Archives May 2007

This is the first time I have gotten two 300 workouts in during the same week for a while.  I was so damn tired it wasn’t funny.  I was dripping with sweat and panting.  I didn’t even bother trying to do box jumps but instead substituted 25 step ups with each leg.  Even those didn’t feel good on the knee but at least I could do them.  I also threw in the extra 20 pushups so my total for the day was a lofty 233 reps.  However the number is misleading.  If I was doing that number using only the exercises I am supposed to be using it would be impressive. With the bastardized version I am running currently, it is good but not great.  I am up to 35 reps with the deadlift.  It is getting to the point that my grip starts to fail as I get into the 30+ territory.  Same thing with the wipers, by the time I get over 20, my wrists and hands are burning.  The sense of relief after that last set of pull ups is completed is hard for me to duplicate anywhere else in my life.  You are so physically beat down, yet feel good in an exhausted, sweaty way at the same time. 

We have been watching Survivor again this year.  The season hasn’t been bad, however last night was one of the best Survivor episodes ever all thanks to a crafty little Asian guy named Yauman.  Yauman is tiny, I’d be surprised if he weighed 125 soaking wet.  He has been surprisingly good in the game.  Although he is not strong, he has some skills.  He has done well in challenges that involve hand eye coordination.  He also is very smart and has been playing the game skillfully the entire time, but last night took the cake.

This year they once again had hidden immunity idols that could be found and used to save your neck at tribal council.  Yauman was able to find one of them using the clues provided.  They are down to only 6 players.  Last night’s reward challenge was a big one, they were playing for a Ford F-350 Super Duty truck, a $40,000 to $50,000 vehicle for sure.  The last part of the challenge involved throwing axes at a target and cutting ropes and once again, Yauman won with a carefully placed throw.  Ali and I laughed at the idea of a tiny Asian guy behind the wheel of a massive full size truck.  But almost immediately after winning Yauman stops everything and says “I’d like to make a deal….”

One of the other people left, a young black guy named “Dreams” let everyone know how he doesn’t own a car and how winning this would be incredible.  Yauman made an offer to Dreams.  He would give him this massive truck if Dreams agreed to give Yauman immunity if Dreams wins the immunity challenge in the final four round. (two rounds away)  Without pausing, Dreams immediately agreed.  Yauman had no assurance that Dreams would honor this agreement, he was trusting his word.  So Yauman gave away his prize but he had one more power since he won the challenge, he could pick who got sent off to Exile Island (solitary confinement).  Yauman pulls another shocker and says he wants to send himself there!

Now Yauman was doing this all for strategy.  Having Dreams commit to giving him immunity would essentially be eliminating Dreams from the game in the final four round.  Going to Exile Island allowed Yauman to get another clue regarding the location of ANOTHER immunity idol that was hidden somewhere.  He went to exile, read the clue, and sure enough was able to have his ally in the game, Earl,  find the other idol.

So while Yauman was in exile, the remaining players, except Yau’s ally, Earl were conspiring, lead by the little shithead, Dreams.  Dreams agreed to give Yauman immunity in the final four round but did not agree to help get him to that round so he wanted to back stab Yauman.  The plan he came up with was to tell Yauman and Earl they were all voting out Stacy since she was next in line to go.  Stacy played along with the plan, acting like she was sorry to be going but was ok with it.  They hoped to snooker Yauman into believing all was fine and then give him a big kick in the ass.  For Dreams to do this after the guy just gave him this truck was as low as it goes in my book.  I would never do that.

So the act went around camp that Stacy was going to be voted out.  Earl totally fell for it and thought nothing was awry.  However at one point Yauman simply says “I have bad vibes”, relying on his intuition which has been spot on so far.  Earl told him not to worry and things were going as planned.  So tribal council comes and Jeff is doing the normal Q&A session.  He asks Stacy what she thinks will be the result of tonight’s vote.  Stupidly, she says that she thinks the vote will be split.  Instantly, Yau’s eyes open wide up.  She buried herself.

