Afghaninam
No I didn’t watch Obama’s speech last night but I heard the gist of it which was already reported several days earlier. He was obviously under pressure from his military leaders in the area to commit more troops and finally he agreed to do so. I don’t like it.
I mean when are we going to call a spade a spade? We have been in the region for 8 years and NOW an influx of troops will make a lasting difference? F no, as soon as we leave whether it is 18 months from now or 10 years, things will very quickly revert back to chaos. It is pointless for us to be in Iraq or Afghanistan. We invaded their countries and expected to be able to rubber stamp democratic principles on a culture that has shown throughout history they are unable to function in such a manner, how stupid.
People that say things like “well if we pull out that means we are admitting defeat. We can’t let the terrorists win..”, are just very shallow thinkers. You can not “defeat” terrorism. How can you defeat people that are willing to jam dynamite up their asses? All you can do is protect your own borders. Being over there is only serving the desires of big business that profits from war and very little else.
Obama’s decision is straddling both sides of the fence. Ok let’s send 30,000 more people into harm’s way to fight for a cause that is imaginary at best to pacify the war activists but let’s also say we are leaving in 18 months to appease people that think us being there is total bullshit. I would love to hear him say instead “Listen, going over there was a huge mistake and I refuse to waste one more American soldiers life or one more taxpayer dollar on another Vietnam. We need to learn from our history instead of blindly stumbling down paths that we already know lead nowhere.”
Let those people destroy each other, it’s what they like to do.
Xmas lights
I appended some pictures I took of this years Xmas decoration efforts. I pulled out the tripod and set the camera for fireworks mode. The pics came out decent, definitely better than any prior years efforts. Check them out here.
Self created black hole of work
[podcast]https://blog.duf.net/podcast/guzziexhaust.mp3[/podcast]
It’s a weird thing. I did so much work over these past four days that Thanksgiving feels like it happened a couple weeks ago already. Let’s see if I can remember back that far.
Typically I will watch a good chunk of the Macy’s parade on a Thanksgiving morning. This year I may have seen a minute of it. Ali wanted to do a 6 mile training run in the morning and I was her support/security team on bike. We headed out on to Immokalee Road and did an up and back straight route, not the most exciting of runs but it was good enough. Ali was pooped after she was done but hell she did it. She has been doing a great job following her program and is right on track to run her first ever half marathon in January.
We had told mom we would come to her place around noon. Because of Ali’s run and me having to stop at three different gas stations until I found one with a functional/available air machine we were almost a half hour late. I am rarely late but the past two times we did something with mom we have been tardy. Mom of course commented on my belated arrival. She better be careful, now it can almost become a fun game to play for me.
Mom made enough food for at least a half a dozen people. Considering we only had a measly three at the table there was no shortage of food. For the first couple of years that we started having Tofurkey at the table we also would prepare a small turkey breast for my mom. The past couple years we have abandoned the turkey altogether, enjoying an all vegetarian meal. Tofurkey really isn’t bad at all. Sure it isn’t the least bit traditional but I don’t really care.
We were all stuffed after eating. I made a call up to my brother who was sitting at the table at my dad’s place. I got passed around the table to talk to everyone there. Mom also asked if we could help her set up her xmas tree that she bought last year. Mom was very proud that she somehow managed to stuff the tree back into it’s original box, something I was unable to do with our tree last year. Well when I went to attach the middle section I immediately noticed something was odd. It looked like I had the section upside down, all of the branches were pointing up in the air. I double and triple checked that it only went together one way.
So I got down on my knees and took a close look at the branches. Every single branch was bent upwards. Evidently mom somehow managed to jam that section into the box with the branches bent the wrong way. At first I tried to individually bend the branches back but it was a royal pain in the ass. I decided to remove the section and lay it on the ground to try to roll it around while applying weight to bend the branches back somewhat. This helped but it still looked a bit odd when the section was put back in place. I did some more manual bending to try to make it look as presentable as possible.
We thanked mom for the great meal and she thanked us for trying to fix her tree. We piled the dogs back in the van and headed home. I had a massive workload planned for the four day weekend so I wanted to get started. I decided I would work on the Moto Guzzi.
When my dad brought the bike down he had just had a bunch of work done and he thought it was in good running condition. Well when we tried to run it after unloading it from the truck, gas poured out of both carbs when the fuel lines were open. When we took the carb bowl off we saw one of the floats had gas in it which would prevent it from working properly. Dad ordered two new floats and two new needle/seat assemblies which arrived last week.
Now I never have done any internal carb work, I have replaced entire carbs but never ripped into one so I was a bit worried about what I was getting in to. Once I got the bowl off I immediately ran into a snag, how the F does the float pin come out? The ping had a spline on the end so I wasn’t sure if it unscrewed in some manner. I spent awhile trying to turn the pin with various tools with no luck. I quickly retreated inside and did a Google search on “moto guzzi float pin” I found out that you basically just yank the sucker out.
So back into the shed I went. I grabbed the end of the pin firmly with a pliers and yanked hard. The pin came right out. After that the rest of the procedure wasn’t bad at all. After removing the floats I had access to the needle and seat which was very simple to replace, just unscrew and rescrew. After putting everything back together the moment of truth came, I turned the gas lines on and hoped I didn’t see anything spilling out. It worked, no gas!
Ok now I was ready to see if it runs. I hit the starter and just get a click. F, the battery is dead!!! So I drive my truck through the newly installed gate and hook up some jumper cable to the bike. I flip the choke, hit the starter and VROOM, it starts up instantly, nice!! I twist the throttle a few times and am rewarded with the downright mean sounding Moto Guzzi exhaust note. (you can hear it above) I go grab my phone and call my dad with the bike still running. He answers and I rev it a few times to signal my success. Dad was happy to hear I got it running. It’s a sweet thing when something gets fixed on the very first effort. Later in the weekend I hooked up my battery charger to the bike to get some amps into it. At this point I am pretty much ready to take my motorcycle safety course so I can get this thing on the road legally.
