Archives May 2009

We can’t combine the vegetables in one bowl, there wouldn’t be enough room…

Yep, looks pretty tight in there.

We followed up our hectic Muddy Buddy weekend with yet another hectic weekend, this time due to Ali’s big dance recital both Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.  During the day Saturday I buzzed around the property doing a number of things.  Ali had to leave very early for her 6 pm performance, they wanted her there between 2 and 3.  I worked right up until close to 4pm.  I was rushed to get ready and get there.

Before I left I thought instead of doing the standard “stop at the grocery store and buy flowers thing” I thought I would be more thoughtful and collect various flowers from around our property.  During Ali’s last recital in January I was unaware of the post dance tradition of giving the participants flowers.  I didn’t want to get caught with my pants down again.  I collected a nice assortment of pretty flowers and put them into a small plastic canister that is used to deliver pool water samples to Pinch-a-Penny.  I dressed it up by covering it with aluminum foil.

I got to the location around 5:35 or so.  This time it was being held in an auditorium in Naples High School, a much bigger venue than the January performance.  There were a lot of people there, at least 200-300 I would guess.  I had a good seat in the third row on the end in a seat that had nothing in front of it.  Plenty of room to stretch out my legs.  It was interesting scanning the room to see the various parents and relatives of the dancers.   They ranged from the rich and snooty to the normal average  Joe’s.

They brought down the lights and the performance started.  The first act was a jazz number that was rather unpolished.  It was the first time I had seen a jazz performance at one of the dance studio recitals.  Ali’s group was next up, a group of 6 adult students.  Their number this time was much much longer than what was performed in January, somewhere around 6 minutes instead of two.  I thought the group and specifically Ali did very well.  During the number Ali was out there briefly with another dancer doing a duet.  The routine was pretty complex.  I was proud of Ali for doing so well.

Before the show Ali asked me if I planned to stay for the entire show or leave after her performance.  At the time I told her I didn’t know but since I had my homegrown bouquet I needed to stick around.  Right after Ali’s act was another routine that I thought was very good.  It used more modern music instead of the dry, frumpy variety that so often goes along with ballet.  There were two full acts for me to sit through yet.  I managed to stick them out without major discomfort.  Sure I’d rather be somewhere else in an ideal situation but I didn’t mind sticking around to show support for Ali and what she does.  Ali was able to come out after the second intermission and watch the rest of the show with me which was nice.  She liked my mini-bouquet.  It was cool to see how excited she was about her performance.

On Sunday morning I wanted to wedge in a bike ride around getting  the remaining chores done before having to leave for Ali’s next show.  I decided to do the Publix ride again.  I wore the baggy bike shorts and the GPS watch this time.  Both items made the ride better.

On the way out I had a little tail wind for most of the ride.  I monitored my pace pretty regularly.  My speed varied between 14 and 17 mph for the majority of the ride, not exactly hauling ass from a bike perspective but for a novice like myself it was ok I guess.  This time instead of taking a 10-15 minute break at Publix I just turned around, chugged some Gatorade and headed back.  It took me about 34 minutes to do the first 8.75 miles.

Within the first 25 yards I realized that the ride back was going to suck.  The light tailwind felt like a huge head wind now.  Realizing that I had a basically 5 mile straight wind tunnel waiting for me was not a great feeling.  The wind made a huge difference in my speed.  At times my speed dropped into the 10’s and most of the ride was in the 12 mph range.  I had to drop gears in order to keep my stroke pace up.  Dropping gears resulted in my hitting one of the gears on the bike that is noisy.  When you are working hard pedaling into the wind little things like additional gear train noise become very annoying, very quickly.  I need to get out the manual and figure out how to correctly adjust the gear train.

Finally I got back to our driveway  42 minutes later, a huge difference from the first half of the ride.  My legs were tired, my ass was a bit sore (much better than the non-bike pant ride) and I was sweaty but I didn’t feel too bad.  After a quick dip in the pool filled with Sadie splashing action, I got out to get ready to leave once again.

This time we were going to use one car instead of two.  I dropped Ali off at the school and then headed right out to pick up my mom who was going to attend this show.  The trip back and forth didn’t take quite as long as I anticipated, we got back to the school around 2:30 or so, a half hour early.  Mom and I spent the time reading the program cover to cover multiple times as well as just watching the crowd. Finally the show starts at 3 and Ali’s group comes on.

The first part of the routine went well, I snapped a few poor quality Iphone pics.  As the performance progressed I noticed something was weird.  All of a sudden instead of 6 dancers there were 5.  Then a different woman came out to do a brief solo part than the prior night.  WTF? Well shortly after the first intermission Ali came out dressed in her street clothes, she was all hyper.  She said that the one woman did something to her calf, possibly tore something.  Ali said she was going to drive her to the emergency room.  Well luckily a few seats down a woman was listening.  She said her husband was a doctor, ironically a foot/ankle specialist.  She said he could take a look at her.

The doctor disappeared up behind the curtain.  When he came back he said that she ruptured a tendon in her calf, something that is a relatively common injury.  He told her that there was really no need to go to the emergency room, there is nothing they would do for her besides tell her to ice the injury.   She will need to go to a specialist to get proper treatment.  So that meant that Ali didn’t have to drive to the emergency room.

