Man I feel like shit today. The weekend was a rough one. It started out well enough. Friday night we went over to our neighbors house for dinner. They also had some friends of their’s over so it was a nice little group. Saturday morning Ali and I went to the track for “speed work”. The object of speed work is to improve your overall cardiovascular conditioning by running fast intervals. I had not run since my knee started hurting almost 2 weeks ago so I was nervous about starting up again. So we ran 2 slow laps and then did our first interval lap. I let Ali set the pace and she was fast, fast enough that I doubt I would have been able to go much faster if I wanted to. I was really surprised she had that sort of speed in her. Well by the time we finished the lap we both were sucking major wind. We ran 3 slow laps, another fast, 3 more slow and then one more fast one. It was a good change of pace from our normal running routine. My knee that felt ok during most of the run had that deep burn by the time we were done. So when we got home I iced it up. It felt tender for the rest of the weekend but feels somewhat better today.
After I got done icing it was time to dig into my outdoor projects. My primary mission was to get the pool cleaned up and suitable for swimming. I started dumping chemicals in it earlier in the week so the deep nasty green was now only a pale green. I had the pool cleaner in there but it kept getting clogged by the pile of debris that had settled in the corner of the deep end. So I decided to don my swim mask and manually clean the crap out. Ali thought I was nuts going into the greenish water but I assured her I would be fiine. Visibility was very limited, I could only probably see 3 feet in front of me. I came to the pile of junk and grabbed at it but discovered that the movement of my hand stirred up the water, launching the twigs, leaves and other assorted flotsam into the water. So after grabbing a couple small handfuls of junk and sending the majority of the rest of the junk back up into the water I abandoned my underwater mission. I instead grabbed the skimmer and scooped out whatever I could. Then I pulled off the dirty, disgusting pool cover, hosed it off and stuck it into the shed. Then I clumsily jammed the pool cover reel, which is a good 15 feet long up into the rafters of the shed. Getting it up there required some creative pulling, pushing and jamming. I pulled out the shop vac and vacuumed up some of the crap on the pool deck and that was the end of it. As the weekend progressed the green faded and now the water is just cloudy which should clear in a few days.
After I got out of the pool I never bothered to put my shirt back on the rest of the afternoon. I don’t really know why I didn’t put it on, my recent skin cancer incidents makes me more often than not chose to leave clothes on than off. So for 4 or 5 hours I was out in the yard watering, trimming and putting stuff away. I could feel my back starting to sting yet I did nothing about it, stupid.
So by the time Saturday evening came around I was a mess. My knee hurt, my lower left back hurt, my skin stung from sunburn and the moon was at it’s fullest, shining overhead. It was miserable.
Sunday was Mother’s Day but Ali had to work. We made plans with my mom to take her to Cheesecake Factory. She had never been there. The pain in my back/side had gotten worse. Even though I didn’t feel like it, I told my mom the last time I saw her that I would haul out her computer and computer desk that she never uses the next time I came over. So we took the party van to pick up my mom so we would have room to haul the stuff back.
I had the bright idea that if we got to Cheesecake Factory early, like 5pm, we would miss the big crowd. Well evidently everyone else had the same idea. I was surprised when the hostess told me it would be a 10-20 minute wait. 45 minutes later we hear our names being called, yes called. Cheesecake Factory recently changed their procedures for people waiting. They used to have the pager system that has become very popular. You check in, they give you a pager and when your table is ready it lights up and buzzes. When they first opened they used this system and it worked fine. However the last two times we have gone there they have abandoned the pager system. Instead the for some reason think it is better to have someone walk around the lobby, outside and to the bar yelling someone’s name, hoping they hear them. It is so stupid. The last time we were there we missed our calling. I had to go up and ask what the deal was to which they said they called for us. I told them that we heard nothing. Some genius must think it is more “personal” to have someone screaming your name.
The meal itself was very good and our waiter was first class. He was well spoken, attentive and made our meal much more enjoyable. The menu at CCF is huge, it is at least 15 pages long and the portions are huge. If you clean your plate you are a first class pig. I like CCF but Carraba’s still is the leader in my favorite restaurants clubhouse. We took mom home and loaded up the stuff in the van. My back pain made it very difficult to load the furniture into the van. If I turned a certain way I would get a stabbing pain that made me wince badly. Ali had to give me more than a little of a helping hand.
I woke up this morning feeling horrible. My back still hurt, my sunburn still stung, my mood was still dark and to top it off my stomach felt like it was jumpping through hoops. I feel old and broken down.
Last night we watched all three hours of the Survivor finale. Again it was a disappointment. I was glad that Danielle lost. She flat out lied to Terry three times. Terry deserved to go to the finals, he kicked ass like no other Survivor I saw. Other people have had good fortune with winning a lot of challenges but Terry did it with his back against the wall. The second he screwed up they were going to get rid of him and he just kept winning. I don’t know why but it seems far more often than not, the person at the end that gets to choose who they go to the finals with makes the wrong decision and winds up losing. I think Danielle would have had a better shot against Terry. The final tribal council was very lame. Everyone threw out softball questions except for Shane, who was great. He was brutally honest and said what Ali and I were thinking, Terry was the one who deserved to be there, not them. Overall this cast was not great, I would probably rate this season in the bottom third of all of them. We’ll still be watching next season.
I put an Epic quality rifle up on the auction house in WoW (Precisely Calibrated Boomstick – http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=2100). I stole it from someone for 95 gold and have it listed for 350 gold. As you can see the median price is 300g so I am going for a homerun. I was debating equipping it on my 44 hunter but the stats while good (+14 agility) weren’t enough to make me not try to flip it for a 250 gold profit. Yesterday I got into an argument with another hunter in Zul”Furak when he told the group to roll NEED on an epic pair of gloves that would have been perfect for my feral druid. At first I let it slide but then I got more and more angry. I eventually hearthed out of the instance which hurt them since I was the healer. I then totally f’d them when I disbanded the group (I was group leader) which caused them to get booted out of the instance and have to redo it. I told the hunter I was going to write about him on the WoW forums telling everyone what a ninja he was. (which I didn’t) but then I logged into my other characters and told the guy that how I just read about him on the forums and how he was an ass for stealing the stuff. He kept asking where it was so he could read it. Eventually he logged off after I badgered him 3 or 4 times.