Archives March 2009

Ali’s laptop has been performing rather poorly for quite awhile.  It’s 5+ years old at this point and has seen better days.  I was able to pick up a used 3.6 ghz Dell small form factor pc with 2 gig of ram, 80 gig hdd and Win XP Professional for $240 shipped.  I also grabbed her a refurbished Sony 19 inch LCD for $140 shipped.  Replacing her pc with something boasting nearly twice the horsepower for less than $400 isn’t a bad deal at all.  Last night I started configuring the machine.  Ali should be up and running on it by tonight.

We have had Sadie for close to two months now.  She seems to have really calmed down with her destructive behavior.  We haven’t had her destroy/chew on something for probably two weeks or so.  Her and Nicki really seem to enjoy playing together.  When we first got her Nicki would spend a lot of time trying to chase Sadie down outside.  Nicki now will only briefly give chase now.  She has realized that she just can’t keep up with the little black bullet.  Sadie has adjusted her play accordingly and now will come diving in to Nicki so they can wrestle around.  It’s quite funny to watch the antics.  Nicki had her annual physical.  She has dropped over 10 pounds in body weight from last year.  We can only assume it is from the combination of her revised diet and greatly increased exercise levels since we adopted Sadie.  See, it works for dogs as well as humans.

Ali and I are planning to take another drive out west this summer to visit my dad.  We can hardly wait to see the four dogs interacting, it will be crazy.

I like everyone else read about Washington asking the GM CEO to take a hike, which he did.  In doing so the government also proclaimed that Chrysler and GM have not done enough to restructure their companies to merit the government reaching once again into it’s already depleted and overly indebted pockets to prop these businesses up once again.  I have read many comments both pro and con for these moves.  No matter which way Obama goes he is going to catch heat. 

If he just continues to freely throw money at two businesses that aren’t making the changes needed to recover he just will find himself with two more AIG’s.  People are outraged that over $150 million in bonuses were paid out of government bail out money to reward executives responsible for almost destroying the American financial system.  Blindly propping up the automakers regardless of what they are doing behind the scenes would be equally outrageous.  As a potential Camaro buyer of course I am pulling hard for GM to pull out of this nosedive and reestablish itself as a viable company. 

I think all of this talk about the dire financial situation the automakers are in does nothing but make the snowball of problems for them grow larger.  If a person is in the market for a new car and is about to spend enough money that could have paid for a house 30 years ago, they want to buy it from a company that they know will be around in the years to come.  The talk that GM possibly going bankrupt, even if it does not mean the actual demise of the company in reality is enough to scare many buyers away and into other brands.

To me the bottom line is this.  To criticize the government for applying pressure to Chrylser and GM to make sweeping changes just is hypocritical, especially considering how we all feel about AIG.  If GM didn’t want the government calling the shots then they should have not taken tax payer money.  However now that they have accepted billions and are asking for billions more, it certainly can not be expected to be no strings attached.

Sadly, the root of the majority of US automaker problems is the UAW, plain and simple. The massive labor costs and sloppy workmanship that the domestic car companies have had to accept as a cost of business for the past 3 decades is the biggest culprit in this crisis.

Friday after work I stopped at the pet store to load up on dog food, refills for dog busy toys and bird food.  The total bill, $181.  Yes that is crazy considering that won’t quite be enough food for a month.  That total doesn’t include the money Ali spends on vegetables for Nicki’s meals as well.

Saturday morning  the two dogs piled into the party van while Ali drove the Camry. We had to drop off the car for an oil change before heading to the counter top place.  Sadie refused to take a dump before we left so instead of risking a pile on the living room carpet we decided to take them with.  We also made a pit stop at my mom’s work to drop off some Pampered Chef stuff she ordered.

So when we got to the counter top place we followed our sales lady over to the granite yard to pick out the actual slabs of granite that will be used.  It was a short ride from the store.  As we walked through the place we admired the many beautiful granite slabs on display.  We came to the style that we were going with.  There were two shades available, we went with the slabs that had the deeper, darker browns.  After tagging the slabs we headed back to the store to finalize everything.

