Archives April 2008

I post an entry regarding typical Embarq poor delivery of services and that afternoon THIS comment gets posted:

This is a message from Lamont with Embarq Customer Support. We would first like to thank you for your business and apologize for any frustration your mother has encountered with her phone installation. We strive for complete customer satisfaction on every issue and are reaching out to our customers that are not completely satisfied. You can call our technical support for troubleshooting, or provide me with your phone number in an email and we can assist you with your service. Please reply if you have any additional concerns. Thank you for using Embarq, your complete communications solution.

Lamont L.
Embarq Customer Support
SMNP.Lamont.l@embarq.com
For additional support please visit http://www.myembarq.com/index.php or call 1-877-646-3282
Voice | Data | Internet | Wireless | Entertainment

Pretty bizarre.  Maybe Embarq has dedicated personnel that do nothing but look for negative articles on the net regarding their poor service.

So I called mom yesterday to see if Embarq hooked her phone up yet.  It was supposed to be done on Monday. Of course I am not in the least surprised to hear it wasn’t because we all know that Embarq (formally known as Sprint) blows.  So anyway I asked mom how things were going in the new place and she was just thrilled.  She loves it.  She said she was so glad that I pushed her to do something about her living arrangements.  She told me one positive after another.  The place even has a book exchange!  Basically they have a big basket with books.  It’s very simple, you put in a book you read and take out one you haven’t.  Mom loves to read, it’s her biggest hobby. Anyway I was very happy that my prediction that mom would be very glad she moved once she did it has come true.

My web cam had been offline for awhile since I moved to a different server with my web host.  I doubt anyone noticed but if you were struggling to get through your day without peeking in my office, here ya go.

After work last night I had to go to the pet store and stop for gas so I didn’t get home till a little later so I bagged doing an after work project.  However tonight I plan to drag the pressure washer to the front of the house and clean the cement pad along the front windows and door.

It’s so nice to have the cross trainer out of our bedroom where it blocked the window.  Now I only wish Ali would let me sleep with the venetian blinds open.  I have always liked waking up in the morning and seeing bright blue sky out the window, something that occurs quite often in SW Florida.  I understand why she doesn’t want to do it from her standpoint.  I’m just saying if it was up to me…..

There are some summer flicks coming out that I am really looking forward to.  Iron Man should be awesome.  Iron Man isn’t as mainstream as a hero like Spider Man and Superman but I always loved him.  He was probably number two on my list only behind Spiderman.  I remember I had an Iron Man action figure as a kid.  He had it all, a skin of iron, multiple lasers and rocket boots that allowed him to fly like a missile.  His costume looked bad ass as well.

I am also really looking forward to seeing the final Indiana Jones movie.  Just like Rocky and Rambo, this series is way past the point where you would expect to see the 60+ year old star return in the role.  However I think Harrison Ford can pull it off.  I’m sure my step mom is very excited to see the film.  She is a huge Harrison Ford fan.  My dad actually sorta looks like Harrison Ford if you would shave off his moustache and he dropped a few pounds.  There is a picture of dad floating around as a young clean shaven guy where the resemblance is pretty striking.

I was listening to the Stern Show on the way in to work and they were doing a game where they had a caller guess which one of the staff committed various stunts in school that got them suspended or detention.  Some of the incidents were pretty funny.  It got me thinking about my only real school disciplinary action growing up when I was suspended for a week!  I kept my nose clean in school and never got into any real trouble.  However in 11th grade I made up for lost time. 

My buddies and I didn’t like the school librarian.  She was a relatively attractive woman, probably in her late 30’s or early 40’s but she was a bitch.  Well a bunch of us thought of a hilarious prank to play on her.  We would write her a perverted/dirty love note, and put it in the book return slot!  There were several of us that were involved in the plot and we all had input into the note’s content.  Once the final copy was approved my buddy Mark wrote it out.  I was the drop man as I actually delivered the note to the book return slot. I don’t remember a whole bunch about the note but I remember it was quite dirty.   Well evidently the librarian didn’t have a sense of humor.

