Have a lot to chat about.
Friday night I was solo as Ali was at a John Mayer concert with a friend of hers. I partied with a Marie Callendar frozen dinner and played WoW to end up my week.
My Saturday morning started out slow as I let Ali sleep in since she didn’t get home until around 3am. I decided to finally address some of the vegetation that bit the dust during the week long cold snap. I dreaded trimming the areca palms around the mini-pond. In the past I have spent tons of time with a loppers cutting off the scores of dead fronds. This time I finally got smart.
I remembered I had a hedge trimmer attachment for my newer weed whacker. I realized that I could simply use it to give the palms a shave, much in the way I did to my head a month or so ago. Instead of spending an hour trimming fronds I instead was able to have all 3 zipped down in less than 15 minutes. I also pulled out the chain saw and chopped a hedge on the other side of the house way back. Again, power tools made the job go much faster.
Since I got the motorcycle from my dad I have been running it every weekend to make sure it stays in good running condition. Well a few weeks ago the carbs started to leak gas once again, just like they did before I replaced the carb floats and needle/seat assembly. I can’t get it started either at this point.
The last time this happened the one carb float had gas in it. It was an odd thing since they were brand new floats. Well I haven’t checked yet but I am suspecting that once again one of the floats may have gas inside of it. If that is the case then the problem could be as simple as the replacement floats we have been getting are shitty. However if it isn’t the float this time it could be some other problem.
I emailed my dad and told him about the latest issues. I told him that I really wasn’t interested enough in riding motorcycle to want to pump a lot of money into the Guzzi to fix whatever is wrong. After all, that is potential Camaro money I would be spending. I said that if it is just another float problem I could try to find a source for GOOD floats, but I’m not going to do much beyond that.
I said if dad was sentimental about the bike he could certainly have it back or if he wasn’t I could try to sell it for whatever I can get and send him the proceeds from the sale. I haven’t heard back from him as of yet.
I also took another whack at the water equipment, trying to fix the bad discoloration issue. I reprogrammed the water cleaner again as well as screwing with the brine tank valve. I may be seeing things, but the water in the house actually looks better since the changes. I still haven’t fixed the leak in the pressurized holding tank which causes the pump to run every 30 seconds or so.
We got word from our accountant that once again our tax return should be considerable this year, hopefully enough to address our water quality issues once and for all. My co-worker asked me why we don’t change our withholding so we have more in our pockets month to month instead of getting a lump sum at tax time? I guess it’s just a personal preference. Ali and I sort of like getting a Christmas present in February.
Sunday morning Ali and decided to go for a run. She hadn’t run since the Miami half marathon a week ago. I came up with the idea of running around the trails at the North Collier Park, where the water park is. We’ve talked about checking out the trail a few times but never had the chance. It was brisk yesterday morning with temps in the mid to upper 50’s. Ali and I laughed when we saw that the water park was open this weekend. Now of course not a single soul was going to be in the water with air temp barely crossing 60 degrees but none the less they had the park open and the water was flowing. I thought to myself what a huge waste of taxpayer money that is (it’s a county maintained water park), to be pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons around all day for nobody to use.
We parked and found our way to the boardwalk which is part of the trails. The boardwalk is rather lengthy and circles through a wooded area filled with cypress and slash pine trees. It was very cool. The entire boardwalk was decked with composite lumber, similar to what I used on our deck at home, only thicker. I immediately started adding it up in my head. To resurface my small 12 x 12 deck with composite lumber costs nearly $400. Imagine the costs to do a half mile or more of boardwalk??? It had to literally be hundreds of thousand of dollars. The county spares no expense when it comes to their park system.
This theme continued as we ran around the trails. The complex is massive, filled with baseball/softball and soccer fields that are meticulously maintained. They were beautiful. It must be an awesome thing to be a young kid that plays sports in Collier county. It’s like playing in the damn major leagues, the fields are that nice. Damn I remember mowing down 2 foot high grass in the middle of a field to use for my little league team.
While we were running I asked Ali how far we had gone. I was surprised when she said it was only 2 miles, it felt like we had been running longer, maybe it was because there was so much to see. Ali also told me her knee was bothering her so we stopped. Ali was annoyed that her knee was bugging her again, especially since she was able to run in Miami 13 miles without hardly feeling it.
After our run we went to Sam’s. I had seen a compact gas grill that I thought Ali might like. Our existing grill is a large 3 burner unit, bigger than we need. Ali didn’t like how much space it took up under the limited covered space of the lanai. I spotted a compact 2 burner unit at Sam’s I thought she would like. It’s was powder coated red instead of the “stainless” steel our old grill was supposedly made of. We must have the special sort of stainless steel that rusts like mad.
Anyway Ali gave her stamp of approval and we loaded it up. We drove the van because we also had to pick up our part time neighbors at the airport mid-morning. After dropping them off I dug right into putting the grill together. That is the one negative of buying your grill at a place like Sam’s compared to Home Depot or Lowe’s where they put it together for you.
It didn’t take long for me to regret buying a grill in a box. I was early in the assembly process where I was attaching the sides to the base. The directions indicated I should be bolting a piece to the sides using fasteners that screwed into some press in fittings in the sides that are already supposed to be installed. Well there was one problem, one of the two sides was missing the press in fittings! WTF. I start digging through the various part boxes and double and triple checking the diagram to see if I was misreading it. Nope, both sides were supposed to have these fittings and mine did not. ARGH!