We were surprised when our sales lady said the dogs were welcome to come into the store and walk around, good deal.  We picked out our sink.  Instead of the shallow, double bowl stainless sink that we have now we are going with a much deeper single bowl sink that is made out of a granite composite.  It is supposedly impervious to just about anything.  We are hoping the combination of a deep single bowl sink with the new high profile overhead faucet will result in a much easier time of cleaning large items in the sink.  We paid our 50% deposit and scheduled the “templating” where someone comes out and takes exact measurements that will be used to manufacturer the counter tops.  That will happen this Thursday.  After that the counter tops should be installed sometime within the next two weeks.  It’s exciting to finally have this item that has resided on the to-do list for years finally crossed off.  I think it will really look nice when complete.

When we got back to the house we decided to tackle the March cleaning project since it was the last weekend of the month, cleaning our bedroom.  Now you would think that cleaning a bedroom wouldn’t be a big deal.  I would think the same thing.  Somehow we managed to spend close to four hours on the project.  It’s a bit misleading because cleaning the bedroom also meant cleaning the master bathroom.  We ripped up the bed and cleaned under it.  While the bed was ripped up I decided to fix the headboard which was only attached with one screw on each side.  I also installed left over 6 inch decking to the bed frame to function as a cat barrier instead of the assortment of pillows, blankets and sweatshirts I had stuffed under there to keep Spook out.

We dusted surfaces that never see attention normally, we cleaned out the cabinet in the bedroom that holds a variety of cosmetic/ hygeine/medical items as well as ripping out everything in the big drawer in the bathroom and cleaning it thoroughly.  Ali threw a ton of shit out, when I pulled the trash bag out it had to weigh close to 25 pounds of nothing but expired medicines, worthless cosmetics and other knick knacks that were just taking up space.  I climbed up on the tub and took everything off the three shelves in the bathroom and dusted them.  It was gross, there was a thick coating of dust on everything.

Ali was really burning out down the homestretch of the project.  She just wanted it to end.  I shared her feelings but knew the end was in sight.   We wrapped the project up finally a little after 4. 

Sunday morning while Ali went to spinning class I was busy knocking out the inside housework so we would be able to make the 12:45 showing of Watchmen at the Coconut Point theater we like.  I saw my first preview of Watchmen probably close to a year ago.  It sounded fantastic.  A super hero movie from the the producers of my favorite movie of all time, 300???  It sounded like a can’t miss flick for me.  Watchmen came out a few weeks ago.  I have heard both good and bad reviews of it.  Of course the thing you hear about more than anything is blue penis.

So Ali agreed to go with me.  She didn’t do her normal pre-movie investigation where she finds out the plot, the ending and if there is any nudity involved.  I did no thorough investigations besides knowing the movie was very long at two hours and forty five minutes.  We got to the theater late, only 5 minutes before the showtime.  Luckily in true Coconut Point fashion, the huge theater only had a handful of people in it, I love this place.

We sat through the now normal double digit previews.  Of all of the films shown the one that got my blood pumping was the new Terminator flick coming out in May, it looks great. I’m excited to see it.  Ali didn’t share my excitement about it and in fact asked me to start auditioning people that would like to go see the film with me.

This may be a Watchmen spoiler for those that have not seen it however I wouldn’t worry about it.  Hopefully by the time you finish reading you will have no desire to go see it.  Going into the film I knew nothing about the Watchmen.  I never read the comic book, never heard of any of the characters.

 Ok, so the movie starts with a bang.  There is a high action fight scene that utilizes a lot of the same sort of effects that were used throughout 300.  Super slo-mo punches to the face with ample amounts of blood splattering everywhere.  The scene was filled with violence and mystery as the viewer had no idea why the cigar smoking tough guy was thrown out a window.  The movie then starts trying to fill in the blanks as far as the history of each Watchmen.  The timeline constantly shifts between the past and present day.  I’d say for the first hour or so I was trying to take it all in, keeping track of the various events in the timeline thinking it would all pay off as the movie continued.  However I soon realized it was just a stupid, shitty movie that was trying really hard to be dark and mysterious.