So this year, you have to present the immunity idol after the votes have been cast but before they have been read.  Jeff asks if anyone wants to use it.  After a long pause, Yau gets up and hands it over.  It’s a risky move as if people aren’t trying to vote you out, it is wasted.  But he sniffed the rats out.  The smile on his face after vote after vote with his name was read was classic.  Only he and Earl voted for Stacy, the other 4 voted for Yauman.  So Stacy was rewarded for her stupidity by getting her ticket punched off the island, and Dreams had been exposed as a little ungrateful punk.    The finale is this Sunday and I can’t wait to see how it plays out, although I will probably wait till next week to see it all since we will be in Orlando.

I don’t know how, but somehow doing shoulder and ab work at the gym yesterday managed to aggravate my left knee.  Last night with every step I could feel pain in it.  I was really annoyed and frustrated as I slapped the ice bag on it.  Long term it makes the prospect of me being able to return to regular volleyball competition rather dim and short term it f’s with my 300 workouts which pisses me off nearly as much.  I am trying to decide if I am even going to try the box jumps today and if not, what I want to substitute.  Basically the theory of the 300 workout is to get blood pumping big time to either the top or bottom part of the body and then with the next exercise go to the opposite.

I’m sure there will be lots to relay after our weekend in Orlando/Cape Canaveral.  I think I will really find it interesting.

My injury report is rather lengthy currently.  Both knees are troublesome.  I still get cracking from them now and then.  My shoulders are a mess, especially my right one.  All I have to do is put my arm at certain angles and it sends a sharp pain that deadens my entire arm briefly.  Finally, I jammed my right wrist earlier in the week doing chest work with dumbbells.   I sometimes wonder if I would take an extended break, at least a month, if these things would heal or if they would simply go dormant until I start up with gym activity again.  Of course I couldn’t not go to the gym, I would feel like a f’in slob but maybe I would go and just do stretching and cardio.  Maybe not.

With the high price of gas I wonder if anyone buys the PLUS or PREMIUM grades anymore?  I used to dump the higher grades in occasionally when the price of gas started with a 1.  It would be interesting to see how the percentages have shifted in the grade of fuel sales over the past two or three years that we have been stuffing W’s buddies pockets.

We didn’t see American Idol last night but I saw this morning that Lakisha got the boot.  I am totally fine with that.  She can now go off and sing her gospel records and join the army of chubby, black female singers out there. Good riddance.

I am going to have a busy Saturday trying to get a bunch of stuff done before our big trip.  There are like 7 or 8 things that have floated through my head that I want to get done before we leave.  I should be writing them down because trusting my memory to keep them safe is foolish at this point.  It will be fun to have mom along, even if she doesn’t think so.

I hit the top of the transportation ladder in WoW.  I got an epic flying mount for my Warlock.  To get it I had to pool all the money I had and got a 1000 gold loan from Charlie.  It is damn sweet to zoom around the zones at sonic speeds.  I got a gryphon adorned in Eagles midnight green armor.

I know I have bitched about my gym many times but here we go again.  Do weight trees need to be have instruction manuals posted by them?  Weight trees are just what they sound like.  The branches of the “tree” hold weight plates.  The arms of the tree are spaced appropriately.  The big 45 plates are supposed to go on the bottom, the 25’s and 10’s go on the middle row and the top is normally used for light 2.5 or 5 pound plates.  To use a weight tree you simply take weight from the proper row and when you are finished, put it back there. 

Well evidently the majority of the people at the gym are either too stupid or too f’ing lazy to follow this simple as dirt concept.  They just throw plates on wherever they feel like, leaving others to sort out their mess.  Say I need a 10 pound plate, but on the arm where 10 pounders are there are 5’s and 25’s jammed in front of it.  So now I have to remove all the plates that don’t belong and put them back in their proper spot if it all possible.  Sometimes the tree is such a mess that I would have to remove almost every weight to fix it.  However the most annoying and most ignorant move of all is when an asshole takes a big 45 pound plate and sticks it on the top arm.  When a genius performs this maneuver he manages to also block the middle arm as well since the top arm is not spaced to accommodate a plate of such large diameter.  I mean I just wonder what thought process goes through people’s minds.  It is so damn simple.  Grrr.  It doesn’t help that the gym is managed by the most apathetic cast of people I have ever seen.  All it would take is for them to get off their asses for 15 minutes, twice a day and go around straighten the shit out and put stuff away.  I just wish I had another alternative.

