Archives 2008

For years I have been bugging Ali about trying out for Wheel of Fortune.  She is great at the game, I have watched her time and again solving puzzles easily, most times faster than the contestants on the show.  She never shared my enthusiasm for going on the show.  Well now there is no excuse for her not to try.  They are going to be doing try outs for the show 12 miles away from our house on Sunday!  I will drag her there if I have to. She is worried that she could choke with the additional pressure.  I have confidence that she will do just fine and if she doesn’t who cares, at least she gave it a shot.  I’m excited to see how it goes.

With all my interest in Mars lately, I was excited to find out that there is another Mars lander scheduled to touch down at th end of May, named Phoenix. Phoenix is going to be landing close to the Martian North Pole.  It isn’t a rover like Spirit and Opportunity, rather a stationary robot.  The area that it is landing in supposedly has a high probability of having frozen water just under the surface.  It’s going to use it’s robotic arm to dig down and analyze what’s underneath.  While perusing the site I also saw a cool image of what the Earth and moon looks like from Mars.  Seeing all of these images make me wish somewhat that I followed one my initial childhood career choices of being involved in some sort of space related career.  It just blows my mind that we are able to do these things.  When I look at the images of far off objects in space taken by the Hubble telescope it puts in perspective just how small our little tiny planet is in the grand scheme of things.  There is so much out there beyond what we know.  There surely is life out there, to deny the probability of it is ludicrous in my opinion. 

I thought my pole installation last night was going to get washed out again.  When I got home there was a steady rain coming down.  I kept monitoring the conditions out the window and when I saw it slowed to a drizzle I headed out the door around 7.  In the span of about an hour I knocked out 9 posts, leaving only 8 more to go until all posts are in the ground.  After work tonight I should be able to easily get those done.  I’m excited by the prospect of retiring my post hole digger.

While I was waiting for the rain to slow and after I was done outside I finished up watching Rocky Balboa for a second time.  I love that damn movie.  Yes I have reviewed the movie before.  Watching it a second time drove home how much I liked it.  Yes there are still the flaws like having a pudgy Mason Dixon (Antonio Tarver) being the “bad” guy.  He is neck and neck with Tommy Gunn (Tommy Morrison) as the worst boxer Rocky faced. Mason Dixon was definitely the worst at fake boxing.  There are plenty of over the top sappy moments where the film tries too hard to lay parallels of Rocky’s life to a real world situation. And then there is the borderline creepy relationship they depict with Rocky and the little girl that called him a “Creepo” in the original film. I am able to overlook all of that.  The film is just filled with so many powerful moments and classic Rocky one-liners.  Let me list a few of my favorites:

After Pauly comes in and makes a scene, Rocky tells him to settle down because people were there trying to have a nice meal.  Pauly says “Rock, having a bunch of Mexicans make Italian food ain’t that special…”

The speech Rocky gives his son after his son tries to talk Rocky out of fighting again because it makes the son look bad. Rocky tells his kid that somewhere along the line the kid stopped taking responsibility for his situation and instead resorted t blaming others (Rocky) for his life.  Rocky tells him cowards point fingers at others.  He tells his kid that life is about taking the setbacks that are dealt to you and moving forward, always moving forward. He leaves his kid speechless on the street.

Pauly says something to Rocky about time catching to all of us.  Rocky offers “yea, especially if you are standing still”

As Rocky is talking to the boxing licensing board after they initially deny his application to fight again.  “the older I get the more I have to leave behind…”

Towards the end of the fight when Rocky gets rocked and is down on one knee, his life of setbacks flash by his eyes and his simple self command of “Get up!”

There are many other moments in the film that I just love. In some ways it is my favorite Rocky movie of all of them.  Maybe my age has something to do with it.      

I had another weird dream last night.  I was staying at some hotel where I ordered room service.  But for some reason this room service charged by the hour.  By the time I was ready to check out the next day the bill was over $1300.  I remember arguing bitterly with the hotel clerk as we went over the itemized bill. 