It was now the second intermission.  Ali said that if we wanted we could head out awhile and go to dinner.  I told mom it was up to her.  She in turn said it was up to me.  Well I know mom well enough to know that she would have welcomed an early exit so I said “ok, let’s go”  We headed over to Carraba’s for a post dance celebratory dinner.  

Carraba’s was very empty which is a pleasant change.  Ali was distracted for most of the meal due to the incident.  She felt very bad about it, especially since initially the women thought that Ali kicked her.  In fact it just felt like she was kicked when the tendon snapped.  Well anyway we enjoyed our dinner and were out of there by 5:30. 

One mini-Carrabas rant, I have railed in the past how they have been slowly neutering my  favorite Carraba’s.  First they removed much of the decor that made it unique to that location, preferring to instead make it more vanilla.  Then they had the balls to stop playing the learn to speak italian tape in the bathrooms and replace it with boring elevator music.  They also reduced the variety on their menu dramatically.  Yesterday the latest gaffe came into view.  The bread that has so long been one of the best parts of going to Carraba’s had been changed.  It used to come out warm in a basket wrapped in a cloth.  Now instead it comes out in some stupid metal thing wrapped in a paper towel basically.  Even worse they went cheap on the bread as well, substituting the great bread they used to serve with generic stuff you can get anywhere.  Obviously they are cutting corners, it’s a shame.  They have almost wrung every ounce of charm out of the place.  Once the 2-1 happy hour is abolished it will be just another restaurant.

Ok back to the timeline. After dropping mom off we headed home.  We decided to try to carve some more of our Tivo viewing backlog by watching the finale of Biggest Loser. Thank GOD for Tivo.  The show was a ridiculously long 3 hours.  Thanks to Tivo we were able to zip through the commercials and endless recap segments cutting the experience to a more manageable 90 minutes.  I saw the headlines about who won the $100,00 and $250,000 prize so the initial surprise had worn off.  However let me randomly rattle off my thoughts from the show.

Jerry, the oldest competitor ever lost a shocking amount of weight, especially when you you factor in his age and that he was only on campus for two weeks.   He lost 54% of his body weight.  He looked a bit bizarre.  More disturbing than his appearance was his demeanor.  He was almost acting mildly retarded.  Maybe he was just overwhelmed with happiness.  I don’t know, something seemed awry.  I told Ali maybe he went on a starvation diet or something, he wasn’t a healthy looking skinny.

Carla and Joelle, the black women that basically ended their friendship over the show both had unimpressive showings.  Yea they lost some weight but not nearly as much as they should have in such a situation.  I can pretty much guarantee they will balloon back to their initial weights in short order.

Aubrey, the mother of 5 was another big disappointment.  If anything she looks like she gained weight since she left the show.  She pretty much talked herself into her own failure.  Throughout the show she whined about not being able to remain in control once she would be back in her home environment.  Well she was right, she’s another one that will roll right back to her former self in short order.

The biggest “loser” of all in my opinion was the worthless, piece of shit kid named David.  David came on the show with his buddy Daniel who happened to be the fattest person EVER on the show, tipping the scales at way over 400 pounds.  Well David was huge himself at an enormous 380+ pounds.  He went home early on and you could tell that his heart wasn’t in it.  Well at the finale it was obvious just how much of a schlub this kid is as he weighed in at a ridiculous 350 pounds. 

I was really angry with David. I verbally lashed him through the Tivo, proclaiming how shitty it is that there are 100,000 people plus that try to get on the show and this idiot is lucky enough to make it but then totally blows the opportunity.  What a loser, a genuine hide your face in shame forever loser.  I hope the kid eats enough that soon has no choice but to roll around in his own feces. Idiot. Daniel, his buddy did better, losing something like 140 pounds.  At least he seems to have the right attitude, unlikely his lazy, worthless friend.

The majority of the people did a very good job, losing significant amounts of weight. The top three in the final all lost tons.  Mike, the young kid that started at 380 + pounds got down the 180’s which was incredible.  Most people assumed he would win.  Tara who dominated nearly every competition on the show also lost a ton of weight, going from a 280 pound heffer down to the 130’s.  But neither of the two favorites won.  Instead Helen, a 48 year old mom with bad hair and a rather unlikeable personality won it all dropping down to an amazing 117 pounds after starting around 260. 

Helen’s daughter was on the show as well and dropped out early, when her mom rather selfishly encouraged her to go.  Not surprisingly she didn’t lose nearly the amount of weight her mom did.  Helen looked good although 48 year old skin is not so resilient.  Ali remarked she didn’t look that toned but I think it was just the result of her skin not snapping back.  So Helen wins, show over.  It was a good season, probably the most enjoyable one we have watched.  I can only hope for the contestant sakes that they actually get “it” and continue on the path of a healthy lifestyle.  Track records of many prior contestants does not bode well.

So at Carraba’s I was talking to my mom about the various movies that are out right now that I want to go see.  Ali immediately voiced her displeasure with the prospect of accompanying me to see them with me since she has now deemed that she is sick of action movies.  She went as far as saying she wished I could find someone else to go see them with.  I can see why Ali would have a hard time with going through the tremendous struggle of going to a movie with me, it’s not like I do much to support her likes and desires.   So if there are any hot chicks out there that like action movies give me a ring, I have a free ticket for you.  I’d even take Randall with as long as he wears a skirt and shaves his legs.

