Archives 2006

I forgot to mention that Saturday night I had my second fit of rage in a week.  Tuki our Senegal parrot doesn’t like me very much.  When we first got him, he used to let me handle him any way I wanted.  Then a few years ago, I made the mistake of trying to trim his nails.  I trimmed too far and hurt him, ever since then he has become very attached to Ali and tolerates me.  One of his favorite tricks is to turn his head and quickly bite me when I was rubbing his head, so I stopped rubbing his head.

Well Saturday night we had him out of his cage.  We were ready to get to bed but Tuki was still out.  Most of the time when I put fresh food in his crock, he will come back inside and know that it is bed time.  When he doesn’t that means he is unhappy and it will be a battle.  Normally what happens is he will step up on your finger and then as you are putting him back in he will bite it.  It hurts but I can deal with it.  Well Saturday night I attempted to retrieve him, he stepped up on my finger and bit it, hard.  I held him up and scolded him loudly, as I went to put him in, he bit it again, HARDER.  The little f’r drew blood.  I angrily shoved him into his cage, threatening him.  I held my fist (which is as big as him) in front of him, telling him he better knock it the F off.  Again, from inside the cage, he lunges at me.  Well I lost it.  I punch his swing, sending him flying off of it.  The follow through breaks the wooden perch inside it.  I fought the urge right below the surface to grab the bird and break it’s neck.  Nothing will turn me into a raging lunatic faster than someone/thing physically assaulting me.  I grabbed the broken perch off the bottom of the cage and hit the swing again, hard, making a huge commotion and scaring the bird to death.

Tuki retreated to the back/top perch as I removed the broken perch and slammed his door shut, still yelling at him.  Ali happened to be in the shower for all of this, luckily.  I showed her my bloody finger and confessed I almost killed the bird.  Ali now yelled at me.  I was still brimming with anger but soon I settled down and felt bad for my actions.  The next day I retrieved the broken pieces and glued his perch back together.  He is still freaked out.  Since the incident, he won’t come down to his food bowl to retrieve the peanuts I normally give him.  He seems scared to go back onto his repaired perch.  Perhaps he is afraid it will attack him again.  I feel like a heel but hopefully in a few days he will forget, but I doubt it.  This part of my personality that is normally dormant for months or years at a time is a scary thing.

I just got some very sad news.  Alison’s grandfather died this morning.  Ali is very upset and I will be flying up to PA with her when we hear of the funeral arrangements.  In the grand scheme of things, I know it is better this way, Pop Pop was no longer living a life that was worth living.  He was fortunate to be more or less fully active for almost his entire adult life. Up until a year or so ago, he was still driving and going out to eat every day.  It was his time.  I will miss him.  In a way he filled in for my own grandfather whom passed away years ago. 

Over the four day holiday weekend there were many things that came to mind as bloggable but I wrote none of them down so my chances of remembering much will be very slim.  One thing I do remember, late Saturday night we got a call from my brother-in-law that my sister just gave birth to a baby girl, Emily, their first child.  Congrats to them.  I am now an uncle two times over.

Our Thanksgiving was good.  We picked up mom on the way home from work Wednesday night.  When we got home, we went over to the neighbors and picked up their dog Zoe.  Having Zoe and mom in the house added to the fun.  Zoe is very high energy yet she took to snuggling with my mom right away.  When my mom would be out on the lanai, Zoe would be sitting there with her, sometimes right under her legs.  It’s also entertaining watching Nicki and Zoe chase each other around.

On Wednesday night we had no big plans but we did watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special.  I always enjoy it.  The cold weather that made heating the pool a pointless act, made it really feel like Thanksgiving.  Later in the night while Ali and my mom watched Desperate Housewives, I went out to the garage and played with the TCH, trying to figure out some of the features.  I also installed the Sirius satellite in it.  It was much simpler than I feared it would be.  I wanted to make it as clean as possible.  Instead of routing the antenna wire from the exterior of the car, I simply put it inside, on the dash by the corner of the windshield on the driver side.  You hardly notice it.  Routing the cables was easy and the trim pieces popped off and on easily.  I have the unit placed in the compartment at the bottom of the center control cluster, hidden from view.  The only thing I wish was different was if control of it could be handled through the LCD controls.  But it sounds great and works well.

Thanksgiving went off just fine.  Ali busted ass getting everything ready.  She made a regular boneless turkey breast for mom and me and a Tofurkey for her. (tofu turkey) I actually like the tofurkey alot and I would be fine just having that, we may actually go that route next year.  Everything tasted great although the amount of time spent enjoying the meal seemed disproportionally small compared to the time to prep and clean up afterwards.  I think part of the issue is with only three people at the table, two of whom already spend each day together, it’s hard to drag the meal out very long. 

While mom was there she tried to hang out outside for awhile to take in the sunshine.  The problem was it was cool already, and a brisk wind made it uncomfortable to sit outside for very long.  After clean up from the meal, mom was soon ready to go home so I ran her back.  She thought the new car was extremely nice.  For once we were kind of proud to show off our car.