Ok bitch session number two. RCI.  RCI is the points provider that you deal with when you are using your timeshare points at different places other than your home resort.  It in a word is a ripoff.  When you sign on for a timeshare, you pay a good chunk of money up front to pay for “your” unit at your home location, several thousand dollars at least.  On top of that, you have to pay annual maintenance on the unit which runs a few hundred a year.  I really pity those who financed their timeshare as they are getting hammered every single month.  Ok, so you have those expenses up front, which are very large.  The pitch is, but your vacations for the rest of your life are paid for…. BULLSHIT!

On top of the annual maintenance you pay to the timeshare which would cover 3 or 4 nights stay at a hotel, you have to pay an annual fee to RCI, the points company of 100 bucks, another night or two in a hotel.  Then when you go to use your points somewhere else, they doink you again.  The rental costs a certain amount of points PLUS a fee for RCI to do the reservation, even though you already dropped them 100 bucks each year for the privilege of being in the fun club.  The amount you pay depends on the amounts of nights you are staying.  If you are staying 1-2 nights, 49 bucks, 3-4 nights $79 and if it is 5 or more nights $99 dollars.  Then finally there is yet another nice fee you get socked with at many resorts, a cleaning fee which is normally at least 30 dollars.  So if we want to do a quick extended weekend, we are going to pay a tidy 109 bucks for it.  Sure it is cheaper than staying at a hotel but what the hell did I drop all this money up front for? If you do the math, unless you have the ability to take a month of vacation a year, it will take a long ass time till you just get back to a break even point.  If I had it to do over again knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t do it.

I had another bizarre, terrible dream last night.  I only remember bits and pieces of it.  Some how again it was criminal in nature but I’m not sure if I was the criminal or was trying to defend myself from criminal activity.  All I know is somehow I wound up shooting several people, including Rich.  I remember the terrible weight of the reality that I just ended the life for several people.  I felt like I wished it was all a dream.  Then I came to enough to realize it was actually a dream, which was an extreme relief.  Damn this shit has got to stop, it is disturbing.

The latest version of Heroes wasn’t that great for me.  The scene with Syler at his mom’s was a big waste of time and the rest of the episode not a whole hell of a lot happened.  There are only two episodes to go so there should be a snowball of action coming down the pipe.

On Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday they had Muhammad Ali in the audience watching his daughter.  I cringed when they announced he was there.  Throughout the show they mercilessly kept showing the poor guy unable to react, unable to stand, unable to clap for his daughter.   It is just so damn depressing to see him this way.

 Barry Gibb was the guest advisor on American Idol.  He is old and he talks funny, almost like his dentures were loose.  The show wasn’t great either.  Jordin was the best of the four.

This morning when I was doing my morning routine, I didn’t have the familiar, droning sound of Buttons meowing at my every move.  Instantly I went to the sliding door and sure enough she once again got locked out all night in the wilderness of the lanai.  She came prancing in, meowing her head off.  Maybe I can convert her into an outside cat and then she can get eaten by a snake.  Just kidding, just kidding…

Awhile ago I posted what my normal morning routine is and when I did I got a lot of comments about how crazy it was.  So I thought I would follow up with the normal evening routines.  The evening routine varies quite a bit more than the morning routine but there is still a core set of things that normally happens.

We get home and we hit the ground running.  Monday nights are the worst because we have to get the trash and recycling together to put out.  Also many times we run the dishwasher Sunday night so it has yet to be emptied out.  The same thing for Thursday nights but we only have trash that day, no recycling.  On Thursday nights we also normally make up our grocery list. 

The core parts of the routine go like this.  Pull in the garage, Ali goes inside and starts unloading the car while I walk around with Nicki.  If I didn’t get the mail from the car, we walk down to the mailbox and get it.  If it is trash day, I walk down with her and then roll the carts back up the driveway while holding on to her  leash, which can be a trick if Nicki is in the mood to pull me around.  Then we get inside.  I take Nicki off her leash and her first move is always to go into the middle of the great room floor and wiggle around on her back as she kicks her legs in the air.  I’m not sure if she is trying to get her dog smell onto the carpet or get the smell of the carpet onto her or it is just her way of celebrating being home. If Nicki went to the bathroom while I walked her around I toss her a treat from the kitchen. My goal is to have it land and stay on the big ottoman in the great room.  I would say I have a 50% success rate.

