Get up early and go run 4 miles in the Gobble Gobble run.
Go home, take a shower, go to Mom’s for Thanksgiving.
Rest of the weekend – chores, maybe buy paint for the dining room, maybe do some online Christmas shopping, play WoW, watch movies, watch Tivo, enjoy the time off.
I am not feeling verbally expressive today.
Last night Ali had her first performance in front of a live audience. She was performing at the Naples tree lighting ceremony. I left work early so I would have time to let Nicki out and feed her and then shoot right back out to pick up mom to go downtown. They close off third street for the event.
Mom had heard there could be upward of 25,000 people down there so I was concerned about the parking. We parked in a school parking lot 5 or 6 blocks away from the main festivities. We figured it was far enough away that we could get out of the area without major problems. Ali said she would be performing around 6:15. It was five till six when we were walking so I sort of made a beeline to the street where she said she would be.
We turned the corner and saw the stage. We spotted Ali among the various dancers. She was happy to see us. I brought my video camera with to tape the performance. Ali said she was nervous but excited. She said they would be performing after the tree was lit up. I hadn’t eaten anything so since we had a few minutes to kill I walked up and grabbed myself a couple hot dogs, a bag of peanut M&M’s and a diet Pepsi, a nutritional waste dump, oh well. There seemed to be some glitch in the tree lighting, we heard stuff coming over the PA that sounded like they were counting down to light it up but nothing happened. Then a few minutes later the tree was on with no announcement. They also turned on the “snow” machines that were attached to some of the light posts. These devices basically spit out soapy foam that sort of looks like snow, especially at night time.
Well the dance performance started. Ali was in the 6th group to perform. We got to watch mostly little girls perform in the preliminary routines. It was very cute to see the excitement on the little girls faces as they performed in front of a crowd of a couple hundred people. Then it was time for Ali and her group of adult ballet class to perform. Ali had a huge smile on her face throughout the entire routine. She did great. You could tell how much she was enjoying herself and I was proud of her for getting out there and doing it. The routine lasted two or three minutes.
After she was done, Mom and I went up and congratulated Ali on her performance. She was very excited. I told her she did great and I was proud of her. Ali had to run back to the studio to help the girls get changed for the next performance. Ali did a total of three “shows”. Mom and I stayed for the second one as well. During the second show I concentrated on shooting the entire stage so the other women could see their performance. Ali did equally well on her second performance. My boss and a co-worker also came down to the event and got to see Ali perform which was cool.
We again congratulated Ali for doing so well and then made our way back to the truck. I dropped mom off at home and grabbed the meatloaf and mashed potatoes she made for me. Mom is now wavering on our Thanksgiving plans. Originally we were going to go to her place for Thanksgiving but then she indicated last night that maybe we should just have it at our place. I guess we need to decide kind of soon.
I plan on ripping the video from the performance and hopefully get it up on youtube.
After a super hot start to my fantasy football season, I have been really struggling recently. I can’t seem to catch much luck. The other week I had two players yet to play on a Monday night and they only had to score 12 or 13 points between them to snag me a win. Instead they score a shitty 5 and I lose. This week I had a strong performance and by last night I was ahead by 18 points. My opponent had two players playing in the Monday night game, Greg Jennings and a kicker. Well I wake up this morning and check the score, I lost by two points, 111-109. I closed the browser window in disgust. At this point I just need to make sure I get to the play offs and then hope the pieces fall into place. I’m not quite sure if fantasy football is more fun or frustrating for me.
Saturday morning I was a buzz saw cutting through my three major projects of replacing the mailbox, replacing the broken sprinkler head and fixing the mower deck all before lunch time. All of the jobs went as planned, hence the quick completion time. The rest of the day I kept busy doing various other small chores. I was able to get my one Roomba working again by swapping out the brush deck with a spare from the Roomba that has the fried circuit board.