I was glad the theater was dark else Ali would have seen that at times my face was red with embarrassment from bringing her to see such horseshit.  There was the gratuitous soft porn scene with the nerdy hero guy that I could have cared less about.  Then it cuts to a grotesque prison scene where Rohrschach is being held.  The scene featured a guy getting his arms cut off with an angle grinder.  There was another equally sick scene where Rohrschach uses a guys head as a chopping block after he discovers he murdered a little girl and fed her remains to his dogs.

Then of course there is the blue penis.  I had ample warning about Dr Manhattans blue penis.  However I was under the impression what was meant was he was wearing something like a speedo where you could see the outline of his blue penis.  Nope, his blue penis is out swinging in the wind.  The blue penis does not make just a cameo appearance,  it is the star of the show.  For some reason the producers thought that seeing a big blue penis repeatedly during the film would add something.  Um no, it was disturbing and it just didn’t make sense.  Why the F did the guy need to be naked most of the time?    Everywhere you looked it was blue penis.

Then lets get to the ending of this piece of shit.  It had the all too common ending where the guy you thought was good was actually bad.  Dr Manhattan or Dr Penis has god-like super powers.  He can explode a person with the wave of his hand.  Well after being double crossed by the “good” guy he shows up to take care of business after good guy kills hundreds of millions of people to create a greater world peace.  Dr Penis could have just vaporized the guy instantly.  No, instead he lets the guy run away and throw a switch which apparently destroys Dr Penis.  Well Dr Penis of course is too smart for that and instead appears outside the building in super size form.  He reaches in to squash the good guy but stops.  Good guy explains to him how his mad plan actually created greater world peace.  Dr Penis agrees and lets good guy live.  Instead of killing him, he vaporizes Rohrshach who was planning to blow the whistle on the madness. Dr Penis decides to go live on another planet and the world lives happily ever after.    

It was just a ridiculous movie.  During the last two hours I kept checking the time for Ali.  She tried to fall asleep but it was just too loud to do so.  It was the first movie that was so bad that I actually had to pay restitution to Ali for making her see it.  (well techincally I paid small restitution for the last Rambo) She drug me into a pet store where I had to agree to her buying a dog treat container we didn’t need.  Needless to say I was extremely disappointed in the film.  I wouldn’t even recommend watching it for free. It gets the rare distinction of earning a D on my rating scale.

The rest of our Sunday was pretty laid back.  We spent a lot of time commenting back and forth about just how shitty the movie was.  Back to work, if I never see another blue penis I will be quite happy.

Get off your ass and RUN. 30 minutes today = 400 calories.  It’s a no brainer.

For a long time I had abandoned doing conventional bench pressing because of shoulder pain.  For the past 20 years my bench press number was almost a numeric representation of my manliness.  That number has ranged over the years.  When I first started benching in my early 20’s 185 pounds was a milestone.  In my early 30’s when I got pumped up on creatine I pushed my one rep max up to 275 pounds.  A few years back when I dipped into creatine again I also hit the 275 mark. 

Well like I said, volleyball had screwed my shoulder up enough that I was unable to even do the bench pressing movement without pain, even with light weight.  Well a couple months ago I decided to give benching a try just for the hell of it.  I was surprised when I actually was able to do the exercise without much pain.  I guess whatever adhesions that were in there may have finally broken up.  Since then I have resumed benching weekly.  My strength numbers are way down.  Yesterday I one repped 230 and it was a struggle to do so.  I try to keep things in perspective.  When I was benching 275 I also weighed 20-25 pounds more.  Regardless it feels good to bench, it has always been one of my favorite exercises.

I have had an Ipod for years.  I have had an Iphone for 7 or 8 months.  I have NEVER downloaded or listened to a podcast until yesterday.  Sure podcasts have been around for at least a half a decade.  I was well aware of them but for whatever reason I never was interested enough in them to download one.  I heard Howard talking about his search for a new phone.  He was talking about the podcasts on the Iphone and how cool they were.  I hopped on Itunes and did a quick search of the podcast library. Wow, it is massive.  Pretty much any subject you can think of has a podcast.

