This weekend should be ordinary. Next weekend will be busy. Randall and his girlfriend are supposed to come over Friday night, stay over and then we are playing volleyball Saturday in Fort Myers. The last time I played in Fort Myers was with Rich. It was the time he almost died from heat exhaustion.
Not much to say, cranking out another 300 today. Should get my last 50 rep goal exercise into the 40’s, hopefully.
So I read that they indited Mike Vick yesterday in connection with the dog fighting ring that he both hosted and supposedly participated in. I hope they throw the book at him. The stories of torture that was inflicted on these poor dogs are horrific. In my opinion, a human being that can do these sort of things to an innocent animal are only a hair away from being serial killers. It is just beyond my imagination how you could do this to dogs. I hope the NFL commissioner suspends/bans his ass asap. It’s not like good ole Mike doesn’t have a track record of shady shit. The Ron Mexico ordeal, the water bottle with a hidden marijuana compartment and him flipping off fans should be enough to characterize this guy as having the groundwork in place for being a dirt bag. I’d be thrilled if he got banned from the NFL for life and did hard time in the federal prison system where he could be dowsed with water and then shocked so he could become more aggressive. F’in idiot.
Our neighbors HP 3800dn printer broke. There was a little tiny piece of plastic that is used to lock the cartridges in place that somehow broke/fell out. My neighbor asked me for advice and I told him to find a local HP service center and let them take a look at it. Replacing a little thing like that shouldn’t cost much. So he took it to a shop and got back an outrageous quote of $400 to fix it.
He contacted me on what to do. The shop he took it to said he could buy a HP 2600N for about the same money and that it was a comparable printer. Well I immediately called bullshit on that. The 2600n prints 50% slower, has much smaller paper trays and doesn’t have automatic duplexing like the 3800DN. This red flagged this place as not knowing what the hell they were talking about. I told my neighbor to sit tight and let me look up a few things on the internet.
When I was repairing printers back in the early to mid 90’s, the only way you could get parts was to be an authorized service center. I figured this was still the case. However upon digging around I found that HP will sell you basically anything now. Hey it’s extra money for them, they don’t give a damn if you can figure out how to install it or not. It took me awhile, but I eventually found the exact part needed to fix it, it comes with an instruction manual to guide you through it as well. I ordered the kit with next day shipping for 50 bucks.
If I would have dug a little deeper, I would have found out that this issue is actually well documented and in fact HP covers repair of this part FREE under warranty until 2010. Oh well I already ordered the stuff , I could use the challenge to dust off my printer repair skills anyway. The point is, this place was going to totally rip off my neighbor and if my neighbor didn’t ask me, he never would have known it. It seems everyone wants to rip you off anymore. It’s so hard to know if someone is giving you a straight answer whether it is the mechanic at the garage or the doctor at a clinic…
If you have an HP 3000, 3600 or 3800 printer where a cartrdige will not seat correctly, this is probably your issue. The part number for the kit to fix it is Q5982-67925, FYI
I talked to my Dad today to confirm the dates we are driving out west. He recently sold his luxurious model home that was located in a development in favor of an adobe place in the middle of nowhere with lots of open land. He was just bored in the development and didn’t like the stigma of living in one. Well now he has put himself in a situation 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Instead of having nothing to do most days, he has a list miles long to keep him busy. There is more for him to do than at the old house back in Gouglersville.
I mean I guess it is all well and good to want to be busy but hell he is 60 now. By the time I am 60 I want less to do, not more. In talking to him it sounded like he acknowledged in some ways he may have bitten off a little more than he can chew and in some ways he misses the sterile, “boring” days where he could just relax and not feel guilty about it. He said he is restricting himself to only doing stuff around the property two or three days a week so he can still enjoy himself.
He is looking forward to our arrival, although he stressed that we shouldn’t feel like that we just need to hang there the entire time, which we didn’t plan to do anyway. Unless I wanted to tend the land for a week, it could get rather boring. Dad’s revelation that this house has no air conditioning also will make us happy to explore the surrounding areas. 🙂 His stories of trying to sleep in a room that is 85 to 90 degrees just didn’t sound all that pleasant, but that’s Dad for ya.