Friday was the most arduous of the four. It was the day I designated to trim up the remaining cabbage palms. Another list item was hanging the xmas lights so I saw trimming the trees as a prerequisite to that. I certainly couldn’t trim them after the lights were up. Last year I did this chore using my long pole saw. I broke the task into many segments as trimming with the pole saw works but gets rather tough when the trees are as tall and as dense as these palms are. I had trimmed up three or four of the trees a couple weeks ago but I still had another 10 to do.
I bought a couple things last week to make the job go quicker, a lightweight 20 foot extension ladder and a heavy duty pair of loppers that utilize gears to increase your cutting power. The ladder allowed me to get right up into the canopy of the trees and the loppers were much quicker than trying to fumble with a pole saw from the ground. I was able to drop fronds left and right. The only problem was after dropping all of those fronds someone had to pick them all up and dump them all in the pit. That person would also be me.
Ali offered to help but I knew she wasn’t really into it for a couple reasons. First it was chilly out, very chilly by her standards as a cold front blew through the prior evening. It actually was perfect weather though for working outside. Second a couple years ago she really tweaked her back after a day of picking up fronds. With her running training schedule she was very leery of doing anything that could derail her progress. Since I am very supportive of that goal I was fine with taking on the entire project on my own. I told her to go to the bank and get groceries.
So after cutting down 100 fronds or more I began the clean up portion of the job. I pulled the truck around and started jamming the bed full of them. After stuffing as many as possible into the truck I drove back to the fill pit and started throwing them in. I would try to grab a few at a time and throw them into the fill pit like I was throwing the hammer at the olympics. In total it probably took me 10 trips back and forth until I had everything cleaned up, I was spent. I basically worked from 8 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon on tree trimming. I was thankful when it was done, but I wasn’t done.
Next I moved to the new shed. I needed to properly anchor it to the ground so it doesn’t blow away in a hurricane. I dug out four holes with the post hole digger, dropped the hurricane anchors into them and then back-filled the hole with a combination of dirt and cement. Then I attached the metal straps from the shed to these anchors and tightened them. The next day I back-filled them the rest of the way. Hopefully the shed will now stay put if another Wilma level storm comes our way. While I had the post hole digger out I decided to sink the two dock pilings the woman donated to me from the shed purchase. I stuck them in between the current bird feeders with the idea that I could mount some additional feeders on them.
Nope not done yet. Ali came out late in the afternoon and said she was going to knock out the mowing. I took that as my cue to man the weed whacker. After about an hour of weed whacking I was finally done with my labor for the day, whew. To say I was exhausted would be an understatement. I slept quite solidly Friday night.
The main project on the docket for Saturday was Christmas decorations, both indoor and outdoor. We decided to start on the inside since Ali wasn’t thrilled about going out into the chilly air. I was worried that our artificial tree that we paid some big bucks for last year might not work or possibly have some of the same branch issues that mom did. Luckily the tree set up easily with all branches intact as well as all lights lit. It still looks good despite a year in it’s trash bag containers.
Ali and I dug into our 7 or 8 Rubbermaid bins of ornaments and decorations. It is amazing just how many xmas decorations we have. Luckily our tree has a near endless supply of sturdy branches to hold it all. We have tons of sit around the house stuff as well. I bet we spent a good couple hours just setting stuff up. Now it was time for the dreaded exterior lights.
I have always had an adversarial relationship with Xmas lights. They frustrate the hell out of me. It is amazing to me that someone has not invented Christmas lights that work for more than a year or two. Last year I bought some sort of light fixing tool that supposedly makes fixing broken Christmas light strands “easy”, yea bullshit.
I sat down in the living room with my two boxes of lights to test them. Out of the 20 or so strands I tested, maybe a third of them lit up completely. The others were either half or totally dead. So I pull out my tool and go to work. I managed to fix exactly one set before I gave up. Using the tool was still frustrating if the initial pull the trigger 20 times thing didn’t work (which it never did) You had to go light to light and try to read for voltage at each socket. Well with at least 50 lights out in each section this could literally take forever. So I said f it and went outside with the few strands that were still working.
Ali helped me with the process. On low sections we would stand on either side of the tree and hand the bundle of lights back and forth, wrapping them upward. Once we got too high for that we tried to use ladders, once that didn’t work I grabbed the pool brush that is on an extendable pole to finish up. Once again we ran into half lit strands of lights that we had to work around. The entire process was totally annoying. By the time we finished with the last of the six trees up front I had enough and declared I was not going to go around the roof line with lights as I have in the past. I told her if I felt like it, MAYBE I would go around the front windows and doors some other day. Despite the frustration of the process, the decorations did look nice when it was all said and done.
Saturday night we planned to go to the movies, we checked out 2012. I always like end of the world movies and of the three movies we were considering to see I thought 2012 would most benefit from the theater experience. Let me start with the good parts of the movie, the special effects and action which were indeed incredible. The realism they are able to bring to the big screen today is flawless. The special effects alone were almost worth the price of admission. Woody Harrelson’s character was quite entertaining as well, he always does a good job when he is thrown in the “crazy guy” role.
Ok let’s talk about the bad stuff, mainly the dialogue, especially deeper into the film. There are just so many situations that seem totally wedged into place and make no sense in the context of the world falling apart. The black scientist guy is the king of this weirdness. He assumes command in certain situations where he would have no business doing so. Then there is his inappropriate flirting as millions of people are dying around them. Ali and I were constantly looking at each other and just laughing at how stupid some of this was.