I downloaded a WoW podcast and a bunch of other tech related ones.  I found it quite enjoyable to listen to the podcasts as I was working.   Podcasts will become a regular part of my daily listening routine. 

This weekend we are going to the counter top place to finalize our kitchen counter upgrade.  Part of that process will be going to the granite yard to pick out our slab, it should be interesting. 

Yesterday I locked in our interest rate for the refinance, yep we are doing it.  It’s going to open up a lot of financial flexibility for us, protect us from the possibility of our ARM mortgage and equity line floating and give us a tax bump as we write off the closing costs.  Nothing stops us from overpaying on the mortgage once we bump up our savings nest egg to the size we want.  We also can refinance back to a shorter term as finances allow.  We also have a number of home improvement projects that will get knocked out a s a result.  It should be an exciting few months coming up.

I am hoping to get out to see Watchmen this weekend.  Lots to do around the house but nothing we can’t get done with lots of time to spare.

I am totally not into DWTS this year.  I probably couldn’t even name half of the cast.  I did however see the first round of eliminations.  It came down to the chubby, very gay appearing guy from Apple and Belinda Carlisle from the Go Go’s.  When Belinda was with the Go Go’s I had a crush on her, I thought she was incredibly cute.  When I heard she was on the show this year I thought she would do quite well, after all she was a singer, she had to dance around on stage.  Well it appears that Belinda was bitten by the botox bug.  Her face looked frozen, borderline disturbing.  From what I saw of her dancing it wasn’t good.  Most surprising of all to me was she just didn’t come off as likeable.  End result, she was the first to get the boot.

Yesterday at the gym I wore the tye-dye shirt from the Beach Bum this past weekend.  An older guy came up to me and asked me how I liked the race, obviously he was there as well.  When I took a closer look at the man I recognized him.  He ran with a woman that participates in Special Olympics.

He was a very talkative gentlemen.  In the span of roughly 10 minutes I learned quite a bit.  He is a retired Navy commander that snowbirds down in Naples.  He went to Notre Dame and used to play football there.  A shoulder injury ended his football career.  He is 69 years old, he only started running at 63.  He is real big into running marathons in other countries.  He has run marathons in Greece, Lebanon and even Antartica.  He said he was leaving to run the London Marathon in a couple weeks.

He was telling me just how enjoyable he finds travelling to these countries, seeing the sights, meeting the people, hearing the stories and taking in the experiences.  The guy lit up as he talked about it, you could tell just how deeply he believed what he was saying.

He told me a story about the marathon he ran in Greece.  He finished the marathon and of course was very sore and achy afterward.  However the following day there was some area they were going to that had a beautiful view.  The only problem was he had to climb 900+ steps to get there.  He climbed the steps and got to see the view even though it was very painful to do so.  The next day there was another landmark to see that once again required extensive climbing.  Again he trudged upwards until he made it to the top.

By the time the third day came around Charlie was very sore, his feet were covered in blood blisters from the running and climbing and he felt just beat up. Well on the third day they went to the site where the original Olympics were held.  The guide spoke about how the big event in the original Olympics was the run for Zeus.  The Zeus run was approximately a 200 yard dash.  The guide pointed to a line of marble in the ground that was the start line for the race.  In the distance you could see another line of marble which was the finish.

Well Charlie said he HAD to run the Zeus run, he’ll never get the chance again.  So even though he hardly felt like running he lined up at the start line and took off.  He said after three strides all of the aches and pains he was feeling evaporated.  He ran the 200 yards hard and finished strong.  After the run he was amazed how all of a sudden he felt great after starting to run.  He examined his feet and said that all of the blood blisters that covered his feet had dried up.  He had no explanation but swore it was true. 

Charlie figured I was an accomplished runner based on my build.  He encouraged me to try some of the overseas marathons.  I told him that he definitely sparked my interest in doing so.  I figured it was pointless to tell him I never have run farther than 6 miles and that his knees were probably in better shape than mine.  It did however really make me think about trying.  Try training consistently and see just how far my knees will carry me. 

