Archives March 2007

Last night as I was trying to get comfortable in bed I was thinking about how lost I would be without my pillows.  We have a total of 10 pillows on the bed.  They vary greatly in size and shape.

We have the two conventional pillows, mine is almost as flat as a pancake and serves no real function.  Then we have two large king size pillows in shams.  This pillow serves different functions for me.  Sometimes I put it on top of the pancake pillow and rest my head on it.  Other times it winds up under or between my legs depending if I am sleeping on my back or my side.  Then we have two regular size pillows in shams.  This pillow can serve the same roles as the bigger sham pillow except for the under the leg support role, it is too small for that.  It also has an additional position where it will sit on my chest and I more or less hug it.

 We have two of those koosh pillows that feel like they are filled with beads and feel good to just squeeze.  These are normally used in auxiliary support roles, usually my supporting elbows or forearms.  We have a conventional size memory foam pillow that Ali uses exclusively for her head.  We have two custom pillows made by Ali.  One is almost hot dog shaped and again is used under arms to help relieve pressure points.  The other one is the massive pillow she made out of various old volleyball t-shirts.  This pillow is the best one for leg support and occasionally will be used between the legs once in awhile if I am on my side. (I can’t stand having my knees pressing together skin on skin)

The pillows are not all used every night.  In fact sometimes a lot of them wind up discarded on the floor.  I have a standby pillow wedged between the nightstand and the bed.  It actually is a pillow my grandfather made for my mom.  It doesn’t see much use as it is a bit too firm to be useful for much in bed besides propping me up if I am eating there.  However that pillow will undoubtedly be in my possession until I kick the bucket, just cause grandpa made it.

Since I was forced back to Powerhouse gym, I have been trying to keep a good attitude about it.  I knew it was a bare bones gym, run with a bare bones amount of effort.  However recently I have been getting more annoyed.  This is what happens.  The owner comes in at 6am.  At 6am it is nice and cool outside so he turns off the AC and opens the doors.  Great.  But the problem comes when 6 hours later, at noon, the temperature has shot up some 20 degrees and the doors are still wide open and the AC is off.  The place quickly becomes a sweat box.  The owner is either so damn cheap or so oblivious that he refuses to put the AC on once he has the doors open.  It really is annoying me now.  Unfortunately I have zero alternatives available to me.

One good thing at the gym is some of the people I get to talk to.  Today I saw a young black guy named Dwayne whom I hadn’t seen there for at least a couple months.  He is extremely smart, extremely motivated and extremely easy to talk to.  He is planning on going back to school shortly to get his Master’s but in the meantime, he took up a job at a Walgreen’s as an assistant manager.  I couldn’t believe some of the stories he was telling me.  I’ll try to recant them as accurately as possible.  Keep in mind, this guy is extremely polite and calm.

He said a lady came in for a refund on a prescription she paid for with her credit card.  Dwayne told her he needed the credit card she paid with and a driver’s license, standard procedure to prevent fraud.  Well for whatever reason this woman did not have the CC with that she used to pay and freaked out.  After blasting Dwayne, she calls her husband and then gives the phone to Dwayne.  the woman’s husband ripped Dwayne a new asshole about the situation although it was obvious all Dwayne was doing was using standard business practices when something is returned.  Well later, after the conversation, the husband comes into the store gets waited on by Dwayne and says “Are you the asshole I talked to on the phone??” Dwayne politely told him “Yes, I am…”  So after more insults from the customer, he finally presented all the stuff needed for the return and stormed out.  Ripping Dwayne was not enough, the asshole customer decided to call the Walgreen district office to complain about the incident (that was totally created by his wife and himself)  Well the DO contacts Dwayne and instructs him he has to call this idiot and apologize.  Dwayne complied.

Another time, a guy walks in with an electric toothbrush that supposedly he bought 3 weeks ago from Walgreens. He says it doesn’t work, he wants another one.  The guy had no receipt, no box, just a toothbrush.  Dwayne told the customer he needs a receipt or at least a box to take a return.  He had no way of knowing where this customer bought the item from.  Well the customer thinks this is very stupid and accuses Dwayne of calling him a liar.  Dwayne holds his ground and politely explains again why he needs something to prove he bought the item from Walgreens, a totally logical policy.  Well the customer again freaks out, storms out and once again a call is made to the district office.  Well once again, Dwayne is forced onto his knees and is told to exchange the toothbrush for the asshole.  Unbelievable.

The moral of story, if you are a big enough asshole, and go over a store manager’s head, there is a very good chance you will get what you want, no matter how unreasonable it is.

On Saturday, Ali and I worked on cleaning up the loose ends on the sprinkler project.  We did a little detour project first.  We brought up four loads of fill from the pit to raise the area outside of the flower bed next to the shed.  During the heart of rainy season, this area becomes pond-like and as a result, the bed gets flooded out and kills pretty much anything planted in it.  We are hoping the slope we built around the low end will help that problem.  I plan on pulling more fill as I have energy to slowly raise various low spot on the property.  It is hard work but not excruciatingly hard.  Here is a pic of the raised area.

After we got done by the shed, we moved over to the area in front of the distribution manifold.  In order to build the system, I ripped out the landscape timbers and patio stones that were in place there.  Ali and I rebuilt the area carefully and in not too much time I had it reconstructed.  The area is longer than before but looked good.  We needed some additional stone to fill it in but we planned to get that at Home Depot later in the day.

Then we focused on the huge dug out area in front of the manifold, we filled in the low spots the best we could.  It still was basically a large open sandbox. 

 After lunch I stuck Ali on a project should would excel at and I would despise.  Counting and organizing all of the left over pieces from the project to return to Home Depot.  She did a great job and in short order had all the parts separated into their own bag with a little slip of paper in each bag that contained the count of that type of part.  She was a bit annoyed after she got done separating and matching the parts to the various receipts, when I pointed out we had a few small boxes of parts out on the lanai as well.

We gathered all the returns into one big box and headed out to the store.  Ali’s organization made the return process go much quicker than if we just walked in and dumped a huge pile of pvc parts on the counter.  All those parts added up to a tidy 100 bucks we got back.  Ali did some figuring later in the day and came up with a grand total of $1400 we spent on the project, probably less than a third of what we would have spent to pay someone else to do it.  After we returned the parts, we headed out to the outside area and grabbed 10 bags of stones, some weed and feed and a few plants.  At the last minute I spotted a pile of cut sod pieces.  I thought that would be perfect to fill in the big sandy area in front of the manifold.  I snagged twenty pieces.

It was late afternoon by the time we got back but we wanted to get everything knocked out since Ali had to work on Sunday.  We dumped the stone in quickly, it really filled out nicely as you can see from this picture.  We put the sod in place and we were done with that area.  Ali and I quickly planted a flower and rose plant that she bought.  I turned on the sprinklers to water the areas where the sod and plants were placed.  The sprinkler project is officially complete in my book.  All that is left is for mother nature to fill in the dirt with grass growth.  Without a doubt it was the largest scale project we ever tackled.  It really turned out well.  The complete progress picture page can be seen here all 100+ pictures worth.

We were both pooped from a very laborious Saturday and relaxed by watching 300.  Not to say 300 was a relaxing movie, it was just the opposite.  300 is the ultimate guy movie, it is chock full of violence, glorified, blood spewing, head chopping, body piling violence.  Almost every single character in the movie was ripped to shreds physically, it was amazing.  I suspect that the wall to wall six pack abs were somewhat digitally enhanced.  I was surprised Ali stuck through the whole flick as violent as it was.  Needless to say, I enjoyed it, the action was pretty much non-stop, the special effects were very impressive and who can’t get behind a 300 versus a million storyline?  I would give it a B+.

Ironically, on Sunday when I was out in Nicki’s area reading my Men’s Health while she played, the cover story was about the guy that was the main character in the movie.  I hardly recognized him.  I was surprised to read he was only 37, he came off as older in the movie.  Although he was still in good shape, he was nowhere near as big and ripped as he appeared in the flick.  They described the workout routine the guy followed to prepare for the flick, it was staggering.  He did this transformation in four months time.  The routine went something like this (I may have the order slightly messed up), each exercise was one after another with no rest period.

25 pullups, 50 pushups, 50 deadlifts with 135 pounds, 50 wipes (a bizarre move where you lie on the floor, holding a 135 pound barbell overhead and then lift your legs up and touch the plates on each side), 50 one arm overhead lift and presses with a 36 pound kettle ball, 50 more pushups and then finish off with 25 more pullups.  I may have missed something in there but as you can see it is beyond grueling.  After shooting the movie, the guy was so broken down from the workouts and other training he had to do for the flick, he didn’t workout for 8 months straight.  He has ADD that makes him go hardcore on something and then just as suddenly go equally hardcore off.  Anyway, it was very interesting to me to see how hard he trained for this flick.  Next month I may try to do a much less impressive cycle, mimicking what he did to a much lesser scale, talk about shocking your body.

