trudging through a jungle next weekend but oh well.
On Sunday morning Ali and I did our run. Ali set a new personal best with running a total of 2.5 miles, which was cut into to two 1.25 mile segments. The first running session was really tough on her so I was surprised she pushed it on round two. She really has showed interest in pursuing running regularly which I am more than happy to support. Even though I played vball Saturday, I was able to run Sunday without major issue. Other parts of my body hurt more than my legs and knees.
On my way home from the tournament on Saturday I was in a downer mood from the bad vball performance (which I am still feeling today). I stopped in traffic behind an early 90’s Ford Escort hatchback. On the glass there were two stickers. In the bottom left corner was one that said “Nice People Swallow” and in the middle top was one that simply saild “ASSHOLE” I’m sure this guy picks up lots of chicks.
My opening week in fantasy football was a downer as well. My QB and wide receivers totally sucked, combined they generated 10 points which is unreal. Even with that miserable performance I only lost by 8 points so if even one of those players could have performed up to par I would have won. How can Trent Green score 7 points with the team putting up 28?? My reserve QB, Joey stinkin Harrington would have been a better choice Sunday. Carnell Williams who was on the bench for me, racked up 148 yards and a TD. Grrrr. Such are the ups and downs of FF.
I forgot to mention last week a hilarious Jack Lalanne show we watched. In this episode, he incorporated a normal hard cover book into the workout. He had us squeeze the book in front for the chest, extend it behind for a triceps exercise and several other book exercises. Then he had us laying on our backs, he says “Ok, put the book in your mouth and bite down on it!” then you were supposed to raise your head up and down while clenching on the book. This exercise caused uncontrollable laughter from me and I didn’t follow along. It looked so damn funny. These shows are just awesome.
On Saturday night we had our neighbors over. We played a marathon game of Dogopoly, a dog based version of monopoly. When we called the game at 12:30am I was the clear leader in money and was declared winner, but we found out that we weren’t exactly following all the rules and if we were, my one neighbor would have won it all for sure. It was a hollow victory.
On Sunday we had outside work to do, the biggest job was mowing the grass. As I was weed whacking and Ali was on the lawn tractor she came over to me and motioned for me to follow her. She pointed to the ground. I looked down and saw a snake that evidently didn’t vacate the area of the mower and got clipped by the blades. It was bleeding badly from the middle but wasn’t dead and was writhing around. Ali was very upset. I wasn’t sure what to do. I debated if I should take a shovel and try to end it for the poor snake or leave it be to let things run their course. I decided to pick the snake up with a shovel and I took him over to high grass. I laid him down, told him we were sorry and I covered him with palm fronds to shelter him. For some reason I had this ridiculous hope that he would be able to recover from his injuries. I checked on him a couple hours later and was still hanging on but when I checked on him the next morning he was gone. I felt like shit as I dug a hole and buried him. I guess the better choice would have been to just try to kill him instantly to end whatever suffering a snake feels. I just dreaded the prospect of him not dying after my first attempt and me having to repeatedly try to turn out the lights for him. Hopefully I don’t have to find myself in that situation again anytime soon. It was an Eastern Garter snake, a species that I had not seen in our yard before.
On Monday we went to Haverty’s, where my mom works, for now. She has worked there since she moved down to Naples but has never been thrilled about working at the place. She just got a new job that sounds much better where she is part salary/ part commission instead of all commission. So anyway, we went there to look at china cabinets. Ali has wanted one for a long time and my thinking was since my mom was only going to be selling furniture for another week, we should see if we can buy from her, something we never did in all of her years in the furniture business. So we dropped in unannounced and had my mom show us what they had. After a bit of back and forth action we landed on a cabinet we liked. However the original idea of just buying a cabinet had mutated into buying a cabinet, a matching dining room table with 6 chairs, and a mini-curio cabinet. This approach would give us a second room in the house with matching furniture (bedroom was first) that we didn’t put together from a box. It will look great when it comes I’m sure. It’s a decent chunk of change but it felt good to finally buy something from mom.
I used to watch America Funniest Home Videos faithfully during it’s first run in the late 80’s-early 90’s when Bob Sagat was the host. Around that same time period I bought my first camcorder and used it all the time to tape events. One of these events I caught on tape was what I thought was a potential 10,000 dollar winner. I was rolling at a party at my ex-inlaws house. My ex-wife’s 2 uncles were in the shot and her cousin, a cute little girl. The one uncle was holding a pinata and Becky was blindfolded. Brian was holding the pinata a little high and got wailed point blank in the jewels. It was funny as hell. I immediately dubbed the tape and sent it off, waiting for a call to come out to Hollywood that never came. Well Sunday night Ali was cutting my hair and I had the TV on. I flipped to live TV, something I almost never do anymore. The latest version of AFHV was on with the Hollywood Squares guy as host. I’m watching funny clip after clip, enjoying the show. They came to a segment where they showed a rapid fire sequence of people and pinatas. One of the clips struck me as odd. Thanks to Tivo, I was able to back up the live broadcast and look again. I’ll be damned! They were showing my clip! They were showing my clip that I sent in at least a dozen years earlier! I was dumbfounded, that first, they were showing the tape after all these years and second, that I just happened to be watching the show which I normally NEVER see anymore. The irony of it is one of those things just make you scratch your head. I plan on ripping off the clip and saving it on my web site. It really is amazing that I saw this. I may even contact my ex-inlaws to clue them in.