I just upgraded the blog to WP 2.5, just in case you were interested.  From a user perspective you may not notice any difference but from an admin/editing stand point I see a bunch of changes.  I may mess with the themes a bit to see some of the features I have not used up to this point due to my affinity for my current one that flashes up random images as the header.

Last night we went out to a local sports bar to meet up with a gym buddy and his girlfriend.  It was nice to go out and be “social” something we don’t do much.  It was too bad we had to do it on a Tuesday night.  My buddy is a bartender and he has Monday’s and Tuesday’s off so that is pretty much the only days he can do anything.  We had fun but I am paying for it this morning.  My head didn’t hit the pillow until 12:30.

We got news on the cat yesterday which is good or bad depending on your point of view.  The blood work came back and it checked out clean, no diabetes, no other apparent life threatening conditions.  However we are still leaving her there for a day or two so the vet staff can force pills down her throat.  I guess we will have to pick her up sometime.

I never look at my old town paper but for some reason I just happened to take a peek today.  It was quite ironic what I saw was a headline about Jay Baller getting busted for cocaine.  I know Jay Baller. In high school I was very serious about baseball.  Off season I used to go to a local athletic club at 6 in the morning and meet up with my coach along with a few other players.  There was just barely the 60 feet needed to do indoor pitching drills.  Well somehow Jay Baller got involved in the program.

  Jay was a successful minor league pitcher and I think at that time he was just starting to break into the majors.  He was a big dude at 6′ 7″.  I felt small at 6’3″ and 155-160 pounds soaking wet next to him.  Anyway he would do some throwing of his own along with helping us with our technique.  He always was laughing and joking.  In fact one time he played a practical joke on me by grabbing the keys to my 69 Buick Special Deluxe and parking it around the corner so I would think it was stolen. ( I did)

Years later I had another connection with him, sort of when I was working as a computer tech at Entre computers.  We hired an attractive woman as a tech.  When she told me her name was Terri Baller and her husband was a baseball player I instantly put two and two together.  What a small world.  Terri didn’t work for Entre all that long but her and I got along well.  I remember at Christmas time she bought me a pair of socks that had HO-HO-HO all over them because I told her previously I had no holiday clothing. She was really nice. 

Jay’s major league career was nothing to write home about but at least he made it to the show, something I always aspired to but never approached.  He may be most famous for his ample chest hair on his baseball cards photo.

Well evidently nowadays Jay is a coke head.  I wonder if he is still married to that cute wife of his.  I sort of doubt it.  You would think a man that drives around with 15k in cash, cocaine and a loaded hand gun might not make for the most stable spouse.  Oh well, hope things get better for ya Jay.  Don’t snort your life away. Wow this guy is only 6 years older than me….

Ice blue sunset.  This is extremely cool.  Just imagine being there.

I have been watching this season’s Celebrity Fit Club, the show for fat ass celebrities to lose weight.  One of the “celebrities” this season is Erin Moran, who played Joanie in Happy Days and the subsequent failure “Joanie Loves Cha Chi”.  I haven’t seen here since the early 80’s.  To put it mildly, time has not been kind to Erin.  You know how some women have a “soft” face that is pleasing to look at?  Erin is as far away from that as possible.  Her face is as hard as cold concrete.  She almost has a Medusa like affect on me.   

As you can see on the left, when she was younger she didn’t look bad.  During her Happy Days days, she was a borderline  sex symbol.  However on CFC she looks like a used up crack whore. This gives you a taste of how she looks nowadays but you need to watch the show to see the full Medusa effect.  I seriously yell out and turn away at times.

Take a look at her “official” website and the picture posted there…..  time to update the content Erin, sheesh.

Last night Ali and I busted out more line posts and got the entire back property line done.  I only have 17 more posts to put in the ground which I should be able to get done after work during the week.  That should set us up to have the area totally enclosed over the weekend.  I am psyched to wrap this monster project up.

I have had a couple weird dreams recently.  In one of the them I was running around naked in public and was just fine with it.  I was around a beach somewhere as I walked by dozens of people with all my junk hanging out.  It was very strange.