I’m not quite sure how school administration got onto our trail.  Maybe the librarian gave them a list of students that have given her a hard time.  Well anyway I had heard that one of the guys involved got called into the vice principals office.  I was shitting bricks.  I knew if the kid rolled on us I was a dead man.  You can imagine the feeling when the vice principal, Mr. Shirk put his head into my class later and asked to see me.  At first I tried to play dumb.  He showed me the note written in my buddies handwriting.  He told me that they went into his locker and matched the handwriting to the note.  Evidently under pressure he had ratted out everyone else out and fingered me as the delivery boy.  My mind was a blur.  I knew what was about to go down, my parents would be told, my baseball coach would be told, the heaps of shame I felt from being involved in the stupid stunt broke me down. I started to cry like a little bitch. 

When asked for an explanation for what we did I could only offer “it was a joke”.  He read back various experts from the letter which were particularly bad and then repeating back to me, “this is a joke?”  It was a nightmare.  So I got sent home and awaited my punishment.  My parents weren’t happy but they weren’t furious either.  They knew I wasn’t a serial killer and it was just a joke. However school officials were not so sure.  Initially there was talk of all of us having to undergo psychiatric examinations as well as talk of EXPULSION!  Luckily calmer heads prevailed and we got by with a one week suspension.  My punishment at home was not bad, I had to paint the porch.   My parents knew I felt bad about it, I was very embarrassed.

The funny thing is when we all got back to school we were sort of like rock stars.  Getting suspended for a week made you cool in a weird way.  There was no real resentment towards the guy that turned us in.  Evidently they were threatening him with expulsion unless he came clean.  I learned my lesson and kept my nose pretty clean until I graduated.

I took Monday off to make sure that I had enough time to make sure Mom was all moved in to her new place.  On Saturday I wasn’t planning on doing a whole bunch of physical labor, especially since on Sunday I would have a bunch of it with moving. 

One of the things I wanted to get done before Ali got back from the gym was to open up the air handler and check it out.  A year or two ago the handler froze up as a result of water dripping off the unit collecting in the vent under it, eventually filling it to the point where it blocked airflow.  Jeremy had told me stories of mold problems he was having due to a water leak at his place it made me paranoid about our system.  I was worried that water was again filling up the vent since nothing was really done to address the issue, the symptoms were addressed instead.  So I cut power to the unit and go about disassembling it to the point where I can get access to the vent underneath.  A quick visual was promising but the lighting was not good so I got the flashlight.  I shined it down the hole, anxious about what I would see.  I knew if again there was water collecting I needed to address it somehow, it’s not safe to have a puddle of water in your ac system.  When I looked again with the additional light I still saw no water!  I was relieved but still not 100% convinced I was in the clear.  I stuck the hose of the shop-vac down into the vent to see if it would snag some water that I was somehow not seeing.  It found no liquid, awesome.  As preventative maintenance, I used the shop-vac to suck out the drain line outside the house and also used the brush attachment to vacuum off the coils the best I could.  I also sprayed some clorox in the drain pan to help with some of the algae/scuz that was present.  I buttoned everything back up and fired the ac back up just to make sure it all still worked.  My mind felt at ease.

After Ali got back from the gym Saturday we went outside to do a couple “small” things like transplanting the native grass that we used to have in big pots in front of the house somewhere else.  The grass got too big for the pots and looked straggly and shitty.

As I looked around the property around the house there was really no place I saw where I wanted to plant the grass.  We decided to take them all the way to the back of the property and planted one on either side of the palm tree by the pit.  That area obviously is far beyond the reach of our irrigation system but we didn’t really care.  It’s native grass so hopefully it adapts to the arid conditions of dry season.  If it dies, oh well.  There was another clump of native grass planted off the back corner of the shed that we wanted to relocate as well.  It was in sorry shape anyway and created a good place for snakes to hide in so Ali wanted it gone.

Digging up that clump was a bit of a pain in the ass but not too bad.  Then for some reason I offered up to Ali that I could try to dig up and remove  the areca palm that was badly damaged from the frost.  It was much more dead than alive.  It is the remnant of a failed landscape accent I had in place next to what used to be the compost pile.  The thinking back then was it would hide the compost bin from the road view.  Well the compost bin has been long gone but the areca has remained although it has looked out of place.    Ali was excited by my offer to remove it so there was no turning back now.

