Comment king, pool cage pissed, dreams

Jesus.  I had no idea my entry regarding the possibility of me getting a motorcycle would result in the most commented entry in the history of my blog!  It seems everyone had an opinion on it. Ali changed her tune a bit in the comments compared to what I heard in the van, being much more enthusiastic of her disapproval in print.  Yesterday I did some more investigation of the process.  They offer a motorcycle safety course, something like 15 hours covering 3 days, at the fairgrounds, right by our house.  After successfully completing the course you simply present the certification at the DL office and bam, you are licensed to drive a bike.  The course assumes you are a motorcycle novice, which I am not, but they provide the bike to train on, a helmet and other safety gear to borrow while taking the course which is cool.  I never had formal training so I think it is a win/win either way.

Of course mom’s comment on my entry didn’t make me feel good.  I don’t want to cause her undue worry.  I figure you take a risk anytime you get behind the wheel of a vehicle.  All you can do is your part to minimize the risk.  I have worried about mom’s health for the last 30 something years because of her smoking.  I still view it as a fair trade. (no more smoking/no motorcycle)  I didn’t say it is written in stone I will get a bike, it’s just an option that is on my mental table.

So the pool cage guy actually showed up yesterday.  He didn’t finish up before Ali had to leave for work.  She wasn’t thrilled leaving the house while he was still there.  When I got home from work I got to see what he did. I was pissed. This is what I saw, sorry the camera on the Treo isn’t great.

The guy added some additional brace pieces, great.  But he did so by just slapping them on the OUTSIDE of the cage.  It looked like someone nailed two pieces of gutter to the outside of the cage. WTF??????  I was instantly boiling.  To me it looked like he didn’t feel like taking the time to mount the bracing inside the cage where it would require cutting angles to make it fit correctly into the existing framework so he took the easy route and just slapped them on the outside.  Well I thought it looked like shit and immediately called him but got voicemail.  I told him I was amazed at how he could think that what he did looked ok and that I wanted a call back asap.  I left my home number and work number for him to call back.  For some reason he instead called back on my cell which I did not hear so he left a message that I got this morning.

When Ali got home I verified with her that it wasn’t just me, it indeed did look cheap and rigged.  Yep she thought it looked shitty as well.  So we decided we would ask the inspector his opinion of it when he comes out today.  I called back the pool cage guy this morning and repeated my rant.  I told him how bad it looked and how I couldn’t believe he would think it was ok.  The guy said that the engineering modifications called for the additional bracing to be on the outside.  I told him that was extremely hard to believe because it looks so ridiculous.  I told him I NEVER have seen a pool cage with additional bracing on the outside of the screening.  He told me he has installed several cages that had this bracing.  I said “the same sort of bracing that looks like a piece of rain gutter???”  He said yes and I was the first person that ever mentioned anything about it.  I can’t tell you how much I wanted to just blurt out “That’s total bullshit..”

So we continued on.  I told him that my plan was to have the inspector give me his opinion on the handy work and if it indeed was “normal”.  I said if it passes inspection with the braces on fine, I wanted the braces removed afterward.  He said he could do that but I would have to sign something relieving him of liability. Yea whatever.  At this point I just hope it passes inspection, the permit is closed and then I can climb up there and remove that shit myself.  Neither Ali or I want the guy on our property ever again.  He gave Ali the creep vibe and I am just sick of his incompetence.  I was pissed off all of last night from the idea that the guy dicked me around for 3 months until he did the work and when he finally does it looks like a “Fisher Price My First Pool Cage” 

I spent a good portion of the evening entering paper entries for the 4th of July race we are timing.  I found myself getting quite annoyed with that process as well.  All in all, Ali and I put in a ton of time operating the time system and all of the associated work to maintain it.  When I first agreed to take on the responsibility one of the high ranking board members floated the idea of offering us some sort of minor pay for doing so.  It wasn’t much but at least it would be something.  Well after that it hasn’t really been discussed since. Well I am going to revisit the subject. 

In my Treo I also found the following pics from PA of Randall and Ali in front of the great Victor Emmanuels.

Last night it felt like I had dreams all night long.  It wasn’t one dream it was several and they all seemed to have very long and complicated plots.  Unfortunately I remember very little of them.  I do remember in one scene I was scratching the back of my head and as I did hair was flying all over the bed, covering it.  I realized the hair was falling out of my skull as I scratched.  I show Ali all the hair and she laughs.  She said she decided to pull a little prank on me and put Nair in my shampoo bottle.  I was not very amused.

I woke up around 2am in the middle of one of the dreams and then had a hell of a time falling back asleep, rolling around for at least an hour thinking about every topic under the sun.  I woke up this morning once again feeling tired.  I have been trying to get some solid sleep this week to prepare for the 4am or so wake up call I am going to have to endure Friday morning to get up and out the door for the race so we can arrive at 5:30 am.  So far the plan is not working out.