On Friday I received my new dual tuner Tivo and had it hooked up the same night.  I had some initial problems with the unit seeing the other Tivo on the network but that was fixed the next day after it took a software update.  So now I can browse the recordings on the bedroom Tivo from the sofa and browse the living room from bed.  Watching recordings from a different Tivo takes some planning.  What happens if you choose to view a recording on a remote Tivo, it actually transfers the show to the loal Tivo.  So once you initiate the transfer, if you don’t give it a few minutes to get ahead of your viewing, you will wind up not being able to zip through commercials because you will constantly be catching up to what is transferred so far.  (it allows you to watch the show as it is being transferred)  It’s a minor quirk.  

Right now in the bedroom, I actually have two Tivos piled on top of each other.  The reason is the original bedroom Tivo is a Series 1 model that doesn’t have the ability to communicate with the newer Series 2 models.  So the old one will stay in place until we view whatever is left on it that we wanted to see.  After that it will be wiped and sold on ebay.

My Sunday was pretty laid back.  Ali had to work so I hung out, watched some TV, played some WoW, played with Nicki and did some housework.  I did Mom’s taxes for her on Sunday.  Ali picked up her stuff on Friday for me to do it.  Mom was pleased with her refund, more than 4x what she got back last year.  there’s nothing like unexpected money to put a hop in your step. 

I’ve been pretty busy at work recently, hence the fewer than normal blog entries.

 There is nothing spectacular to report.  This weekend I plan to try to put the final touches on the sprinkler project.  Doing so will involve bringing more fill up front to fill in around the manifold area and then levelling and rebuilding the patio stones bordered with landscape timbers rig I had going before.

I downloaded 300 the other day, I can’t wait to see it.  It certainly looks like my sort of movie.

According to tracking information, my dual tuner Tivo is supposed to arrive today so I will have time this weekend to get everything all hooked up.

Eh just don’t have much more to say, nothing is really flowing, happens sometimes. Oh, here is something, the day after I got the cats back from the vet, there were two big piles of throw up on the carpet.  And for good measure, yesterday when I got home I got to clean up a skid mark from Buttons.  She enjoys pulling her ass across the rug. It was fantastic.

I finally have accumulated enough Tivo rewards points from using my Tivo Mastercard to get a new Tivo.  I ordered the 180 hour,  Dual Tuner model on Monday.  This will enable us to do some rocking TV tivo magic.  With two Series 2 Tivo’s we can let them talk to each other and transfer shows between them.  So if the bedroom Tivo snagged Survivor but I want to watch it out on the big screen in the living room I can transfer it over to the living room tivo and vice versa.

The DT Tivo has two built in tuners that allows you to tape two shows simultaneously, a handy feature when two of your favorite shows have overlapping time slots.  In theory you could be taping two shows while watching a third one live.  Yes you certainly are devoid of a life if this situation occurs often but knowing that capability is there is nice.  I can’t wait for it to show up.

 With my upgrade to Vista I got a hot interface and a truck load of new features.  I also got more than a fair share of broken applications.  Most of them are no big deal but one that I rely on pretty heavily is my VPN client that allows me to connect to our office network from home.  This client is not compatible with Vista and probably will not be until they release their next version which is months away.  So I am going to be trying a rig job solution. 

I downloaded Virtual PC 2007 from Microsoft (it’s free by the way)  Virtual PC allows you to make little virtual computers inside your computer that can be used to run multiple operating systems inside one another.  I had messed with it a few years back.  It downloaded and installed very easily.  The only drawback I saw so far is the virtual pc is not exactly speedy.  I took me over an hour to get Windows XP on it.  Tonight I am loading service pack 2 on it and then I will try my VPN client in the virtual PC.  I am crossing my fingers.  It would give me a nice workaround for any Vista-unfriendly apps I used before.

The gift certificate I got Ali for the dance studio is turning out to be one of the best gifts ever.  She is using the gift certificate to go to adult ballet classes once a week.  She loves it.  She bought some ballet dvd’s and a decent arsenal of ballet gear.  Every week when she comes home she is excited to show me what she learned that week.  I am thrilled she is enjoying it that much.  It keeps her happy and keeps my ass off the ballroom dancing floor. 🙂

I got an email from my Dad reporting that he arrived safely back in New Mexico.  He finally got to meet the latest addition to his family, a puppy my step mom picked up shortly after he left on his trip.  They now are a two dog family.  I saw pictures of the puppy, she is very cute and her name is Clara.

Ali took the two cats to the vet yesterday for their checkups.  At this point I would prefer to not even bother but Ali was being the responsible pet owner.  As always it was a mess.  Spook, just like she always does, puked and shit in her cat carrier on the way there.  I picked them up after work and paid the 200 dollar bill.  The health report, Buttons, who only has 4 complete teeth left has severe gingivitis (which she has had for a long time), she also has some bumps on her body (who cares) Spooky is 5 pounds overweight, she had a disgusting, matted, dandruff filled chunk of hair cut out and also has some plaque build up.

The clerk is telling me all this, as she is I am shaking my head like I care when I really don’t.  In the past they gave us this liquid for Button’s gingivitis.  We were supposed to give it to her by mouth.  Well after some ridiculous episodes of trying to force it down her throat where we wore much more than she swallowed we bagged it.  Trying to administer any sort of oral medicine to Spooky is a death wish, she would bite the F out of us. 

So I thanked the clerk and lugged the two cats home.  On the ride back Spooky was making sounds that sounded like they were from an alien and then proceeded to throw up, again, in her cage.  I just really want them to pass on.  After Ali told me of the excrement ordeal from the morning, she finally agreed with me that this was it for the vet trips for the cats, what is the point?  We are prolonging something we in reality want to come quick.   If there was such a thing as a cat retirement home, they would both be in it, and we probably wouldn’t visit much.

I added the latest pictures from the sprinkler project, in total a whopping 97 pictures. Check them out here.  I also pulled off the few pictures I took from Key west, there are some good ones.  They can be seen here.

I was off on Friday to spend the Dad’s last full day with him.  On Wednesday and Thursday he split his time between working on the sprinkler’s in the morning with going back to Fort Myer’s beach on his motorcycle in the afternoon.  Originally, before the Key West boat disaster, we had talked about going out on the Big M casino boat where they have real gambling with games like blackjack and roulette.  However Dad had no desire to climb back on a ship so soon after his vomit spraying experience on the Key West express.

So instead we just sort of hung out at home.  I did a decent amount of work tying up loose ends on the sprinkler project.  Dad had everything connected but I had to go around and bury the sprinkler heads and adjust their spray pattern accordingly.  Then we both back filled a little bit.  I told Dad to cool it, that I would finish up the tedious back filling since he already did way more than expected.  The rest of the day he chilled out a bit and was busy on the computer and phone trying to work out snafu’s with both the sale of his house and the purchase of another place.  Of course I got rammy and found myself back outside raking the fill dirt back into the trenches.  Somehow, even though the trencher pulled out the dirt and neatly deposited it to the left of the trench, when I raked the dirt back in in many spots, there wasn’t enough dirt to adequately fill the trench, even with a pipe sitting in it. So much of the filled in trenches were a little low which surely would result in Ali or I tripping or turning an ankle at some point.  When Ali got back later in the day she worked a bit on raking dirt in but couldn’t do it hard enough to get much dirt back in the trench so I came out and helped.  Soon it became apparent that we would need more fill to fix the problem so I hooked up the big yard cart to the tractor and filled it with fill from the pit area at the back of our property.  We worked maybe an hour until it was time to clean up and go out for dinner.

I told Dad that he had to agree to us paying for dinner since he has footed nearly every bill since he arrived.  We planned to go to Watermark Grille, a nice place that is a staple in our guest restaurant rotation.  However when we pulled up to the place there was a huge crowd of people waiting outside.  Dad had no desire to wait an hour or hour and a half to simply eat.  So we decided to swing around and try out a Mexican place in the shopping center that someone had told me was good.  I think it was called Tijuana Flats. 

It was pretty full but there were a few tables available.  The format of the place is different.  You walk in and there are a pile of menus to the left stacked on top of a mound of beer cases.   You look at the menu as you stand there and then walk up to the counter and tell one of the clerks what you want to eat.  You pay, find a table yourself and then they bring the food out to you.  Certainly not a formal eating establishment like Watermark but my Dad could care less.  The woman that took our order was extremely pleasant as was all of the staff we came in contact with.  We all easily found something on the menu that sounded good and I paid for it.  I got off extremely easy, the bill for the three of us was only 35 bucks.