On Friday morning, my buddy from work asked me to help him move.  He said he only had a few things and I knew he was not a pack rat so it should be no big deal.  He also asked John from work to help.  I sort of assumed he would have asked some of his other buddies as well but was kind of surprised it was just us.  The move was not easy.  The old house had some challenging angles to tackle.  The worst of it involved getting a sleeper sofa down from the upstairs.  When I accepted the request to help, I didn’t even give thought to the hernia/strain thing I have going on.  Although the pain is pretty much gone, I still feel tweaks down there on a pretty regular basis.  During the moving, I felt lots of tweaks as I pushed, lifted, pulled and strained to move furniture.  Oh well.  Thankfully, the place he moved into was very easy to access.  It had big double doors in the front and almost everything went on the first floor.  I bet we had the truck unloaded in a little over a half hour.  The entire move was only around 3 hours so it could have been much worse.  I returned home feeling tired and a bit beat up.

For the Thanksgiving weekend, I had very little on my mind in regard to housework.  No major projects and only a handful of small ones.  In the back of my mind I was clearing room to play a lot of WoW.  This weekend was a double honor Av weekend.  No need to explain what that means, just say it meant that there was a virtual reason for me to be in game, a lot. And I did play, a lot.  Starting Friday afternoon and through a big chunk of Saturday, I spent the lions share of my time  in front of the computer, grinding out in game gold and reputation with the Stormpike Guard.  I worked my chores around the game, if I was waiting to get into an instance (which had a Q time of about 45 minutes)  I would knock out some chores in between.

  It actually got to the point where Ali complained about me playing so much, something she hardly ever does.  She knows that I normally bust my ass at home so she doesn’t care about me playing.  But on Saturday she felt like I was slacking.  While she mowed the grass in the field in the back I stayed inside, doing little else but emptying the dishwasher.  Evidently she was annoyed that I didn’t change the laundry out as well which eventually lead to her comment.  I knew that I was playing a whole bunch, more than I should but I also thought I deserved a free pass based on my normal track record.  I let Ali stay in bed till almost 10 that day, she like to sleep.  So I didn’t react favorably to her complaints but I still shut things down for the day and ceased from my WoW grind.

After stepping out of my virtual coma, I asked Ali if she wanted to watch a movie.  I had downloaded The Departed and really wanted to watch it.  However Ali, like she frequently does, went onto IMDB.com and read the review of the movie ahead of time and deemed she did not want to see it.  WTF, it has a great cast, it’s supposed to be a great movie yet she doesn’t want to see it.  Too much violence and she just wasn’t into it.  Hell I can’t even get her to go see Borat even though it is supposed to be funny as hell. 

So anyway I am going over the list of movies I have on my system to view, lots of awesome flick I haven’t seen yet like Transporter 2, Fast and Furious Tokoyo Drift, Jack Ass 2, Van Helsing and a few more, none of which she would watch with me…

  So we finally agreed she would watch the new Poseidon flick that I downloaded awhile ago, it is a remake of the original Poseidon adventure with Ernest Borgnine that I think came out in the 70’s.  I was surprised she agreed to watch that, it had lots of death and violence in it.  The movie was ok.  Early on you see the core group of people that are trying to escape and you are placing odds on who is gonna get bumped off.  I was a bit surprised who made it to the very end.  The film was filled with big time special effects, lots of action albeit it was borderline ridiculous at times, and lots and lots of things blowing up, people getting burned and drowned and a big boat going down.  The guy that was one of the main bad guys in the Hulk was a main character.  He performed ridiculous things throughout the movie, holding his breath like he was Aquaman and performing heroic acts non-stop.  The move was eh, ok.  I see why it flopped at the box office.  I give it a C+.

On Sunday, we did something a bit different.  Ali was scheduled to do a 5 mile run for her half marathon training regimen.  Instead of running nearby, we loaded up the truck and decided to go have her run on Gulf Shore Blvd, right by the beach.  We figured afterward we could spend some time on the beach.  I wasn’t up to running 5 miles yet so I packed my rollerblades.  The weather at our place was overcast and cool but at the shore it was sunny and warmer. During the run, I took a number of pictures with my cell phone.  The run tooks us through the ultra-rich section of Naples, called Port Royale.  The houses were incredible monuments to excess.  I will post the pictures later.

I slapped on my rollerblades.  If Satan designed a pair of rollerblades, I think I have them.  I have had these rollerblades for over a decade easily and from day one they hurt my feet.  They are solid molded plastic and use three plastic straps to hold your feet in place.  I knew 5 miles was a long ass way to go in these blades so initially I tried to wear them a bit loose to slow down the pain process.  Well it didn’t work, having them loose just made my feet hurt in a different way.  After only a mile or so, my feet were already killing me.  At the end of five miles it was close to unbearable.  I HAVE to get a different set.