The mail we brought in is plopped on the counter and it is separated into Ali and Shawn piles.  My piles I normally go through immediately, throwing out the junk mail and putting any bills into the bill box.  Ali’s pile normally grows throughout the week until she goes through it.  The lunch boxes get plopped on the counter and then our gym bags go back to the bedroom.  I pull the stuff out of my gym bag and put the shorts and t-shirt back on while dumping my work clothes into our snazzy laundry sorting cabinet. 

Next we begin dinner preparations, well Ali does.  Normally she will start making us both salads, which she is very good at.  While she does this I do my quickie nighttime fitness routine.  I drop down and do my set of push ups and then flip onto my back and do a set of abs.  By the time I am done Ali normally has the salads done.  I get my big glass of ice water and plop down in front of the computer to read email, headlines, and the digital newspaper.  Ali does the same.  After I am done with my salad, I go back into the kitchen to decide which gourmet South Beach Diet frozen meal I am going to have.   I normally eat faster than Ali so I am always the first one to have the meal in the microwave.  Three minutes, stir and another two minutes and my meal is done.  Portion controlled with a good blend of meat and vegetables, high in protein, low in carbs.  Back to the desk. 

Normally by the time I am done with my meal I have caught up on my electronic correspondence.  At this point I will either take my dishes out and clean them all up while emptying my lunch box or I will just leave them out there and either Ali or myself will clean them a bit later.  Then if there is nothing else I need to get done, I will fire up WoW and play it for maybe and hour to an hour and a half.  The length of time varies depending on what time we get home and if there are any shows on the docket that night that I am going to watch with Ali.  Most nights there is a show we watch and we let it get approximately halfway into the broadcast before we start watching so we can ff through the commercials.

Sometime either right before or right after the shows, Nicki’s supper is prepared.  Normally it is a two person operation.  Ali does the the main prep which consists of mixing dry food with her two dollar a can wet food, along with various supplements.  After Ali plops that down my role is to take a can of wet cat food and take out about a third to give to the cats and then a couple forkfuls that I plop into the dog food.  Normally when I am done I bang the fork on the plate so Nicki knows that the final ingredient has been added.  It is also my job to give Tuki fresh water and food at night.  When I give him the food, I put a handful of peanuts into the crock and then put a scoop of food on top of it so he can dig for the peanut treasures.

I am responsible for Nicki’s nighttime walks.  Ali doesn’t like walking her in the dark.  It’s annoying at times for me because sometimes I am so tired that I just don’t feel like walking circles around the yard until Nicki decides to do her business.  This is the time of day that I can lose my patience with her dilly dallying.

  Normally Ali takes her shower at night before me.  While she does this I am normally on the bed, navigating through the bedroom Tivo, normally watching one of many UFC or other fighting related shows.  When she finishes her shower sometimes I will pause and take my mine right away.  Sometimes I will finish the show and then jump in. 

After my shower I brush my teeth and slap my retainers in.  Then depending on my level of tiredness, I will either go right to sleep (rare) or watch more stuff on TV until I pass out.  If Ali is awake and reading magazines I will watch tv with the volume up.  If she is trying to sleep I put on my wireless headphones and watch TV without bothering her. 

That about covers it. 

Over the weekend I had another weird dream, I think it was on Saturday night, after my police incident earlier in the day.  I was parked in a car and had drank one beer and was halfway through another one.  I wasn’t drunk though.  Anyway I got out of the car, with the half drank beer and started walking towards some building.  As I got out, there was a cop there and I knew this cop, like I had a run in with them before.  I knew that getting out of a car holding a beer bottle would not look good so I tried to sort of hide the beer by my side and then nonchalantly dumped it in an open trashcan.