We sat down and within a few minutes the food was out.   Wow the food was great!  It was probably on par with, if not slightly better than our favorite Mexican restaurant down here, Iguana Mia.  We had a great meal, hung out for a bit and then headed out.  If we decided to go to Watermark, we more than likely would have been still waiting to be seated, seriously.

Friday night, Dad and I watched yet another movie, this time it was Ghost Rider.  I am a big fan of comic book movies.  I knew of the Ghost Rider character but never read any of the comic books.  The movie was nothing great.  Yea it was sort of cool for awhile to see a guy with a flaming skull head and a bad ass flaming motorcycle going around beating stuff up.  It grew stale quickly and I found myself drifting off through large chunks of it.  I am surprised it has made a few bucks in the theater, it just isn’t all that good.  C –

Dad was shoving off for New Mexico early Saturday morning.  I pulled Ali out of bed so she could see him off, he hit the road right around 7.  We both thanked him for all he did while he was here.  He said he had a really good visit, even with the Key West boat ride from hell.  We didn’t get to take in a spring training game or gamble but it didn’t detract anything from the visit.  We all stood outside and watched him drive away on his BMW motorcycle that was loaded to the max.  All things considered, I don’t think the visit could have went much better.  We hope to drive out to New Mexico later in the year.

On Saturday Ali was out for a good chunk of the day.  I did some cleaning, the house really needed it after having guests for a week and a half.  I also played a good chunk of WoW.  I basically did not play while Dad was here, besides a few short early morning sessions.  I survived just fine.

Saturday night Ali volunteered us for babysitting duty of our friends 7 month old little boy Parker.  I was a bit apprehensive of watching a baby but knew Ali would be handling the lions share of the care.  It went very well.  We got through the night with no major hiccups.  Parker was quite entertaining and is a good natured baby.  For me the funniest part was when Ali put him in a bouncy thing that clips to the doorway.  Once strapped in he can bounce up and down to his heart’s content.  I sat on the floor with him and cheered him on as he bounced up and down, non-stop for at least 20 minutes.  It was amazing how high he was bouncing and he was so excited doing it.  I wish they had cool stuff like that when I was a kid.  Ali managed to get him down into bed and sleeping which was a big accomplishment.  Michelle and Taylor got home around 11 and were thrilled to hear that things went well.  Michelle could hardly believe that Parker was sound asleep.  It was a big relief to them.  It wasn’t as bad as I thought it could possibly be and Ali really did a good job with Parker.

  We had Nicki with.  A couple years ago, we had Nicki over at their house and she had a run in with their cat, Crash.  Nicki was harassing Crash and Crash spun around and batted her in the nose with her declawed paw.  Nicki instantly was terrified and ran to us for protection.  So now, even though we go to Michelle and Taylors very rarely with the dog, Nicki still remembers this traumatic incident and is scared of Crash.  It is crazy.  For a good portion of the night, Nicki was pressed up against me for protection from the big scary cat that was sleeping in the chair.  Nicki also did a lot of moping as Ali’s attention was on Parker all night long.  She definitely didn’t like sharing the 100% attention she normally receives.

On Sunday, Ali and I tackled back filling the trenches aggressively.  We worked out a system where I would go out to the pit and come back with a full cart of dirt and then I would rake in the piles next to the trench and she would follow behind with a shovel, dropping and packing in dirt in the low spots.  My back was killing me from all the raking and my hands have a couple ripped open blisters but I pushed through it.  After about 5 hours of tough labor we pretty much had all the trenches filled.  I wanted to take pictures but then didn’t.  The only stuff that really needs to be done is for me to finish back filling the big dug out area around the distribution manifold, rebuilding the patio stone covered area in front of the valves and then eventually buying and installing a rain sensor that will prevent the system from running if we receive adequate rain.  I rain through a full cycle on Saturday and Sunday morning and the system ran perfectly.  I looked upon the many streams of water spraying the yard with great pride.  This project was one of, if not the biggest that I ever tackled and it came out extremely well.  It’s true that the things that you look back on with the most pride are normally associated with the things you worked most hard on.

On Sunday evening, Ali and I worked on getting caught up on all the TV that was back burnered on the Tivo while Dad was here.  We plowed through all of the American Idols.   They got down to the final 12.  I am good with all but two of them.  For a few years there have been web sites around that are dedicated to pushing through the worst American Idol contestants through the contest.   They use automatic dialer programs to have their computer make hundreds, if not thousands of calls for whomever is targeted as the worst contestant.  Well obviously, these people are working overtime this season.  The amazingly feminine Indian kid, that has sucked from the beginning of the live shows is through to the finals.  A girl that has been as exciting as Nilla wafers made it as well.  The people that got left out in the cold as a result were much better and would have made for a better finals.  It sort of sucks.  The girl that got bumped was extremely good, I was bummed to see her be the victim of these shenanigans. 

These are the pictures I took with the camera in my phone during our trip to Stan’s, enjoy.

If you want to follow the events of the last 7 or 8 days in chronological order, scroll down and read the entry below first, then come back here.

Dad had said on Monday that he just wanted to chill out and rest on Tuesday after the traumatic Key West experience.  I was fine with that.  As far as I was concerned, we could not work on the sprinklers at all the rest of the week and be fine with it.  We had three circuits under pressure which was further than I expected to get.  On the way back from dropping off the kids at the airport we stopped at Mel’s Diner and had breakfast.  Dad and I had good conversation, something we don’t get to do on a frequent basis.  During it, he brought up a statement I made a day or two ago where I referred to the fact that I was the only Duffey child that did not finish college, hell I hardly even attended.  Anyway, Dad took that comment as me indicating some sort of bitterness or resentment that I didn’t finish college.  He told me that he didn’t want me to feel shorted in that regard and if I wanted, he would gladly pay for me to go back to school.  He said I didn’t have to answer now, just think about it.  Well I wasted no time in clearing the air.  I told Dad I didn’t intend for my comment to come off sounding that way.  In reality I had no desire to return to school and in fact was somewhat proud that I found my way into a relatively successful adult without it.  Well he reiterated how he would be willing to help me and thought it could be a good thing.  I thanked him but again was firm in communicating that it held zero appeal for me.  It was very nice of him to offer though.

After Mel’s we stopped at Home Depot once again to buy more pipe, another 700 feet of it.  This put the total pipe length over the 2000 foot mark, wow.  The pipe fit nicely into the back of the van, with the rear seat down.

So we got home and Dad chilled out, for a little.  However the nice cool and non-humid conditions inspired Dad and he declared he was ready to go back out and lay pipe.  I was pouring through Digital Fortress and was almost done so in a way, I wished Dad wanted to relax some more.  Oh well, I marked my page, changed into my grubby work clothes and headed out.  By this time Dad and I had laid enough pipe together that we had a good system going.  We ripped through the project and by the end of the day had circuit number four completely laid out as well as having the two remaining circuits extended well around the far side of the house, almost to the front yard. 

During the afternoon I had the van pulled over to the side of the house so it would make it easier to unload the pipe.  Nicki was home with us and as always, wanted to be out near us, where the action was.  I had her tied out near us for awhile but she kept tangling herself up.  Eventually I thought I would try something different.  I opened up the back doors of the van and told her to jump up.  It was a high jump for her.  Five or six times she approached the back of the van like she was ready to jump and then would suddenly stop, unsure of herself.  Eventually she made the leap and hopped into the back of the van and plopped herself on the still flat back seat.  I opened the side windows as well to let the breeze blow through.  There she sat for a long time just hanging out and watching us, she had fun.

During that same afternoon, within the span of 15 minutes, I had two vehicles pull off onto our property.  The first guy was an old tiny Italian guy.  He assumed we were lawn sprinkler installers and asked if we wanted to do his property.  I told him that this was my house and this was my dad.  I was just doing the work myself to save some money.  Well the guy didn’t care either way and said he wondered if I just wanted to make some money on the side.  I thanked him but told him no thanks, I wasn’t looking to get into a side business of lawn sprinkler installs.  He wished us luck and took off.

Then a few minutes later, another vehicle pulls up.  This time it is a woman.  She lives down the street around the corner.  She saw the nice trenches and flags all laid out and assumed this was being done by professionals.  Again, she was looking to have their yard done.  I told her how I basically just got a book, did some research and did it myself.  She asked about my costs and stuff and again seemed very interested in hiring me to do the work for her on the side.  Again I declined but offered her answers to any questions she had based on the experience I had.  My Dad thought it was funny how two people basically offered us business one after the other.  He said if three or more showed up he may have to take an extended trip to Florida and make some money.  It just wouldn’t be worth it to me.  Plus there are all sorts of gray areas involved with doing something like that on the side, none of which I want to deal with.