The other dream was strange as well.  I was warming up throwing a baseball around with a teammate of mine.  He was a pitcher so I eventually squatted down into catcher position to continue warming him up.  However once I was down there I couldn’t catch anything that was to my right and low.  Every time a pitch came in that area I was too slow to react and it would shoot by me.  I remember the players behind being pissed by the projectiles flying by me, barely missing them.  Time and again I would try to catch the ball and was just unable to do so.  I remember being  extremely frustrated.  I just could not catch the damn ball. Oh the other weird thing, in the dream I had the glove on my left hand which adds to the confusion.  I am a left hander so the glove is normally on my right.

Hey it’s April Fools but I don’t have any good pranks to play on you, sorry.

So after the cat did her wall pissing stunt on Friday, both of the cats lived in the utility room until the following morning.  Neither of them were happy about it as evidenced by the loud meowing and the sounds of them attempting to jam their heads through the blocked cat door.  Ali dropped off Spook at the vet Saturday morning.  Along the way, Spook made sure the trip was as miserable as possible for Ali by shitting, pissing and throwing up all within the first 15 minutes of the ride.  We told the vet to keep her there over the weekend until some sort of diagnosis could be made.  It was pleasant only having one cat under the roof the rest of the weekend.  It would be pure bliss to have none.  Although I have to admit there were brief periods when I thought of Spook sitting in a cage at the vet being all scared.  It made me feel bad.  I just mentally changed the subject whenever I thought about it.  I mean yea, I can’t stand the cats at this point but they have been part of my life for 15 years so it’s hard to to totally insulate myself from any feelings about them.  We should have more news on the cat today I assume.

So Saturday was the yard sale.  Actually the neighbor was having a yard sale and we just tagged on.  I sort of felt like a schlub as I brought our stuff over.  The neighbor had spent the previous day organizing and pricing EVERYTHING he had and he had a lot of stuff.  I just had crap stuffed in boxes and bins and figured I would quickly price stuff as I set things up.  The yard sale was supposed to start at 8 but of course early birds started showing up about 7:20, way before I had anything set up for display.

So I hurried up the best I could and got my stuff set up the best I could.  Ali came over before leaving for the vet and helped me get organized as well.  One of the first people there was “yard sale man”.  We have seen this guy at every yard sale we have had since moving to Florida.  He is an older guy probably well into his 50’s.  He has oily, graying, kind of curly hair with glasses and a beard.  He ALWAYS is wearing a short sleeve, button shirt with no buttons buttoned with nothing else underneath, leaving his leathery belly for all to see.  This guy is a grade A pack rat.  He loves yard sales.  He walks around and round looking at stuff, picking up all sorts of things, negotiating the price down a bit and throwing them in his truck.  He has no need for 90% of what he buys but the thrill of getting something dirt cheap must do it for him.  Over the years he has taken a ton of crap off our hands and Saturday was no exception.  After buying a few things on his early visit he showed up later and bought MORE stuff.  Along the way I talked to him a bit.  He said he has 3 big outdoor sheds, used primarily for storing his junk.  He lives on 5 acres.  I can only imagine what that property looks like.  He seems like a nice enough guy but what a hoarder, unreal.

Early on is when most of the action takes place.  I got rid of a bunch of stuff.  I wasn’t that interested in making money, I just wanted to be rid of stuff that in some cases has been sitting around our house for years.  As part of this strategy I was putting ridiculous prices on things.  Almost everything was a dollar or less.  I even had a decent size bin of FREE items. 

I had to take a break from selling stuff to help a guy get his pick  up truck unstuck.  He pulled off on the far shoulder that had just been filled with sand a few weeks back.  His truck sunk in deep.  So I grabbed my steel cable and attached it to the Tacoma.  Along the way I gave myself a couple of wounds from the sharp cable ends.  The old Chevy S-10 I was pulling out was not in great shape.  When I was under it looking for a place to attach to I saw the frame was rotting out.  The driver side door didn’t open either.  The guy had to get in and out of the truck Dukes of Hazard style.  I managed to get him loose.  He thanked me for the help. 