Ever since I started the 300, I wanted to see if the high number of reps of dead lifts at 135 meant I could do lower reps at higher weight. So I did a little test today. I did a quick little set of 135 to get loose and then I dropped an additional 45 on each side to bump the number up to 225. That extra 90 pounds made a huge difference, all of a sudden the strain on my lower back felt huge. After doing 5 reps, each feeling like I was right on the edge of exploding a disc in my back, I put it down. That’s disappointing. In theory I should be able to easily dead lift 300 + if I am doing 135 fifty frickin times. My long lanky frame just does not lend itself to pulling or squatting big numbers.
I could get used to this Ali staying home thing. Yesterday while she was home she hopped on the tractor and mowed the huge backyard area that normally takes me at least two hours to do. That was very cool.
Well I officially put in for the vaca time to do the drive out west. In total I will be off 18 days. I’d like to give myself a day or two recoup time. I am hoping 16 days should be plenty to complete our adventure. I am figuring on 4 days out and back (roughly 2000 miles) The only thing I need to do is make sure the party van is battle ready. I have to take it back to the garage to get several things looked at/addressed. I have been putting it off.
Well today was my physical. I arrived promptly at 8. The nurse took me right in and asked for a urine sample. I told her I just went before I came there, I didn’t know I had to give one. She said I could wait and do it at the end. So I get weighed and then escorted into the exam room. I have the normal stuff like temperature and blood pressure done. Then she wheels in an EKG machine. You know you are getting old when they do EKG’s on you. The nurse brings in a gown for me but doesn’t offer any instructions, should I be in my boxers or full monty? Well after my embarrassing moment during my hernia exam where I left the boxers on, only to have to drop them later in front of the female doctor (and nurse witness), I decided to just take the boxers off too.
So then the PA comes in. It is a different woman than I had before. It comes out that she is no longer there. Oh ok, too bad. The woman I had before was the one that told me that at 39 I can get away without a prostate exam. At 40, that changes, which was the entire reason I was getting it done now.
So the woman comes in and is very nice, she asks me a ton of questions about my medical history. Then she goes into what she will be doing. She said since I don’t have a family history of problems, they don’t worry about colon exams until 50. Whew, what a relief I thought. I joked to the PA that I was happy to hear that. Then the words are spoken, “I will however be doing a prostate exam…..” What??? I tried to blanket my inner horror at her plans. I said something like, “You are? Greeeeeeaaaaaaat…….”
I tried to act as normal as possible during the normal exam, she was very thorough, examining my feet, fingers, my hearing, my eyes, everything. Then the warm up for the tragedy starts up. I get to stand in front of her, lift my paper gown while she feels up my junk thoroughly. Then she tells me to turn around. She jokes “I have short fingers” I nervously laugh and ask her what I am supposed to do? She tells me to bend over and lean on the exam table. Before my second elbow hits the table she is back there.
I instantly jump from the intrusion. She apologizes. The pressure and sensation as not enjoyable in the least, I was up on my toes and my face was a contorted grimace as I kept my eyes closed and hoped for the probing to end. Luckily it was only a few seconds but it seemed much longer. I finally was able to take a breath and was only left with the feeling of Vaseline back there. Whew. The time right after such an exam is awkward for both the doctor and the patient. However she had a good sense of humor and joked around a bit and I did my best to act like I wasn’t as bothered by the incident as I was.
The exam was over, she said my prostate felt fine, she offered me some ideas for some mild ear wax build up issues I had and she was done. I still had another hurdle to clear, the blood test. I am one of those people that have an issue with having blood drawn. I can’t watch, it sets off an involuntary reaction where I just feel light headed. My veins in my arms, which normally protrude and are quite visible, disappear in anticipation of a blood draw. Venous stage fright if you will.
In comparison to the last time I had blood pulled, this went well. The needle going in was hardly noticeable and I just stared off into space as the two vials were filled. I then went in the bathroom and was able to squeeze off a urine sample and I was done. It was the most thorough physical I ever had, I suppose that is a good thing, especially as you approach 4 decades on the planet. I won’t be rushing back anytime soon for a follow up.