Tuesday night after dinner, I asked Dad if he wanted to watch Inconvenient Truth with me.  He said earlier he had wanted to check it out but never got around to it.  After it was done I was fishing to see if it served as any sort of wake up call to him.  His only real comments were regarding the small amount of political jabs at Bush in the film.  Dad isn’t the sort that would admit that his opinion was greatly swayed by something like this.  I can only hope it made a small dent and at least got him thinking about some stuff.

On Wednesday it was back to work time for me.  Dad once again worked on pipe in the morning and by lunch had all the pipe I had left in the ground.  I was still short pipe.  After work I picked up another seven pieces.  When I got home, Dad wasn’t back yet.  He took his motorcycle back to Fort Myers beach and spent the afternoon there.  He is on a mission to get a deep tan for some reason.  When I got home I went out and put the sprinkler heads on circuit number 5.  Pushing the funny pipe fittings on as the sun is going down was very tough.  The sunlight helps keep it pliable, without it, you have to twist and push like a son of a bitch.   Dad got back just as I was putting the last couple heads on.  I finished up and then went over and turned the water on,  After a long delay, the water finally made it around the property to the heads and popped them up perfectly.  We walked the length of the circuit to look for leaks, everything looked great.  By the end of today, all the pipe will be connected and all that will be left to do is permanently stick a bunch of the heads in the ground, adjust their spray pattern where necessary and then back fill the trenches.  I had no plans to more or less finish the project during my Dad’s visit, it’s awesome that we got so much done.

Last night while Ali was at ballet, I asked Dad if he wanted to watch the Departed with me, since it was another movie Ali had no interest in seeing.  He agreed and I pulled it up.  I didn’t realize it was nearly a two and a half hour movie and there was a brief break while I fielded a call from Keener’s brother, Terry, protesting his entry in this year’s LRLI tournament. (a funny tournament I run for Troy’s fantasy football league that corresponds with March Madness)  Anyway I thought the movie was really good.  The cast was fantastic I thought the acting by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson was outstanding.  The ending took me by complete surprise. It gets an outstanding A.

So that’s it, you are caught up.  I work today and then am off again Friday.  Dad is planning to pull out on Saturday as of now.  The prospect of us going out on the big M boat to gamble appears to be washed away from our horrible Key West ride.  I was still stewing from the Key West experience yesterday and fired off a nasty email to them about it.  You can read my rant here.  I have a number of pictures from the last week that I will be working to get online, stay tuned.

Wow what a busy “vacation” that was, whew.  A lot went down, this will be long for sure.  Hopefully my mind can recall most of the pertinent details.

Dad actually was in the area on Tuesday evening but he stayed with someone he used to work with that lives in the Estero area.  He called me Wednesday and let me know he was here.  I told him I wouldn’t be home till 6 or so but he was welcome to go to our place early and hang out.  He said he may just do some other stuff until we get home.  Well when I got home I saw the BMW motorcycle in the driveway, meaning Dad took me up on my offer to come over early.  He had been there for an hour or two.  In that period of time he already had taken a dip in the pool and took a shower.

I hadn’t seen Dad since last summer.  He looked pretty much as I remembered.  It looked like he recently trimmed up his eyebrows which have been known to get extremely bushy and gnarly.  Other than that, same as always.

Dad told me a bit about his trip, which sounded like fun.  Earlier in the day, he stopped at the BMW dealer in Fort Myers to get his oil changed and have his headlight worked on, it had stopped working.  Unfortunately the dealer didn’t have time to fix the problem so Dad made arrangements to drop it off on Thursday.  We came up with a plan for me to follow him in my truck  to the BMW dealer in the morning and then on the way back we would stop at Home Depot and pick up a trenching machine for the sprinkler project. 

Dad woke up Thursday morning crowing about how good of a night’s sleep he had, I was happy to hear it.  I set up our laptop so Dad could check his email on it.  I was surprised how much Dad uses email now.  Evidently the house transaction that he is in the middle of has used email quite a bit as part of it.  Dad has been on the laptop at least twice a day checking email and stock information.

Well once Dad was ready we pulled out and dropped off the motorcycle.  At the dealership I called ahead to the store to make sure they had the trencher available for rent.  When we got there, I expected to rent the mini-trencher that has a long nose and looks sort of like a big chainsaw on wheels.  However the Home Depot guy recommended that I rent a different trencher, it was about the same size but instead of having a chain saw looking digging apparatus, it looked like a big circular saw.  He said that this type of trencher was easier to dig straight lines with, something that would be good thing.  He said it could dig a trench up to 12 inches deep, more than enough.  So Dad and I wheeled it out to the truck and awkwardly lifted the very heavy piece of equipment into the bed of the truck.  We secured it with a combination of my cargo bar and various bungees and delivered it home.

I had the great idea of backing up to the mound the house is built on and use the ramps I have to back the trencher off.  It didn’t work very well.  Once the full weight of the trencher got over the ramps the trencher careened down loudly and awkwardly.  It was just as easy to lift it off.  The 90 dollar rental allowed me to keep the trencher till 10 am the next day, if need be.  Dad wanted to look at our layout so we could come up with some sort of plan on how the trenching should go.  Initially I had visions of running multiple pieces of pipe in the same trench, however the trencher digs a narrow trench, maybe two to three inches wide.  So I would have to have several parallel runs going in the same direction.  No big deal but we just wanted to make it as efficient as possible.

Before I started trenching, I went out with a shovel and manually dug out around the marked utilities.  It took some trial and error and a lot of digging with my bare hands, but I found the line for the telephone and cable and carefully cleared out around them.  Then it was time to bring out the power equipment.  I pulled the trencher into place, fired it up and was ready to trench!  The machine had a hand crank that you turned to lower and raise the trenching blade.  The blade turned clockwise, you pulled the machine against the rotation of the blade.  As the blade hits the soil, it dumps the excavated earth in a nice little pile to the left of the machine.  I cut out the first part of the first run pretty easy.  The trencher put a nice surgical cut into the ground that was just wide enough for the pipe.  Pulling it was not easy considering the weight of the machine and the wheel that was spinning in the opposite direction of my pulling, but it was way faster than digging by hand.  So I trenched my ass off.  While I was pulling the machine around the property, Dad did prep work on the fittings and sprinklers that we would be using.

It was quite warm and humid on Thursday, it almost felt like summer.  I was sweating my ass off trenching.  I drank what seemed like a lot of fluid but I was constantly thirsty for more.  Finally after maybe close to five hours of trenching, I was done, in more ways than one.  Pulling the trencher, which was moderately difficult at first had become progressively more strenuous.  By the time I cut my last trench I was totally spent.  The ass busting was worth it though, the trenching was done, in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to dig it by hand, 90 dollars very well spent.

As I was trenching, Dad had finished his fittings prep and had started putting together pipe for the trench nearest to the house.  He was using a method that I immediately thought was not very efficient.  When Ali and I laid pipe, we did it one section at a time, measuring it, cutting it, gluing it and then placing it into the trench to make sure it fit ok.  Dad was putting a huge section of pipe together outside of the trench right next to it.  I immediately was concerned about this method because if there was something that is wrong, you have one huge piece of pipe to manipulate instead of a nice and tidy 10 foot section.  Dad has been in waterworks his entire life, however he never installed a sprinkler system.  I questioned him about his choice of installation methods, saying it left very little room for error.  He assured me we should be able to simply roll the pipe into the trench. 

Well after taking a small break after finishing up the trenching, I actively joined Dad in the pipe laying.  I expressed my skepticism about this technique repeatedly.  It just was a pain in the rear to me.  When I realized that the huge, 150 foot pipe monster he created was laid on top of instead of underneath the exposed utility lines we had to cut the pipe and then awkwardly bend and drag the huge length of pvc to jam it under the lines.  We got it in position but it was just a pain.  I told Dad that I would like to try my method for installing the pipe the next day.  I could tell he was a bit annoyed that I was questioning his pipe installation routine but he listened to what I said.  I did have some experience to go on since I already had completely installed one of the circuits.

We really got a lot done for one day, not only was all the trenching done, we also got the circuit that ran along the left side of the house installed.  I was exhausted.  I decided it would be cool to drop the trencher back off at Home Depot awhile so I wouldn’t have to take a big chunk out of Friday morning to do it.  So after I hosed it off, Dad helped me hoist the trencher back into the back of the truck.  I returned it without issue and picked up a few things that I needed to continue the installation.  By the time I got back, Ali was home from work.  She was very impressed with how much we got done.

On Friday, my little brother and a friend of his were scheduled to arrive for a long weekend visit.  However they weren’t due in till around two in the afternoon so Dad and I figured we could lay more pipe in the morning. 