My favorite stand out stupid moment was when his Indian scientist buddy whom he was supposed to have flown out of danger calls the black scientist as a mile high tidal wave is about to crush both the Indian and his family. A few minutes prior they announced that all land based communication was dead yet this guys cell phone worked (must have Verizon). The Indian dude just wanted to let his buddy whom hung him out to dry know that the wave was coming from a different direction. Yea that is what I would do in my last moments on earth. The movie is filled with just silly stuff like that. It’s not a terrible flick and like I said the special effects were amazing so it’s hard to give it less than a B. Try to get matinee prices though.
I had heard a decent amount about 2012 doomsday prophecies for a few years now. I was curious how viable the scenario depicted in the movie was so I did some digging. Of course the movie version took all sorts of liberties with the actual science. However what I did dig into was enough to give pause. Tt seems like far too much of a coincidence to have so many totally distinct cultures, religions and civilizations all point to the year of 2012 as a stopping point for life as we know it. Primarily you hear about the Mayan calendar ending 12/21/2012 but that date is significant across many other sources.
One of the things significant about that time is all of the planets in the solar system will be aligned. Supposedly this could have some sort of strange effect one of which could be an increase in solar eruptions that can cause a myriad of problems. However to me the most significant threat was the talk of Niribu or Planet X. You can Google the terms yourself and find out all about it but here is the Cliff Notes version.
Basically there is speculation that there is either a large planet or dwarf sun that has a huge elongated orbit around our sun. Every 3600 years or so it passes through our inner solar system. Because of the mass of this object it has a large gravitational field. Depending on how close it would pass to Earth it could have a devastating effect on our planet. When you go back through history you can make some correlation between the passing of Planet X and periods of huge upheaval on the planet including the extinction of the dinosaurs and the great flood. Well if you subscribe to the worst case scenario that is out there, this is once again coming, quickly.
Supposedly sometime in 2010 you should be able to see Niribu with the naked eye. As 2012 approaches the object will get larger and larger, at one point rivaling our own moon in the sky. The bigger it gets the more trouble we are in.
Read up on the subject, you may be surprised (and concerned) at what you find. Supposedly the government is well aware of the possibilities of what could go down and has quietly been making arrangements all along for at least a decade and a half including building a new super infrared telescope in Antarctica whose primary function is tracking the southern approach of Niribu.
Sunday morning while Ali was out doing another training run I decided to knock out putting up the lights around the windows and door. Immediately I ran into a hellish rats nest of lights. Every year when I take the lights out I curse myself for not taking the time to come up with some sort of storage system different than haphazardly wrapping them around a piece of cardboard. Likewise every year when it comes time to take them down , I so badly just want to the job to be over with I once again just quickly wrap them up and toss them in the bin. It’s a cycle I need to get out of.
After spending a good 15 minutes untangling lights I got to work. At this location, having half lit strands of light actually comes in handy. I can use the unlit portion of the lights as a redneck extension cord. I didn’t feel as stressed out as the prior day. I even spent some extra time to run the lights around the small palm tree to the right of the front door. The final product looks good. I’ll try to get some night time shots.
Sunday afternoon we watched the Eagles game. They came perilously close to losing to the stinking Redskins at home. Luckily they put a drive together late in the game that resulted in a field goal to go ahead followed by Washington failing to move down the field afterward. I still saw nothing to make me think the Eagles have anything special this year. Right now I would expect them to possibly make the playoffs as a wild card and lose in the first round.
Did you see Asante Samuel miss on another bullshit shoulder tackle? It’s hard to point a skeptical eye at a guy that had two int’s. However the announcer made a big deal about it, acting like he was just doing shoulder tackles since he was scared of getting a stinger. As far as I can remember in his Eagles career, Samuel does nothing BUT shoulder tackles. I don’t know if I have ever seen him wrap a guy up with good tackling form, ever. Brent Celek had a rough game, at one point they threw to him four or five times in a row and he came up empty. McCoy looks like he has a chance to be Westbrook’s replacement. I would not be surprised at all if the Birds cut loose Westbrook and his fat contract at the end of the season. He is constantly hurt and has been for the last several years. Hey the Birds are 7-4, they are in better shape than they were last year at this time.
Ali went with Michelle to the Nutcracker Sunday night. I enjoyed the time to just hang out, watch some documentary on Planet X and play some WoW. It was an exhausting four days for sure. It will be nice to go back to work so I can “rest”.
I updated this photo collection to include my work from the weekend.
Knocking heads and calling numbers
On Monday night the phone rang and for the third or fourth time in a few hours “Circulation Department” showed on the caller ID which we ignored. Well I was finally annoyed enough to pick up the phone to see who the f wanted to talk to us this badly.
So I pick up and some young black girl is on the other end. She asks for Alison, even though Alison is standing right next to me I tell the woman Alison is not home. Then she asks for Mr Duffey, I tell her she is speaking to him. She said she was just calling from the Rachel Ray magazine which Ali evidently receives. She was calling to let us know that there is new reduced subscription rate and she just wanted to give us the confirmation code for it.
Woah, woah, hold on there. Obviously this chick was trying to railroad me into agreeing to renewing the magazine. I told her that in so many words and that I had no idea if Alison was interested in renewing. The woman insisted it was just some code and I kept pressing her, seeing through her obvious scam. Finally she got frustrated with me and said “Well since you obviously can’t make a decision I’ll call back and talk to your wife” and hangs up. You f’ing little bitch. Yea we will be renewing that magazine for sure now, not…..
So yesterday I go to load up Pocket Tunes Sirius feed and get an error that I was unauthorized. I instantly suspected that my main subscription had come up for renewal and that they dropped my online listening since I had not opted to pay an additional 2.99 a month for the “premium” service. When I logged on to my account I did see this was the case.
Of course I was annoyed for a couple reasons. The entire business plan of Sirius to keep sliding in additional costs to it’s subscribers during a period of time when luxury items like satellite radio are getting harder and harder to justify is just plain moronic. Secondly when I called about the bullshit royalty fee increase a month ago I asked the woman point blank if I would still have the basic online listening once my subscription renewed without any additional cost. She said I would and you only had to pay for the “premium” bullshit. Well she was full of shit.