This cop did not like me and was watching my every move.  He saw me ditch the beer bottle and immediately stopped me.  He verbally assaulted me and took me inside the police precinct.  I was in an interrogation room like you see on tv and in the movies.  It was just me and the cop that didn’t like me.  He was screaming at me about a DUI.  I was furious and was screaming back at him, daring him to give me a breathalyzer, knowing one and a half beers would not put me in the danger zone.  At one point I got so mad I jammed him in the chest with both hands and pushed him away.  After doing that he said I was in deep shit and acted like he was calling in other officers but they never came.  More arguing ensued and again I dared him to give me the test which he eventually did.  I blew long and hard into the straw and when the reading came back at half the allowed number, I started a wild, abusive, taunting of the cop, insulting him every way I knew how.  The dream ended there. 

The results from the Deerfield tourney are up. 

I applied for a World of Warcraft rewards Visa.  Yes it may be the ultimate geek move.  However to me it was sensible.  You earn money that can be applied to your monthly membership.  Since I got everything I neededed out of my Tivo rewards card, this made sense to me as a way to pay for the monthly fee.  I might only use it for internet or phone transactions.  I could be too embarassed to utilize it face to face. 🙂 

I love Wired magazine.  It has a ton of articles in it that interest me.  However this month they had a review of the mid-size hybrids, the Altima, the Accord and the Camry.  They shit all over the Camry, calling it dull and lacking gadgets.  When I looked at the price of the compared vehicles it became clear that they compared a bare bone Camry hybrid with loaded Altima and Accord models, there was a 5-6k price difference between them!  It annoyed me so much that I fired off this letter to them.  Perhaps it will show up in next month’s issue.

Wow, as a 6 month owner of a Camry hybrid, I strongly disagree with your review on many levels.  You didn’t do a very fair comparison.  Let me pick it apart for you.

You start off by calling the Camry dull.  I would agree that up until this model year, the Camry styling was it’s weak point, it was very plain.  However the 2007 model is a HUGE improvement in style.  The Altima design is very ho-hum as it has been out there for over a half decade.  The Accord looks basically the same as it has for the last 10 years. 

You described the interior of the Camry hybrid as plain, lacking “bells and whistles” .  Well perhaps if you ordered a Camry with the optional $1200 voice activated navigation package you would have changed your mind.  With that simple addition you get all the bells and whistles you could ask for and still come in significantly under the price of the Altima.

Your mileage numbers aren’t even close to what we have been getting using the car as a daily driver.  We average no less than 37 mpg per tank and if we are careful with our driving habits have clicked in over 40 mpg on several occasions.  To achieve the mileage numbers posted for a hybrid you need to modify your driving style a bit.   If you do find a need for immediate power, the car will pin you in your seat if you drop the pedal.

Pretty much the only part of your article I would agree with is there is a surge that can be felt at times when going from electric to gas mode.  It is a very minor gripe.

 Your review is highly inaccurate as you are comparing a bare bones Camry hybrid with loaded Nissan and Honda hybrids, costing 5k-6k more.  Next time I would suggest reviewing cars with similar equipment levels so you can provide the public with a more meaningful review.

Wow Friday was the day from hell.  You would think setting a one person office back up would be simple.  However this one person office had networks coming in from four different locations.  Having all of those entities converging at the same time was a recipe for chaos.  Issue after issue came up and was handled but it took all day long to do it.  I didn’t get back to the office until 6:30 that evening. 

This office was in Everglades City.  After hurricane Wilma the city hall building was severely damaged so our office temporarily moved to a FEMA trailer.  The building was restored and now we moved them back.  Everglades City is a very old fashioned Florida town.  Life moves at a whole different pace, a much slower one.  A perfect example occurred while I was there. 

There was a sign on the door saying the office did not open until Monday but a guy walked right by it and came in asking for a fishing license.  The clerk there told him she couldn’t get him one today.  The typical reaction you see in that situation is anger mixed with frustration of a wasted trip mixed in with a bit of resentment.  Not this guy, he was like oh well, I guess I’ll come back then, as he strolled out of the office not affected by the rejection in the least.  I am jealous of his ability to be so easy going.

As a result of getting stuck in the Everglades so long, my original plan to hit another branch got pushed off.  So I got to start out my weekend early Saturday morning by going to the branch, what fun.  Luckily I was in and out of there within a half hour.