I wished Charlie good luck in London as I left.  I didn’t even care he cut into my ab routine time.

Cheryl sent me some of the pics she took while down here.  I added them to the existing photo gallery.  Check them out here.

Yesterday in the mail I got an offer from Mitsubishi to buy an extended warranty through them for our 73 inch monster tv.  I already bought the Best Buy warranty so I don’t need it but I was looking through the paperwork anyway.  Included in the terms of the warranty was a list of nearly 30 things that are NOT covered.  I found one of them quite funny.

G. LOSS OR DAMAGE CAUSED BY WAR, INVASION OR ACT OF FOREIGN ENEMY, HOSTILITIES, CIVIL WAR, REBELLION, RIOT, STRIKE, LABOR DISTURBANCE, LOCKOUT, OR CIVIL COMMOTION

This one struck me as odd too, especially since it is now 2009

P. ANY MECHANICAL BREAKDOWN CAUSED BY OR RELATED TO DEFECTS KNOWN AS “Y2K” OR “MILLENIUM BUG” OR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED BY A COMPUTER VIRUS.

So be sure to keep that in mind, if you buy an extended warranty and your tv gets damaged by crazed striking auto workers, invading Mexicans or some unpatched cobol code you are shit out of luck.

So I sat down and watched the BSG finale last night.  Warning, if you have not seen it yet you may not want to read the rest of this entry. (COUGH RANDALL COUGH!) I am relieved to say I didn’t have nearly the negative opinion of it that Howard did.  I thought overall it was good.  Howard complained that not enough questions were answered.  I thought almost all of them were answered except what exactly was the deal with Starbuck.  Sure there were some decisions made by the characters that I don’t think made much sense like abandoning all of their technology and driving the fleet into the sun when they find new Earth.  The theme that all that was will happen again was driven home in spades.  The ending was not perfect but pretty damn good. 

I’m going to miss the show but I was pumped to see the commercial for what appears to be a spin off 2 hour movie based on the Cylon perspective of the uprising in the fall.

If you want to read a good in-depth review of the finale and BSG in general I suggest checking this out.

Through out the weekend we got to hear little bits and pieces about Dave’s job, he is a state policeman but he has additional responsibilities that you would not think fall under the realm of that department.  His job seems incredibly diverse and interesting, the exact opposite of my job.  He is well compensated for his work and gets all sorts of perks ranging from great insurance to a new car every year.  Of course there is that little “you can be killed in the line of duty” thing.  Nevertheless it was quite interesting to hear some details about what he does.  

When I started in the computer business for Entre/Ameridata/GE my job had similar levels of diversity.  Every single day was different with projects going on at various businesses in the south eastern PA area.  It made the job stressful but interesting as well.  Every day was filled with new faces, new problems to conquer and new locations to do them in.  This is a stark contrast to my job of the last 8+ years were things are typically very static.  The only change of scenery is when I change the background on my computer desktop.  Yea it pays well, is low stress, has good benefits and is stable.  But damn, there are some days I would just kill for something different.  

I have not had a chance to see the two hour series finale for Battlestar Galactica yet.  I am concerned because I heard Howard talking about it today.  He said he HATED the finale. Many times my opinions on things follow similar paths as his, I am hoping this is one of the times we deviate.  I love the show so much, it would be a shame to have the finale leave a bad taste in my mouth, Soprano style.

Cheryl and Dave arrived on Friday for their weekend visit.  They were flying into Tampa and driving down to Naples.  They had some flight issues that delayed them a bit.  Cheryl texted me along the way saying they were driving as fast as they could in their cheap little piece of shit rental. When they pulled up between 7:30 and 8:00 I saw that their “piece of shit” was in reality a Shelby GT Convertible, Hertz Edition.  Dave explained that it wasn’t planned but he got upgraded to the car without spending an extra penny.  Cheryl said it was par for Dave, he has a pattern of stepping in shit more often than not.