Just calling Sirius piles on to the annoyance as their first level customer service has evidently been farmed out of the country. Your first contact NEVER speaks good English. So I call in to complain and explain that I was told I would still have my online streaming once my subscription renewed. Well the guy apologizes but says that was not correct. I voice my disgust with being lied to although I knew I may as well have been complaining to my cup of coffee.
After I finished the guy again apologized for the misunderstanding and offered the incredibly underwhelming compensation of the first month of online listening for free. Wow THREE BUCKS? Why you…. Ok well I moved on to phase two. Having talked to other Sirius subscribers I knew I had another bullet in my gun. I tell the guy that I am really disgusted and want to cancel, although I have no real plans of cancelling. Well those few words moves me to the next step of the flow chart and I am transferred once again where low and behold I talk to a young guy that speaks perfect English. I guess once you say you want to cancel you become important enough to talk to someone in the United States.
So again I voice my mini-rant to the guy and tell him I am ready to cancel. All of a sudden there is a special deal he can do for me. He said they will knock 50% off the yearly subscription, a savings of about $80. Even with adding the premium online listening back in I wind up paying about $50 less than what I was going to be billed without online listening included originally. I solemnly agreed to take the offer and hung up after telling the guy that if Stern doesn’t sign back up with Sirius at the end of his contract I will be gone as well as millions of other subscribers, just an FYI. I gave myself a little pat on the back for working the plan to perfection.
My upcoming four day Thanksgiving break is going to be a very busy one. After dinner at my mom’s tomorrow I will be diving into a long list of things I would like to do. Here are the things that pop into my head quickly:
Mow the grass
Cement in the hurricane anchors for the new shed
Trim palm tree fronds using my new 20 foot ladder and high torque loppers
Hang Christmas lights outside
Try to install the new floats and needle valves into the Moto Guzzi
Weed the property
Normal interior cleaning
as well as a handful of small things not worth mentioning. As you can see, I will be busy.
Spook has resumed eating with vigor but her peeling ear/head skin thing got worse. I mean it is f’ing gross, it almost looks like the cat took a bullet to the side of her skull. I think I may have made it worse by putting some of the ear medicine in Monday night to try to clean out the scuzz inside her ear. I think it also dissolved some of the adhesions where the skin was starting to heal. As a result it has pulled away even further. Plus if the cat scratches at the area it would further retard any healing. But besides looking like the hell she is eating and still using the litter box so as long as that continues to be the case she can continue to walk the planet.
Only three days?
It feels weird to have a head filled to the brim with things to regurgitate on the blog after only a three day hiatus but I guess that is a good thing.
I left work early Friday since my flight was leaving a bit after 6pm. After reassuring Ali I would be back before she knew it the adventure began. I realized as I was waiting to board that the last time I had flown was December of 2007 when went to Vegas for my 40th. I soon remembered why I don’t ever look forward to air travel.
Air Tran like so many other airlines has adopted the ludicrous policy of charging customers if they want to check bags. I can not describe to you just how much this annoys me. Well this policy has another unwelcome side effect, people trying to carry on shit that they shouldn’t to avoid the additional cost. As we were waiting to board they made the announcement that the flight was fully booked so it was important that your bag fit in the overhead compartment, else it needed to be checked. Well a bunch of people didn’t bother or didn’t care to check exactly what the size requirements are for carry on luggage. As a result they were jamming pieces in that would only fit if they were turned sideways which in turn made them consume the space that three normal size bags would. Of course this resulted in a big cluster f as people that boarded later found the overhead bins by their seats already stuffed with bags from these morons.
During the couple days leading up to Friday I had a few times where I was starting to feel the preliminary symptoms of illness however they thankfully subsided. I knew it would be a minor miracle if I didn’t come down with something as a result of this trip. As I stood in the ramp leading down to the plane I head a little girl maybe 20 feet behind me hacking up a lung. She obviously was ill, I was praying it wasn’t f’ing swine flu. I hurried into the plane, hoping that the little girl would be seated either far in front or far behind me in the plane to minimize my exposure. I sat down in my aisle seat and of course, you know where this is going, the mother and little girl walk right up to my aisle seat and inform me they have the two seats next to me. Cripes.
In my head I was cursing this women for bringing this obviously sick child on the flight. How inconsiderate to contaminate 200 people with her flying flem and spittle. Of course if I stood back from the situation a bit I could gain some perspective. If I suddenly got sick on Friday would I have changed all of my plans as a result, nope. So I really couldn’t blame the woman for anything and I just sat in my seat mentally flinching each time the little girl went into a coughing fit. I resigned myself to the idea that I was DEFINITELY going to get sick now. Almost on cue I started to feel that feeling in my throat again that comes before illness yet I think it was in large part psychosomatic.
Flying sucks when you are a shade under 6′ 4″. Especially when you have long stork legs like I do. 9 times out of 10 I am behind some asshole that never considers who is behind them before they jam the seat back into full reclining position. This time was no different as some older dude threw his seat back and smashed my knees in the process. I immediately pushed back and told the asshole he was on my knees and could he move the seat up? He said nothing and moved the seat maybe an inch up, gee thanks you f’ing inconsiderate prick. I NEVER recline my seat unless I know there is nobody behind me or if it’s a little kid.
So the first leg of my flight was probably the worst leg of them all. I guess it was good to get it out of the way. Our flight was a bit late getting to Atlanta and as a result I walked immediately on to the second flight as they were calling my name to check in. Once again I found myself behind a no-look seat recliner but I was able to change the angle of my knees to minimize the problem.
This is what Troy reads for fun...
My flight into Baltimore got in late, 10:45. I texted Troy to tell him I was on the ground. He said he was just going to park in the loading zone and wait for me. I spotted him easily as I walked into the very brisk northern air where the temps were about half of what I left in Florida. As we made the 75 minute drive back to his place in Lancaster we caught up on things. Although I keep in touch with Troy mostly via email, I hadn’t seen him in person since we took the trip to Vegas together at least four years ago.