Ali was giving me heat about my entry the other day that talked about her procrastination.  She said it made it sound like she was lazy.  I don’t agree obviously.  I don’t think anything I said was inaccurate.  I just described what goes on, I didn’t describe the behavior as lazy, just as procrastination.  I would never call Ali lazy. Ali called me this morning to tell me about all of the stuff she got done around the house this morning just to prove her point.  I welcomed and appreciated her efforts, especially with how busy the weekend is shaping up to be.  She manages to get quite a bit done, just not as much as me 🙂

Part of the reason for this is Ali’s ability to get mired in the details of something, to make something more difficult than it needs to be.  Last night was another good example.  We were talking about what I needed to get at the grocery store for the home made portion of Nicki’s dinner that Ali prepares.  Ali is writing down a list of at least 8 or 9 different items that she includes in this concoction.  Now to clarify things right up front,  Ali is trying to give Nicki (and soon Sadie) a good balance of nutrients from the food she cooks for her.  Well I tried to wave some smelling salts under Ali’s nose.

I made the simple suggestion that perhaps we could give Nicki more quantity of fewer items for several reasons.  It would simplify the preparation process.  It would take less time, cost less money, use less power and make less of a mess.  I also suggested that we just fill the containers we are using to the top and split the food between the dogs instead of maintaining two separate sets of bowls which would push our storage limits to their maximum. We’d have more food in the freezers for the dogs than for us.

 Ali offered up the varied nutrition all of the different items offer.  I reminded Ali that the dogs are already getting a more or less balanced meal in the $2 a can dog food that we already feed them.  Plus Nicki is given a multi-vitamin and various other supplements in every meal we prepare as well.  The vegetables main role is to provide healthy filler as opposed to the unhealthy filler that is in dry dog food.  This role could be served just as well by three vegetables instead of nine.  Of course for Ali to admit that “hey that point made sense” would be way out of bounds for her.   Clarifying once more, this doesn’t mean Ali is LAZY.

Brooke Shields looks like a man in drag nowadays, seriously.

It feels like there are a ton of things to do.  It’s amazing how just one weekend away can throw a wrench into the works.  Last night I tried to put a small dent in the things to do by doing some laundry and cooking the beets that had been in our fridge for a long time.  I never cooked beets before so I called up my mom and got some quick instructions.  It wasn’t a hard process although since some of the beets were on the big side they were in the boiling pot for around an hour.  They turned out well.

Ali has her recital on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend.  This time it is at one of the local high schools.  I am going to both performances.  Mom is going to come with me on Sunday.

We have started doing some prep work for our big trip out west in a few weeks.  When we did it in 2007 we went the most direct route out to my dad’s place in New Mexico.  This time we are throwing around going a different, longer way that would take us up into the middle of the country before heading down to SW New Mexico.  With Google Maps it’s real easy to tweak your route.  Simply grab the route and drag it wherever.  We were even talking about going far enough north that we would go through Kansas.  Why would someone want to go through Kansas you ask?  No good reason, just to see it I suppose.

We haven’t definitively decided on any route yet.  Going that far north would easily add another couple days to the already lengthy 2000+ mile trip.  I figure on the trip back we will jump back on the direct route home.  Once I have home base in sight as the goal I want to get there asap. 

We also are making pet arrangements.  We don’t have any people we know that we would want to bother to come out to our place to tend to the cat and the bird while we are gone.  So we are looking into the pet sitter route instead where you pay someone to come out and take care of your pets.   Ali got a recommendation for someone through the Humane Society.  However she charges $20 a visit.  With us being gone for close to two weeks that would add up to a rather hellacious bill.  I told Ali that Spook and Tuki would get by just fine with every other day service.

I’m looking forward to the trip, it should be a lot of fun.

Ali is a procrastinator by nature.  I am the exact opposite of a procrastinator, whatever the word is for that.  After being married for 10+ years we have managed to more or less find a balance between the two dispositions.  However there are times our different outlook on these things can cause the other angst. 

Take for example the kitchen sink.  Ali and I disagree totally on how to handle things when it comes to the sink and the things you wash in them.  Let’s say that a meal was prepared that involved some big pots or pans.  Ali’s preferred method of cleaning these items would be to put some soapy water in them and just let them sit in the sink for her to attend to later. I would much rather get out the scrub brush and utilize some elbow grease to get everything cleaned up right then and now, then it isn’t hanging over my head to get done later. 

That leads to the drying process.  Again, we differ on this.  Ali is a big fan of getting out the drying rack from under the sink and just throwing items on there to dry.  So you get out the rack, pile the crap on it to sit for hours (or the next day), and then put it away later.  I grab the drying towel, dry the item and put it away immediately.

Another popular use for our sink is to wash out food residue from recyclable items before they are put in the recycle bin.  Sounds simple enough right?  Run some hot water into the container, rinse it out and into the bin it goes.  Not in Ali’s world.  Once again she prefers to fill the item with water and let it sit in the sink, where usually I will wind up rinsing it out myself and putting it  in the bin. 