We had a long lull in shoppers mid-morning.  Then SHE pulled up.  She was an older Haitian woman with some guy that may have been her son.  He spoke decent English, she did not. Of all people to visit your yard sale, Haitians are the most annoying.  It doesn’t matter if you have price listed on an item with big HUGE numbers.  They will ask you how much the item is, expecting you to offer them a price lower than what it is marked.  Once you tell them a price, they will offer you 30-50% less than that.  It is extremely annoying.  Now for me, since I was basically blowing things out I didn’t care that much.  My neighbor was looking to make some money from the sale of his items so he was not quite so open to her shenanigans.

She did laps around the items, then she would pick up several items and put them together and ask for a price on the group.  Then she would group up another pile asking for another price.  She would continue this routine and then when it came to figuring out a final price she would try to get the total price down below the price of the individual groups that the price was already negotiated on.  My neighbor got into a loud argument with her when she tried to dispute a grand total of all of the stuff she had.  As soon as they saw I had a box of free stuff they took it all without even looking what was in it.  Then she started mulling over my items.  She used the same divide and conquer techniques asking for prices of various groups of items which were already dirt cheap and trying to get them cheaper.  She asked for prices on tons of things.  Towards the end she asked for a price on the box of 35 to 40 cd’s I had.  Before I could give her an answer she was on to asking for a price on something else.  I think in total she spent a whopping 6 or 7 dollars with me, getting a bunch of items with that along with the box of free stuff.  I was glad to see her finally leave.  What a pain in the ass.

Late in the morning an older Hispanic couple stopped by and bought a few items.  As they were paying us the screw fell out of the guys glasses.  We looked in vain for it on the driveway.  I even went over to our house and grabbed a magnet in the hopes to snag the screw with it, but we had no luck.  The man appreciated my efforts.  He told us how they lived down the street in the Waterways development.  He said they have tennis courts and lakes to boat or fish in.  He told us how he plays tennis almost every day between 8 and 10am.  He asked if I played tennis to which I told him I did occasionally.  Then out of the blue he says I am welcome to come use the courts whenever I want.  He gives me his name, his phone number and his code to get in the front gate.  I thought this was all very bizarre but I took the information down and thanked him for it although I knew I would never take him up on his offer.  After he was left I was dumbfounded that an old Hispanic couple just offered to allow us to sneak into their development to use the facilities, funny.

During our interaction with the Hispanic couple the damn Haitian woman showed up while I was getting the magnet.  She was screaming at Ali that she paid for the box of cd’s and we didn’t give them to her.  I had no patience for any further bullshit from this woman.  She starts ranting to me that I told her $3 for the box of cd’s.  I told he in no uncertain terms that I did not say that.  I told her there was $300 worth of cd’s in the box I would not offer to sell them for $3.  She protested more but I stonewalled her.  Then she asks me what I would sell them for.  I said $15.  She offers $5.  I said no thank you.  Seeing I wasn’t going to fall for her little game she gave up on the cd’s and instead bought another 50 cent item, for 25 cents.  What a royal pain in the ass.

Yard sale man showed up later in the morning for round 2.  He grabbed a bunch more stuff, including the old wicker bathroom set that I wanted to unload quite badly.  He said he didn’t know if the girlfriend would want it but if not he will just throw it in the shed.  Sounds good to me. 

During the day the neighbor and I took turns raiding each other’s stash.  We gave him some stools and other small things he could use.  I grabbed a shower head, some tomato towers, shelving and a few other things.  No money was exchanged as we were both happy to help the other out if they could use something we had.  As the one o’clock end of the sale was approaching we had a few late stragglers but nothing much.  I gave away a bunch more stuff, especially anything little kids wanted.  I didn’t care about the money.

The neighbor had made arrangements to have a guy come out with a truck to take anything we had left to some thrift store that benefited an AIDS charity.  This was great because it meant we would unload EVERYTHING, freeing our house of unnecessary clutter.  The only downside was the guy charged 65 bucks an hour.  The bill was $130.  By the time I gave our neighbor half of the truck charge and half of the cost of the newspaper ad he ran, it left us with a tiny profit of $12 for the 5 hour sale. 🙂  I truly could care less.  I was happy to be junk free.  The sale was a big success in my book.