When we got back to Lancaster, even though my day had started at 5:30 am we sat downstairs and drank a beer while we chatted some more. Soon we both agreed that we HAD to get to bed since we were running in the 5K the next morning in Lebanon, something that would require us getting up no later than 6am. I hit the sheets after 1 am yet still somehow managed to wake up without an alarm clock less than five hours later.
Troy didn’t sleep well either and was already downstairs by the time I came down a little after 6. I had my normal running shorts and tank top on underneath sweats. I thought there would be a possibility I would lose the sweats once I warmed up. Once my face hit the 34 degree air I knew the sweats would be part of my running attire for that day.
I had signed up online for the race, Troy signed up on race day. The race started at the Lebanon Farmers Market which we got to explore prior to the race. It also served as a warm safe haven until we HAD to go out into the frigid conditions. Eventually we braved the elements for a basic warm up session except at the end of it we were both far from warm. Before the race Troy and I agreed that we would run our own pace. Troy hasn’t been running much lately so there was going to probably be a big pace discrepancy.
This race was timed by Pretzel City Timing the same outfit that timed the race Ali ran. They don’t use electronic timing and instead just pull a strip off your bib as you finish and stick it on a homemade finish board. So after a prayer and some race instructions the race started. I quickly passed a few people and moved into some open space. There weren’t very many runners and it was a dual distance 5k/10k run where the runners split off after running together for a short period of time.
The cold air felt even colder as it was pushed against my face as I ran. Early on in the course there was a long gradual hill that did a good job of slowing down the pace. I knew early on that no PR’s were going to be set by me on this day. The cold temps, hills, shorted sleep and stiff legs all were working against me, even so I plodded along. I had packed my GPS watch but forgot to bring it along to the race so I had no real time feedback on how I was doing. I just basically tried to keep a steady pace and hook on to runners that seemed to be moving along at a decent clip.
A good chunk of the race took place on a trail which was once railroad tracks. I tried to enjoy the scenery as much as I could in between wiping the snot that was running out of my freezing nose. I settled in behind two younger girls for the second half of the race. Initially I had ideas of passing them towards the end but the opposite happened, they accelerated and I had neither the motivation or energy to follow.
One of the last sections of the course before the finish line was up a rather steep section of parking lot, a cruel trick to play on already tired runners. Finally the finish line was in sight and I crossed in an official time of 26:28, more than a minute and a half off the PR I just set 10 days prior. I was fine with it though. The conditions were pretty tough for someone used to running on flat surfaces in 80 degrees. The time was good enough to slot me as the 37th finisher overall out of 110 participants.
After I finished I waited for Troy to come across so I could cheer him on. We were guessing he would do somewhere around 30 minutes. He crossed at about 32 minutes after struggling with the conditions as well. He was really exhausted but at least he never stopped running. After cooling off for a little bit we went inside to a warm auditorium where the refreshments were located, it felt good to get out of the elements.
As we sat listening to the awards I was surprised to hear my name called as the third place finisher in my age group. However there was one problem, it wasn’t my age group. Somehow my age came through as being 39 instead of 41, throwing me into the bracket below. I walked up and told them I was actually 41 and didn’t take my medal. Ironically, if I was scored in my actual age group I wouldn’t have placed anyway. Shortly before we left to walk back to the car a co-worker of my buddy Charlie tracked me down and said hi. She is an avid runner and Charlie told her I was coming up for the event. It was nice of her to introduce herself.
We had a pretty long walk in the cold back to the car as the finish line and starting line were far apart. There was a parade starting which we thought could possibly cause a delay in our exit from Lebanon but thankfully we were able to get around it. We pulled back into Lancaster around 11 both tired but both feeling a sense of accomplishment.
I finally got to meet Troy’s girlfriend of a few years, Melissa as well as her 6 year old little boy named Taylor. It was nice to finally meet Melissa in person. She seemed very nice and Taylor, although a little shy was polite and obviously very much into computer games so I knew we had something in common right off the bat.
Troy suggested that we walk to the Lancaster Farmer’s Market which just happens to be the oldest, longest running farmer’s market in the US. He said they had a place that made good sandwiches there. The location of Troy’s row home is pretty awesome if you like small city living. Most everything you need is within walking distance. Lancaster seems to be a bit of an enigma where small businesses actually exist and in some cases thrive. Almost every storefront we passed along the way was open for business unlike the scores of shuttered strip mall spaces so familiar in Florida.
All four of us went on the walk including Taylor on his scooter. He was having a great time zipping around on the sidewalk. The market itself was very cool, filled with fresh food and people EVERYWHERE. It evidently is an extremely popular Lancaster attraction. After grabbing sandwiches there we walked back to their place and ate lunch.
Troy realized that he never got to give me an official tour of his place, all I had seen was his daughter’s bedroom where I slept and the one bathroom. The row home is quite old, dating back to the early 1900’s featuring classic wooden floors, narrow doorways and big cast iron radiators. However you can tell the prior owners did a real nice job updating the look inside. It had a very cozy feel and like I said before, it’s location is nearly perfect.
Later in the afternoon Melissa was going to run to the grocery store to get us some goodies for tailgating at the football game. While she did that Troy and I once again headed out once again. First we stopped at a local Lancaster brewery to fill up Troys growler with some of their made on the premise beer. The place was very interesting inside as well as being relatively busy. After that we headed to the campus of Franklin & Marshall which is close by. Troy knew they were having some sort of playoff game Saturday so he asked if I wanted to check it out for a bit, sure, why not?