Now I realize everyone is wired differently.  I just think the inner psychology behind this behavior is interesting.  Why not take the extra 4 seconds and complete a mindless chore instead of putting it off to be completed later?  This difference in philosophy comes into most of our household chores/duties.  We find a way to navigate a happy median, normally.

I have really been annoyed with China. I have been thinking if besides the 2008 Olympics, what has come out of China in the past decade or two that has been good? It seems like every other week there is a new story breaking about yet another sub-standard/dangerous product coming out of the damn place.  Food, toys, building materials, you name it, China produces a shitty version of it. 

Not only does China produce an astronomical amount of shitty items, they have overrun the American market with it.  It’s ridiculous how invasive their products are if you actually take the time to look at where something is made.  The overwhelming majority is from China.  In many cases you have no options, you either buy something made in China or do without.  They have effectively choked out any US made alternatives in many areas.

China also holds the United States ransom financially.  Due to the rampant deficit spending of the last decade or so we have been forced to whore ourselves out to the Chinese.  Last time I heard, China held close to a TRILLION dollars in US bonds.  The Chinese own $1 out of every $10 in US debt. 

China is the world’s biggest polluter.  They open several new coal fired power plants PER WEEK, the dirtiest and cheapest source of energy available.  Hell they had to shut down Beijing for a month prior to the Olympics just to try to get the smog to clear a bit.

China even affects WoW in a negative way.  The “Chinese Gold Farmers” are legendary in game.  These are extremely low paid Chinese workers that do nothing but play WoW 24/7.  Their job is to generate in game virtual currency and then turn around and sell it for real world dollars.  Their efforts poison in game economies and upset the balance of the game.  Hmmm sounds just like the Chinese role in real life scenarios.

We are slowly being cut down at the knees by a pair of chopsticks.

They posted the professional pictures from the Muddy Buddy. There some real good shots of both Michelle and Ali in there.  I added them to the overall collection from the weekend which can be seen here.

We had an actual thunderstorm last night along with substantial rain.  Thank goodness, it’s been arid around here.  I bet it’s been over 2 months since we had any substantial rain if not longer.

We need to get out to the movies soon. There are a pile of flicks coming out or already out that I want to see in a theater including Xmen Origins, Star Trek, Angels and Demons, and Terminator.  I’m not sure if there is any way we can find any time this weekend to cram one in since Ali has her ballet recital Saturday and Sunday.

Manny Ramirez is a tool by the way.

I have been fighting with a Dell Poweredge 2950 server we have here for months.  We bought a couple of these servers and loaded them up with multiple processors, huge hard drives and tons of RAM.    However after the server was brought online we noticed that we were getting poor network performance.  Specifically, a process that pulled data across the network that used to take 2 or 3 seconds with an older, less powerful server now was taking nearly double the amount of time with the new lighting fast hardware.

So I did a Google search for “poor network performance Dell Poweredge 2950″ and was bombarded with results.  Tons of other people were having similar problems with bad network performance on their 2950’s as well.  Most of the information pointed the finger at the internal dual Broadcom NIC’s and specifically their TOE capability.  TOE is a feature in NIC’s that is supposed to increase network performance, well apparently in it’s implementation in the 2950 often causes more problems than good.

I read about several solutions to the issue such as  disabling the ” TCP Chimney”  by issuing the command “Netsh int ip set chimney DISABLED ”  as well as changing some registry entries to turn off the functionality.  I went as far as removing the TOE hardware key from the server to intentionally break TOE.  It made no difference, I still was seeing slower network performance on the new server.

So I decided to get drastic.  I ordered a dual port Intel NIC for the server and disabled the onboard Broadcom NICS.  I slapped the Intel NIC into the server, confident that this would finally eliminate my issue.  Imagine my frustration when I fired up the server, did a test and again saw similar results. WTF.

I already had tried the simple things like different cables, connecting directly to the switch and verifying connection settings on the switch.  The switch ports didn’t show any symptoms of a bad connection like dropped frames or corrupted packets.  

Well I was running out of ideas so I decided to get a new gigabit ethernet switch and connect the problem server to it as well as the server I am trying to copy data to and from.  I hooked the switch up, did my file copy test and STILL I see results that are worse than the 5 year old servers it is replacing.  

I’m very annoyed.  We have used Dell servers exclusively since I started down here and for the most part have had no problems with them.  However I don’t think I should have to jump through hoops to get a brand new server to at least perform on par with older hardware from a network perspective.

I guess it’s time for some more Google searching…

I just noticed in the “year ago post” that we had Buttons put to sleep one year ago today.  It instantly made me very sad.  That day was one of the worst I can remember.

It was a jam packed weekend, the busiest I can recall in awhile. On Friday I had my last day of at home training on Exchange 2007. I asked the instructor about how long class would run that day because ideally I wanted to get on the road during the afternoon for the drive up to Orlando.  The instructor said the last module was about unified messaging which basically means tying exchange into your phone system, something we will never be doing in my situation, so I decided to skip it.

I loaded up the van with the two dogs and left my house about 3:30 to pick up Taylor, my fantasy football buddy whose wife was running in the Muddy Buddy with Alison.  We cruised up to our time share outside of Disney in the party van.  It was hot as hell on Friday, the party van AC was barely able to keep the cabin tolerable in the 90+ degree temps.  Finally about 90 minutes into the drive the AC caught up and cooled things off nicely. The van performed just fine otherwise.