When I got back to the office I called Ali and relayed the details of the exam. She was not very sympathetic in regards to the prostate exam. She said women endure far worse horrors each year on the exam table.
This morning was replay of yesterday, Nicki shit up in the dining room, a pile of diarrhea. I was not happy in the least. Ali woke up by my scolding of Nicki and shot out of bed. Again she cleaned up the solids and I came in with the steamer to treat, brush and vacuum up the residue. It is very frustrating. When I took her out before bedtime she had no interest in doing a number two, yet she has diarrhea during the night. What really concerns me is she doesn’t try to wake us up when she has to go, she knows better than that. This behavior is something that has to be corrected asap. She went through a similar brief episode a few months ago.
Ok after a few day hiatus, let me rail on fat people again. Six months or so ago, a picture of current day Val Kilmer showed up that was shocking. In his mid 30’s, Val Kilmer was a hollywood stud with movies like Top Gun and Batman under his belt. What a difference a decade makes. This latest picture of him is beyond disturbing. It makes the picture linked above look like a portfolio shot. Scroll down to see it. Be warned, it is amazingly bad.
I guess it is more shocking because it is a celebrity, this sort of stuff is common place. People age, they lose the motivation to take care of themselves and this is what happens. Some of the pictures of Britney Spears and Janet Jackson are equally disturbing. But damn, Val looks like John Candy. What the hell man, get it together! The picture is courtesy of perezhilton.com, on there he has a side by side of Val and John Candy, horrific.
So I just got back from the dentist. I have always hated the dentist growing up. My dentist in PA always seemed borderline creepy to me. He sort of reminded me of a preacher you would see on TV. Over the years he inflicted much pain to me. When I was younger I just didn’t put much of a priority on taking care of my teeth. I remember swishing milk around my mouth as appointments approached, thinking that would somehow help prevent cavities. It didn’t work, I bet I had a dozen cavities growing up.
Somewhere along the way, the light bulb clicked on that maybe if I took better care of my teeth I wouldn’t have to be tortured twice a year. I started brushing my teeth regularly. Then I started to use fluoride rinses. Now it has gotten to the point where I use two rinses in the morning, one at night and also brush my teeth 4 times a day. The extra tooth brushing came about due to my invisalign treatment. Whenever I ate food I had to brush my teeth before putting the invisalign back in. However I have kept up that routine even now that I am no longer wearing them.
As a result I have had no real tooth problems for ages. When we moved to Florida I found a female dentist around my age whom is very nice and friendly. I no longer dread my dental appointments. Well today there was a little bump in the road. The doc said there was a tooth she wanted to do a sealant on which is a minor thing but it still involves using power tools. I just don’t react well to having power tools in my mouth. I wish they could have just done it right then to get it out of the way, but I have to go back.
As I was having my teeth cleaned, scraped and flossed today, I constantly caught myself administering a death grip to the arm of the dentist chair. Even though there was no real pain, having someone in my mouth seems to instantly tense me up. When I noticed I was squeezing the life out of the arm of the chair I would relax my grip, only to find myself doing it again a minute later. It must be flashbacks of my childhood dental nightmares.
So tomorrow I get to do another uncomfortable thing, get a physical at the doctor. I have to fast starting at 8 o’clock tonight. I will be starvin like Marvin by the time I am done with the physical. The blood draw will not be a good thing, I can’t watch it. Hopefully the uncomfortable groping will be minimal.
That is the total amount of reps I have done in my 300 work outs since the beginning of April. Whew.
My 300 Work out Q & A is all the rage across the internet.
Our Monday morning got off to a rocky start. As I went into the office, I spotted a large pile of excrement in the corner of the dining room. It was too big to be cat created and I was unsure if it was vomit or shit but I was leaning towards the latter. When Nicki came out of the bedroom, I pointed to the area and asked her “What did you do!!??” She instantly slinked back into the bedroom, admitting her guilt.