Ali pushed through the five miles but when she was done, she said her knee hurt badly.  Once she finished running she was limping.  I asked her if she wanted to just go home and ice it but she said no, that we could hang at the beach a bit.  Once we set up on the sand, we went down into the chilly water and let her soak her knee in it for a bit.  It seems like every time Ali starts bumping up the distance in her training, a knee injury always follows.  She has resigned herself to not being able to run the half marathon, her joints just won’t hold up.  I told her I was happier running shorter distances, faster anyway.

We only spent maybe an hour at the beach.  I read a couple magazines, took in the sights and I was ready to go, mostly because I was hungry.  We stopped at Subway on the way home. 

Once we got home, Ali iced up her knee, popped an Aleve and laid down to take a nap for awhile.  I knocked out whatever chores I could do quietly and f’d around in WoW again.  The Eagles didn’t play until Sunday night so my afternoon was unusually free.  They may as well have not played.

That game was horrid.  Even though I figured they would lose, I held out hope they could pull out a miracle.  It seems every week the NFL is filled with games with improbable outcomes.  Well the Eagles ended any drama early.  The defense in recent weeks has played like they have collectively blown out their ACL, they have been basically terrible and last night they turned it up a notch, sucking more than a turbo powered Hoover.  I mean it was embarrassing.  It looked like the Colts were playing a high school defense.  I just don’t get it, when the season started, the defense was wreaking havoc, making big plays, leading the league in sacks and seemed to be a real strength of the team.  The only significant injury is Kearse, but other than that, the D is intact from opening day.  I am amazed that his loss could make that much of a difference.  I don’t know what the problem is and I have no idea how to fix it.  All I know is the defense looked absolutely putrid and I have little hope of the Eagles being better than a 7-9 team at this point.  It’s a shame that a season that showed so much promise initially, has totally collapsed. 

 I am sick of hearing how good Andy Reid and Jim Johnson are as coaches.  Either the talent on defense is severely lacking or the coaches lack the ability to adapt when offense figures out what the D is doing.  Either way, the fat man and JJ are to blame.  They lauded their defensive changes pre-season, telling us how good they were.  Maybe the Eagles core D is just getting old. Whatever, I will continue to watch but just like the last half of last season, the expectation level is extremely low.

Ali started working on the Xmas shopping.  For the past few years we have done the majority of our Christmas shopping online, mostly through Amazon.com.  It seems each of the past few years we have had frustrating issues with Amazon yet we keep going back for some reason. This year is no different.  Ali picked out a number of items in Amazon’s easy to use and massive web site.  She figured shopping this early would allow us to use the “Super Saver” shipping.  Low shipping costs are necessary if you want to actually save money shopping online.  After she spent a long time picking everything out, she goes to checkout where it recaps your order.  She was very annoyed to see that even though we were a month away from the big day, a number of the items would not be delivered before Christmas with “Super Saver” shipping.  But, if you were willing to pay for two day shipping, everything would be fine and dandy.  Yea ok, so if we spend another 70 bucks on shipping we can get the stuff on time?  That is total bullshit.  I told Ali it sounds like a way for Amazon to eek out some extra dollars by skimming some bucks off the inflated shipping charges.  Even though it wasn’t Ali’s fault, I carried on how doing that totally negates any advantage of buying online.  If they are going to kill you on shipping, it is cheaper to just go to a store and buy it.  F’in Amazon pisses me off. It sucks that their site is so easy to navigate and has almost anything.

I was considering hanging the xmas lights this weekend but opted not to.  Ali and I also have been throwing around the idea of getting a fake tree.  Instead of contributing to cutting down millions of trees we could just have a reusable one to unpack each year.  In some ways it sounds good, no cats trying to drink the water and then throwing up from it, no messy needles, no frustrating mounting process.  But then there is a part of me that sees it as giving in, choosing convenience over authenticity.  Every year of my existence that I can remember (well except the Christmas of my divorce) I have had a real tree in the house, filling the house with a smell that is unmistakable.  It adds something to the the holiday, which already has been losing impact on me as I age.  I think we will just wind up buying another live tree.  The dead tree gives animals something to nest in.

Over the weekend, Joe Scott a longtime DJ in this area died.  He was only 46.  He had a long and tumultous track record with his radio station.  He was hired and fired many times, mostly due to issues with drug and alcohol addiction. He also had weight issues, once being as much as 350 pounds.  He later lost a ton of weight and actually was featured in Men’s Health for his weight loss. As f’d up as he was, I found him entertaining to listen to.  News of his death hit me a bit.  He has been off the air since March when he was fired for the final time.

  On the fun topic of death, I saw a quote by Kurt Cobain, ironically while watching one of the “I Love the 90’s” shows on VH1.  He basically said “…it is better to burn out than fade away”. I agree.  I would much prefer a sudden, unexpected departure than a torturous, slow descent into an increasingly helpless, weak and confused state of being. But that’s just me. 