Before we did anything, I fired up the circuit we finished Thursday to test it under pressure.  After lots of spitting and hissing, the heads popped up and started spraying.  The pressure seemed very good, meaning our calculation of 8 sprinklers per zone would work out well.  The success of the test gave us some energy to dig into the project. Once again, it was warm and humid so we wanted to start early before it got too brutal.  We more or less used my one pipe at a time method.  Dad worked on getting the next circuit done while I worked on extending the three remaining circuits simultaneously.  Dad also jumped back to the manifold and made connections to all of the circuits and extended them down to where they all made a 90 degree right turn towards the back of the house.  We got a lot done before we shut things down a little after noon.  Dad had the back yard circuit 75% done and we had the rest of the circuits extended into the back yard.  It became obvious that the 100 sections of pipe I bought would not be nearly enough.

We cooled off in the pool, cleaned up a bit and then took off to pick up my brother and his buddy.  Patrick’s flight arrived first and after initially thinking he would just wait in the terminal for his buddy to land, we decided to pick him up and let him wait with us in the car since his friend’s flight now had a half hour delay.  Patrick’s hair was longer and shaggier than I remembered with bangs almost covering his eyes. I guess that is the look nowadays.  Pat has always been pretty quiet and reserved around me at least.  When he was younger we used to interact well together, we would play ping pong and talk computer games.  As he entered his Junior High and High School years our contact was pretty sparse, pretty much relegated to Christmas, maybe.  A casualty of my move to Florida.  However through my conversations with my Dad I kept loose tabs on Pat.  He is very well rounded.  He plays guitar, took karate for 10 years, has excelled in pretty much any sport he attempts and is a very good student. Anyways we picked him up and he filled us in on his flight and stuff.

During the time we were waiting, Pat made what I thought was a joke about another person coming along as well.  I said something like they can go in the trunk and laughed it off.  Imagine my surprise when we pick up Pat’s friend Ben  and he is accompanied by a young lady.  I say to Pat, “Holy shit you weren’t kidding about another person??”  Evidently not.  The girl was a friend of Ben’s (not a girlfriend)  Evidently she asked Ben what he was doing for spring break, he mentioned he was coming to Florida with Pat, she said she had nothing going on and evidently she was added to the package without any notice of this being relayed to my dad or myself ahead of time, interesting.  We had made accommodations for three extra people, adding a fourth meant that we would have to either put our air mattresses or sleeper sofa into use.  It wasn’t a huge deal, we could swing it, just very unexpected.  Anyway, the girl’s name is Sally.  She seemed smart and very nice.  Pat’s friend Ben I hadn’t seen for years, probably since he was a little kid.    They all piled into the back seat of the Camry. 

I’m not quite sure if Ben knew that I didn’t know he was bringing a guest, it was weird.  On the ride back we made a stop back at the BMW dealer so Dad could pick up his motorcycle which was now repaired.  After dropping him off, I called Ali and let her know we had a fourth guest.  Ali doesn’t like surprises so I wanted to give her a heads up.  I thought she might freak out a little at the unexpected news but she was fine with it, no problems. 

We pulled into home after a lengthy drive back stuck in I-75 traffic.  After the meet and greet with Ali, I wanted to come up with the sleeping arrangements.  It was decided that Ben and Sally would sleep in the one guestroom on the day bed and pull out trundle.  Pat would sleep on the air mattress in the dining room.  Pat is accustomed to sleeping in barebones conditions and doesn’t mind it.  In a way I think he likes it.

We had no big plans for Friday night since we assumed everyone would be tired from travelling.  We discussed plans for the weekend.  We threw these options on the table, going to the beach, going to a spring training baseball game, going to Stan’s and taking the high speed ferry to Key West for a day trip.  They were ok with any of it.  They were just happy to be out of the frigid northeast for a few days.

 Ali bought three frozen pizzas that we had for dinner.  Prior to that, our vast alcohol supply got some strong use.  The three kids ripped into it with vigor.  Not wanting to be a stick in the mud, I jumped in as well, drinking quite a bit for me, probably a total of 7 or 8 beers.  While we drank and ate pizza we watched a movie I downloaded the day before on my Dad’s recommendation, Idiocracy.  Dad said he saw it when he was visiting my sister and brother-in-law and said it was extremely funny.  I never heard of it before, even though it was a recent film, released in the past year or two.  Some of the comments I saw on the film indicated it was sort of dumb but I took Dad’s word for it’s humor content.

I don’t know if it was assisted greatly by the drinking, but this movie was f’in hilarious.  I would dare say it was one of the funniest movies I ever saw.  I was laughing hard throughout almost the entire hour and half.  You really need to rent it.  It gets my highest rating A+.  I don’t want to ruin it by telling much of the plot.  It basically is a sarcastic view of the stupidity of mankind in a side splitting, incredibly funny manner.  If you don’t get the movie, you belong in it.  All of us were laughing our asses off, the entire time.

After the flick, I lead the charge into the pool.  I had the heater on so it was right around 90 degrees.  So I threw on my suit and drunkenly jumped in, doing my patented atomic splash entry.  Soon after the kids came out, followed by Ali.  We had a great time just shooting the breeze.  Time and again, I would get out of the water and jump back in, making monster splash after splash.  Dad came out but just hung out on the lanai, talking to my step mom on his phone for a good duration.  Finally we ran out of steam and we all got ready for bed.  It was a great first night of a full house.

Ali had to work on Saturday.  We figured out a tentative schedule, baseball game on Saturday if possible, Stan’s on Sunday and then Key West on Monday.  As normal, I was the first one up by far at the prompting of Nicki.  I tried to be quiet as I was on my computer since Pat was 15 feet to my right on the floor sleeping.  Eventually everyone came crawling out and came to life.  Dad had talked about making a big breakfast for everyone.  When I got up I had my customary pop tarts so I didn’t really need more food.  I decided that I would go out and try to knock out the one sprinkler circuit that was almost done quickly.  When Ali saw me donning my work clothes she thought I was crazy and said it was rude of me to go out and work on the sprinklers.  I disagreed and told her that I wasn’t the center of entertainment and that it wouldn’t take me long.  She shook her head and walked away.

So out I went, into the already humid morning air to lay pipe.  It didn’t go as quickly as I liked but I was done by 10 o’clock.  I have to admit I felt a bit weird laying pipe as my dad and our other three guests ate breakfast and talked outside at the table.  I almost felt like hired help.  But of course it was all my own doing and I told myself it worked out better this way anyway, the table on our lanai only seats four anyway.  I was impressed that Pat’s friend Ben came out to me after he got up and offered to help.  I was surprised he offered but appreciated the thought.  I told him it was no big deal and he should go inside and relax, he is on vacation.  It was a very nice gesture however and spoke to me of his personality.

So anyway, I finished up my work and then went inside to join the others.  I did some searching and found there was only one spring training game today, Boston versus Philly, what would be an awesome game for us to see since we all have Philly allegiance.  However when I checked ticket availability a big red notice popped up saying there were no tickets available for the game.  We could take our chances and try to score tickets at the gate, however we decided the odds of getting five tickets was too slim to warrant the trip.  Instead, the kids were gung ho to just head to the beach, no problem.

While I jumped int the shower to rinse off quickly, Dad was trying to make arrangements for the Key West trip Monday.  He was pretty pumped about it, hearing good things about it from the couple he stayed with in Estero.  However when I saw the pricing on the site, I felt bad about it.  I knew Dad would insist on paying for everyone and doing the quick math after seeing the roughly 150 per head price, I realized he would be dropping close to a grand on the trip.  Plus, Ali and I already had a negative review of the experience from her parents, whom left from the Fort Myers Beach location.  They said it was just too rushed.  We planned on leaving from the Marco Island location which is considerably closer.  The info on the website convinced us, the boat was supposed to be a big modern catamaran with comfortable accommodations.  Dad had some issues registering online for the trip on Friday evening and decided to try to register by phone later in the day on Saturday.

The arrival of Sally put a small wrench into travelling arrangements.  Five people would fit semi-comfortably in the Camry, six was an impossibility.  That extra person meant the party van was going to be pulled into unexpected duty.  The van has seen very little action recently and still has some mysterious issues like strong vibrations that come and go with braking and sometimes even without braking.  Even though there were only five of us for the beach trip, the idea of having a car full of sweaty, sandy people in the Camry was not appealing, so I decided the party can would be our means of transport. 

We piled in our equipment and ourselves into the van and fired it up.  I warned the kids that any noises or vibrations that occur are perfectly normal and should not raise any concerns.  I advised them to turn on the secondary AC system, a clip on fan, that is aimed at the back seat since the AC generally is not strong enough to cool all the way to the back.  Luckily, college kids care very little about luxury transportation.