  Alison and Michelle drove up together earlier with Michelle’s two young boys, they had to pick up their race packet. We called Ali ahead of time to let them know we were getting close.  They used our ETA to plan pizza delivery around the same time.  We chowed down on two large cheese pizzas shortly after walking in the door.  

We stayed at our timeshare in two adjoined units, one two bedroom and a one bedroom unit.  This was our first time staying in a one bedroom unit.  There is a big difference between the two we found out. The two bedroom units have a nice big kitchen with a full size dishwasher, sink and stove.  They also have a large bathroom that includes an over sized shower as well as a whirlpool tub.  The one bedroom units have one small counter as the “kitchen”  It includes a tiny Fisher Price size sink,  a small square that has a couple electric burners with no oven and a mini-dishwasher that is about half the size of a normal unit.  The bathrooms are equally reduced with much smaller dimensions and a conventional bathtub/shower.    The two bedroom units get a large projection TV, we had a small 27 inch tube tv.  In the big picture it didn’t really matter, we weren’t there to cook gourmet meals, take luxurious baths or watch copious amounts of TV.  I was just surprised about the degree of difference in the amenities between the two units.

The dogs acted like I would expect them to act.  Sadie was happy to see everyone, including the two kids.  Nicki was her normal cautious self, retreating to the safety of the spot between Ali or my legs if she felt threatened.  After eating Taylor and I were assigned the duty of hitting the local grocery store.  We went to King’s Supermarket, a small store with inflated prices, no visible shopping carts (hand baskets only) and looks that were fashionable in 1978.  I found the lack of shopping carts particularly annoying.  Ali gave me a lengthy list that included a lot of liquids that quickly became seriously heavy.  Before long I was trudging through the aisles while my forearms strained to hold the basket that was easily approaching 50 pounds in weight.  My check out lady was a big chubby woman that looked to have a bit of chin hair.  Her demeanor was appropriately grumpy for the store.  The next time I am in Orlando I’ll drive the extra 3 miles to the Publix down the road. We didn’t stay up late on Friday since the women were supposed to be at the race site no later than 6:30 am.

Saturday after a rather unrestful sleep due to sleeping an foreign queen size bed with Sadie wedged between us I hopped out of bed and got ready.  I loaded up the bike onto the bike rack I had attached to the back of the van and we loaded up the dogs and kids between our two vehicles.  As we approached the Wide World of Sports complex traffic picked up immensely.  3500 participants plus spectators will do that.  We were directed to a parking spot, unloaded the bike and headed towards the race area.

Before we came up to Orlando Ali had contacted the tournament directors to verify that dogs were allowed at the event.  We didn’t want to have me come along with the dogs only to be relegated to staying at the timeshare while Ali competed.  Ali was assured that dogs were allowed since the event took place outside the main park area in the surrounding area.  Well as we walked along I half heard some park employee that was pretty far away yell something in our direction about no dogs being allowed, I ignored it and kept walking.  He was too busy directing the incoming flood of vehicles to do much about it.  Then another woman said something to Ali about no pets being allowed.  Ali explained that she checked ahead of time and was told that dogs were fine as long as they stayed outside the main park area.  The woman didn’t know that and said that was fine then.

The area was flooded with people and bikes.  It didn’t take long at all for me to regret the idea of bringing the dogs along to the event.   Trying to keep two dogs at bay with a hurricane of activity around you was brutal.  They were constantly pulling me in opposite directions.  Of course lots of people thought they were cute and wanted to interact with them.  Sadie welcomed the attention and Nicki was happy to defer all of that attention to her.  Ali and Michelle came back after signing in with unhappy looks on their face.  They found out that their wave didn’t start until 8:09 meaning we had about an hour and a half to kill.  To Ali this was really annoying, to me I didn’t care much except for having to control the dogs for that much longer.  

It wasn’t hard to keep yourself entertained during those 90 minutes.  The Muddy Buddy is famous for contestants adorning all sorts of funny costumes to compete.  This event was no different.  Everywhere you looked there was one team wearing an outfit more outrageous than the next.  I could have just sat there and done people watching the entire time.  

Finally we approached the girls start time.  Ali went first as she was riding the bike followed by Michelle who ran first.  The way it works is each team member alternates between riding and running.  In between each segment is a little mini-obstacle you have to complete.  The grand finale after completing the roughly 6 mile course is a military style crawl through a mud filled pit.  We saw some of the early participants finishing up before Ali and Michelle started, they were getting quite dirty.

We figured we had roughly an 1:15 before the girls would cross.  We spent the time just hanging out with the boys and the dogs.  I found some shade for the dogs to site in by a tent, it was getting quite warm out by 8:30.  I spent some time talking to a team that finished earlier that comprised of  40 and 46 year old brother in laws.  They told me how they just started running a year ago.  They were in very poor shape when they started.  The one guy said he could barely run a single mile at a 10 minute mile pace at first.  In the span of a year they both have improved dramatically, dropping a ton of weight in the process.  Now they run as well as doing triathlons.  They can do a 5K in a sub 7 minute mile pace which is cooking along.  They were very excited about triathlons and both expressed regret that they waited until so late in life to discover the enjoyment they found in competing in fitness events.