On Labor day we had no holiday plans but then our neighbors asked us Monday afternoon if we wanted to come over for a short notice cookout. At first I was not agreeable to going cause I had a few things I wanted to do, one of them was playing Warcraft. But then I went over and had a good time. I found out that my neighbor likes play tennis, golf and bowl, all things I enjoy as well so we agreed to get some matches going. We are trying to get Nicki more comfortable with them so they could pet sit for us when we go to Palm Springs.
It would be awesome to be able to do that instead of kenneling her.
Today we set yet another record for commute time. It’s ironic that it came the day after my letter to the editor hit the presses on Labor Day. To reach the first intersection, 2 miles from our house took 43 minutes. This was leaving at 6:38 am. I continued my email barrage of county officials, again sending in the times from today’s drive and again asking that they reverse the unfortunate decision to allow dump trucks into traffic earlier. I hope to get some sort of action soon. It is miserable.
Speaking of miserable but in terms far more serious, the New Orleans situation is going to get dramatic if the predictions of thousands of confirmed deaths come true as they pump water out of the city. W is taking a big beating on this, however, as much as I can’t stand the man I realize that the logistics of mobilizing all that equipment, manpower and supplies is something that can not happen instantly. Perhaps the biggest fault was not anticipating the doom sooner and have stuff starting to mobilize before the hurricane even struck. It is going to be a miserable news week as more and more stories and images of the destruction in the region come to light.
Todays quote from George Orwell
?Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise?
It is incredible how quickly New Orleans has unwound into a lawless society. The stories coming out of there are despicable. It’s amazing how people can quickly turn into animals given the opportunity. I don’t recall any reports of looting and lawlessness after the tsunami wiped out 200,000 plus yet here, in supposedly the most civilized of countries in the world we have people running wild in an urban area. Sad.
Katrina’s impact started spreading throughout the country in force yesterday. Gas panic drove lemmings to the pumps. People driving down the road see the gas station overrun and suddenly think they need to jump in the line as well for fear of being gasless. Prices here jumped to around 3 bucks a gallon yesterday. This entire situation put a huge glaring spotlight on how fragile our gas supply lines are. Isn’t it reassuring to know that a storm can send the nation into a gas starved panic? Of course the scarcity is a a carefully engineered product of oil companies. I read there have been no new refineries built in the US in the last 20 years even though the demand has increased steadily over that time period due to population explosion. Now they are walking such a fine line that the smallest ripple causes a huge wave to the consumer in gas prices. Of course the oil companies have pulled in record setting profits in the last year so Bush is happy, his family’s huge investment in oil must be paying off like the lottery. Never mind the impact on the country, expensive gas affects almost every aspect of the economy. The situation is total bullshit. I am just disgusted with it all.
My email rant must have been read because the delay at the first light was halved from 41 minutes to 20 minutes today. On our way home last night, after hitting backed up traffic after 7pm in the evening and after ranting about the lemmings at the gas pumps, I was ranting to Ali about the incompetence of the county traffic control department, the road construction workers and just about anything else to do with getting from point A to point B.
For labor day weekend we aren’t going anywhere. I want to stay at my house, away from people.
There is a convenience store in our area that basically has a monopoly. They tried to use this monopoly to price gouge it’s customers this week. Everyone predicts that gas prices are going to go up in the next week or so because of the impact from Katrina. However this gas station thought they would begin profiting from the disaster immediately. On Monday the cost of unleaded was $2.64, on Tuesday these bastards raised the price 25 cents to $2.89 a gallon. Obviously their cost didn’t go up overnight yet they raised their prices 10% overnight to pad their pockets. I went ballistic when I saw it. When I got to work I immediately went to the attorney general web site and reported the price gouging. On the way home from work, even though I needed gas, I bypassed the store and instead dumped gas into the car from a 5 gallon gas container I had in the garage for the generator. This morning on the way to work the price had magically dropped back to $2.67. F those jerks, I will avoid buying gas there like the plague if possible.
Speaking of the drive into work, today was again record setting. It took me 41 minutes to reach the first traffic light, a distance of 2 miles. The entire commute took 98 minutes. This was with us leaving our driveway at 6:29 AM!! The dump trucks are a big part of it but I also realized that the traffic light timing at that intersection was overwhelmingly biased towards the traffic turning ONTO the backlogged road instead of the traffic already sitting in the backlog. So I sent want is becoming my daily email to transportation officials about the stupid light timing and demanding that the dump truck start times are pushed back to what they were. I will continue complaining louder and louder until something is done, I can’t use an adjective to describe how annoying it is to be greeted by this mess every morning.
The Katrina aftermath instead of getting better each day seems to be worsening. New Orleans seems to be unraveling into a state of lawlessness and the flooding is horrific. I was talking to Ali about in the long run whom is better off in terms of recovery. I think in some ways the people that had their homes totally destroyed will be better off than the ones whose homes will be sitting in flood waters for days or weeks. Imagine trying to repair all the water damage that will be there, the house will have to be gutted and redone basically and even then you could have lingering problems. At least the homes that got smashed will be starting fresh. Plus homes that are knocked down are covered under hurricane policies, houses sitting in flood waters are not covered by hurricane policies and unless the homeowner had separate flood insurance they are SOL. Anyway you look at it, it is going to go down in history and be a storm that is talked about when I am old and gray.
The pictures of the aftermath of Katrina are horrible. It makes what we went through with Charley last year seem like a walk in the park. I can’t imagine what people in that area are feeling right now. It certainly made me think long and hard about what we would do if something that strong came blowing through here.