I decided that we would go to Fort Myers Beach which took us a good hour to get to.  The Naples area beaches are beautiful but in my estimation, rather boring for college kids.  Fort Myers beach is a popular spring break destination so I thought they would have a lot more fun there.  On the ride up the van had bad braking vibration but none of the non-braking variety, which I was relieved by.  The non-braking vibration typically starts at 45 mph and shakes the entire van violently until is mysteriously subsides. 

We parked in a paid lot that was very full.  Luckily there was a vehicle pulling out just as I pulled the big van in.  I carefully backed the behemoth into the spot, with my Dad guiding me the last few feet.  The lady that collected the parking fee was quite nice and told us how our parking pass could also be used to get us five dollars off drinks at a place across the street.  I gave her 10 dollars for the 7 dollar fee.  When she gave me three dollars change she paused and I got the vibe that she thought I should be kicking her back a buck or two for a tip.  I ignored the vibe and took the three full dollars back.  Afterward I did feel a bit guilty about not tipping her, although it seemed inappropriate to tip a parking attendant.

We lugged our bags, chairs and beach toys across the road and headed down the sand covered street to the beach.  As soon as we got on the beach we were greeted by a woman pushing her parasailing trips and then immediately accosted by an employee from the stand that rented sea doo’s and stuff.  We politlely declined and went down the beach looking for a spot which we soon found.  The beach was buzzing with activity.  Right at the entrance was a dilapitated looking place that had a man made pool in front.  Somebody made a big ridge of sand around the perimeter and laid a huge blue tarp on the inside and filled it with water.  In the “pool” were a bunch of drunk guys having a blast. 

We set up our stuff quickly and the kids were immediately off into the ocean to check it out.  Dad and I were looking for bathroom facilities for him which there were none.  I needed to get some cheap sunglasses since I forgot mine and Dad went with so he could use the restroom.  There was a little convenience store by the road we came down.  I found some mildly cool looking shades and Dad got some water and relieved himself. 

By the time we got back down to the beach, Pat and Ben were in the water throwing a frisbee around having a good time.  I was trying to be conscious of my two skin cancer surgeries and had applied 45 sunblock and was sitting on a chair under the umbrella I brought.  I watched the guys for awhile.  They came back up to the blanket for a small breather.  I asked them if they wanted to toss around my football with me a bit and they agreed.  Initially we had a warped triangle set up with them in the water and me on dry land, tossing the ball around.  Then it mutated into Pat and Ben being next to each other and me tossing the ball to them so they could contest each pass.  They would shove, pull and throw things at each other to prevent the other from catching the ball.  The salt water did a number on my vintage XFL football.  It has a lot less paint on it than it used to, oh well.

Eventually my arm got tired from throwing pass after pass and I called it quits.  We headed back to the blanket and rested for awhile.  I had asked Pat if he wanted me to bring my volleyball with as well.  We saw a hundred yards down the beach a net that had a steady stream of people playing on it.  Pat indicated that it would be fun to play maybe.  Of course I had no intentions of playing since my knees are still in the recovery stage.

Later I asked Pat and Ben if they wanted to mosey on down and bump around towards the net.  He and Ben were into it.  Neither Ben or Pat have much volleyball experience.  Both of them looked pretty awkward bumping the ball around but did ok.  They both tried to handset a lot which almost always resulted in ugly looking carries.  However we were having fun, bumping was a safe thing for me to do. 

The one time, a ball got away from us and was bouncing towards an older guy that was reclined in his chair right by the water’s edge.  I raced over and grabbed the ball to prevent it from hitting him.  He heard me approach and when he looked towards me I said “That was a close one…”  instead of appreciating my effort to prevent the ball from hitting him, the old grump mumbled something about “…you should watch what you are doing…”  I paused for a second, and was just about to say “oh ok, well then next time I will just let the ball hit you…” but I didn’t.  Old fart.

Pat was really into trying to play an actual game on the net.  We moved closer and I went up and asked a guy standing by the court if anyone had “next”.  There was a game of triples going on and he said they had the next game.  Ok, I told him we would get the game after that.   It was a very loose pick up thing going on so I was a bit worried.  Even though I originally had no intentions of playing, moving around and bumping didn’t hurt so I figured I could play and I just wouldn’t jump.

Eventually the guy’s team that had next finished up and it was our turn.  I tried to quickly explain the concept of triples to Ben and Pat.  The team we were playing had experienced players, we had one experienced player and two young kids with a lot of energy.  Things didn’t start out real well.  Pat and Ben weren’t real good at passing serve and didn’t quite comprehend the setter always gets the second ball thing so we abandonded it.  I moved back so I could receive serve and take some pressure off them.  We ad-libbed the rest of the way and had some nice plays along the way.  We lost, but not terribly and both Pat and Ben made some nice athletic plays.  Along the way I abandoned my “no jumping” edict although all I did was jump in place, no running approaches.  I didn’t feel too bad.

Pat is very competitive and didn’t like losing.  After the game we went over to the outside bar area where my Dad was sitting and they drank some beer.  I refrained since I was driving.  Pat kept watching the matches going on and eventually got back up and put in for “next” again.  They asked me if I would play again but I said it would be better if I didn’t.  So they recruited Sally as a third.  She had even less volleyball experience so we bumped around with her and tried to teach her some fundamentals that she didn’t do bad with.

Finally next came.  The team on the court was a quads team this time.  With Sally they had three.  Pat asked me one more time if I would play.  I relented and trotted back onto the court, this time determined to be solely the setter.  Things went better this time, even with Sally on the court.  The two guys covered for her a lot and it took her until our third game until she got a serve over the net.  But at one point she managed to pass a ball that turned into a point.  We played three games and won two of them.  The entire time was fun, no pressure, no dramatics, just the four of us having a good time. 

By the time we were done, it was getting later in the afternoon, close to four.  The crowd on the beach had thinned out considerably.  After more drinking, we finally packed up and headed out.  The kids were tired but had a great time.  The plan was to head home, clean up and then go out to a late dinner, hopefully missing a good chunk of the Q-tip crowd that like to eat early and go to bed. We decided to go to Carraba’s, usually a homerun.

It was Saturday night so even with arriving close to 7:30, I feared a very long wait.  We were pleased that the parking lot was not totally packed and were told the wait would be 45 minutes, not bad at all.  In reality I don’t think we waited even 20 minutes, lucky us.

Everyone enjoyed their meals.  Dad, Pat, Ben and Sally had some sort of italian beer.  I took a sip of it and crinkled my face.  It tasted like shit to me, almost skunky.  They all liked it though.  I guess I am a softball beer drinker.  We got to learn more about Ben and Sally through our conversations over meals.  Ben is working towards some sort of medicine related career, Sally is in enviromental studies.  Both of them seem like they have very good heads on their shoulders, albeit they both loved to drink, a lot.  By the time we got back home it was pretty late.  After a short while people were getting ready to go to bed, me especially, I was exhausted.

On Sunday morning I again woke up early and again quietly worked on my computer awaiting the stirring of everyone else.  Pat was the first one up.  For a little while, ocer the past two years, Pat was playing WoW, he was even in our guild for a bit.  However he stopped playing as his free time got progressively more sparse.  He leveled his druid to 52 before stopping.  I was playing WoW when he woke up.  He came over and was checking stuff out.  I showed him the expansion area and a few other things in the game that changed since he played last.  He found it interesting although I’m sure he had no interest in picking the game up again, smart kid.

Sunday morning was laid back, we had time to kill before leaving for Stan’s around lunch.  I killed some of the time by firing up the Xbox and showing Pat my huge collection of ripped games.  After showing him Hulk, I asked him if he wanted to play Madden 06.  I never played the game.  Pat has played Madden 07 a bit as some of his friends have it.  The game was a comedy of errors.  I threw interception after interception, a total of 6 but even so I had scratched out a 12-0 lead going into the second half.  I missed both extra points, kicking in Madden 06 is ridiculously difficult.  Pat scored a touchdown but missed his extra point to make the score 12-6.  Then it was late in the 4th quarter.  I was methodically driving down the field, burning time.  My drive stalled at the 5 yard line so I lined up for a game sealing field goal.  As I was getting ready to kick what should be a chipshot, Pat was zooming the field in and out using the right trigger button, yelling CROWD NOISE! to distract me.  Well it worked, kicking was hard enough without the distractions and I missed my third kick of the game.  So Pat had the ball with less than two minutes to go.  Well my defense had held him him scoreless.  His only score was an int he ran back for a touchdown.  I held him to small gains the first two plays and then on a third down he threw a long pass that I seemed to have a defender in perfect position for.  I jumped up to deflect/intercept the ball but it went right through me and Pat’s receiver made the lucky grab.  I had noone else in the area and he raced in for a touchdown.  Unlike me, he was able to kick the extra point to take a 13-12 lead.  I had less than a minute to go.  I could tell Pat felt somewhat bad about pulling the crowd noise stunt.  He even told me how to run plays hurry up style.  However I had a few timeouts left and was able to drive down the field with crossing routes that I took out of bounds.  Then I was on the doorstep.  There were 11 seconds to go and I was 10 yards from the endzone.  In normal game conditions the choice is easy, you kick the sure field goal.  However with Madden06’s stupid kicking UI, the field goal was anything but sure so I decided to go for a TD.  I went to the well one more time, Pat brought pressure so I had to scramble away from it, I waited for my crossing receiver to get some distance from the defender.  I throw the ball, and it appears that he catches it right before going out of bounds.  I start to yell and scream in celebration of my great comeback and am stopped dead in my tracks by the OUT OF BOUNDS that flashed on the screen!  WTF??  Time had expired and evidently once that happens you can’t use the in-game replay function so I wasn’t able to review the call.  What bullshit!  I acted more bent out of shape than I really was.  I didn’t care that Pat won or that he used crowd noise to help do it.  It was fun playing.