We absolutely love the Camry Hybrid.  I can’t tell you how many times I said to Ali how this thing or that thing was cool about the car.  Ali, who normally isn’t as turned on by gadgets as I am, likes the gadgets.  I wowed her yesterday.  I said “watch this….”  I hit a few buttons on the touch screen and all of a sudden the screen drops down and folds out to reveal the slots to put in cd’s and dvd’s.  It’s smooth robotic action makes you feel like you are witnessing something in a sci-fi movie. 

 Here is a list of some of the other cool things about the car:

It has voice activated commands.  Say you are hungry, hit a button, wait for the beep and say “Restaurants”  the navigation system will display any restaurants it knows about on the map.   If you are trying to find some place and only know the address, you can say the address to the car and it will route you there.  If you want to dial a phone number, you can simply say it. 

The car has dual climate control.  One issue Ali and I always have had is I like the car cooler than she does.  Now she can have her side toasty warm while I have a cool breeze blowing on me, it is awesome.

It has smart keys.  The “key” is not a key at all it is an RFID device that you just need to have in the car whether that means in your pocket, purse or thrown on the seat.  Then you just put your foot on the brake and hit the POWER button.  When you come up to the car and it is locked, once again, if you have the key on you, simply put your hand on the door handle (it senses your hand is there) wait a second and pull, the door opens automagically.  The same thing works for the trunk.

When a door is open, you see a graphical representation of it on the little LCD screen in the middle of the speedometer.  When it closes, you see the door close on the screen in animated fashion. (yea it’s very minor but I like it)

When you press the gas door release button, there can be a delay of up to ten seconds.  It detects the pressure in the gas tank and if it is too high it will vent it before allowing access to the gas cap.  ( I suppose with a high voltage electrical system sitting back there, having gas fumes flying around could be a dangerous thing)

It has buttons in the headliner that replace the remote control for your garage door.  It can control up to three devices, right now I just have the left button opening the door.

I could go on and on about how great this car is.  The average mileage we have gotten just keeps going up and up, right now we are up to about 36 mpg.  The car looks very sharp, it turns heads, something I haven’t seen since I was driving my 71 Buick convertible.  We really like it.

One small consolation for the huge money we dumped to the dealer is we unloaded the Sentra that had multiple issues.  It needed all four tires replaced, a new fuel pump, had a sporadic check engine light issue and had some cosmetic blemishes.  I would have probably dropped at least a grand into it in the coming months.  It would really be helpful if the lady who’s 500 dollars I am holding on the van would come through.  I am going to have to give her a call in the next few days.  I can’t believe they can’t get the money together.

Well last night was the final episode in my cpu cooler saga.  Even though the original cooler was doing a good job of cooling, I had my 50 dollar Scythe Ninja sitting there, mocking me.  After my initial install problems with it, I went out and spent a few extra bucks for a universal mounting kit that supposedly would fix the issues with clearance I had before.  I also got some super duper thermal transfer paste.

So I once again rip into the computer.  Installation of the universal mounting kit was messy and tedious.  Many times I had to stop and dig around the case to find little washers and screws that I dropped.  Finally, I got the mounts on and attached the Ninja to it.  It felt nice and snug.  I button everything back up, plug everything back in and hope for the best.  The OS loads and I give it a minute or two to settle down before checking the temperatures.  SON OF A BITCH, it is still higher than the stock cooler by a good eight or nine degrees!  WTF??  Ok that’s it, I am done f’ing with this.  I disconnect everything, rip the ninja out and throw the stock cooler back in, crank it down tight and figure that is it, it does a better job than anything else, it stays.

So I hooked the puter back up, turned it on and walked back to the kitchen island to clean up the mess from my tinkering.  It is getting late and I am very tired so I just want to clean up and get to bed.  As I am cleaning up, I hear some background noise go dead.  The background noise was the fans from my computer.  I glanced in the computer room and saw the screen off.  That could only mean one thing, overheating!!!

My temper is flaring, I am so sick of f’in with this and just want to go to bed, but waking up to the prospect of a dysfunctional computer is not an option so I once again, disconnect the box, put it on the counter and rip into it.  I unscrew two of the four bolts that hold down the cpu cooler.  Then I crank on the other two.  I turn, I turn, I turn more, much more than I should have to release the bolts.  They will not release.  Like an idiot I just keep turning and turning, thinking it will magically come off.  I try turning while pressing hard, try turning while pushing at an angle, no dice.  I am beyond pissed.  I whip out the flashlight and shine the light down there as I turn.  The standoffs that the bolts screw into are turning….  I guess when I tightened it down I was a bit too ambitious and stripped it.