F&M has a small stadium that looks like it could host a high school team just as easily. It’s totally open, no need for a ticket. We just walked up the hill and stood by the fence. When we arrived F&M was down to Wilkes 24-10 mid third quarter, not looking good for the home team. However almost on queue F&M started mounting a furious comeback. After scoring a second touch down to make the score 24-23 with almost 7 minutes left in the game they made a bizarre decision. Instead of kicking the extra point to tie the game they instead decided to go for two. Troy and I scratched our heads at the call, it made no sense in any way. They missed the two point attempt and now trailed 24-23.
As we pondered the decision a fellow bystander joined into the discussion. This was no normal bystander. I later described the guy to Troy as being a cross of three Looney Tunes characters. He had the teeth of Bugs Bunny with only his two front ones showing followed by large gaps on either side. He had a body like Porky Pig and talked like Elmer Fudd. He was very hard to understand as his dialect could best be described as “gurgly”. Regardless, he too had no idea why F&M didn’t kick the field goal.
Well it turned out that it didn’t matter in the end as F&M managed to score another TD with a few seconds remaining to seal the win. The fans in the stands went crazy and Troy and I clapped loudly for the home team, just because they were the home team. It was very cool to take in the game in a spur of the moment manner, even cooler to have it end in such an exciting fashion. While we were there Troy mentioned that it costs $54k per year for students to attend F & M, holy shit!
I told Troy I was cool with just hanging out, watching football and drinking beer Saturday night. We started off on the growler that we had just filled a few hours ago. Originally we had ideas of keeping it for tailgating Sunday but that idea vanished quickly. In no time Troy and had polished that off and moved onto the case of Miller Lite Melissa bought for tailgating. She also was working on dinner which was very good.
We spent the night just drinking and carrying on. Troy is one of the few people that I can just hang with and talk to endlessly, especially when alcohol is involved. We just drank, talked and laughed for most of the night. I miss being able to get together with him to do that on a regular basis.
Well around 11 pm I get a text message from Ali asking me to call her if I was still awake. Oh, oh, this can’t be good. I call her immediately. Ali said the utility room and kitchen had an inch of water covering them. Evidently something in the washing machine left loose, causing the flood. Of course Ali was freaking out. She already knew what to do, get out the shop vac, get out the carpet cleaner and start sucking. I felt badly that it happened while I was 1200 miles away. Ali said she was up until 2am cleaning up, what a mess.
Sunday morning we weren’t in a big rush to leave for the game. Since we drank very heavily Saturday night, doing the same thing on Sunday morning had very little appeal at all. I walked with Troy to some near by donut shop where we grabbed some homemade donuts and a breakfast sandwich. Once again it was quite cold out, I was worried I would be freezing my ass off at the game.
We didn’t leave for the game until 10am. Before I left I thanked Melissa for being a good host and said good bye to Taylor who was mired in the middle of some epic game on Lego.com. It took us about 75 minutes to get to the stadium.
Troy had never been to a Ravens game so he was nearly as clueless as I was as far as where to go. The stadium is just plopped in the middle of an industrial area and does not have a conventional huge parking lot surrounding it. Instead there tons of smaller lots spread all around the place, wherever they could jam one in. Even though it was only 11:15 we obviously were late to the show, the site was mobbed with tailgating fans.
We finally saw a woman still flagging in vehicles to park. It was in a lot under I-95. We pulled up and verified there was still space to park because it sure didn’t look like it. The lot was jammed with cars and people. She said there was still space and then told us it would be $45 to park! Holy shit, that was about double what we expected to pay. Well we had no choice but to fork out the dough, I quickly grabbed my wallet to throw $20 towards the outrageous fee.
So after handing over our ransom the lady directs to follow the guy with a flag ahead. Troy and I had no idea where we were going to go, there looked to be no space anywhere. The flagger takes us down the aisle and turns left, the aisle is filled with tailgaters and also was the location of the porto-pots which were actively being used. Troy had very little room and passed within inches of the port-o-pots. I was just waiting for someone to drunkenly throw the door open and bang into the side of his Camry.
Our flagger seemed to be oblivious to the fact that we had a mob of people blocking the way. The fans were not very happy to see us. We were getting bitched at left and right for arriving “late”. Finally the flagger made another left and we were astonished at what we faced. The 50 foot wide space was completely jammed with people. Not only was it jammed with people, it was jammed with chairs, grills, bean bag games and even two dudes on wheelchairs that had to all be moved to allow us to pass by sheepishly.
Troy inched along as the great sea of humanity parted. Again our flagger pressed on like it was just another day at the park. One guy knocked on Troy’s window. After pausing for a second to think if he actually wanted to roll it down, he does. The guy chastises us for being late “fair weather fans”. Troy mumbled something, waved his hand and rolled up the window, shell shocked at this point. Finally we were directed into our actual parking spot. Holy shit, what a mess.
Troy and I were a bit freaked out and honestly a bit concerned that the angry mob could attack if provoked. We decided to abandon our planned pre-game tailgating party and instead hightail it towards the stadium where instead of enjoying free tailgate food we dropped $20 each on stadium food.
The stadium inside was beautiful, of course most modern football stadiums are. We were mid upper-deck but still had good view of everything. It didn’t feel nearly as high as the 700 level of the Vet.
As game time approached the seats around us filled in totally. It didn’t take long until we spotted the characters around us. In the row in front of us was an older dude with combed back, thin hair. His move was to stand up and point his index fingers in the NUMBER 1 sign while drunkenly waving his outstretched arms.
We spotted an Indian looking guy with a big Ravens purple turbin. I intantly nicknamed him “Haji”
Then there was a guy a few rows down wearing a Joe Flacco jersey that designated himself the official section cheerleader. The moment a play would end he would immediately start hand gesturing for the fans to yell some more.
Speaking of yelling, the Ravens fans were extremely loud. I actually recorded the noise on my Iphone. You can hear a sample here. They would scream like this before every Colts offensive play.