Soon it was time to shove off for Stan’s.  Our guests didn’t really know what to expect of Stan’s since I described it basically as an outdoor bar where biker’s hang out and is fun.  We all piled into the party van.  Finally the non-braking vibration returned.  It was violent at times.  I was embarrassed and angry about it.  Ali was in the front seat asking me questions that only fueled my anger like “Should we worry about this??”  Soon I made a smart ass comment that indicated I didn’t need her fueling my fire.  It pissed her off but at the time I didn’t really care.  Dad threw out various diagnosis of the problem along the way.  Then it eventually faded away, just like it came, it’s so weird.

The kids slept most of the way there, they were wiped out from a busy couple first days.  However when we pulled up they woke up to see a flurry of activity in this dive in the middle of nowhere.  Swarms of people everywhere mulled about.  We parked at the same spot we did last time, however this time there was a sign saying that parking there required a 10 dollar donation to some sort of charity fund.  We gave the 10 bucks to the guy in a lawn chair but I highly question if that money went anywhere besides his beer money fund.

We crossed the street to Stan’s and started looking for a place to sit.  We were lucky to find an empty table that seated six to the far right, right next to the water.  It was a nice spot except for the fact that we were too far away from the stage to see or hear much.  Our waitress was an older lady with a bright red hat adorned with a long train of feathers.  She was obviously very rushed but took our drink order and had it back to us pretty fast.  I was worried she would not be back to take our food order but she eventually came back to take it.  The alcohol was flowing early, we went through two buckets of beer in no time.  However I stopped myself after three beers since once again I was the designated driver.  Our food came, we woofed it down and decided to move towards the stage to be able to see and hear more of what was going on.

Ben had turned 21 recently, Pat and Sally were not of legal age yet although they both would be 21 within two weeks time.  Initially both Pat and Ben were going up and buying beer and they were doing it frequently.  It seemed like every 5 minutes they were back for another round.  Everyone in our party was drinking pretty heavily, except me.  We all were just sort of hanging out, watching the fun.  Pat and Ben had an up close and personal introduction to Mullet Mary, the 250 pound old lady with a cowboy hat, humongous clevage and more wrinkles than a crumpled up shirt.  They were all having a great time.  We moved to the upstairs area to hang out a bit.  In there they have a sports bar set up with a big tv, pool table and yet another bar.  We decided to make use of the empty pool table.  It was a cheap sportcraft model that apparently sees little use.  Instead of felt for the surface, it used some sort of weird almost plastic feeling stuff.  The table itself also was not level so there was all sorts of additional rolling going on.  Pat went to get more alcohol and got carded for the first time.  The lady that carded him, was watching the rest of us to make sure we didn’t buy beer and give it to him either.  F that, we went back downstairs into the madness.

Again we hung by the stage for awhile, everyone was drinking, carrying on and having a good time.  Stan was up on stage doing his jokes and singing.  They came to the Buzzard Lope segment.  The Buzzard Lope is kind of a drunken variation of the chicken dance.  A bunch of women from the audience get up on stage and help with the performance.  Well Sally was three sheets to the wind and was all into going up there.  She asked me if I thought Ali would go up as well.  I said “SURE!” knowing Ali also had enough liquid courage to join the fun.  So up they went and did a fine job assisting Stan with his famous Buzzard Lope song.  The girls were smiling from ear to ear when they came back.

Things continued on, drink after drink all the while I hung around feeling a bit like a stick in the mud for being sober.  Then all of a sudden the magic monet came.  During a break in the live band performance, they played the Macarena.  For some reason, Pat and Ben were all into this and rushed out onto the dance floor to do a very silly version of it.  The dance square was packed shoulder to shoulder with other’s doing the same thing.  For some reason this set off an hour or more long dance fest with Ali, Sally, Ben and Pat ripping up the dance floor.  I never had seen Patrick like this, it was an eye opener.  Our little group stole the show several times doing various funny moves.  Pat’s big act was the hand jive which drew large cheers.  All the time they were pounding drinks getting incredibly intoxicated.  I was happy they were having such an awesome time as I sat on a bench around the dance floor, like an 80 year old at the mall.  I wished I could have drank more as it would certainly have gotten me more to the level of the kids.  Oh well, so be it.  At one point Sally actually coralled Stan himself and danced with him for a short bit.  She was quite the little firecracker. 

Eventually we had to put an end to the fun.  We had Nicki at home for upwards of 7 hours and everyone had to get up very early the next morning to go to Key West on the boat.  Through the efforts of Ali and Ben, they managed to get Pat off the dance floor and we dumped back into the van.  The three of them were nutty the entire way home from the high teens numbers of drinks they each consumed.  I put down the rear bench into a bed and they wrestled around on it.  Again, as always, my Dad footed the vast majority of the bill, easily dropping close to 300 bucks between the food and drinks, unreal.

Once we got home they were still wound up and almost immediately headed out to the pool.  A cool front had blown through so the water and air was not nearly as warm as a couple days ago but that had no affect on them.  Eventually they settled down a bit and came back in.  After Dad got to watch his beloved Simpsons episode, we watched another movie I downloaded, Borat.  Pat, Dad and Ben had seen it before but were all into seeing it again.  Ali had no interest in seeing it and spent a good chunk of the time reading or doing laundry.  Wow that was some funny shit.  I mean of course alot of it was incredibly un-politcally correct but that was what made it so damn funny.  I laughed a lot but also spent a good amount of time with my mouth just hanging open in disbelief.  I actually liked Idiocracy more but Borat was right up there, I would give it a B+.  If you are easily offended, don’t watch it, anyone else, you will laugh your ass off, well unless you are Jewish maybe..

Finally everyone went to bed.  We had to be out the door Monday by 6:30 am.  I was running on fumes from these busy three days and Monday was only going to be another draining day, if I only knew how draining.

I was the house alarm clock, making sure everyone was up.  It was quite chilly now, in the upper 40’s.  I wore a sweatshirt and advised everyone to bring some warm stuff.  Sally listened, Pat and Ben walked out of the house in shorts and t-shirts.  We decided to go out of the Marco Island port, it was further south so the trip is slightly shorter.  Supposedly the boat is a huge camaran with nice accomodations to aid in a comfortable trip.  We got to Marco right around 7:30 and already had to stand in a 15 person line.  The kids and Ali all went into the gift shop to stay warm instead of waiting in line with Dad and I.  The clerks were incredibly slow checking certain people in.  The line literally did not move an inch for the first 10 minutes.  Evidently, there is no separate line for pre-registered people that only have to flash id’s get thier tickets and go, instead everyone is piled into one line and if you are unlucky enough to have two people at the windows that are doing “day of” registration you are f’d.  I usually am ok with waiting but the very chilly, low 50’s made it very uncomfortable to do so.  There was tons of grumbling in the line about the ridiculous slow pace of the check in process.  Finally the line started to move and we got on the boat about 25 minutes before the 8:30 depart time.  I was chilled to the bone from standing out in the chilly air all that time.  Everyone went for the  inside seats which offered protection from the wind, although there was little evidence that any heat was being pumped in.

We were immediately disappointed when we approached the boat.  It was not a huge dual hull canaraman, it was a more conventional boat.  Later I found out, the dual hull boat only goes from Fort Myers.  The accomodations inside were far from lush.  The interior cabin had solid, junior high lunchroom looking tables welded to the sides along with fixed, spartan seats.  The only fancy thing about it was the flat screen tv that showed nothing but CNN the entire 6 to 7 hours we were on this God forsaken vessel.  Despite paying 150 per head, NOTHING was included, you paid for every piece of food and drink.  I immediately thought it was a rip off and then we started to move….