Ali had a ballet rehearsal for her big show tonight during the afternoon. She came up with the great idea of stopping at Carraba’s on the way home for take out. Saturday night we got to enjoy Carraba’s in our living room while we watched Hancock, a movie I had wanted to see for awhile. Hancock was decent. It had some kick ass special effects and the story line was reasonably interesting. There was one scene in the movie where Ali commented that “it’s just stupid now” but the film actually got back on track after that. I enjoyed it. I’d give it a B+.
Sunday morning we decided to take a bike ride up around our area. We used to regularly go up and down our road by bike, roller blade and foot but we hadn’t done so in a long time, at least a year. We hadn’t used our bikes in so long that I had to pump up both tires on both bikes, they were as flat as they could be. It was quite windy so depending on the direction we were riding it was either very easy if the wind was pushing you or rather difficult if you were going head on into it.
It was nice to get out and ride I guess but the adjective I would use to sum up the ride was in a word, depressing. When we moved into our house in 2001 our street was a bee hive of activity, everywhere you looked there was a new home going up. The news of Ave Maria going in made our location all the more desirable, everyone wanted in. Well a ride down the street in 2008 left no doubt that those days are ancient history. It seemed that almost every other house was either for sale or outright abandoned.
It really struck home when we drove by the house of a woman we kind of befriended when we first moved there. She was sort of the community organizer and we attended several neighborhood meetings at her place. She was big into animals and her fenced in yard was filled with various pens and cages to accommodate them all. Well we rode by her house and hardly recognized it. The wooden slat fence that used to be along the front was gone, the mailbox was laying on it’s side and there was a big tube tv laying face down in the middle of the driveway. Her house was one of the abandoned ones.
We rode by a HUMUNGOUS house. It literally looked like it belonged on the water, it was that big and that fancy. However it was not finished. For years it was simply an unfinished shell of concrete blocks. We figured the perspective owners ran out of money. Well evidently they found some more money to get the place almost done but not quite. The lot it sits on is nothing fancy and in fact looks ratty. The front door is a piece of plywood with a large gap along the bottom. I walked around the back to take a look inside. The place looked like it was a palace. The rear deck was made of marble, the ceiling was intricately detailed, the railings looked like brushed copper. I took a look inside and saw more impressive architecture although the huge spaces were mostly empty except for construction materials scattered around. I had Ali join me in looking inside the glass, she was equally impressed. We were both sort of amazed that someone would be building such an extravagant, huge, beautiful home and stop just short of it being completed. I took a look at the permit board that was hanging open. Wedged in the bottom were a few weather worn papers, the latest dated February of 08 but most dating back to 2006.
I got the address of the place off of one of the papers so I could look up the tax information online when we got home. The place had not had it’s taxes paid since 2006 and the property is only appraised at 134,000, meaning the home has never been officially completed or sold. The house had to be close to a million dollar place. It looked incredible. Check out this link, click on the house on the corner, just below where the little arrow is at the corner of 47th ave NE and 18th St , it should pop a picture where you can see this monster under contruction.
We cut our ride a bit short because Ali’s knee started to bug her a bit. A little later in the day I realized that my knees felt a bit weird from the ride as well.
I’d rather not even talk about the Eagles game since it was so horrific but since a rather big deal happened during it, I need to mention it. Once again the Eagles started off like they were playing in quicksand. Once again Donovan killed the team with three turnovers in the first half. Once again he looked like he was more worried about playing in the cold weather than having his head in the game. The Eagles went into half time down 10-7. With the way the offense played they were fortunate to only be down three.
Well I was floored when the second half started and Donovan was on the sidelines wearing his coat. For the first time in his professional career he was being benched for bad play. I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t really happy or sad about the move as much as I was just shocked. Just last week Andy was propping up McNabb, to pull the rug out like that in a three point game was really surprising. Deep down I knew that Kolb probably didn’t give the Eagles a much better shot to win but I was hopeful that I may be wrong. Kolb had one drive where he strung a few passes together before throwing an absolutely dreadful, boneheaded interception that was run back for a historic 108 yards the other way for a TD. After that he did absolutely nothing. To be fair, he was thrown into a horrible situation. Once the Birds got down by more than one score the Ravens just pinned their ears back and rushed the hell out of the 2nd year QB. His probability for success in that situation isn’t going to be high.