I was exhausted, yet rage started to come over me.  It is the rage that hits me very rarely but motivates me to do spontaneous, stupid acts of violence.  I actually entertained the idea of taking the computer over my head and smashing the shit out of it on the floor, I really was.  Luckily I regained some sanity before doing so.  After pointlessly trying to turn some more, I remove the system board to get a better look.  What happened is the support you screw into is plastic with metal threaded inserts.  From the repeated installations of the bracket and my over zealous tightening, I managed to spin the insert in the plastic, rounding off the corners.  Even with the board out of the computer, I could not come up with a way to stop the insert from spinning, then I got serious.

By now it was after 11 and I was going to get this damn thing off it killed me and the computer.  So I go into the garage and get the heavy duty tools, a vice grips and big ass cutters.  I repeatedly try to grab the insert to hold it while I unscrewed the heatsink.  I was having little luck.  Each failed attempt increased my blood pressure.  I was man handling the delicate system board like it was a piece of wood.  Vice grips and diag cutters aren’t normally tools used for system board repair but they were my weapons of choice.  After many, many tries, I was able to get the screws turned out.  I took the support plate from one the other shitty cooler that didn’t work and used it for the stock cooler.  I put it all back together and prayed my abuse of the components didn’t result in me killing the system all together.

I hook the cables up, take a deep breath and fire it up.  It still works!  Alright!  It boots up and stays on so that means the cooler is at least on well enough to keep the cpu within operating range.  Once it settles down I once again run the temp test and low and behold it’s good.  It’s actually 5 degrees or so cooler than it was before.  I attest that to the the upgraded thermal paste.  Holy shit, it all works and I am never touching it again.  After clean up and shower, my head didn’t hit the pillow until a few ticks before midnight.

After work yesterday I once again ran with Ali.  It was quite chilly, hovering around 60 with a bit of wind.  I did not dress appropriately and only had on the shorts and the sleeveless t-shirt I wore for the gym.  We went over to Sugden park to run.  I was freezing my ass off.  About a mile or so into the two mile run I felt better but the cool wind still made my face cold and nose run.  We ran the two miles at a good pace, wrapping it up in 19:12.   I popped two Motrin at home and my knee today feels normal.

For Thanksgiving we are picking my mom up tonight and then having a little mini-celebration tomorrow.  We will be dog sitting the neighbor’s dog for two and a half days as well so she can add to the fun.  Originally Ali and I entertained the idea of doing the Thanksgiving Run but the forecast calls for it to be quite chilly again tomorrow morning and I am not quite sure I am up to putting another four miles on my body anyway.  Ali is pumped to not have to get up super early.  I was going to fire up the pool heater for the holiday but with as cool as it is supposed to be, I would be spending a ton of electrical dollars to heat something  that will see little use.  My mom said to not bother, so I didn’t.   

We actually picked up the car last night on the way home from the airport.  Off and on throughout the day I was in contact with the salesman trying to line stuff up.  He seemed very laid back about it.  I was worried about all the pieces being in place (loan, car prep etc.) He assured me it would all be ready and to my surprise it actually was.  The car looked beautiful and was right out front when we pulled up.  We immediately started unloading the junk in the Sentra. Then we headed inside to start the fun process of signing all the papers.

We got turned over to the finance manager, Aaron.  We dealt with the guy before, he was the one guy we didn’t really like.  His job was to have us sign all the paperwork and sell us extended warranties.  Even before we started the process, we were both very tired, Ali from traveling, me form just not feeling good.

Aaron started out with us signing all the mandatory state MV forms to transfer the Sentra to them and the Camry to us.  Then he starts with the extended warranty pitch.  They have four different packages adding anywhere from 4 dollars to over 50 to the monthly payment.  Of course my initial stance was “Thanks but no thanks.”  However he continues the pitch.  We ask for him to give Ali and I a few minutes to talk.  Ali thinks the plan that extends the bumper to bumper out to 100k miles (as opposed to the 36k standard warranty) is a good idea. The reason for her thinking was unlike the Sentra, we have no plans to dump this car within 2 or 3 years  We will drive this for a half decade or more and we drive a lot of miles.  As I thought about it it made more sense than nonsense.  We called the guy back and tried to negotiate the number on this.  He said the prices of the extended warranty is state regulated and can’t be changed.  However I know they could throw it in by reducing their profit margin on the car.  Well he wasn’t going to throw it in.  Just like the rest of the deal, in this case on a car that is in demand, the dealer is very unwilling to do much of anything to give you a deal if the they are able to sell the car to the next guy for full price.  We went back and forth about the warranty for awhile and Ali eventually got aggravated and just told me to decide because she was tired of talking about it.  So I told him we would add on the warranty.  My decision was made for the reasons I mentioned earlier plus the fact that this car has more gadgets than you can shake a stick at.  If these gadgets break, they are VERY expensive to repair/replace.  The piece of mind was worth the extra few bucks on the payment.

So finally we get down to signing the rest of the paperwork including the bottomline numbers.  We were both very tired and just wanted to get the process over with, get us on the road in our new wheels, and get home.  Ironically it was almost the exact same state of mind we were in when we bought the 03 Sentra.  It is not a good state of mind to be in when finishing a transaction like that.