I used the shovel and tried to dig out around the clump of palms.  The ground is choked with roots.  Every time I put the shovel in the ground I have to stand on it with all my weight just to get it into the ground.  Ali was trying to assist with the other shovel but could not even make a dent.  It didn’t take me long to realize that this would be a ridiculous chore with a shovel so I decided I would try a brute force direction.  I pulled my truck in, hooked a steel cable around the clump of arecas and attached it to the frame of the truck.  I slowly pulled forward and then came to an abrupt stop when the cable pulled taut.  I hit the gas a bit and the tires just spun.  Ali reported that the palm did not budge one inch.  So I backed up and tried again, this time moving a bit faster.  All this did was make my abrupt stop a little more violent, the areca still did not budge one bit.  So I go into the shed and grab the post bar, the big iron thing I used to tamp down the hundred fence posts.  I used the sharp end of it to go around the perimeter of the palm in an attempt to sever the outer root system, making it easier to break it free.  Each time I jabbed it into the ground I could hear the snap of roots breaking, maybe this would work.  I hop back in the truck, back up and again pull forward, hoping to have the areca finally break free.  Again I am jolted to a stop.  The tree still will not move.

At this point Ali saw my frustration and offered up we could just let it be, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  Well I wasn’t ready to give up quite yet as I ran various plans of action through my head.  I was trying to figure out what power tools could help me out.  I decided to take out my Xmas chainsaw and put it to work.  I cut down the clump of palms to just above ground level, leaving just a clump of stumps and roots.  After that I attacked it with the post bar.  I rammed the bar into the clump again and again, splitting it up.  Then I would lean on the bar with all my weight to slowly work the roots loose.  Ali and I took turns with one working the post bar while the other would chop at the roots with a shovel.  Finally after what was probably an hour and a half battle, I triumphantly pulled out the last clump of roots.  It was exhausting work, made tougher by the high humidity in the air. 

In the spot where the areca stood, we dug a small hole and planted one of the trees that Ali grew from seed that was outgrowing the pot it lived in on the lanai.   Hopefully it does well.  When I checked yesterday it looked a little stressed, probably from receiving full sun all day long as opposed to the filtered sun it got under the protection of the pool cage.

Saturday night Ali made a great homemade lasagna made with lots of vegetables and whole wheat lasagna noodles.  We caught up on several episodes of ER that were piling up on the Tivo.

Sunday was the big mom move day.  I got up early to do all the normal morning routine before we had to leave to pick up the moving truck at 7:30 or so.  The place I rented from was the same one I used when we moved 7 years ago.  It’s no frills.  It also is located close to my work so it wasn’t the most convenient location since the place mom is moving to was in Bonita.  But like I said it was cheap, $54.95 plus .75 per mile for a 15 foot truck.

So we get there right when they open at 8 am.  As I went in the door I was followed by a little guy that was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, no shoes, no socks, no shirt.  He had a rather worried demeanor about him as he waited in line behind me.  As the woman behind the desk was helping me, she asked the guy what he needed.  He said he needed to call a taxi but he didn’t have a number for the taxi place.  He said he lives in Bonita but was “stranded” here in Naples.  He said his wallet was at his place in Bonita.  He didn’t offer up exactly how he came about being stranded in Naples with barely any clothes and no wallet.  The girl behind the desk called the taxi company for the guy and then let him explain his dilemma to the dispatcher, weird shit.

So the girl finishes up with me.  She tells me I am getting H-15.  She reviews the procedures which included returning the truck with a full tank of gas which it supposedly had now. (more on that later)  She hands me the keys, we verify the current mileage and I’m off.  Immediately I notice both mirrors are not adjusted anywhere close to where they should be.  I fix the driver side mirror but don’t bother to mess with the passenger side for now.  I pull out on the road with Ali following behind in the truck.  We had to drive it all the way back to our house to load up the daybed and few other things that were going to mom’s new place.

As I drove along I noticed that the driver side mirror I had just adjusted was already out of whack.  I reach out and move it again and realize that there is not enough tension on the hinge for it to stay in place, that’s annoying.  So during the day I drove around with the window always down so I could push the mirror out whenever I actually needed to see what was behind/beside me.  My annoyance cracked up some more when I saw that the gas gauge was a hash mark below the FULL line, meaning in reality it was probably several gallons below full.  With nearly 4 dollar a gallon gas that pissed me off.

So other than frequent mirror corrections, I arrived back at our house without incident.  I backed the truck into the driveway and got ready to quickly load up our stuff.  I leaned all the bedding along the front of the truck and secured it in place with a combination of wash line and bungee cords.   We headed out to mom’s place.  Before we left Ali had talked to mom on the phone and could tell she was stressed out as I knew she would be.