After the game I watched Andy’s press conference. You could tell he was angry and embarrassed as his decisions came into question. He basically said he hoped that inserting Kolb would provide a spark. It obviously didn’t work out. One thing that I thought was kind of lame was that Andy did not tell Donovan he was getting yanked. He had the QB coach do it. That was sort of a wimp move if you ask me.
I saw Donovan’s press conference later. I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the guy. Obviously his pride was hurt. He has lead the Eagles to many victories over the years. To be yanked out of the game because your coach doesn’t think you can get it done has to be like having a bucket of cold water thrown in your face. He indicated that he didn’t agree with the decision but he respected the coach’s authority to make it. Through out the conference he said all the right things without stepping on too many toes.
I heard today that Andy has decided to put Donovan back behind center for Thursday night’s game against the Cardinals. I think it is the right decision, for now. If he lays another egg the Eagles can pretty much kiss this season goodbye. Then it might be time to see if the Birds have a true heir apparent in the wings. From what I saw yesterday , I’m not so sure we have our future franchise QB on the roster. I’m not all that upset that I can’t see the Thursday game since it is on NFL network.
I bought a book based on the recommendation of a former co-worker up north, called the Power of the Subconscious Mind. He read the book a few years back and has had a dramatic transformation in the quality of his life ever since. The book is about the power of your subconscious mind and how this power can be used for or against you. I have only gotten through four chapters but the Cliff Notes version of what I have read so far goes like this.
Your conscious thoughts are responsible for sowing the seeds that are cultivated in your subconscious mind. You subconscious mind has pretty amazing power but it is a blind servant to your conscious mind, it does what it is told. The book is about training your mind to help instead of hinder you. Doing so involves a technique that could go under various names such as prayer, visualization, positive reinforcement or even hypnosis. You affirm positive statements consciously and your subconscious mind will pick up the ball and run with these thoughts, doing whatever it can to manifest them.
It’s really a pretty simple concept that I have utilized before without even realizing I was doing it. I remember when I was a pitcher I would visualize what a perfect strike felt like. I could feel the ball leave my hand effortlessly as it zipped towards the catcher until it popped into his glove low and on the outside corner. I’ve done the same thing in volleyball visualizing what a clean, hard hit “feels” like. The mental exercise helped steer my body through the proper motions to accomplish what I pictured mentally.
This principal when applied on a large scope to your attitude about life is indeed powerful. I’m reading the book with an open mind and will do my best to apply the ideas presented there to my daily existence to see how things change. I figure I have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Who doesn’t want to be happier?
So I am out walking Nicki out front this morning and I notice something looks odd. I realize the odd thing is our mailbox was no longer there. As I scanned the scene I saw parts of it strewn down the road. I also noticed that our garbage cart was across the road in the neighbors driveway. It too was severely damaged. As I got closer to the road I saw very clear truck tracks that veered down onto our property. From the tracks you can see the vehicle was completely off the road. The driver evidently plowed into our trash bin first and then hit the mailbox straight on, obliterating it.
Of course my first reaction was anger. I assume some asshole was drunk or just an idiot. I have had our mailbox hit at least three or four times since we have lived there. Each time I have been able to put the battered box back together. However all of those hits were glancing blows. This time the driver hit the box dead on, snapping the landscape timber it was attached to and shredding the plastic mailbox structure. The only satisfaction I got was knowing that the driver surely had some considerable vehicle damage thanks to the two large rocks I had on the lead edge of the box. The tire tracks would have taken the vehicle right through these rocks. I hope it snapped their suspension. F’in jerks. The mailbox that I proudly installed when we first moved in and that I carefully resurrected after previous impacts is now residing in the broken garbage cart.