Now normally, the majority of excrement I spot, I instantly attend to myself, begrudgingly. After all, they are MY cats from before meeting Alison. However, when there is possible dog diarrhea on the rug, I’m not going that alone. I didn’t wake Ali up immediately, I waited till I was getting closer to being ready to go. I give her the news and of course it isn’t what you want to be woken up with. So while I am in the bathroom finishing up, Ali went out and started on it. Once she disturbed the pile, it smelled like shit to me, although Ali originally indicated she didn’t think it was. Either way it was f’in disgusting. Ali did the preliminary removal and then I came in with the handheld mini “steam vac” to apply pet odor/stain removal solution and then use the rotary brushes and vacuum head. It’s going to take some additional work this evening. Times like this make a bare concrete floor seem very appealing.
The big list of weekend chores got all knocked out on Saturday. Thank goodness the ebay mower blades fit, although they were slightly different than what was on there. The new blades are “low lift” blades, I think the old set were “high lift”. Eh, they cut grass, that is what mattered. I knocked out everything on my list in a block of 5 or 6 hours of continuous work. The last outside chore I had, washing the van after washing the truck, was cut a bit short. All I had time to do was blast the mildew off the van with the pressure washer. I was hoping the pressure washer would blast off the big rust streak going down the back corner but I wasn’t so lucky. The pressure washer did do a good job of removing the mildew as well as stripping off a good portion of the pin striping.
After doing all the outside work I came in just as the rain started. Within 15 minutes I was involved in another chore Ali had started, going through the file cabinet. We hadn’t pulled out old papers in at least two years. By the time we were done, we had a bird seed box full of paper to be shredded. We now magically have a TON of space in the drawers.
One of the things Ali pulled out
of the cabinet was the “Shawn Schoolwork” folder. One of the things that wound up in there was the July 2000 edition of Volleyball Magazine. This was the edition that had a reference to my volleyball website in it. If you load my volleyball page, you’ll notice the title bar says “as seen in Volleyball Mag…”
In the article they mention my tips page that at the time had around 100 entries in it (now around 225) They picked out a few tips to publish as well. I always questioned the tips they chose to publish, there are many funnier ones in the list. Anyway to the left is a cut out of the article. If you want to see the full page it was on you can go here.
This Shawn Schoolwork folder was filled with all sorts of other stuff I looked at with amazement. I reread my rejection letter from Walt Disney World. After I graduated from Lincoln Tech, I had ideas of working at Disney World as one of the guys that maintained the animatronics.
The next thing I pulled out was a pop up card thing I made sometime before I entered my teenage years,
titled “Take me out to the ballgame” 
During this time period of my life, everything was about baseball, I loved to play, watch and listen to it. This card is a reflection of that. Look at the detail!
The next thing I came across was something I wrote during my teenage years. I don’t remember if it was a school assignment, it’s called “The Night”
Silence, solitude, an overwhelming sense of your own presence; these are the impressions I get when I think of the place that is important to me. That place is my town in either the wee hours of the morning or late at night. My town is small in comparison to a city, a suburbia, which is not known for anything in particular. It does not contain any extremes of sorrow or pleasure, boredom or excitement. I experience little fascination when observing the town’s daily routines. The time I enjoy is when my town is asleep, unaware of my being.
As lights slowly click off and person after person drifts off to an unconscious state of unawareness, I often remain awake, waiting until no motion is seen, or sound is heard. I feel unique, being that not many people I know wander through their town in the deepest and blackest times of the night. as I travel the seemingly abandoned streets, I at first feel an uneasiness in the time it takes to accommodate myself to the lack of activity and life. My initial feeling is one of loneliness of an absolute character. This is my reaction to a world that does not allow much room for total isolation. However, the feeling soon changes from a sort of docile fear to one of total fascination. As though I am the sole inhabitant of my town, I walk the streets. The only sounds heard are self-emanating. I feel at peace.
The blanket of night has covered the eyes of all possible observers. There is not a soul to deal with but myself. The absolute silence evokes thought about myself and the world I live in, that I could not comprehend in the thoughtless days of unending physical ritual. Nothing can influence my thoughts except a passing breeze or the song of a cricket. The ideas I develop in the silence of the night are the ones that are genuinely my own. The joy I feel about my night thoughts is more satisfying than any happiness felt because of a physical happening. No money is needed to achieve the peace of mind that the nighttime offers me.