While I was standing there talking to the guys a little boy came up that was fascinated with the dogs.  He sat on the ground indian style next to Sadie and petted her for at least 10 minutes or so.  He just loved her.  I had to laugh when he whispered to me, “Does she have any tickle spots?”

While we were walking around I was stopped by yet another Disney employee, this time a red headed, dorky looking kid that came up to me tried to say in an authoritative tone “Sir, dogs are not allowed on the grounds…”  After being accosted twice already about this and being two hours deep into the frustration of trying to manage two dogs at a large event my patience meter was on rock bottom.  I said to the kid in an annoyed voice “Look, my wife contacted the event organizers ahead of time and they told us it was fine to bring the dogs with”   Red fires back “Well that is not up to them. (the event organizers)”  Well his large and in charge attitude broke the chains loose on any sort of politeness I may have had remaining in my body.  “Okay then, why don’t you just TRY to throw me out then.”  The punk kid returns with “Oh we WILL….”  I say “Ok why don’t you try to throw me out and we will see how that turns out” daring the kid to try to escalate the situation.  He pushed my ON button where all common sense leaves the body and all that is left is venom and anger.  I was ready to really make a scene.  

I just walked away from the kid.  As I did he said something like “I will have to contact my supervisor…”  Whatever kid, I continued on my way.  I already was planning how I was going to bust the little prick in two if he laid one finger on me.  As we walked away Taylor asked what the deal was, I quickly gave him the lowdown.  Red kept me in sight as he talked to his supervisor.  He got the word that it was INDEED fine for dogs to be there as long as they stayed outside the main gates.  He came over to tell me it was ok.  I barely acknowledged him as i could have cared less what the kid said and kept walking.  It was a page straight out of my dad’s fabled history of confrontations.  It was very similar to various angry encounters I have seen him get into over the years.  Oh well, I just don’t seem to have much tolerance for bullshit anymore.

So anyway around 9:15 we headed over to the mud pit so we could photograph the girls trudging through it.  Taylor and I waited and waited as we carefully scanned the teams coming through, looking for Ali and Michelle.  We now were past the time period that we estimated.  I figured they may have had some difficulty along the way or something.  Well low and behold the two of them, covered in mud came up and said HI.  They said they finished at least 10 minutes ago and were looking for us.  Taylor and I could not believe that we both missed them and were pissed we missed the photo opportunity.  Oh well there was nothing we could do now.  The girls told us about the race.  Ali said it was one of toughest things she ever had to do physically but it was also lots of fun, even with a mud pit to climb through.

Ali and Michelle said they would go try to hose down in the shower area while we made our way back to the vehicles.  They showed up at the cars just as dirty as when they started, they said there was only a trickle of water coming out of the hoses by the time they got to them.  We just covered the seats in towels and they took very lengthy showers back at the timeshare.

Ali was tired and laid down to take a nap.  Michelle took Parker to the pool while Taylor and I just hung out for awhile.  Once Michelle returned Parker kept talking about “go-karts”.  We weren’t sure how he heard about them.  Taylor and I saw a brief commercial for a place that had go karts the night before but we don’t remember if Parker was even in the room when it was on.  Well we decided to go to the local amusement park that was advertised on tv. Ali was cool with just hanging out at the timeshare with the dogs.

Well the first thing that caught my eye when we entered were these massive steel columns.  Attached to the columns were a few wires.  later I saw a little speck up by the single tower.  That speck was a person about to be dropped. Yep, I needed to check that out later.  So we walked in and saw the ultra-cool go kart tracks we saw on tv.  Instead of a boring old flat course, these tracks went up and down, almost like racing in a parking garage.  We went to the ticket booth to find out our options.  We wound up buying the unlimited ride arm bands that cost $35.  I asked about the crazy looking tower thing.  The girl behind the counter said that was called the Sky Coaster and it normally costs an incredible $40 to ride it one time.  However since I opted for the unlimited ride pass I was able to purchase a ticket for the Skycoaster for half price.  Hmmm I’ll keep that in mind.

So we all piled into the go-karts, me in the single rider cart and Michelle and Taylor in the tandem carts, each with one of the boys.  We get the green light and off we go.  The course immediately heads up a spiraling ramp.  Even though you are climbing, the karts are powerful enough to keep you moving at a decent pace.  Finally I got to the top of the long climb.  I freaked out a bit as I crested the hill and at first didn’t see anything on the other side.  There was a steep, very long drop into a sharply banked turn.  I picked up speed quickly as I went down the hill.  Once I hit the banked turn I practically bounced through it.  The track was rather ripped up in the area and the combination of high speeds with the banked turn resulted in the driver getting tossed around quite violently.  Go-karts don’t have shock absorbers. 

There were lots of younger kids on the ride that were driving like it was a Nascar race, just like I did when I was younger.  However now I was just happy to swing to the outside and let the speed demons pass.  After a four or five minute ride we were flagged back into the pits.  I got out of my kart fully expecting both boys to be crying from the crazy ride.  Nope, just the opposite, they both loved it, go figure.  We found out that the first track we went on turned out to be the best one.  They had one other elevated track and two conventional flat tracks.  The flat tracks didn’t have tandem carts so we didn’t even bother with them.  The other elevated track was good but nothing matched the thrill of heading down the huge drop that the “Vortex” offered.  I told Taylor that I NEVER saw anything remotely like that in go-kart world, neither did he.  We joked that Parker now has already experienced the pinnacle of go-karting at 3 years old, anything else will pale in comparison.