I looked over the numbers quickly.  The deal was finalized based on payment numbers and up front money which are all affected by trade in values.  They basically list the full overblown, market adjusted price and then throw some of that bloat on top of your trade value.  You never really know exactly how much trade value they are actually giving you versus how much profit they are applying to the value.  And to be honest, I didn’t even care at that point.  The dealers love payment shoppers. I’m sure the dealer loved us.  If I wasn’t tired, if this hadn’t been a month long process of getting the right car in, and if I had the foresight to just pay off the Sentra before starting the new car buying process I would have stopped the signings and done some more negotiating.  Looking at the numbers, the dealer is making a very tidy bundle on the car. But I just didn’t feel like fighting more at that point, the numbers worked for our budget, we love the car, let’s get it over with.  So we sign our lives away, get a very quick demo of the car features from our sales guy and we are on our way home.

On the drive back Ali was very busy trying out the different features, it is really sweet.  It drove smooth and quiet, the fit and finish of the interior and exterior is top notch.  It is the first non sub-compact daily driver vehicle I ever owned.  I have plenty of room and for once don’t feel cramped driving my car.  It’s a “grown up” car.  At least my car looks like I am mature, conscientious and have it together, no matter what the reality is.  It’s a sweet ride that we hope to enjoy for many years to come.  Hopefully we deem it worth the steep sticker price. 

For the second time in a week I will try to recreate a brilliant post from memory, good luck.

 Man the gym has been rough.  I am not sure what is going on.  I feel weak as a baby and tire very easily.  I expected my strength levels to go down once I stopped taking creatine and endothil.  In the past, when I would stop supplementing my strength normally goes down on a gradual slope until I wind up more or less where I started.  Not this time.  My strength and energy has dropped off the table.  The 185 pound bench press that would bounce up and down off my chest like child’s play now is extremely tough to rep out for three sets of 8.  I feel spent minutes into my workout.  I still have some lingering issues from the strernia (strain hernia thing) but nothing that should make me feel like this.  It’s almost to the point where I am ready to book an appointment for a physical.  After the holidays, if I still feel this way, I’ll go, maybe, probably…

With Ali up in PA this weekend it was just me and the pooch.  I made up a list of six or seven items (since Ali wasn’t home, she hates them) and had no problem knocking them out over the two days with lots of time to spare.  None of it was very exciting.  One of the chores was to clean out the Sentra for the possible delivery of the new car today.  Cleaning it out meant I had to pull the satellite radio, which meant I had to listen to regular radio on the way to work.  Boy does it seem shitty after you are used to satellite.

The weather over the weekend was refreshing, 50’s at night and around 70 during the day.  I had the windows wide open most of the day to air the house out.  At night I had the bedroom window wide open.  Last night especially it was a bit of a mistake.  The room felt like an icebox this morning.

On Sunday Nicki and I took a different route for our walk.  Instead of heading up the road where you have to constantly be pulling her back to you because of cars, we walked straight out the back of our property, a wilderness walk.  It is a walk we could only do if Alison wasn’t with.  She gets paranoid about the possibility of Nicki stepping on fire ants or a snake hiding in the weed and tall grass.  When it is just Nicki and I we are more adventurous.  We walked along the overgrown remains of an ATV trail back to the canal far behind our house.  We walked one direction as far as we could until there was no path left to follow, then we turned around and walked up to the street above our house and came back that way. 

As we came up the street, once again we were greeted by yet another unrestrained dog, this time a pretty female black lab mix.  She had a very friendly personality and was happy to see us.  We interacted a bit and then I started walking up the street, only to have the dog follow us.  So I turned around, hoping the pooch would wander back to her house.  She just ran around and around, wanting to play.  Eventually something grabbed her attention and we were able to scoot away while the dog investigated.

That Eagles game was a disaster on many levels.  Obviously, losing Donovan again for the rest of the season, for the second year in a row is devastating.  The play looked innocent enough, but then again, most ACL tears seem to happen out of the blue.   Well I figure this is exactly the reason they got rid of Mike Shitty Mcmahon and snagged Garcia.  He has lots of experience and theoretically should be able to step in and do a decent job.  That being said, he hasn’t showed me ANYTHING in the pre-season or yesterday that inspires confidence.  He always has looked panicked and lost.  We’ll see.

Ok that aside, let’s talk about the rest of this mess.  The Eagles had the number one rated offense in the NFL, the Titans, the worst defense in the NFL. Should be a blowout, right?  The sports betting business thought so, making the Eagles almost a two touchdown favorite.  Oh and the Eagles also were playing at HOME.  How in the F, do you put in the performance they did yesterday, losing 31-13?  Please tell me.  Even before Donovan got hurt the offense did nothing.  The defense let the Titans run all over them.  The special teams that used to be iron-clad are now like wet toilet paper.  We have the biggest offensive line in the NFL yet we can’t run the ball consistently.  Oh and for whatever reason, the Eagles play like SHIT at home far too often.  Their record since the moved into the Linc SUCKS.  Other teams used to be scared to come to the Vet, the Linc is like a nice plush leather chair.