My expeditions into the night do not occur on a regular basis. If they did, I could not function in the daylight hours which tax my body in a physical sense. But whenever my thoughts become a ball of tangled yarn, I slip into the night to have the darkness assist me in weaving the tangled yarn into thoughtful ideas. My logical and emotional being function best when not influenced by ever present opinions that life offers infinitely everyday. Nighttime is my psychologist, my friend, and my inspiration.
I still appreciate the night, I just don’t insert myself into the situation any more. There is something about being alone in a world that is so full that has always appealed to me.
The folder was chock full of other stuff like my final 4th grade report card and my 6th grade yearbook. I looked so damn dorky.
For some reason, I found it necessary to color in the background of my picture. they also managed to misspell my name as “Shawn Diffey” as a result, I was called Diffey for several years by classmates that picked up on the error.
As I looked over picture after picture of my classmates, memories came flooding in of my school years, both positive and negative. I was amazed how many of the pictures brought stories with them to me. I have kept in touch with absolutely ZERO of my classmates over the years. I have little mini-dialogues here and there, mostly from people stumbling across my website but nothing substantial. It just never was a priority to me. Part of the isolationist in me, see above. Anyway, the folder was a nice stroll down memory lane.
On Sunday afternoon we got out to see Harry Potter. It was an odd film. It wasn’t bad but I didn’t enjoy it like I thought I should. It was definitely the darkest of all the movies, not much laughing is to be had at all. This is an odd criticism but there was almost too much Harry. Malfoy, Harry’s arch enemy from prior books/movies had about 5 seconds in the movie. Same with many of the supporting cast which made for such interesting dialogue and plot lines in prior films, it was all minimized. Of the five movies, I think I may have enjoyed this one the least. But I still enjoyed it, just not as much. It’s getting very hard to believe the characters in their cast roles, they are growing up much faster than they can pump out movies. By the time they make the 7th movie Harry will have a beer gut and male pattern baldness. I’d give the movie a B.
This week is exciting, I have a dentist appointment tomorrow followed up with my first physical in about 5 years on Wednesday. I am getting the physical now before 40 hits so I can slide in under the number where they like to start sticking objects up your rear end. That is something I have dreaded forever and my thought process is if I get a physical now, I should be good for another 5 years at least.
How can I do 20 less reps today but feel good about it? Well what happened was I forgot to do the extra 25 reps of push ups. But in reality, I shouldn’t be doing those anymore anyway. They were added as extra filler to pump up my reps when I couldn’t do box jumps and also to give me an extra breather between floor wipers and the clean and presses. But I did hit some nice milestones. I added a rep to my 1st pull up set, to 21 and I maxed out my dead lifts at 50 reps (the third exercise I have achieved the “goal” number). Good stuff. I do feel a bit guilty though about some of the mini-breaks I take during certain exercises. They are never longer than 10 or 15 seconds but they are still breaks.
On dead lifts I pause at 30 and 40 reps. With push ups I pause at 40 and 45 reps. Box jumps get a small break at 25 reps. On floor wipers I will rack the weight briefly at 25 and 30 reps and finally with clean and presses I pause at the 20th rep before pushing through the last 5 with each side. Even if I get to max reps on all exercises, until I can do each one with no breaks during the set, will I consider my goal truly accomplished.
I am adding a little 300 workout Q&A page as I have linked my workout page several places.
When I was cutting apart the cantaloupes I salvaged from our garden, I pulled out, washed , dried and planted the seeds, just for the hell of it. I also grabbed a few lima bean seed we had in a pack. In the span of two weeks I now have over 20 cantaloupe plants starting as well as two lima plants. Now there is no way my small garden can accommodate this many cantaloupe plants, the one that I had sprawled out and covered a good 4 square feet at least. So this weekend I plan to break the seedlings apart (I have them in one bigger pot now) I will let them grow in individual pots for a short while yet before planting them in the garden. The extra ones I will try to give away.