About 5 minutes before half time I thought I would hit the bathroom to beat the rush. During the trip I discovered that Baltimore did not do a good job when it comes to bathroom planning. They are too small. I was astounded when I came out to a line 30 deep out the door. I thought that maybe if I walked to a different area it might be better, nope.
As I was walking towards the other bathroom I passed an older woman walking towards me. As she approached, she held up her hand to her mouth, threw up in it, tossed the puke on the ground and started wiping her face all without breaking stride. Wow, that’s pretty amazing.
There was another funny moment once I finally got into the bathroom. I was second in line to use the urinal. Of course the floor by the urinals is disgusting as it is covered with urine from the thousands of drunks with bad aim. Well the guy in front me of finished up and as he was zipping up somehow managed to drop his cell phone on the floor under the urinals. To make matters worse his battery popped off. So this guy had to pick up his piss soaked cell phone and battery off the disgusting flooor. I offered the guy my condolences on his bad luck as he walked away with his phone still dripping.
The football game itself was a good one although neither Troy or I had any real rooting interest in it. We decided to cheer along with the hometown Ravens fans although somewhat less enthusiastically. In the end the Ravens threw an interception late that doomed the team and they lost. 70,000 disappointed fans started to file out of the stadium.
Troy and I decided there was no point trying to beat the crowd, since we stayed till the end we knew we would be waiting a long time. We just hung out in our seats for awhile. When we did get up we saw there was a log jam at the steps that wasn’t moving at all so we stepped back into the stadium to just hang out and wait. Shortly after that we were accosted by stadium personnel that was shooing all remaing fans towards the concourse. I found this rather annoying, especially since there was literally nowhere to go at the time.
A Ravens season ticket holder was really pissed off. He was yelling “I pay $110 f’ing dollars each for these seats and I get herded out of here like f’ing cattle? Look out there, there is nowhere to f’ing go! I am sick of this bullshit. I am writing a f’ing letter!” I told him I agreed.
On the way back to the car we had to walk over a bridge that had at least a half dozen homeless people sitting on the sidewalk each with their own scribbled cardboard sign asking for help. I didn’t see any of the Ravens fans approach any of them and neither did I but I really felt like I should have. Yea I know that the party line is handing out to homeless only encourages the behavior but wtf, these people are sitting on the sidewalk freezing their asses off. Even if they would use the couple bucks to buy some alcohol to forget their misery for a short period of time, who could blame them? I should have given them something.
Post game tailgate party
Finally we got back to the car and saw nothing but gridlock around us. We decided to have a POST-game tailgate party. It would have been a shame to waste Melissa’s shopping efforts. We had Defenbach’s, sandwiches and even football shaped Little Debbie fudge brownies. It was funny trying to prepare food out of the trunk of a Camry but we made it work.
As we were waiting I pulled out Troy’s deflated football and started tossing it up in the air to myself. A little later a Ravens fan asked if he could check it out. Before you knew it I was involved in a rather lengthy throw and catch session with a few fans. It was pretty much completely dark by the end of it, catching the ball in the poor street lighting was rather tough.
Eventually the traffic started to move so Troy and I decided to make a break for it. We got some general directions from some fans on how to get back on I-95. Once we got on there I used the Iphone GPS to get us to the hotel I booked a room at. We decided it made much more sense for me to get a room by the airport instead of Troy driving me back to Lancaster only to turn around to drive me back to Baltimore early Monday. I found a good rate on a Sleep Inn & Suites through priceline.com.
For some reason I had the idea that this chain was sort of low end. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered the hotel was actually quite nice and on par with any La Quinta we had stayed at. I got a room with two queens in case Troy decided he just wanted to crash there but after hanging out briefly he decided he would drive back home. I could simply use the hotel shuttle to the airport the next day.
I thanked Troy for the brief but very fun visit. We jammed a whole lot of memories into a small period of time, something that we seem to do consistently when we are together. I gave Troy basic directions again via the Iphone to get him back on his way to Lancaster and that was it. I spent the rest of the night trying to watch the Eagles game but I slept through as much as I saw. I was so tired. I was glad to see they won the next morning.
I got out to the airport with plenty of time to spare. My flights back were much better than the flights out. On both flights I had nobody in front of me so I didn’t have to deal with any knee slamming. The funniest incident was during the first leg of the trip. I was in the aisle of the very last row. A young woman came out of the bathroom before we took off, she was in there for awhile. I could tell from her uniform and ID that she was an Airtran stewardess. I could also tell she was not feeling well at all, she looked like death.
I asked her if she didn’t get enough sleep. She said she was so tired but she had to start her shift at noon and was flying to her starting point. I told her I would try to keep quiet so she could sleep. Shortly after we got in the air she excused herself and once again hit the bathroom. I heard everything going on in there, she was obviously throwing up. When she back I asked her if she was hung over, “Big time” she said. I told her I had Advil in my bag if she wanted some. She thanked me but said she would be ok. She dropped the snack table and collapsed onto it for the rest of the flight, desperately trying to get some semblance of sleep. I felt bad for her.
My flight arrived back in Fort Myers a bit early. Ali was waiting in the cell phone lot and picked me up at the terminal door. The warm Florida air felt wonderful after spending the better part of three days feeling chilled to the bone. I filled Ali in on my trip and she told me about her weekend as well, especially the great flood of Saturday night.
Within in 15 minutes of being home I was ripping into home issues. I pulled the dishwasher out to make sure no water got under the kitchen island and then turned my attention to the washing machine. After popping the cover I quickly saw the culprit. The drain hose for the tub was laying on the ground. Instantly I knew it was my fault. When I replaced the snubber one of the many things that was disconnected and reconnected was this hose. Evidently I didn’t pay enough attention when I reattached this hose and it must have slipped off due to vibration. I reattached the house and used a pliers to ensure I had the clamp high enough on the inlet to prevent it from slipping off again.