Another by product of the Friday debacle was me missing another 300 workout which I wasn’t happy about.  I’ll be back at it hard and heavy today.

One of the things I asked Ali to do on Friday was make the arrangements for us to go to the timeshare for Mothers Day weekend.  We have a free voucher for two nights and figured it would be easy enough to book.  Well when Ali called she was told that they had nothing available, at all.  I guess my presumption was off.  As a matter of fact, they said they had nothing available for a Fri/Sat until August! So after an ass busting day at work all day Friday, I get home and have to start running alternate scenarios.  I certainly had no plans of cancelling the weekend, I was looking forward to it.  So I start crawling through expedia, looking at hotel rentals.

I spent a good hour looking at places ranging from Orlando, to Cocoa Beach, to Titusville, to Cape Canaveral.  There was a wide range of prices and those prices would be double if we wound up getting two rooms.  I was getting frustrated by the process.  What was supposed to be an easy, relatively inexpensive trip was looking to be the opposite now.  I called up my mom and told her about the issues and asked her about staying at a hotel instead.  She said I should just see how other weekends are.  Well after we found out the timeshare had nothing through August, we asked them about staying Sunday/Monday which they could accommodate.  So after several calls back and forth to my mom over the weekend, we finally got it straightened out.  We are officially going on Sunday and coming back Tuesday.

I did a bit of flipping through our Kennedy Space Center brochures, it looks REALLY cool.  I always have been fascinated with space.  In fact, astronomy was one of my early careers that I hoped to pursue.  The vastness of the universe is amazing and the technology that is used to explore it equally amazing.  I can’t wait to see it all.

After my Saturday branch visit, Ali and I busted ass around the house and knocked out chores both inside and out.  I performed my second money saving repair in the span of two weeks, following up the successful dryer repair with a replacement of the pressure switch that controls flow from the well.  The electrical contacts on the old one were burned to hell.  I was able to get an entire new unit for 20 bucks and had it installed in 20 minutes.  Having the well company come out to do it would have cost me at least 200 bucks for sure.  Score another one for the good guys.  Spring seems to be history, it has been hot and humid as hell already.  We even had a strong thunderstorm over the weekend.

After the chores were done, I wanted to take the party van out for a spin since it hasn’t moved since my dad and  Pat were down.  So I took it on a big square that brought me back out onto Immokalee Road.  This part of the road had been recently finished and the part I was on was two lanes both directions of divided roadway.  There was no one else near me as I was trucking up the road, happy that the party van seemed to be driving relatively well.  Then I spotted him.  Right by the fairgrounds entrance sign, a deputy with a speed gun pointed my way.  I immediately glanced at the speedometer that read a hair above 55.  Even though the road is divided highway, and even though when the road was just a shitty two lane road it had a 55 mph speed limit, the traffic gods deemed that the speed limit was now a measly 45 mph.  I didn’t jam on the brakes because I always feel that makes you look guilty as sin when the front nose of your vehicle dives downward. Instead I just got off the gas and hoped for the best. Well as I got up to the gun toting jerk I knew I was f’d when I saw him talk on his radio, surely giving my info to the trappers.

Sure enough, as I get up to the EMS station there is a deputy standing in the middle of the road waving me in.  This is just wonderful.  Immediately I am formulating what approach I should take.  Should I let them know I was a fellow county employee and in fact a tax collector employee.  Our boss is friendly with the sheriff’s office and in fact I know a number of deputies.  Should I expose the anger I was feeling about the bullshit of that stretch of road having a 45 mph speed limit?  I decided to just be casual.  The parking lot was JAMMED with other victims that they nailed, no one goes 45 there.  

One of the many deputies there came up and told me I was clocked doing 57.  “57??!!” I replied in disbelief, even though I knew that was probably accurate.  He asked for my license and registration.  I told him I didn’t have my license as I was just doing a quick drive and lived right up the street.  So I gave him what I had.  He asked if I had any recent tickets, I said no.  He then let me off the hook a bit and said that if everything checks out ok he will just issue me a warning.  So after 10 minutes or so all was clear.  I got my written warning and was back on my way.  Getting out of there was tough, maneuvering around the bunch of vehicles still waiting to be ticketed took some patience.  When I got home Ali was just getting to the worried stage, unsure if the van broke down or something else happened.  She saw the pink form at first and gasped.  I quickly told her it was just a warning.  What a fiasco.