I did some research on the little green worms that killed both the cantaloupe and honeydew plants, and pretty much anything else we have planted in a garden. Evidently they can be controlled with a product containing BT, some sort of bacteria that destroys them. I picked some of that stuff up this morning before work. I will be very diligent in it’s use. For once, I would love to have a garden that was able to go through an entire cycle without getting cut short from these destructive, tiny worms.
I did more work on the laptop last night and got a bunch more stuff working on it. The only major thing I have to get on there is the software that is used for Ali’s GPS running watch. The interface for it is serial. The laptop has no serial ports. So I ordered a USB to serial adapter the other day. Once that arrives and assuming it all works, that should be the last major hurdle. The migration wasn’t too terrible. I’m sure there will be little things I will miss here and there.
This weekend has a lot for me to do. I received my eBay purchased mower blades this week so they have to get installed. The weeds need pulling and whacking. The orchard and garden needs to be attended to and our normal cycle of indoor things have to get done. Ali has to go into work today so we aren’t getting the head start we normally would. However each hour she is in there now is ringing up significantly more dollars for us so it isn’t quite so painful.
Last night Tuki was flapping around like mad in his cage. All his commotion got Zoe cranked up and she kept leaning up against the cage sticking her nose in. Tuki would have no issue latching on to the little dog’s nose so I kept shooing Zoe away, only to have her come back seconds later. Eventually the firmness in my tone convinced her to steer clear. Tuki was freaking out because the end of his wood perch broke and fell down, yea the same perch I had to fix once before when I wildly reached into the cage trying to squash the bird. Tuki was besides himself and was standing on the perch, even though it was laying on the bottom of the cage. So I coaxed him off of it and then pulled it out to see what I could do with it.
I couldn’t find the piece that broke off so I was trying to come up with a rig job. I found a wooden clothespin that I cut apart and then glued on the end of the perch to replace what snapped off. I taped and clamped it in place and let it cure over night. I pulled it out this morning and stuck it back in his cage. It’s holding, at least for now.
There are a bunch of movies I would like to see but have not gotten out to see them. Ocean’s 13 Tranformers, Fantasic Four, Sicko, Harry Potter and Die Hard come to mind immediately. Out of those, I think Harry Potter is the only one that is guaranteed to be seen in the theater by us. I’d like to see most of the others in the theater as well but with the costs of movies and my ability to snag dvd quality versions of them if I have a little patience, it makes the desire to go to the theater less compelling.
I decided to cut everyone a break and not talk about Mexicans, fat people, or George Bush today. It’s Friday, why dwell on negative subjects?
I spent a lot of time yesterday getting the laptop primed for insertion into my home network. By bedtime last night it was set up on Ali’s desk humming along. I still have a lot of stuff to do with/get working on it but the core things are in place. The new arrangement leaves extra desk space for Ali. The 15″ screen on the laptop is the same size as the LCD she had so we were able to remove that as well. So far she seems happy with it.
We are into our 5th day of dog sitting. Zoe has her own unique set of quirks to go along with Nicki’s impressive set. Zoe is a female Jack Russell but she pees like a male dog, lifting her leg. When I take them out to walk together she is obsessed with Nicki’s excrement. Wherever Nicki drops something, Zoe has to go over, examine / sniff the area and then drop something as well. When Nicki is in the act I have to hold Zoe back, if I let her, she would have her nose inches from the stream. When Zoe is over, during the day we strip our bed of pillows. If we didn’t do this she would use our pillows as personal dog beds.
It’s funny how jealous Nicki acts when Zoe is over. If Zoe comes up and sits or lays with us, Nicki will immediately come over and wedge herself in, wanting equal attention. When treats are handed out, Nicki is very protective of “her” treat. If Zoe makes a move towards it she will be greeted with a menacing growl. Adding a second dog to the mix definitely changes the dynamic in the house.
I sent a few of my aerial shots that had horizon shots to the local paper. They had some aerial shots in there the other day so I thought they may want some more. The editor seemed interested and asked me for the original higher resolution ones. I will be keeping an eye out to see if they show up in there. I want to do some more aerial photo flights, this time getting as high as possible. It should make for some cool panoramic shots.