We got to  mom’s old place and again I backed in to make loading easier.  The truck had a pull out loading ramp which made the process more convenient.  Mom had stuff packed up pretty well.  There were only a few loose things that had to be thrown into boxes last second.  Mom’s co-worker, Annette was nice enough to volunteer to come help with the move and arrived a little after we did.  Mom was very conscious of my blog comments regarding the move where I said I was worried about having nothing but females to help me.  Randall had been nice enough to offer his assistance but he was only available on Saturday, it was a very nice offer none the less.  Anyway, mom had brought various moving dollies from work to make things easier.  It turned out I really didn’t need them.

I sort of worked the house from back to front, emptying out the bedrooms first and moving forward.  I wanted to get most of the large items in the truck first and then back fill with boxes.  My days at Goodwill taught me a thing or two about loading trucks.  My fears about moving the furniture proved to be all for naught.  Removing the drawers from pieces of furniture made them much easier to handle.  Ali and I were able to carry pretty much anything of any size without much issue at all.  Loading up took maybe a couple hours at most.  I had the truck full all the way to the back door although stuff was not piled high, maybe half way.  Mom and Annette had their vehicles stuffed with smaller items as well.  We were ready to pull out to mom’s new place 3 miles away.  As Annette hopped in her SUV and turned the key it made the all too familiar sound of a battery on it’s last legs.  The engine turned weakly a few times and then stopped.  Luckily I had jumper cables in the Tacoma and a quick jump got her up and running.  I was surprised that the rest of the day the SUV started up without issue. She better get that battery replaced asap.

So our small train of vehicles pull out and arrive at mom’s new place in a few minutes.  Her new condo is in a gated community with a guard at the gate 24/7.  Mom stops and lets the guard know the deal and he waves us all through.  The first thing I think as I enter the place is “Damn! This place is nice!”  All the landscape is beautifully manicured and there is a big lake right at the entrance.  All the homes we passed looked very nice as well.  It reminded me a bit of Pelican Marsh, a high end community friends of ours live at.

Mom leads us back to her set of condos and points me to the spot where I was to park.  Backing the truck in was a bit hairy, especially since the passenger side mirror had slipped out of alignment again.  Before we started to unload mom wanted to show us her new place.  It was great, so much better than the aging duplex in Naples Park.  The most striking part of her new place was the lanai and the view outside of it.  It’s beautifully landscaped with several feeders for the birds who were putting it to good use.  It was so quiet and serene.  The rest of the condo was very nice as well, the main living area had laminate wood flooring and the bedrooms have freshly laid carpet.  I was impressed and relieved that mom was moving into a place that made me feel good about where she lived instead of bad. 

After the brief tour it was time to get down to the business of unloading.  We had mom stay inside to be the traffic cop to direct us as we brought various items in.  She was getting a bit frazzled  and uttered the phrase ” I don’t know where to put everything” more than once but we worked through it ok.  It didn’t take too long to get things unloaded.  Shortly after getting it all unloaded, my mom’s other co-worker, Sara Lee whom lives in the same complex was nice enough to bring us down lunch.  Evidently she loves to cook.  She brought down a freshly tossed salad, lemonade, along with cheese and crackers for starters.  Then a bit later she brought down a huge tub of pasta for lunch.  She even addressed Ali’s vegetarian ways by bringing down a small container of cheese ravioli.  It was very nice of her and very appreciated.  We ate out on the lanai.  I can’t tell you how many times I said “This is so nice…”

After lunch the work continued.  I focused more on putting the big pieces where mom wanted them and putting things together like the bed in mom’s room as well as the daybed.  The rest of the girls worked more on stuff like emptying out boxes.  We ran back over to mom’s old place for a bit to pick up some food that was left behind as well as a bunch of potted plants mom didn’t want.  I had ideas of digging up the plumeria that mom had planted and using it on our property but trashed that idea when I saw the thick roots extending way out from the trunk.  It would have been a freaking mess.  So instead I lopped off three branches that we will plant and start new trees with.

After we got back to mom’s new place there wasn’t a whole lot to do.  Mom had come up with a few little odds and ends that needed to be done at the place that I didn’t have the tools for.  We said we would come back Monday to knock them out.  Mom thanked us for all of the hard work and we headed out.  I told mom it was no problem at all and I was very glad to see her in such a nice place.  I think mom was feeling better about things now that she was in. You can see the pictures I took of her place here.