I am sick and tired of Andy giving the robotic, generic “I gotta better prepare the team…..” bullshit.  The Eagles commit stupid penalties, have mental breakdowns, mismanage the clock and fail in the basic skills in football (blocking, catching and tackling) every game.  The team just seems all loose and undisciplined and for as long as Andy has been at the helm, it just should not be that way.  It’s a wonderful time to have to go play the Colts, in Indianapolis.  F’in Eagles…

 When Ali is away you can also count on me spending a lot of my free time playing WoW.  This weekend was no exception.  I had some nice virtual objectives met.  I garnered enough reputation with the Stormpike Guard to be able to buy four epics (epic – rare and high quality weapon/armor items) for my warrior, an epic mace, shield, mount and ring.  The 250 gold I spent was steep but well worth it.  The only downside was it took a big chunk out of the fund I was allocating towards getting an epic mount for my hunter.  I am trying to make up the difference by cleaning out old junk in the bank of my different characters and selling it on the auction house to try to raise fast cash.  I was really in deep this weekend.

Most times when Ali is away, one of the nights I will pound a six pack or more of Zima and get pretty loaded.  This time I neglected to do that.  I had a couple Zima’s both nights spread out over a long time, I didn’t even really feel anything.  I did abouse my body though.  After playing tons of WoW each day I would stay up late into the night afterward watching UFC on the Tivo until my eyes would no longer stay open.  They are bloodshot today and I find myself feeling rather annoyed and irritated with the world.  Three day work week though, not all bad. 

When am I going to learn…… again, I finish a lengthy post and before saving I just happen to open another tab and load the Eagles site, IE crashes, I lose it all.  F it.  I am so annoyed….

So I left work early yesterday to take Ali to the airport.  She checked the status online and the flight was marked as ON TIME.  We had Nicki with.  Nicki has this weird fear of the noise that is made as the car goes over the metal connectors of the ramp to the departure area.  As soon as she heard it, she got up from the back seat, crawled up front and jammed herself under Ali’s feet on the floor in the passenger side.  She has this scared, timid look on her face.  It’s cute but also very strange.  For some reason she finds these terrifying.

As we pulled up I see a cop/security guard guy come popping out from behind one of the parked cars on a Segway. WTF is the point of that???  He was rolling around making sure people didn’t spend 5 extra seconds in the loading/unloading area than necessary.  What a joke.

Ali says goodbye to Nicki (who is still wedged on the floor) and me.  I unload her bags and then before I pulled away I paused for a second to roll down the passenger window to see if Nicki would come up to say good bye, which she didn’t.  As I put the window up, I turn back to the front and am startled by the f’in guy on the Segway who has now pulled up to the side of the car.  I roll down the window and he says “All set?” meaning “Get the f out of here”  I was a split second away from spitting out a sarcastic. smart ass comment about this dipshit but at the last second I caught myself and just said “Yep all set”  I was pissed at myself as I pulled away for not letting a remark fly to let the guy know that an extra 15 seconds by the curb did not require his intervention.  F’in jerk.

Well I was almost out of gas so I had to stop to fill up.  No more than 10 minutes after dropping Ali off, my cell phone rings.  It’s Ali, she says she heard a rumor that the flight was canceled due to weather in PA.  Great, well I told her that I had to stop for gas anyway so I would wait to hear back from her.  She calls me back in a bit saying that although the flight is not cancelled, it could be delayed indefinitely because of high winds in PA.  The airline people said “if it isn’t life and death, I would recommend that you reschedule”  So Ali reschuduled for this morning and I swung around and picked her back up. 

I was sort of hoping that Segway shithead would be in the area so I could get a second chance to indirectly insult him, but he was evidently at another gate being a pain in the ass.  So we scooped Ali back up and took off.  The noise once again scared Nicki.  She again crawled in the front floor area under Ali’s legs and stayed there the entire 45 minute drive home. 

We left bright and early this morning at 6am.  We took Nicki with once again.  It was bizarre, as we approached the airport, far off from those noisy strips still, Nicki was looking out the window.  She must have recognized the scenery somehow and again crawled up on the front floor to hide.  I couldn’t believe that she knew where we were going.  We dropped Ali off and Nicki again stayed on the floor all the way home.  Crazy dog.  Ali arrived safely in PA.

Of course I got a call this morning that the Camry Hybrid showed up today.  But of course we can’t finish the deal until Ali is back to sign the papers.  Her flight comes in around 5pm Monday so I am hoping we can somehow work out picking the car up on Monday night.