We spent their first night in Florida just hanging out, drinking a few beers and catching up.  Sadie of course was happy to see the new visitors just like she is happy to see anyone else.  Nicki only growled and carried on briefly.  In no time she was happy to let Cheryl and Dave pet her, another side effect of having Sadie in the house. Nicki sees Sadie having fun and she wants to be part of the action.

Ali and I had to get up at 4:30 Saturday to time a race.  This was the Beach Bum, the only race we put on that is literally run on the beach.  Timing a race electronically in this environment sucks, plain and simple.  Electronics generally don’t get along well with the moist and sandy conditions a beach provides.  The timing system proved to be no exception.  In my pre-race tests I was getting very poor read performance having the lines buried in the moist sand. 

When we set up on the beach there was a tent pitched there.  The people in it had to be startled to hear activity outside at such an early hour.  Technically it is illegal to camp on the beach.  The people inside didn’t come out the entire time we were there.

During the race we had to be ready at all times to manually enter a time.  There were probably 10-15 that we had to punch in manually.  I spent most of my time covering up the timing lines as various runners ripped them up with their feet.  Luckily it was a rather small race so having to manually enter times wasn’t too bad.  Watching the various runners trudge up to the finish line through the soft sand made me glad I was timing the event instead of running it.

All in all things went smoothly, we were all packed up and ready to roll out of there at 9am.  On the way back we decided to stop at the countertop place since we would be practically driving right past it.  As we pulled in the sales woman I dealt with was getting ready to pull out with some other customers to go to the granite yard.  I told her we could just come back some other time.  She said it was no problem, that we could go inside and the woman there would answer any questions we had. 

We went in and met up with the other woman.  She pulled our info and showed us around some more, showing us more granite, Corian, Silestone and sinks.  Ali liked the look of a lot of the Corian demo counters that were set up but once again she zoomed in on the visible scratching.  It pretty made up my mind that we had to get a stone surface.  We found a a level 2 granite style called tropic tan that we both liked.  They actually had a counter installed with that variety so we got a good feel for how it would look.

  All that is left to decide is what do for a sink.  They had some nice sinks there.  I also mentioned that I wanted to go back to the Expo center where I got my $300 faucet for $150 and see if I could get a similar deal on a sink. Once we are locked in on a sink we would have to pick out our actual slab of granite at the yard and then away we go.

When we got home Cheryl and Dave had left already.  They wanted to go cruise around in the Mustang with the top down for a bit.   It worked out well because it gave us a chance to handle the post race duties before they got back.  When they pulled up everything was put away, I had the results posted on the web site and Ali was back taking her nap.

I had flipped on the pool heater for their visit so Saturday afternoon we spent some time taking advantage of it.  The water was around 90.  The air however was in the mid 70’s and it was quite windy with some big clouds overhead that was blocking the sun more often than not.  As a result if you brought your body above the water line you instantly felt cold.  When each one of us got out it was a mad dash to get wrapped up in a towel.

Dave and Cheryl really seemed to be enjoying the company of our dogs.  They are a cat only family.  Cats are ok but they just aren’t as interactive as a dog is.  Sadie really took to Dave and was hanging with him quite often. He didn’t seem to mind at all.

Saturday night we decided to go to downtown Naples to eat, drink and be merry.  We very rarely go downtown.  Even rarer is to go downtown on a Saturday night.  Dave wanted to take the Mustang.  The girls agreed although they had to wedge themselves into the child-like dimensions of the back seat to do so. Dave kept the top up though. We parked at one of free parking garages and walked through a courtyard onto 5th Avenue. 

As soon as we hit the street McCabe’s Irish Pub was there, one of the places we talked about eating at.  There appeared to be no waiting so after a brief vote a consensus was reached and we sat down.  We had a friendly waitress that was nice to deal with.  It was beautiful weather so we ate outside.  Everyone enjoyed what they ordered.  I went unconventional and had a seafood cake thing that had lobster, scallops and crab in it.  Dave snagged the check as it hit the table and insisted on paying for the meal. I hate arguing over a check so we thanked them for their generosity.