We drove the moving truck back to the rental location and then headed home. I put about 60 miles on the truck but had to put in over 7 gallons of fuel to top it off.  Unless this thing got incredibly horrible mileage, it was not full when I picked it up, jerks.  With all we did we still managed to get home before 5pm, pretty damn good.  We were both tired from the long day.  On Sunday night we finally got around to watching one of the movies I have had for awhile, Jumpers.  It stars the kid that played Darth Vader, Hayden Christiansen and Samuel L. Jackson who seems to be in almost every movie released.  I thought Hayden did a pretty horrible job of acting in the new Star Wars series yet for some reason I wanted to see this film.  The concept of being able to teleport wherever you wanted is just cool!

So the film starts and it doesn’t take long until you get to witness the teleport thing.  As expected it is cool.  Hayden teleports around the globe and even uses his powers to teleport into banks and rob them to supply him with an endless stream of money.  Well it didn’t take very long until I realized that beyond the coolness of teleportation, the film didn’t have a whole lot more to offer.  Sam Jackson’s character was annoying and stupid as he tried to catch and kill Hayden and another “jumper”  I was glad when the film was over, it did nothing for me beyond a statement I made to Ali about how awesome it would be to teleport.  I had seen so much teleportation by the end of the film I was almost sick of the concept.  I’d give it a C.  Certainly don’t pay to see it.

So Monday morning we did a few things around the house in the morning.  One of them was to rearrange the spare bedroom that we have the treadmill in to allow us to get the cross trainer in there as well, making it a legitimate “fitness room”.  It worked out pretty well.  Before we went to mom’s we had a couple pit stops to make at the shipping store, Home Depot, and Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick up a curtain rod and towel bar for my mom’s place.  We wound up grabbing a curtain rod for our bedroom as well while we there as well as hooks to hold back the curtains.  Since moving the cross trainer out of our bedroom we once again had full access to the window as well as opening up all that space.

We got to mom’s place around 12:30.  Ali and I couldn’t believe how much stuff was put away.  It looked like mom had lived there for months.  She said she was up since 4am working on things.  Ali said she wasn’t surprised things were picked up, as I would do the same thing.  I admitted I’m sure she was right.  When I have a project in front of me it’s normally full speed ahead until it is done so I can then relax, briefly, until another project catches my attention. 

We were all hungry so before work began we ate some of the huge amount of left overs from the day before.  Again we ate out on the lanai and again it was very peaceful and quiet.    After lunch we got down to business.  It didn’t take me very long to install the curtain rod, towel bar and hang a big picture.  All I had to do was give mom a brief Roomba how-to (I gave her one of my Roombas to try out) and we were done.  Mom again thanked us for everything and we were off.  When we got back Ali quickly changed and headed to a step class at the gym.

  While she was gone I hung the curtain rod in our bedroom.  Hanging stuff around our windows is a pain in the ass.  It seems like around the windows you always either run into the solid cement that frames it or the metal studs that are used almost everywhere.  Well when I sunk the hole for the middle support it was into a metal stud.  When I popped through it, it buckled a bit which popped out two big chunks of plaster.  Shit. So I rigged it.  I pushed the two pieces back in place and then pressed and fastened the curtain rod bracket on top of the pieces to hold them.  It worked half decent.  If you weren’t looking for it, I don’t think you would notice my faux pas.  Once Ali got back I finished up the job by installing two matching curtain tie backs.

The weekend was full of work but I didn’t mind it.  It was all for a good cause.  🙂

I added another little widget in the left column that lists the top commentators for the past 30 days.  Right now Sir Randall is in the lead.  The list resets monthly.  Don’t be shy, post your thoughts and get props!

Last nights useful application of my time was applied to trimming the topiaries, small palm and hedge around the front of the house.  They were all looking a bit ragged.

Just as I was getting ready to call Pinch A Penny yesterday to complain about the tech not showing up Ali said he was there.  The repair took him all of 15 minutes.  Ali was a bit shocked by the $95 labor charge for the 15 minutes but I knew it would be around $100.  When I was a computer tech we had a minimum one hour charge as well on a service call as well so the concept is familiar to me.  I was fine with it.  I checked out the repair when I got home.  It looks good. For the first time in a few years the area around the inlet and outlet to the heater is not wet from dripping water.