  Well after my brush with the law, we went out to dinner with Taylor, Michelle and their baby boy, Parker.  We went to Tijuana Flats for the third time.  Before we made the plans we didn’t even think about how it was Cinco de Mayo.  They had some nice specials going on.  I slammed down three 22 ouncers in about an hour.  After the meal we went back to their house to hang out a bit.  I drank a couple more there.  I was silly drunk, running my mouth more than Ali would like I’m sure.  But it was funny.  We always enjoy hanging with them.

We stayed out longer than we planned.  Getting to bed early would have been a good idea since we had to get up at 5:30 Sunday morning to go volunteer at another race.  Ali feels compelled to volunteer at all of these races because other people from the club volunteered for her event.  I was a bit hazy still from the night before.  Getting up did not feel good.  Soon the cobwebs cleared and we made it out the door by 6:15.  The race went well.  My duties were to direct runner traffic at one of the corners.  I did little directing and basically was just a cheerleader.  With 270 runners going by, twice, it is hard to be very original with the words of encouragement.  I probably used “Good job, good job!” the most, followed by “Way to go!!” Most shouts would be accompanied by 3 to 5 claps.  After the running part of the race was done I moved to the food and drink table to make sure we didn’t run out of water or gatorade.  Everything was wrapped up and cleaned up by 9:15.

Ali suggested that after the race we go to the beach for a little to hang out.  We hardly get to the beach at all.  We had the majority of our weekend work done so I was game for it.  The gulf was EXTREMELY calm, it looked like a massive pond.  There were no waves at all.  Shortly after we got set up we saw the president of the running club.  He worked the race as well and came down to do one of his regular 25 minute swims. 

After he was done he came over and sat down and talked to us for awhile.  He is from South Africa and has a bunch of running related stories, he has done it all.  While we were sitting there I saw something I never saw before.  Old men with the metal detectors and head phones.  Of course everyone has seen these men that endlessly walk the beach in search of that lost quarter or dime, but what made these guys different was that they were wearing wetsuits and were in the water.  There were three or four of them within a 100 yards of each other, all walking in circles, all hoping to hit the jackpot.  I said to Ali how I never understood the point of all of the time these guys put into this ritual when all they would normally pocket is loose change.  I suppose they were hoping to find an expensive ring that slipped off some rich old broads finger.  To me, it seems like a total waste of time.

We left the beach a little after 11 and shoved off for home.   The rest of the day was extremely low key.  Ali napped for at least three hours while I worked on leveling my second character towards 70.  Sunday night we had a bit of a scare.  As we were sitting down to watch a movie, Ali pointed out how the sky looked weird outside.  I looked outside as well.  It was ominous.  The clouds were moving low and fast.  I stepped outside and was blasted by extremely strong wind.  It was strong enough that it was blowing the chairs around the lanai through the screen enclosure.  Ali quick jumped on a weather site and saw that our area was under a tornado warning.  It was pretty tense there for awhile.  The gusts of wind were VERY strong and I was constantly scanning the skyline looking for a funnel cloud forming.  Luckily, it passed.

The movie we watched was Night at the Museum.  It was a fun little movie that is the type that you forget about 15 minutes after watching it.  No complaints, it was entertaining and funny it just had nothing that made it stand out all that much either.  It receives a B.

My 300 workout today was a bit of a downer even though I hit some goals for certain exercises.  I did the full 50 pushups (and then some) as well as the full 50 clean and presses with a 35 pound dumbbell.  However I had to stop after my 9th box jump.  My left knee just hurt and instead of pushing through it and probably doing more damage , I cut it short.  To compensate for the lost reps I threw in a 20 rep set of pushups towards the end.  If you add reps up it comes out to 215 but that is a bit unrealistic.  20 pushups is far easier than 20 box jumps.  I am hoping the knee thing is only a short term thing.  I spent a lot of time Friday crawling around on my knees which never has good results.   Hopefully this Friday’s 300 effort is back to normal.