After dinner I talked about walking down to the 3rd street south area.  However I miscalculated how far it was, the 14 block round trip would have been a bit far, especially since Ali was wearing heels with her jeans.  Instead we decided to go three blocks to the beach.  We arrived shortly after the sun had crossed the horizon.  Cheryl asked a couple to take a group shot of us on the beach.

We walked back up 5th Ave to just check stuff out.  We walked by a high end fancy restaurant with an absolutely hilarious name. It was named “Vergina”.  The name was even funnier after all of us had a few drinks.  We laughed our asses off for quite awhile as we talked about asking for directions to Vergina. 

After we saw the sights on 5th we decided to go back to the car and DRIVE down to 3rd street.  When we pulled into the parking lot Dave got a thumbs up from a pedestrian that was admiring his Shelby rental.  Imagine our surprise when we parked and there was another identical Shelby parked a few spaces away. 

We stopped at the Tommy Bahamas store.  Two of the people that work there go to my gym.  Neither was around but I was told they would be back.  We then headed across the street to the bar/restaurant another gym buddy of mine works at.  The place was PACKED.  I tracked my buddy down at the bar.  He was extremely busy, dishing out drink orders non-stop.  He took a break to quickly grab a round for me and the gang but I knew he was much too busy to socialize.

I took the drinks out and we just hung around the bar for a little while.  Ali was listening to a ballet classmate that also sings at this place on the weekends.  Dave and I spent a lot of time doing cougar spotting. (Cougar – an attractive older woman that is looking to bed a younger man)  We quickly identified a number of them mulling about as well as some older “Sugar Daddies” looking to to ensnare some younger women with their money instead of their good looks. 

It was very crowded where we were standing.  Dave wasn’t digging the mob environment much so we finished up our drinks.  I went back and paid my buddy for the drinks and told him I would see him at the gym.  We walked back to Tommy Bahamas.  My other gym guys were now there.   One of them was the 61 year old guy that is in fantastic shape.  I have talked about him several times to Ali so I thought it was cool that she got to meet him.  They too were both busy so we couldn’t chat long.  We decided to head out, we had plenty of beer at home that we could go through yet. Once we got back I had another beer or two before hitting the sack.  I was exhausted since my day started 3 hours before sunrise.

Our plan on Sunday was to hit the beach.  Ali and I threw out the idea of heading back to Sanibel and taking the dogs with.  Cheryl and Dave were cool with that so that was the plan.  Of course doing so meant I would have to press the party van into action.  Luckily there were absolutely no starting issues throughout the day.  For much of the drive Sadie decided to make herself comfortable on Dave’s lap, it was cute.  On the way to Sanibel I stopped at a Subway to grab sandwiches for lunch.  Once we arrived at the beach we stopped at some picnic benches along the path to the beach to quickly eat them. 

The dogs were very excited once we got to the beach.  There was a whole new collection of sights and smells for them to take in.  As we were making our way to the beach we saw a number of dogs including one MASSIVE great Dane.  The dog had to be seen to be believed.  The couple that had the massive beast also had an 8 week old lab puppy with that was adorable.  The contrast between the dogs was hilarious.

Nicki and especially Sadie were interested in the Great Dane.  Luckily he had a good personality.  It’s a good thing, he looked big enough to drag his owners up and down the beach if he wanted to.  Dave and Ali took the dogs down to the water while I finished setting up the umbrella.  Sadie immediately went belly deep into the water.  Nicki got her paws wet, about as far as she would go. 

I spent pretty much the entire time at the beach perched on my chair, under the umbrella with my shirt on.  Having three fresh spots of skin cancer removed made me think it may be smart to avoid unnecessary sun exposure.  My job was to hold onto dog leashes and the umbrella to make sure it didn’t blow away in the rather windy conditions.

Cheryl and Dave took a few walks up and down the beach.  The one time they had Sadie in tow. I think they were enjoying the near perfect weather, especially after leaving gray and dead PA where the temps were in the 40’s when they departed.  For a good portion of our time at the beach both dogs were under the umbrella with me in the shade.  Their black coats can make things quite warm for them in no time.  At one point I looked down at Sadie and saw that her leash had mysteriously been cut into two pieces.  Of course it didn’t take me long to figure out that little Sadie chewed through it.  I was just surprised that I didn’t  notice her gnawing away on it at my feet.  I addressed the problem by haphazardly tying the two halves together.  It looked dumb but worked.