Finally the Dancing with the Stars champion has been crowned.  Emmett Smith won, whom was who we were pulling for.  I think he better represented what the show was about, an amateuer learning how to dance.  Mario, who was definitely a better dancer, had an unfair advantage as he had formal dance training before and it showed from the very beginning.

It pained me a bit to see Emmett wearing the sparkly green shoes with matching green armbands.  However I was happy for him to win.  Ali loves the show so I watch it primarily for her.  It is entertaining but my life would carry on just fine without it.  I know as she watches it she wishes I would be more into dancing and me knowing that makes me uncomfortable.  Ali is a great dancer and I am a lead foot.  Of all the people that danced last night I would think Tucker Carlson would be my closest match.

Today Ali leaves for another 4 day trip to PA.  She is trying to get up as much as possible because of her grandfather’s health.  It’s supposed to be quite chilly up there.

 If all goes well, we should be into the hybrid Camry before Thanksgiving.  However I am not thinking about it much.  Once it happens I will be thrilled to be in my new gadget filled, eco-friendly, spacious ride but until I am behind the wheel I am not taking anything for granted.  I am prepared for the dealer to try to change some terms right at the end and I simply won’t go for any of it. No more bullshit.

 No Nicki accidents the past two nights.  Every morning I fear seeing a dark spot in the shadows of the dimly lit floor.

At lunch instead of hitting the gym, I decided to run out and return the extra memory stick to Best Buy.  The snowbirds are flocking back to our area and with them comes an increase with the moronic driving on the roads.

As I pulled out of our lot, maybe 200 feet up the road is the exit for a church.  As I pulled out I saw a line of cars slamming on their brakes in the right lane.  As they got a chance they all angrily whipped out around whatever obstacle was there.  It turns out the obstacle was an older than dirt man, with the entire front end of his Honda Civic blocking half of the road.  He was just sitting there, looking old and blocking traffic.  There was noone behind him so he could have easily backed up but he didn’t, he just sat there.  I hammered the horn hard as I went by this codger and threw up my arms in disgust.

As I got closer to Best Buy I had incident number two.  The oncoming traffic had a green arrow to turn left in front of us.  Our light turned green but we still had a stream of vehicles turning left.  We were ten seconds into our green and we still had assholes turning left in front of us, the last idiot in the line of lemmings was a woman in a big SUV on her cellphone.  Once again I rip into the horn, longer and louder this time, wanting to make sure the woman was well aware of her bullshit driving.

The last incident was on the way back.  I was at a T intersection, waiting to turn left.  The road I was waiting to turn onto had 3 lanes for traffic and two lanes for turning left onto the road I was on.  The turning lanes for that road had a red arrow.  Well yet again, another old man is driving, he is in the left most thru lane, next to the turning lanes.  He decides that he too needs to turn left but he is not in the turning lane.  Well he doesn’t care so he just stops his car in the thru lane and turns on his turn signal and sits there.  His actions almost cause an accident as people jam on their brakes to stop and swerve around him.  Once again, he doesn’t care, he sits there, oblivious to the traffic danger he is causing.  The thru lane light turns red and this moron is hanging out in the intersection.  My traffic got the green arrow to turn left.  I was going to smash the horn one more time and give gramps a big, huge thumbs up for demonstrating such idiocy but I just let it slide.  It is crazy.  Old people need to be tested yearly for basic driving competence, it is terrible down here, they are a real road hazard.

I ran some more temp testing on my computer and the temps were just too high.  So I ripped it apart again and saw that the heatsink was not seated well on the cpu.  The mount for the Ninja uses a push pin system instead of screwing to the motherboard which sucks in my opinion.  There is no way to adjust the tension.  Well after attempting to reinstall it several times, none to my satisfaction, I noticed that the mounting bracket for the heatsink appeared to be getting hung up on some capacitors around the cpu.  No matter what I tried it just would not seat securely. 

Finally I got fed up and put the original heatsink back in which actually cools better than either of the two that I just tried.  The Ninja will do a better job if I can get it to fit correctly.  I did some quick research and low and behold found others complaining of the exact same issue.  The Ninja gets hung up on certain motherboards.  There were two fixes I saw, either hack into the bracket to create clearance or buy a universal mounting kit that fits properly.  I opted for the latter.  I ordered it this morning.  One benefit of this process is I can now rip my system board out in all of 5 minutes.  I have had a lot of practice.

We made it through last night without Nicki dumping on the floor.  I walked around the house this morning doing an inspection, worried that my morning would once again be ruined by the sight of excrement.  I was pleased to find none.

Last night I did a training run with Ali, a brisk, sub 10 minute mile, two mile run.  It was pushing it a bit since I just ran Saturday and my right knee felt a bit sore after we were done but nothing that I haven’t felt many times before.  I popped my ibuprofen, iced it when we got home and today it feels pretty good.  5 miles in a four day span, it’s much more than I thought I would be doing for a long time.  My next target is the 4 mile run on Thanksgiving morning.