I am going to be on the run most of the day today.  It may force me to miss another 300 workout which I’m not happy about.

 For awhile now we have had a digital scale in the bathroom that also does body fat percentage.  It sends juice through your feet and spits out a number.  Who knows how accurate that number is.  Anyway, when we got it my number came back as 15.4% which always seemed high to me.  Over time I would check it periodically and even if I was 5 pounds heavier or lighter the fat % number never changed so I eventually just stopped checking it.  Well for whatever reason I decided to check it last night for the first time in probably a year.  The number actually changed, down to 14%.  I was surprised to see something other than 15.4 flash up there.  It was just another sign that my recent shift in fitness routines is paying off.

The weekend has nothing special on the calendar.  I would love to see Spiderman 3 but there is no way I want to be a part of the mob scene that is sure to follow it.  I bought a new well pump switch which I want to install.  The contacts on our old one are burned to hell which causes issues with the pump not turning on some times.  There is high voltage and high water pressure involved there which I need to be careful with. 

Last night I went on a virtual killing rampage in WoW.  I brought my high level warlock to the lower level area to help out Charlie who is leveling his rogue.  Well I couldn’t resist getting some payback for all the time the horde characters have made me miserable by grounding me into the dirt.  In the span of 15 minutes I killed 15 horde players, several multiple times.  After annihilating single players I actually got confident enough to take on a pair of horde players and killed them both as well.  I was drunk with power.  Maybe the full moon brought out the evil side of me, normally I won’t initiate in game conflict.  As a warlock, if you get the jump on a fight, your victim has very little chance for success.

Chris and Phil got the boot last night.  I was ok with it but would have preferred if it was Chris and Lakisha.  Even though Phil is dorky looking he did a great job on Tuesday night and he seems like about as nice of a guy as you can get.   It was ironic that he went down singing Blaze of Glory. His repeat performance was great.

During the show they had a band that was fronted by Alan Thicke’s son.  He looks like his dad.  However when he started to sing it was atrocious.  He sings in some high, made up sounding voice that is just ridiculous.  I told Ali he sounds like Stewart the man baby from the Mad TV skits.  It was soooo bad.  Supposedly the song he sung is topping the R&B charts.  I have no idea how.

I remembered a dream I had the other night.  I was at our old house in Gouglersville and there was no one else there but me.  I was my current day age but the house and land was in my childhood days state. No additions, big landscaped areas or renovations had occurred.  I was throwing and punting two footballs around, the ones we had as kids, a conventional one and the Wilson Indestructo. (that I still have to this day)  I just would throw the balls, walk to them and throw/kick them somewhere else.  It was late in the day and the house was dark.  I continued doing this all the way until there was only a trace of light in the sky.  That was it.   Who knows what it means.

Well my knees are still cracking as an aftermath to my vball tournament.  This is my theory.  The MRI I had said that the meniscus tear I had in my left knee was below the surface.  So I am assuming the healing process resulted in some sort of scarring.  Then when I do prolonged impact activity on it, it flares up again, swells and causes the very unnerving snapping sound when I stand up.  The thing is it really isn’t painful except for certain angles that I try to straighten from where it will almost feel like something is getting hung up and pinches.  So now it is a waiting game to see how long it takes for this to go away.

I migrated my volleyball tip list to a youtube video.  To go through them all takes almost 12 minutes.  The font got shrunk down during the conversion so if you have bad eyes or run at a real high resolution you will have a tough time reading some of it.  I know it is less than stellar but the primary objective of it is to direct people to my site where they can read them at their own pace.

We have a trip up to our timeshare planned for next weekend.  We are taking mom with.  I am hoping to check out Cape Canaveral and all the space related stuff while we are there.  I don’t think we will be doing a lot of Disney stuff though.  It would be cool with me to just have some down time as well.   It will be a cool, different way to spend Mother’s Day.    

Somehow my blog entry about the african situation must be hitting on some search engines.  I have gotten a couple comments from the outside world about it.  When I wrote it I expected to get flamed, instead all I have gotten are people in agreement. Oh and I also got linked somehow into this woman’s blog because of my affinity for pop tarts, funny.