After a couple hours Cheryl and Dave who are both fair skinned were getting pretty toasted so we decided to pack up and head back.  On the south part of Sanibel we made a quick pit stop and grabbed some Dairy Queen for everyone.  Ice cream and a trip to the beach just goes together right?  Luckily the long line of backed up traffic waiting to get off the island that we saw on the way there had dissipated.  We got off Sanibel without delay and the party van delivered us safely home yet again.

After getting home I wanted to jump into the heated pool at least once more.  The water felt great, the air once again felt cold.  Sadie had never seen anyone in the pool before this weekend.  Well we discovered that she finds people in the pool very entertaining.  She likes to play a game where the person in the pool swims from end to end or side to side in the pool.  Sadie then races around the outside of the pool and tries to beat you there.  If you put your hands up on the side of the pool  deck she tries to nip at them.  She would do this endlessly.  I literally had to do it 50 times and she just would not tire of it.  At times I would splash her from the water, she could have cared less.  Nicki just watched from a safe distance, amazed.

Dave and I did a quick run to Publix to grab some hamburger and hot dog rolls.  He asked if I wanted to drive the Shelby which of course I happily agreed to.  It sounded sweet!  I could come nowhere near to putting the thing through it’s paces.  If I stepped on the gas just a bit I was instantly up over the speed limit.  There is something about the sound of a powerful V-8 that soothes the soul.  The Shelby felt like a muscle car should feel, not too refined, a bit grumpy and angry.  It was great to drive the Stang for a bit, it only wets the appetite more for a Camaro.

Sunday night I made burgers and veggie dogs on the grill.  It didn’t go very well.  I had 5 burgers on the grill and handful of dogs.  Well I didn’t pay attention to the grill as I should have and by the time I came out the grill was a blazing inferno from all of the fat dripping off the burgers into the burners.  The dogs were encrusted in black soot.  I carefully moved the burgers out of the towering flames.  I had a few more dogs left that I threw on instead.  I tried to salvage the burgers but most of them were pretty well done from the intense heat.  I am not sure if I ever tried to grill veggie (soy) dogs before.  I don’t think I will again, they don’t turn out good over flames.  I think boiling would turn out much better.

As we ate our charbroiled food we flipped on Taken.  I earlier showed Cheryl my massive electronic movie collection and this was the winner as far as what we would watch.  It was an action filled movie.  I found it entertaining for the most part.  There were some very creative uses of violence in the movie.  Liam Neisen seemed to favor throat chopping as his favorite move although he incorporated various stunts I have not seen before like driving two huge nails into a bad guys legs and hooking them up to jumper cables or shooting a scum bag cops wife in the arm to show he means business and then declaring it a simple “flesh wound”.  Liam’s level of ruthlessness to obtain his revenge was a bit over the top, even for me.  Even so it was decent, I’d give it a B.

Cheryl and Dave are regular Amazing Race viewers and it just happened to be coming on after the movie so we watched an episode.  They were racing through India.  Wow, India is really a shithole.  It just so happened that earlier in the weekend Cheryl was telling us how in India you never shake someones left hand.  The reason is the left hand is reserved for cleaning your ass.  They don’t believe in wiping with toilet paper.  Um yea, India will not ever be one of my destinations.

Again I was totally exhausted by the time the show ended.  I headed back to take a shower and hit the sack.  This morning Cheryl and Dave were getting ready to pull back out for Tampa to catch a Yankee’s spring training game before flying back to PA later in the evening.  I got to say goodbye to both of them before pulling out for work.  They both said they had a lot of fun which is all that we wanted.  Ali and I both enjoyed the company.  We got to have a lot of fun and not focus so much on the repetitive routines that envelop a lot of our normal weekends.

You can see the few pics I shot with my Iphone over the weekend here.