So as we were walking around Michelle was encouraging me to do the Skycoaster.  She was with us when I did the sling shot thrill ride at the county fair a couple years back so she knew I was up to the challenge.  I told her I wasn’t scared to do it.  The cost was more of a deterrent than the fear.  Well Michelle kept saying I should do it.  I eventually decided to bite the bullet. I plunked down my 20 bucks and headed to the launch pad.

There is a flight suit they have to hook you up in for the ride.  It looked hi-tech and safe enough with multiple hooks and straps.  They walked me out to a hydraulic platform that they raised 20 or 30 feet to get me hooked in.  They hooked me in and told me to lean forward, as I did so I flipped front and found myself suspended in the horizontal position.   The platform was lowered and I started getting pulled slowly upward.  I was pretty calm during the first half or so of the ascent.  The fear kicked in when I heard a disconcerting CLICK accompanied with a jolt.  I wasn’t sure if something just clicked into or out of place.  The trip to the top of the 300 foot tower takes awhile.  As I was pulled up I tried to concentrate on looking out over the horizon.  I made the mistake of looking straight down once or twice as I neared the top.  That was not a good idea.  I was up so damn high, people looked like ants below.

The ride has an interesting twist.  Once you are suspended at the top of the tower you are the one that has to make the commitment to drop.  You do this by pulling a rip cord that releases you from the wire that pulled you up.  I decided the quicker I did it the better so as soon as I heard the instructions to pull the cord I yanked it, I didn’t want to hang out up there longer than necessary.

Wow the next few seconds were pretty terrifying.  As soon I as I pulled the cord I heard a click like a bomb was being released.  The relative quiet at the top of the pole was replaced with the deafening sound of wind rushing by my ears.  I went from a horizontal position to a head straight down vertical position where I experienced free fall for a few seconds.  I imagine it was the same feeling you get bungee jumping or jumping off a building.  It was nuts.  Slowly the tension in the wires catches you and you start to arc out over the lake.  Supposedly you can reach speeds approaching 80mph during the fall.   Once the arc started I knew I was going to survive and the fear quickly dissipated.

The ride operators reeled me back onto the platform and got me down.  I asked the one guy if they ever had people get pulled up to the top but then freeze and can’t pull the cord. “Oh yea man, all the time…”  I can understand how that could happen, it’s pretty terrifying imagining falling from the the top of the equivalent of a 30 story building.  Well anyway I got out of the flight suit and went out to Michelle and Taylor who couldn’t believe I did it.  They were scared for me just watching.  Taylor had his video camera with and tried to record the event.  However he wasn’t expecting me to drop so quickly once I hit the top and he lost track of me.  The staff of course had a video they shot of the event that I could buy for $15.  They had the video playing as I walked off the ride.  They did a good job of capturing it.  I figured I would probably never do this again so I plunked down the 15 for the footage.  If you want to see it on YouTube you can see it here. (scroll about 45 seconds into it to bypass the boring title screen)

For awhile after the ride I was still on an adrenalin rush.  I was proud of myself for doing something many people would never entertain doing.  I found myself looking back up the towers and thinking how I was hanging up there at the top a few minutes ago, crazy.  We rode the go-karts a few more times and then called it a day.  We all had a great time.

On the way back we called in a take out order to Carrabas for dinner. Taylor and I picked it up.  During dinner I fired up the laptop and showed Ali the video.  She couldn’t believe I did it.  She said she was glad she wasn’t there as she would have been sweating bullets just watching me.  After dinner we hung for a little before the kids had to be put to bed.  While they were trying to get them to go to sleep I laid down in our bed for a bit.  Before I knew it I had passed out and remained in bed until around 10.  I was obviously tired.  I watched the end of the Cavaliers/Hawks playoff game before falling back asleep for good.

Sunday morning I “slept in” till 6am when the dogs decided it was time to wake us up.  Ali was nice enough to come out with me to walk them.  I was very tired of getting twisted like a pretzel trying to walk both of them at the same time.  After the walk Ali went back to bed while I started slowly getting things together for our departure.  It was Mother’s Day so I wanted to do something nice for Ali.  I made her luxurious breakfast in bed that consisted of two pieces of peanut butter toast and orange juice served in a coffee mug.  She appreciated the effort and liked the Mother’s day cards I bought her.

After everyone was up we packed up the vehicles and pushed off between 9 and 10.  Taylor and Michele were taking the kids to Magic Kingdom on Sunday before heading home.  I was not jealous, walking around Disney with two kids in sweltering mid 90 temps did not sound like fun.  We thanked them for the good time and rolled out of there.  On the way home on I-4 I saw a bizarre site.  I immediately pointed to it and told Ali to look!  In the back of an old Chevy pick up truck were two tremendously fat women sitting in plastic patio chairs.  Now keep in mind we were travelling approximately 75 mph on an open highway.  I can’t describe how funny this looked.  I immediately fumbled for my Iphone, I had to get electronic proof of this.  I tried to keep the phone low, just peeking out over the dash so the women would not know I was photographing them.  I was able to snap off 5 or 6 pics of them.  Somehow these pictures need to get included in the various redneck email forwards that you see several times a year.  I can only imagine that the patio chairs in the back seat was the only way all three of them could travel in the vehicle at once.  The two heffers definitely wouldn’t have been able to cram into the cab. Central Florida, once you get outside of the Disney/Orlando area is serious redneck country . Even so, this was a sight that had to be seen to be believed.