The rest of Saturday we spent stringing fencing along the two completed sections of the property line.  It was tedious work but not horribly difficult.  The biggest issue I had was getting an even pull.  It seemed like no matter how I tried to compensate, either the top or bottom section was a little ahead of the other as you got closer to the section I attached the come-along to.  It wasn’t a huge deal but enough for Ali to ask if I could minimize it which I tried my best to do.  It isn’t perfect but no one but us would even spot it.  Hammering in all of the staples to secure the fencing did a number on my hand, opening up a nasty blister.  I just adjusted my grip on the hammer and kept plugging away.  We were happy with the end result.

Sunday we got good news from my mom.  A couple days prior she had called and said she was going to look at a condo for rent at a development where one of her co-workers lived.  Evidently my griping about her place was enough to get mom to at least take a look.  Well she signed a lease!  I talked to her on Sunday and she told me all about it.  It sounds great.  She is going to be moving at the end of April.  I can’t wait to see the place and help mom get settled in.  I told her to let me know if there is ANYTHING she needs leading up to the move to let me know.  Since I was the one to bug her about moving I certainly need to follow up and make the process go as smoothly as possible.  The new place has a pool, is much larger than what she is living in now and yes, even has a dishwasher!  I think once she adjusts to the new surroundings she will enjoy it.

On Sunday most of the day was consumed with more fence building.  We got quite a lot done.  The last rear corner was finished and we hung the 12 foot gate from Nicki’s old dog run out there.  Sunday afternoon we dropped in line posts down the one side.  I had Ali helping me with digging the holes which really made things go faster.  We got that entire side done.  If things go smoothly, there is a chance that we could have the area totally enclosed by the end of next weekend.  That would be awesome.  I updated the online fencing progress page.  You can see the pics here.

I rewarded Ali for all of her hard work by taking her to Cold Stone Sunday evening.  Ali was shocked that she was getting to go to Cold Stone twice in the same year.  I figured we burned enough calories during the day to compensate. We don’t go crazy when we go there, we get the smallest size.  I had chocolate with almonds and pecans in it, at least the nuts are good for ya.  Fence building is leaning me out even further than I already was.  When I weighed myself Saturday night before taking a shower I clicked in at 170 pounds, holy crap.  I must have been severely dehydrated.

Well the cat urination issue just got to code red status.  I receive a distressed call from Ali telling me how while she was sitting at her desk she heard a weird sound, like water running.  She looks down and sees f’ing Spook pissing on the wall.  Ali said she freaked out and chased the cat away.  When she tried to grab her to throw her in the utility room the cat bit her.  Both cats are now sequestered in the utility room with their exit blocked.  Spook will be traveling to the vet tomorrow morning.  If the vet tells me she has diabetes I am having her put down.  It would be an impossibility to give her shots daily like I do for Buttons without suffering daily bite wounds.  I’m not dealing with that.  Have I mentioned how sick I am of owning cats?  Hairballs are one thing, pissing crosses the line from inconvenience/annoying to blatantly unacceptable.   

I didn’t realize that the rovers on Mars were still both plugging away.  That is amazing.  They originally hoped to get 3 months out of them before the brutal Mars conditions knocked them out.  They are now working on their 4th year and still going!  Pouring over the NASA rover site is amazing.  The images are incredible.  It’s hard to believe that something made by man is sitting on the surface of Mars.  A lot of the images remind me of scenes we saw driving out west. There are shots of clouds in the sky as well as frost on the rover, obviously there is water vapor present.  The -160 degree F nights could get a bit chilly though. Space has always fascinated me.

Been spending too much time at the buffet?  Is reaching for the bag of Defenbach chips your idea of exercise?  Do we have the thing for you!

This brilliant invention allows your pants to expand with you!  Here is the description of this item.

“Just slips over existing button to add one inch.
Gives added comfort from tight pants and skirts. Fits in seconds. No sewing required. Hides under your belt.”