The mailbox slaughter means I have another project to do this week end on top of fixing the mower deck on the Cub Cadet, replacing a broken sprinkler head and performing some exploratory surgery on the one Roomba. I have a long mental list of other things to knock out as well. It’s going to be another hellishly busy Saturday for me.
Trying to do these repairs without aggravating my tennis elbow is going to be next to impossible. My left forearm is starting to feel like it may be developing it’s own case of tendinitis. It sort of feels like the right one did for months before it became chronically sore. I really need to try to baby it.
I love my Iphone. I grabbed Shazam for it the other day. Shazam is an app that lets your phone “listen” to a song and identify it for you. The capability has been available for other phones for a little while but I had never seen it in action. I had it identify a bunch of songs, it tagged every single one. Once it is identified it gives you direct links where you can add it to your collection for the low price of 99 cents. There are SO many apps coming out for the Iphone. I have not spent one penny on any of the fantastic apps on my phone. It’s just a great little device.
This post last year about the Turkey Bowl is funny, especially Randy Romero’s comments.
The world would have a lot less problems if it was run by Death Knights.
Yesterday I tried explaining this concept to Jeremy. I told him that if I was a death knight IRL (in real life) it would help my volleyball game. I could cast desecration on my opponents which would place a glowing pentagram underneath them while skeletal arms would reach out of the sand and hold them down. If Randall would get tired during a match I could simply cast a stamina buff on him. If things in the game weren’t going my way I could resurrect my pet ghoul and have him chew the arm off an opposing player. Yea the not having a soul thing could be drag and having glowing blue eyes could make it hard to sleep but other than that it seems all good. I’m sure the chicks would dig a Death Knight.
Jeremy asked for a Death Knight’s solution to a problem he is having with his AC. Well the easy answer was a Death Knight doesn’t need AC, he is a Death Knight. However if necessary the Death Knight could learn the HVAC profession but he would probably have to skill up to level 250 or more before he would learn the “fix AC” ability.
If a Death Knight was president we would have very few problems. Government officials would do their jobs and do them well or else the Death Knight would simply kill them.
As you can tell I have a bit of Death Knight on the brain. Needless to say I have enjoyed playing my new WoW character, “Dufknight”.
I have a myriad of physical aches and pains currently. On top of the fresh bruise/abrasion to my left leg and bruise on the left elbow I also managed to burn my right index finger dumping out the microwave portion of Nicki’s meal last night. These new injuries are piled on top of the tendinitis in the right forearm, two shoulders that sound like they are filled with rice krispies with the accompanying jolts of discomfort, hip pain that surfaces most often doing leg presses or running and two trick knees that I somehow manage to run on once a week. Out of all of the injuries the tendinitis is tops on the must fix priority list. It is not getting any better and greatly affects what I can do at the gym.
I was talking to the chiropractor I know from the gym about it. I was whining after unsuccessfully finding any bicep/curl exercise I could do that didn’t aggravate the area. He basically said that you absolutely have to lay off exercises that cause discomfort. He also advises I do regular stretching and massage of the forearms, something I have not been doing. He also mentioned icing which I have been trying to do semi-regularly. I have to get this shit straightened out. I just feel like I am wearing thin on multiple surfaces.
As I was leaving I heard an old man’s voice saying weakly “Help!” I spun to my left and saw a tall, old man standing with his walker in front of the one gym door that is not used and is permanently locked. I quickly walked over to him and said “What’s wrong sir?” I was worried the guy was having chest pain or something. “I am trying to get to physical therapy” he says. Physical therapy is right next door, he was trying to go in the wrong door. I told him it was to his right. “Oh, I have never been here before. Can you help me?”
I said sure even though I wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted me to do. I basically walked along with him over to the door of the PT office. I then held the door wide open for him so he could get the walker in. As he was trying to get in the door he said “I can’t walk anymore, where can I sit down?” There was a chair two feet to the right, inside the office. With the assistance of the clerk behind the desk we got him lined up with the chair so he could plop down into it. I felt bad for the poor old guy, every step seemed to take monumental effort. I asked him if he needed anything else. He grabbed my forearm and said “thanks”. If I had to guess he probably has some senility piling on top of his obvious physical issues.