Initially as we sailed out, everything was fine, we chugged along, enjoyed the break of dawn and played cards while drinking hot chocolate and coffee I got for everyone.  Then we got out into the open water.  Almost immediately the boat started to fishtail once they applied what I assume was full throttle.  Back and forth the back end swayed, constantly.  The front end of the boat bounced up and down violently.  It was ridiculous.  It didn’t take long for Dad to bow out of our card game and plant himself outside on one of the metal benches, laid down, with his eyes closed.  This is how he remained for the most of the trip.  The motion actually got worse as the trip progressed.  I was feeling a bit queasy inside so I went out to get some fresh air.  I joined Pat, Ben and Sally who went to the lower deck at the front of the boat.  Up there were a few outdoor benches you could sit on.  Sitting at the front, the up and down motion of the boat was at it’s maximum.  It was ridiculous how violent the action was.  The Gulf was filled with large swells, presumably kicked up by the stiff northerly winds.  I felt very bad that Dad paid all this money for us to be subjected to a three hour shitty ride.  I thought it was stupid of the company to do the run if the conditions were this rough, it just made everyone miserable.  I asked the guy in the snack bar why the ass end of the boat was swaying so badly.  He said something about the tail wind hitting the rear of the boat causes it.  Eventually I  made my way back to Ali who remained in the top, inside area.  As I looked around I just saw people everywhere looking miserable.  The worst part was knowing you had to do this all over again to get back home.

Finally we got to Key West. Everyone was thrilled to be on solid ground.  We opted to not take the Conch train tour that was pushed heavily on the ship.  You only had roughly 4 hours in Key West before you had to head back for boarding to go back.  We all were hungry so the first thing to address was finding a place to eat.  We made our way to tourist central, Duvall street and looked for a suitable eating establishment.  It seemed very crowded for a Monday.  As we made our way towards Duvall, Pat, Ben, Dad and Sally were impressed by the lush, mature landscape and the old style Key West homes.  It is an atmosphere not found anywhere else in Florida.  They laughed at the chickens running loose.  It didn’t take long to spot our first guy on the sidewalk making items out of palm fronds.  It all seemed kind of cool.  After walking for awhile, we stumbled across a pizza place.  A bunch of us ordered sandwhiches as well as a large and small pizza.  The large pizza was HUGE and the small pizza was as large back home.  I thought there was no way all that food would get consumed.  Well it all was except for one slice of pizza.  What a bunch of pigs.

So we had a big meal to walk off and walk we did. Walked and walked and walked.  It didn’t take very long to tire of walking on Duvall street.  It seemed like every shop was selling the same touristy shit, it just got old.  We decided to walk towards the southern-most point . It got us off Duvall and let us walk through the non-commercial areas which was a nice change up.  We got down there, took the obligatory group shot and then decided to head north up to a state park that looked like it had a beach.

  The map we had looked like we should be able to head north a bit and head west and run right into the state park.  However the map didn’t show that the park area was fronted by the Key West projects.  Every street that lead towards the park was blocked by a fence.  We walked and walked, getting increasingly frustrated by each blocked access we came across.  We finally got to the sole entrance by walking north past the park and then walking down and west to it.  It was a royal pain in the ass. 

By this time, frustration was in the air.  We were all sick of walking.  We hoped that at least we could spend a little bit of time on a beach and relax.  Well as we walked up to the park entrance we saw a guard booth, on it was the fee schedule to enter.  If we all wanted to go in it would cost us 9 bucks.  From the guard shack, there was still no visible beach, meaning we would have to walk even further.  Looking at our watch, it was apparent that if we did find a beach, we would be lucky to be able to spend 10 minutes there before we had to start walking north to the ferry.  So we decided to not bother going in.  I dropped on a small patch of grass and just laid on my back, arms spread, looking at the sky.  Dad did the same thing.  Ali sat next to me while the kids sat on an old shitty picnic bench.  It was unavoidable to feel like this day was just a waste.  Enduring that punishing boat ride and then just walking around Key West, more or less aimlessly for a few hours just wasn’t all that much fun and the impending reality of another long ride home hung over us all.

So Dad and I drug ourselves back to ur feet and away we went again, walking away.  The kids went in very few stores, I didn’t go in any.  Pat and Ben scored some sweatshirts to help them stay warm on the ride home.  Dad was looking for one as well but couldn’t find one that met his criteria.  He didn’t want a shitty, thin one, he didn’t want one that said Key West on it.  He wanted one that was thick and good quality and he wanted it to be inexpensive.  So obviously he didn’t get one.

We arrived at the ferry terminal a few minutes after four.  The mood was low key.  Instead of going in right away, Dad wanted to just sit down by the wharf, seemingly hoping to somehow salvage something from the trip.  I obliged and sat down with them for a few minutes but then got up and told them I would just go in and reserve a decent table for us.  Unintentionally, my actions got everyone else up and going as well.  We checked in and scored a table in the lower deck, inside area, towards the front.  As we pulled out, the captain made an announcement that they were taking a different route back.  It would be about a half hour of rough seas and then the rest of the ride should be better.  What a bunch of bullshit.

The ride back made the ride out look like a canoe ride.  Ali was borderline terrified.  It almost seemed like the captain had put us into the sequel of Perfect Storm.  He smashed through the waters at top speed, sending the nose of the boat slamming down into the water non-stop for more than three hours.  The passengers were told they should stay inside and seated.  It was madness.  Everyone was getting slammed around, shit was sliding off tables, people trying to make their way to the bathroom were falling from pole to pole.  It was unreal to me that we paid all this money to be put through these conditions.  Luckily for me, I decided to start reading Digital Fortress.  For the most part it insulated me from the shit going on around me.  Dad was not so lucky.  He had his head down for most of trip on the table.  About halfway in, he got up and stumbled his way towards the back.  Pat and Ben laughed hard as Dad held on for dear life to each pole.  He disappeared for awhile and then came back, without his glasses.  Dad is blind without his glasses, I was worried he somehow lost or broke them.  He manages to get back into his seat.  He was looking bad.  He told us how he just threw up all over the bathroom violently.  Throwing up in the sink must run in the family cause that was Dad’s target as well.  Like me, he tried running water and like me it did not help the situation.  He said it was an ugly scene.  All of us laughed pretty hard at the though of Dad projectile vomiting inside a moving bathroom.  Evidently he took his glasses off so they wouldn’t fly off into the vomit.

Of course people were extremely annoyed at the conditions, all of them except this one table of cackling women who happened to be sitting at the table behind us.  All they did was gab the entire time, loudly.  It was so f’in annoying.  Time and time again I shot them looks of disbelief, hoping they would take a hint and shut the f up.  It didn’t work.

 Pretty late in the trip, Pat and Ben were getting a bit stir crazy.  They had the bright idea to go outside and sit on benches along the side of the boat.  As the opened the door, the cackling women warned them that they weren’t supposed to go outside.  They did anyway and plopped down right outside the glass by our table.  It looked like they were in a 100 mph wind tunnel.  They didn’t last long outside and came back in.  Once they did they still were doing silly shit like trying to stand up without holding onto something.  If I wasn’t so engrossed in my book I may have told them to cool it since their clowining around could have easily lead to them hurting themselves or someone else if they fell into them.  However I just ignored it. 

FINALLY, we approached Marco.  The entire ride was pure hell.  The boat slowed down and the endless bobbing finally subsided.  As we were docking I was outraged as the captain came on and gave a happy little message hoping that we enjoyed ourselves and that we would come again.  No mention of the 3 hours of hell that everyone just endured.  As we exited, they had one of the crew at the bottom of the ramp with a tip jar.  He was lucky my Dad didn’t throw up on him.  We all were waiting for Dad to say some real smart ass comment to the guy but all he muttered was “..that was the longest half hour I ever saw buddy…”  We piled in the van and went home.  All the kids slept on the way back. 

 Thankfully, the mystery vibrations in the van had disappeared.  One new thing was discovered though after Dad and Pat made a comment that something smelled hot in the back.  The passenger side rear alloy wheel was burning hot while the other three were cool.  So obviously there is some sort of problem with the drum brakes there.  Just another thing to add to the list I will be giving to the garage.  Those rear brakes were totally redone as part of my $1600 monster repair bill last spring.

After we got home everyone was pooped and the next morning, once again, we all had to get up very early, this time to drop the kids off at the airport for their trip home.  I didn’t get to sleep until after 11, the 5am alarm felt extremely brutal Tuesday morning.

Everyone more or less got up on their own this time.  They packed up their loose stuff and Dad and I took them to the airport.  Excluding the Key West disaster, we all had a great time together.  When we dropped them off each one of them hugged and thanked us, they really had a good time and I was happy to have been able to provide them with that.  I told them they were welcome to come back anytime  Unfortunately for them they were going back to PA that had highs somewhere in the 20’s on Tuesday.  We said goodbye and they went on their way.

 I’m gonna break this entry here and finish the rest of the recap on the next one.