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So this weekend we get mom moved into her new place.  We will be doing it on Sunday.  I don’t expect any major issues.  The biggest problem could be that I will only have females available to help carry the other end of something.  I am bringing my dolly with so I can hopefully minimize the amount of heavy lifting they have to do. 

I’d really like to get back on the treadmill at the gym today but my better judgement and the residual soreness in my knees is preventing me from doing so.  It’s nothing major but I need to wait until they feel a bit better before running again.

A guy I work with is a hardcore WoW addict.  He has been playing the game since it came out in December of 2004, a period of roughly three and a half years.  The other night he thought he would get a measurement of how pathetic his life has become by adding up the total “played” time on all of his Warcraft characters.  It added up to something like 410 DAYS!  Yes 410 days, real time, 410 days as in sitting in front of your computer for one year and two months STRAIGHT.  Basically he has spent a third of his time playing WoW. If you add in the limited time he gets sleeping as well as 40 hours a week working, it doesn’t take a math whiz to conclude he has no life. No, he isn’t happy about it.  A few weeks ago he was in my office talking to me and commented about how the last 10 years of his life have been basically sucked into a MMORPG void as he was involved in Dark Age of Camelot before WoW.  Compared to him, I feel like an amateur in my dedication to the game.  Luckily as time has gone on I have been able to moderate WoW into more of a casual thing that fills in the gaps when I don’t have other things going on as opposed to being THE thing going on.  Even so, I am sure if I added up my played time over the same period it would come out between 100 and 200 days.

No wonder illegals flock here like mosquitoes….

 Letter by a Florida teacher…………… A teacher speaks

 This is a subject close to my heart. Do you know that we have adult students at the school where I teach who are not US citizens and who get the PELL grant, which is a federal grant (no pay back required) plus other federal grants  to go to school?

 One student from the Dominican Republic told me that she didn’t want me to find a job for her after she finished my program, because she was getting  housing from our housing department and she was getting a PELL grant which paid for her total tuition and books, plus money leftover.

 She was looking into WAIT which gives students a CREDIT CARD for gas to come  to school, and into CARIBE which is a special program (check it out – I did) for immigrants and it pays for child care and all sorts of needs while they go to school or training. The one student I just mentioned told me she was not going to be a US Citizen because she plans to return to the  Dominican Republic someday and that she ‘loves HER country.’

 I asked her if she felt guilty taking what the US  is giving her and then not even bothering to become a citizen and she told me that it doesn’t bother her, because that is what the money is there for!

 I asked the CARIBE administration about their program and if you ARE a US Citizen, you don’t qualify for their program. And all the while, I am working a full day, my son-in-law works more than 60 hours a week, and everyone in my family works and pays for our education.

Something is wrong here.   I am sorry but after hearing they want to sing the National Anthem in Spanish – enough is enough. Nowhere did they sing it in Italian, Polish, Irish (Celtic), German or any other language because of immigration.   It was written by Francis Scott Key and should be sung word for word the way it was written. The news broadcasts even gave the translation — not even close.Sorry if this offends anyone but this is MY COUNTRY.

IF IT IS YOUR COUNTRY SPEAK UP — please pass this along. I am not against immigration — just come through like everyone else.

Get a sponsor; have a place to lay your head; have a job; pay your taxes, live by the rules AND LEARN THE LANGUAGE as all other immigrants have in the past —  and GOD BLESS AMERICA!

As a vegetarian, Ali eats a TON of soy based products.  Because I am married to a vegetarian, I wind up eating a lot of soy based products as well.  The general consensus has been soy is the miracle food, a way to get your protein without consuming meat.   Well after taking a look at this site I don’t feel very good about Ali or myself consuming lots of soy products.  The site does not just condemn soy, it goes into GREAT detail about what makes it not good for you.  Apparently parents that give their babies soy based formula are inadvertently giving them the equivalent of 5 birth control pills worth of estrogen in each bottle, ouch.  I forwarded the site to Ali for her to check out.  Being a dietitian I am sure she will initially dismiss my find as she feels I could not possibly offer her any nutritional information of any value.  Well I certainly can’t make up her mind for her but it certainly will make me think much harder about the amount of soy based foods I eat.    