This give you an idea of just how bad things are. Here is a list of some retailers that either closing altogether or shutting down locations.
Circuit City stores… most recent (? how many)
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide are to be shuttered
Lane Bryant,, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine’s to close 150 store nationwide
Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Cache will close all stores
Talbots closing down all stores
J. Jill closing all stores
GAP closing 85 stores
Footlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January
Wickes Furniture closing down
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores
Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January.
Whitehall closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Linens and Things closing all stores
Movie Galley Closing all stores
Pacific Sunware closing stores
Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
Sprint/ Nextel closing 133 stores
JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores
Sharper Image closing down all stores
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Loews to close down some stores
Dillard’s to close some stores.
Our Saturday was extremely busy. Ali and I started out the morning by two manning the chore of weeding the garden. The combination of using pure garden soil along with nightly watering from the sprinkler system has resulted in our vegetables we have planted doing pretty well. It also has resulted in the garden exploding with weeds. The garden gets weeded at a minimum once a week and sometimes a couple times during the week by Ali. Even with that work there had to be 1000 weeds in that garden. They were everywhere. Ali and I worked a solid 45 minutes until we had all the little weedlings removed. After we finished I went around and generously applied some Preen for Vegetable Gardens in hope it would slow down the weed nightmare.
After the weeding we continued on a non-stop blitz of work. One of the things I attended to was spider web removal inside the pool cage. Doing so involves me walking around with a broom and knocking down the webs from the corners overhead. I methodically made my way around the perimeter of the cage. As I was looking up to spot my next target I didn’t realize that I was dangerously close to the edge of the pool. All of a sudden I went to take a step with my right foot and nothing was there but air. Before I knew what happened I was neck deep in chilly water and in substantial pain.
The first order of business was dragging myself out of the pool. Once I did I was sitting/laying on the pool deck trying to take inventory of my injuries. When I fell in my left quad hit and drug along the lip of the pool. I actually stopped myself from going under with my left elbow when it crashed on the cement. The elbow hurt but not horribly. I felt a steady burn from the leg. Ali came back around from the front of the house. I said to her “Look at what I did” Immediately she panicked and she was looking around to see if I was holding a snake or something. I said “look at me….” She sees that I am soaked from head to toe and starts laughing. The laughing stopped when I pulled up my shorts to look at my leg. I had a huge abrasion on my leg. It sort of looked like I was drug down the street. The area continued to feel warmer and more painful. I knew it would probably swell as time went on. It didn’t slow me down however. I continued on with my chores outside, I didn’t even change out of the wet clothes until a couple hours later.
We were going out to dinner with my mom that night and she was sleeping over afterward. That is why we were rushing to get everything done.
We were going non-stop right until we left to pick up mom. One of the things Ali was working on was making the world famous chocolate cake. She added some additional decorations that added a nice personal touch.
So mom said she wanted to go to a place called the Bay House for dinner. Both her and Ali had been there before, I never had been there. It is at a nice location right on the bay/river although since it was dark you couldn’t see all that much. The inside of the place was very warm and inviting, with rich, dark wood and even a burning fire place.
Our waiter Brad was very nice. The menu however was very high brow, expensive and not extremely diverse. They had a lot of seafood, a few steaks and one chicken dish. They had nothing vegetarian on the menu but Brad was able to have the chef whip up a plate of vegetables for Ali. I had the chicken dish, mom had the flounder. The food simply wasn’t that great. Of our three meals I think Ali enjoyed hers the most. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t what you would expect when you are paying some decent bucks for the chow. I barely ate half of the chicken.