If this little doodad doesn’t buy you enough room you can bring out the heavy equipment  and stretch your clothes with this beast!

No worries about packing on the pounds, use tools like this to stretch the shit out of them until they fit!  It’s reassuring to see technology being used to address the problems of a forever expanding and gluttonous American public, bravo.

Saturday we are teaming up with the neighbor on a yard sale.  We have a TON of stuff to unload.  I am hoping we get rid of it all.  The only downside is it will cut into fence building.  Last night I put in the few remaining line posts to reach the halfway mark.  This weekend I expect to have fencing up and installed over these two spans.  I also want to get the last corner completely finished as well as getting a bunch more line posts in the ground.

I’m sure people have been anxiously awaiting my review of this season’s cast of Dancing with the Stars.  Well wait no further!

As always they brought in a couple ringers which I never have understood.  I mean come on, Kristy Yamaguchi???  Yea she doesn’t do ball room dancing, she basically dances on ice!  It’s week two and she looks like she should be one of the pro dancers, what a joke.  The other ringer is the Chris Rock look-a-like named Mario.  Never heard of him but again, he as tons of dance experience, just not ballroom dance experience.  I wish they wouldn’t sign people like this up.

Ok let’s go to the opposite end of the spectrum, the shitty dancers, namely Monica Seles (already booted), Penn of Penn & Teller (gone) and Adam Carolla.  This is what the show should be, people that look like they have two left feet struggling to get through every performance.  Monica looked ok as long as she stayed in contact with her partner, as soon as she was on her own it looked like she was a drunken marionette. 

Penn danced ok for what limited physical ability he has and he did a good job covering up his poor dancing with lots of grandstanding.  I think he got the boot because people couldn’t stand him during the interview portions of the show.  He was loud and obnoxious and never would shut up.

I love Adam on the show.  He is the only “funny guy” on the cast.  He has dropped a lot of good one liners.  He knows he sucks and he is just going with the flow. I think he may stick around longer than he wants to because everyone loves his partner, Julianne.

Ok the rest.  The chubby girl from Hairspray needs to do lines of valium.  She is just too hyper.  Her “I’m crazy happy” smile is cute at first but gets old real fast.  She isn’t a great dancer but has over the top energy.  You wonder how a girl that energetic could be a porker.  Ali says I don’t like her cause she is overweight.  I’d be lying if I said that didn’t influence me.  She has a cute face and big hair though, always a plus.

The Colombian guy is another one I never heard of.  He’s good looking and has basic dance ability, I figure he will make it to the top third.

Marlee Matlin is pretty amazing.  I think what she is doing is far more impressive than what peg leg, money grubbing, evil Heather Mills did a couple seasons ago.

I like Jason Taylor a lot.  His athleticism will serve him well on the show.  Football players have done quite well so far.

Steve Guttenberg disturbs me.  I used to think the guy was cool.  He almost acts like he either got castrated or smokes a few joints before each show.  Everything is wonderful and he is so ecstatic to be there, a little too ecstatic if you ask me.

Shannon Elizabeth has a kicking body and is probably the best looking female contestant.  That being said she has an annoying personality.  She does have decent dance skills though.  I don’t think she will make it much past the halfway mark, people will get sick of her.

And finally the bad plastic surgery poster child, Prisicilla Presley.  The judges have given her undue praise in my opinion.  I don’t think she has been nearly as impressive as they seem to think she is.  Maybe I just can’t get past looking at her bizarre, frozen, Bride of Chucky looking face.  She used to be such a good looking woman.  Now it’s borderline frightening to look at her.  She dances just ok to me but I think she will be around for awhile.  People will enjoy the freak show plus all the Elvis maniacs will be burning up the phone lines for her I’m sure. The woman is 63.

How about the story of Cheryl Burke getting it on with Nick Lachey, her partner from a few years back?  Nick is married and has a kid.  Cheryl the little homewrecker, who woulda thunk it?  I read that someone walked in on the middle of some oral sex between, them. Doh!