So yesterday a pool service guy from Pinch-A-Penny was supposed to come out to fix the leak we have at the pool heater.  Nobody showed up, nobody called to say they weren’t coming out.  Before moving to Florida I would find this behavior from a service organization pretty unusual.  However since moving to the sunshine state time and again we have experienced piss poor service, starting off with the fiasco I had with Sprint on day one.  For some reason people down here don’t think it is a big deal to not keep appointments. So now today I get to call back today and complain, something I have become quite good at.

My mom told me that she was going to buy a new vacuum cleaner since the one we gave her years ago wasn’t working very well.  I told her that she once again could have our vacuum.  There is nothing wrong with it but we had been talking about getting a Dyson for a long time so we figured it was a good time to do it.  We had one of those Bed, Bath & Beyond 20% off coupons that Ali just happened to have on her.  Ali left me an excited email saying I had to call her to hear about the great deal she got.  She scored an OUTSTANDING deal.

Dyson’s are expensive, the model on the left is the Animal Ball model which normally retails for $600!!!  This model supposedly is designed for pet hair as well as having the unique BALL which allows the vacuum an amazingly easy turning radius.  Well when Ali walked in the store what was in front of her on a clearance table but one of these beauties!  Evidently Dyson is rolling out a new model so these were on clearance, PLUS it was a floor model so she got an additional discount, PLUS she was able to still use the 20% off coupon!  She walked out of there saving over %50 off the retail price!  She was quite proud of her deal and rightly so.  

I played with the Animal last night for a little bit.  Even though I had just run the steam cleaner the night before which does a good job of pulling stuff out from deep within the carpet, the Animal was able to pull out a surprising amount of additional crud.  The ball is really cool.  With a twist of the wrist you are able to wrap around a corner in one continuous motion.  The way everything fits together and comes apart is very well engineered and “cool”.  The filter in the unit is reusable and washable, another nice feature.  For $600 the Dyson Animal should be extremely cool and it indeed is.  For $280 it almost feels like stealing.  It will make me almost look forward to vacuuming.

Last night I continued my better use of time by cleaning the water equipment and then setting up the replacement fountain pump in our little pond.  Ali surprised me by skipping out of ballet class which would have kept her out until after 9 and instead coming home early to hang out with me which was nice.  We laid on the couch together watching Big Brother.   

I added a couple more tweaks to the blog.  You will notice each post has an EMAIL and PRINT link.  The email link will allow you to quickly email a post to someone instead of having to cut and paste a link from your web browser.  The print icon will give you a version of the post you are reading in an easy to print format, minus all the extraneous junk.  Nothing ground breaking but possibly convenient depending on your needs. 

When I went to the gym I saw an old shitty looking Maxda MX-6.  It had badly faded paint, various dings and dents and other things wrong with it.  However what caught my attention the most were the glued on, matching, mini hood scoops on this piece of junk.  It also had what looked to be a mini-rudder glued to the rear of the roof, I assume to aid stability when the vehicle is doing 150 mph around the race track.  It looked so stupid.  But then I thought to myself, “Hey, you used to do things of equal stupidity when it comes to cars…”

My first girlfriend when I was 17 had a piece of shit Chevy Vega (not nearly as nice as what is pictured)  It was all in gray primer.  The Vega was a bare bones, piece of shit that Chevy put out in response to the gas crisis of the 70’s.  It found favor with hot rodders since it was possible to stuff a V8 motor into this tiny, light car.  Put some mag wheels and a nice paint job on it and it didn’t look half bad. 

Well although I lacked the funds or know-how to do an engine swap, I decided I would still try to spice up her car, which I did with her permission of course.  I decided the car needed a paint job.  I had absolutely zero car painting experience but I knew how to work a spray can.

I went out and bought a dozen or two cans of dark blue spray paint along with a couple cans of black and white paint as well.  After taping off the windows and trim the best I could, I turned our old garage into a make-shift paint booth, painting the car blue.  I sprayed and sprayed until the tips of my fingers were raw from pressing on the nozzle.  I wasn’t smart enough to do anything to filter the air or protect my lungs.  I was blowing blue snot for a few days later.  The white paint was to put two racing stripes on the hood and the trunk of the car.  The black was used to paint over any easily removable trim pieces.  I remember looking at pride at the finished product.  Yea a car painted with spray paint isn’t going to have a smooth, glossy finish (more like one big orange peel) but it at least looked better than gray primer. 