We had a funny moment after the meal. I was feeling rather sleepy so I opted for some coffeee. Brad talked me into trying the “french roast” coffee as opposed to the regular stuff. He brings out the french roaster, a device that looked sort of like a mini pitcher with a plunger on the top. I never saw such a thing before and asked Brad how it worked. Brad explained that as the plunger is pressed, it pushes the ground coffee down. He began the process and as soon as he pushed the pot immediately vomited out coffee/coffee grinds out onto the table. Mom got splashed a bit, she was lucky the pot was not turned 15 degrees more in her direction. Brad was embarrassed by the coffee malfunction. He cleaned up the mess and after successfully depressing the plunger told us he wouldn’t charge us for the coffee. It was a nice offer, although everyone found the incident entertaining.
The bill came and it was steep as expected. We didn’t have appetizers or desert and even with the free coffee it was a tick under $120. I still gave Brad a 20% tip even with the less than fantastic food. He was a nice guy. We headed home where my mom was greeted by a very excited dog. Nicki loves when my mom comes over. Mom was very tired but stayed up long enough for us to enjoy some of her birthday cake. Ali once again did a first class job with it, it tasted great. The coffee gave me a little kick in the ass. I stayed up till 10:30 playing my death knight in WoW before hitting the sack.
There was a dramatic temperature change from Saturday to Sunday. We woke up to temps in the 50’s with lots of wind. I decided to take advantage of the cool temps to knock out the last of the tree trimming. Two of the trees were right next to the pool cage and were a pain in the ass. One of the trees is very tall and required pole saw only trimming. I had to be careful that anything I trimmed didn’t crash into the pool cage and rip a screen. In total I trimmed up five trees. I had the trees trimmed and the fronds dumped back in the ditch before mom and Ali were ready to leave to go shopping. Before they left mom thanked me for her birthday dinner. We will see her again shortly for Thanksgiving.
While mom and Ali were shopping I had the “pleasure” of watching one of the worst Eagle games in history. They were playing the stinking Bengals, a 1-8 team that hasn’t been able to get their head out of their ass all season. Surely it should be an easy win. After some four hours of watching the most anemic offensive football in my life, the Eagles limped out of there with a 13-13 TIE. Yes a tie. Let me break down my points.
Donovan sucked plain and simple. I don’t know why in the past month he is totally unable to complete a pass in the first quarter. His four turnovers absolutely cost the Eagles a win. For the majority of the time he looked like he was more worried about being cold than playing the game. He could have easily thrown 5 picks or more if the Bengals were able to catch. Why in the F does Donovan REFUSE to run the ball anymore? Make some damn plays, give the defense something else to worry about! Donovan is far too inaccurate to rely solely on being a pocket passer. It also made me feel real good to know our QB didn’t realize after 10 years in the league that if no team scores in OT it is a tie, cripes. Did I mention that he sucked?
What the F is the deal with Sav Rocca? I mean I could have punted better. Yea sure every punter shanks one sometimes but he shanked four or five in a row! It was incredible how bad he was yesterday.
If Westbrook isn’t healthy enough to be productive why is he playing? He did absolutely nothing yesterday.
Fat Andy had a ridiculous run to pass ratio. It was something like 55 passes to 18 runs. He just looked like he had no clue. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when your coach does a little hop for joy after the 1-8 team you are playing misses a game winning field goal so you can secure the TIE. Of course as usual he spews the same, robotic, emotionless BS, “I have to do a better job”. Damn it I want a coach that gets pissed off when his team shits the bed!
The officiating in the NFL is ridiculous. Specifically the roughing the passer calls. I mean come on, you basically are not allowed to touch the QB. That roughing call on Sheldon Brown late in OT that gave the Bengals the field goal opportunity was pure bull shit. I mean they should probably just have a two hand touch rule for QB’s. You are only allowed to gently touch them with your hands and no pinching! It really detracts something from the game when defenders have to worry about hitting the QB too hard or at an angle that may be construed as inappropriate. I screamed at the tv for a solid minute after that call.
So anyway, it all added up to a dreadful performance against a shitty team. If the Eagles were playing just about any other team in the NFL they would lose that game. The Eagles aren’t going anywhere this year. You can bank on it.