Once we got home we had a bit of a mad scramble going on.  In a couple hours time we had to get the van unpacked, go get groceries, pick up the car that was left at Michelle’s house and get a few things done around the house before leaving to take mom to Mother’s Day dinner.  We managed to get it all done and be out the door by 5:15 or so.  On the way to mom’s I stopped and grabbed her a replacement toilet flapper.  I told her I would take care of her running toilet the next time I was out to her place.  We also brought along the present I bought for her up in Orlando, a new vacuum cleaner.  Mom had been complaining about how heavy our old unit was that we gave her after we bought the Dyson.  I found a super-light, bagless Dirt Devil model at a Super Target that seemed to fit all the criteria.

I was happy that mom was thrilled when she opened the box.  I told her I would finish the toilet repair and the vacuum assembly after dinner.  We had a nice dinner at Watermark Grille although the service seemed a bit slow based on the amount of people there.  We thought it would be jam packed but instead we were able to sit right down.  I decided to go with something unconventional for me, crab cakes.  It was very good.  Since it was mother’s day I couldn’t give Ali stink eye about getting desert for once.  We shared a piece of ultra-rich penaut butter pie thing.  It tasted good with the cup of coffee I had as well. 

After dinner I finished up the toilet repair and vacuum assembly.  Mom did a test run of the vacuum and said it was much, much easier to push than the big unit she had been using for a couple years.  My toilet repair appeared to be successful as well, there were no annoying sounds of water leaking after the tank filled.   Both Ali and I were exhausted from the whirlwhind weekend.  It felt wonderful to lay down in our own bed, even if it was rather dog hair covered since we weren’t able to do our normal sheet washing routine….

If you want to see all the pics from the weekend, go here.

I forgot to mention that yesterday I fired up the Dirt Dog that was sitting at the bottom of the pool for God knows how long on Sunday.  I was very surprised to press the button and have it start to run normally.  A few seconds into the run though the brush motor shut off so the robot is going to require some surgery.  I bought a replacement brush motor and logic board for the unit yesterday on eBay.  One of those two items should resuscitate it.  I really can’t believe this thing has taken a swim three times and lived to clean another day.  Tough little guy.

I really am starting to hate armadillos.  Several times a week I am out there with a shovel trying to fill in the dozens of holes the little bastard leaves in our yard under the cover of darkness.  I am now at the point where I am going to actively try to rid myself of the thing.  Last night I left the one rear spotlight hot so it could hopefully turn on when the armadillo is in the vicinity to scare it away.  I also was doing some reading on how to get rid of them.  One suggestion was to spread mothballs around the areas where they are digging.  Armadillos have a keen sense of smell and they hate the smell of mothballs.  There is also various repellents you can buy.  If all that fails you can try to trap the thing and relocate it.  And then of course there are those that just use a shotgun and a flashlight.  I want this thing gone.

So my plan of running at lunch and mowing in the evening was coming together.  I put in a quick 2 miles on the treadmill at lunch followed by a quick dip in the pool.  After my training was done I quickly made the dogs supper and then headed outside to get ready to mow.  Before I started I saw another nice set of f’ing armadillo holes so I grabbed the shovel and began my backfill routine.  Finally I was done and the dogs wanted to come out.  I figured I would be nice and let them hang outside while I mowed the front yard.

As I was mowing I kept tabs on them.  For the most part they were just sitting in the shade.  Towards the end I didn’t see them.  I finished up the front yard and walked through the gate to let them back into the house.  As I turned the corner to the lanai I stopped in my tracks as I ran into a huge ass hole.  Evidently Sadie thought it would be fun to imitate the armadillo. 

 The hole pissed me off, but what REALLY pissed me off was the direction she was facing when she dug it.  She was positioned with her rear end towards the house so all of the dirt that she sent flying hit the house and landed on the river rock border.  So now I had all of the stones buried in dirt.  I don’t want extra dirt in that area, it only will make for more weed growth.  I screamed “NAUGHTY!” at her and sent her inside.  As I was raking the stones out to try to separate them from the dirt I was mumbling to myself repeatedly “f*cking dog….”  Oh I was annoyed. 

My efforts were mostly pointless.  In the end I just came over with the hose and tried to blast the dirt out of the rock bed.  I don’t think I was very successful and most of the dirt just wound up sinking to the bottom in liquid form.  I finished my mowing and ignored Sadie for most of the night.

Nicki was being rude last night to Sadie as well.  Maybe she knew I was mad at her.  A few times Nicki showed her teeth while guarding a rawhide bone she deemed as hers.  Then later when nobody was looking she decided to go over and eat all of Sadie’s supper.  Nicki had already had a big plate of food earlier.  At times it seems like we have a mini-dog soap opera going on.

My training yesterday went fine.  There is a lot of repetition of the material I learned last week.  It’s not a big deal though, I’d rather be over exposed to the information than not know what I was doing.  It beats sitting in the office any day.