I tried to add to the new “sporty” look of the car by adding rear window “louvers”.  Yes they basically looked like venetian blinds installed into the rear window.  I was quite proud of myself with the finished product.  I can only think there was a 40 year old man that walked by the spray painted Vega with shitty looking louvers in the rear window shaking his head while thinking how utterly stupid it looked….

I decided last night to put my time to more productive use.  Instead of sitting down and playing WoW for a couple hours after tending to the pets I decided to steam clean the carpet.  I figured it would be one less thing for me to do on a weekend.  I really need to vacuum conventionally once every week or two.  It seems that letting the Roomba’s exclusively sweep the carpet results in a lot of dirt remaining deep inside it.  The Roombas do a good job of pulling hair and dust off the carpet but they don’t have the suction power of an upright.  As a result when I run the steam cleaner I see incredibly cruddy water getting dumped down the sink.  The steam cleaner also pulls out tons of dog hair, even more than the upright vacuum does. Tonight I plan to continue using my time more wisely by performing the water equipment maintenance.

I decided to start doing some chores I normally regulate to the weekend during the week just to be more efficient.  It feels like there are lots of projects that could use my attention right now, so knocking out some of the smaller ones during the week will help relax me a bit mentally.  Today hopefully another long term problem will be addressed.  I finally got around to scheduling Pinch a Penny to come out to fix the constant spritzing leak at the pool heater connections.  The fitting has been cracked for months if not a year and has been spitting water. 

Speaking of the pool, last week I got the new pool cleaner as well as the covers for the pool drains that are supposed to keep the cleaner from getting stuck on them.  Originally I thought these covers were replacements for the original drain covers.  I was wrong, instead these things sit on top of the existing drains.   The center of the cover is plastic, the outer edge is 3 sections of rubber that get screwed to the center plastic piece.  I drop the covers into the pool and position them over the drains with the pool skimmer.  I set up the pool cleaner and drag it down to the deep end to see how the covers work.  I watched the cleaner traverse cleanly over one of the covers and declared “mission accomplished”, no more baby sitting the pool cleaner.

I let the new cleaner run overnight just to give it a good trial run.  When I came out the next morning I saw it appeared to be in the far corner, not moving.  As I got closer I realized that it had drug the drain cover off the drain and was in the process of trying to eat it.  Son of a bitch!  So I pull it up and try to ascertain what the deal was.  It looked like somehow the cleaner managed to suck in the rubber at one of the edges where it connects to the other rubber piece.  I snapped the rubber back together, put it back in the pool and then watched in anger as the cleaner ran over the cover and immediately performed the same maneuver!  I was pissed.  So I drug the drain cover to the surface and thought about how to address the issue.  The pool cleaner seemed to clear the other drain cover just fine.  From the surface it looked like the issue might be the surface around the problem drain is not all that smooth, allowing some gaps between the rubber of the drain cover and the pool floor.  I think these gaps are what is causing this to happen.  I wasn’t quite sure how to address it so as a band-aid I decided to drive a staple in between the rubber pieces to hopefully prevent them from getting sucked  into the cleaner.  This weekend I will need to do some additional testing.  To fix the issue it may require me to get into the less than ideal temperature pool and snoop around the drain to see if I can do something to prevent the problem from reoccurring.

I am looking forward to getting the front door replaced.  We looked at doors at Lowe’s over the weekend.  The installation will cost at least double what the door itself costs.  I still am leaning towards having someone do that job.  I am sick and tired of being able to see sunlight through the edge of the door.

My home email address appears to be in use by some f’ing spammer.  I have been getting non-stop bounce messages over the past few days as a result from messages that I never sent but that had my email address in the From: field.  There isn’t a whole lot I can do about it at this point but I am going to look into setting up a DNS SPF record to prevent it from happening in the future.  Spammers are such dog shit. 

I rented a 15 foot truck to assist with mom’s move this weekend.  I am excited for the move.  I can’t wait to see mom’s new place.

I am slowly recovering from Saturday’s vball tournament.  The stinging from the sunburn on my back has subsided. Although I can hardly wait to start peeling like a snake.  Both of my knees are a little swollen and a bit too tender to think about running yet.  My left shoulder is a bit painful yet too.  However compared to my physical condition after playing vball after long lay offs in years past, I came out of this tourney in better shape than usual.