Ironically Ali was somewhat disappointed that I fixed the washer so easily. She had made up her mind that we were going to buy new front loading washer and dryer as a result of this disaster. I told her if she felt that strongly about it we still could although I suggested that perhaps a better plan due to the impending holiday season would be to put off the purchase and instead target it as something we spend our tax return money on. Ali reluctantly agreed that it would make more sense.
As always it felt weird to go from the north eastern US to SW Florida in a matter of hours. One day you are surrounded by drunken Ravens fans, the next you are surrounded by palm trees and excited black labs. I had a great time this weekend but as always, it’s good to be home. If you want to see the handful of pics I took this weekend go here.
During the trip my Iphone once again was quite handy. As I mentioned before I used it’s GPS functionality several times. It also served as my entertainment on flights. I watched two movies during the trip, Second Skin and Eagle Eye. Eagle Eye was suprisingly good. It’s plot of a supercomputer going crazy has been used several times but I found this latest attempt entertaining. I enjoyed the film all the way through and would give it a B+.
Second Skin is a documentary about MMORPG players, mostly Wow players. It focuses on a core group of hardcore gamers and what makes them tick. Being a 4 year WoW player myself I found the subject matter very interesting but I think even non-mmorpg players would find the film intriguing. You get a deep, dark look into this strange virtual world and the type of person that embraces it. Of course you don’t come away from the film feeling anything positive about an individual that has fallen into a deep addicition with the game but you will have a better understanding what fuels this type of behavior. I’d give the film an A.
The Iphone also helped me out on Saturday night. I typically need some sort of white noise to sleep. Total silence drives me mad. Well Troy’s daughters room had no source of such noise so I turned to my Iphone for aid. Within minutes I had found, downloaded and installed an app for free that did exactly what I needed. I could choose from a bunch of different soundscapes and have them play as long as I wanted. I happily fell asleep listening to the peaceful sound of crickets chirping. I love my Iphone.
Private IM system – piece of cake
I was talking to my buddy Troy the other day and he told me about a private IM system that they use at the bank. Using IM for quick, nondescript communications takes a huge load off of the email system by keeping this sort of very common exchange out of email where it has to be backed up, stored and archived. I asked what they used to do this. Troy said they used Pidgin as the client but he did not know what was used on the back end. A little bit of searching on Google and I found some answers.
Evidently there is an open IM protocol called XMPP that is used by various providers, including Google talk. I found a free XMPP server package called Openfire that took me less than 10 minutes to get running. I threw it on a spare workstation for now for testing. It has very little overhead. The Pidgin client was equally easy to get up and running. In the span of about a half hour my personal IM network was created.
I think it could really have some nice advantages in our network. Of course there is always the possibility of abuse by people that fall into the IM black hole which can consume productivity quickly so it’s something that may have to be only deployed to certain people. At a minimum our IT department can use it quite often.
Tomorrow at this time I should have just completed running a 5K in Lebanon. Perhaps I’ll be chewing on a piece of ring bologna to celebrate.
Blinded
Ali called me during the day yesterday and said the blinds in the bedroom broke. She asked if I could pick up another set on my way home which I did. After preparing the dog’s meals I went right into the project.
I have installed a few sets of blinds in my life and I always have opted to not shorten them to fit the height of the window. For some reason in my head I viewed this as an incredibly complex and dangerous procedure since there was all of that string so delicately woven through the blinds. So instead we have a number of blinds in the house that if fully extended will drop a good foot below the window sill.
Well this time I decided I was going to dive head first into blind size alteration, throwing caution to the wind. After reading the directions on how to remove the bottom bar and unneeded slats I wondered why I was so hesitant about the process. It was a bit tedious but not difficult by any means. The most trouble I had during the entire mounting project was getting the new brackets in place. The window casement in certain areas is damaged from the shitty install the builder did hanging the originals. Instead of drilling pilot holes they just drove the screws into the plaster backed by metal studs. I just left the damaged areas alone, they will get fixed whenever I decide to tackle painting the bedroom.
The blinds looked good when I was done and they appear to be of higher quality than what was replaced. The motion is smooth and easy. The blinds stay in place with a gentle tug instead of having to use two hands to lock the height. Ali was happy with the end result.
Spook continues to improve in her condition. She carries her head at much less of a tilt, she is eating regularly and the area of skin around her ear that was peeling back looks like it is starting to heal. She still has her sneezing fits and when she purrs it sometimes sounds like more of a gurgle but hey, compared to a week ago when I figured I was a couple days away from having her put to sleep, the improvement is dramatic.
This morning after seeing yet another religious passage/statement posted on a Facebook friends status I fired off my own quick status update (I don’t update my status that often) It went like this – Will never understand the use of Facebook status updates to post bible passages/religious hooey.
Now of course I knew full well this would incite reaction from others. At that moment it wasn’t of much concern. To me, Facebook isn’t an appropriate place for bible passages. Now of course to individuals that post such things they think they are just spreading the gospel and doing good in god’s eyes by doing so. Spreading the gospel is one of the marching orders right?
I immediately got a few flames for my statement and I expect more to follow. I wonder if these people would be equally annoyed if I was posting a half dozen status updates a day that professed the wonders of agnosticism, scientology, paganism or atheism? Hey if you are all about that stuff, great for you. But if you are interested in posting it out there publicly for all to digest don’t be offended if someone happens to disagree with you.
Want to read some thoughts from an avid WoW player that also is an avid blogger? Take a look at this.
Talk about Joe
The Duf podcast returns, briefly. Not much to talk about right now. I am doing boring MSFT test prep and trying to get stuff ready for my quick trip to the northeast. One of the things I will be doing is running a 5K in Lebanon with my buddy Troy. It should be a different type of run.
Just for shits and giggles I looked into the costs of renting a Camaro from Avis while I was up there. It was an outrageous $350 for three days and it was only for the V6 LT model, f that. If it was an SS I may have considered it.
[podcast]https://blog.duf.net/podcast/joe.mp3[/podcast]