Ali came out to check on my progress and I filled her in on my dilemma. She asked if I had any fasteners I could use to finish the work. To be honest I had already resigned myself to waiting between 8:30 and 5pm Monday – Friday to call the customer service line in the manual to scream at them about shipping incomplete parts. Ali’s suggestion pushed me to at least see if I had something I could use to rig it.
I searched through my rather large fastener collection and after a couple failures came up with a winning combination. I used some left over trim screws for the 88 Vette and a drywall anchor to connect the pieces together. I had to trim the anchors down so they fit in the cramped space bit it seemed to hold the pieces together securely.
Putting the grill together took quite awhile, I was probably working on it for at least 90 minutes. After I got it together I went and exchanged a propane tank, installed it in the new grill and fired it up to make sure it worked. It did. The old grill will be relocated to the roadside with a “Works” sign taped to it. I’m sure it will be picked up in no time.
So let’s talk Super Bowl. Since we weren’t throwing a party this year I was able to really take in both the game and the commercials, something that is difficult to do in a party environment. The combination of our awesome 73 inch Mitsubishi with surround sound really makes the Super Bowl broadcast pretty spectacular.
Let’s talk about the game itself. The results were surprising. Early on Peyton Manning and the Colts looked like a machine. There were several times I commented to Ali about how amazingly accurate Manning was on his throws and how nice it would be if McNabb could somehow acquire that degree of accuracy. Peyton was hitting receivers in stride, dropping the ball over top of defenders and just making difficult throw after difficult throw without breaking a sweat. Then the second quarter happened.
Even though the Saints only scored 6 points, including getting stuffed on a 4th and goal, they basically held the ball all quarter long, keeping the Colts offense off the field. The onside kick by the Saints to start the second half was a huge gamble that paid off. I think it made a real statement that the Saints had nothing to lose, they were the clear underdogs and were willing to let it all hang out to win.
As the game went on the momentum continued to build for the Saints. Even though Manning was still moving the team you could sense an increasing level of desperation. It was late in the game and Manning was leading the Colts down the field for what would be a game tying touchdown. Then the most surprising thing of all happened, Peyton choked. To be honest the blame for that interception may have fallen more on Reggie Wayne who looked like he ran his route deeper than Peyton was anticipating. Regardless, it resulted in a interception that was run back for a touchdown that put the game out of reach.
The Saints win, a great underdog story. I really was fine no matter who the eventual winner was. I pity my buddy who bet heavily on the game both on the over and on the Colts. He got taken to the cleaners.
Ok let’s talk about the non-sports part of the broadcast. How about the Who? Wow it was quite a visual contrast. To have an older than dirt bunch of rockers that look every year of their age performing songs they did 40 years ago was visually disturbing. However they performed in the middle of an eye popping extravaganza of electronics, led’s and lasers that were pretty amazing. Ali kept laughing her ass off whenever they showed the drummer that looked like Dana Carvey’s twin in Wayne’s World.
Although I didn’t quite notice, I heard that they lip synced the entire performance which is rather disappointing. It was obvious that Daltry was not even touching the guitar when he was doing his signature windmill move, something he went to far too often. Why can’t we get a LIVE performance at the damn Super Bowl? That’s pretty sad to be provided with fake singing and fake guitar playing. Enough with the old dudes too.
As always the commercials for the game covered a broad spectrum from hilarious, to insightful, to downright stupid. The commercial that was voted best was the Snickers pick up football game which had Betty White and Abe Pagoda in it (he’s still alive?) I liked that one as well but my favorite commercial of all was the Dodge Charger commercial, Man’s Last Stand.
The commercial features a series of men with blank, vapid, soulless stares looking into the camera. There is a voice over describing an endless list of concessions modern man makes to appease the whims of the opposite sex. Each man looks more pathetic than the last until they get to the last one. His look of despair transforms into more of a look of buried rage as the camera pans closer into his eyes. The message is men put up with all of this bullshit so they can drive a car that they want. It cuts to the sight and sounds of a Dodge Charger ripping down the road, all 8 cylinders emitting the sound only a man can appreciate. (ok a few women) I LOVED this commercial. I told Ali all they had to do was plug a Camaro in there instead.
Now of course I don’t think Ali represses me to the point that was described in the commercial but the message certainly hits home. Men spend their lives jumping through hoops to get their prize whether that prize is sex or some toy.
I liked quite a few ads like the dog throwing the shock collar on the person, the old Bears doing a new Super Bowl shuffle, Casual underwear Friday, Chevy revisiting his Clark Griswald role, and the human dolphins.
There were many stupid ones like the violin beaver, Sketcher sneakers that get you in shape by wearing them according to Joe Montana, and several of the Budweiser spots. The most annoying of all were the f’ing stupid Denny commercials with the screaming chickens. Whoever thought that would be funny should be fired immediately. A few more commercial thoughts:
I thought the new Hyundai Sonata looked really sharp. They sure have come a long way since I sold the lowly Excel back in the late 80’s.
GoDaddy really needs to come up with a new campaign, wtf this is the third year they show you a spot to try to trick you into going to their site to see a totally PG-13 ending to a pseudo sexual scenario.
Flo-tv?? WTF, who needs that? There are already several methods to stream tv content to your smart phone??
KGB, again a big WTF? Who would pay a service to do a search for you?? Is Google too complicated for you? I have no idea how that business model is supposed to work. Stupid.
Anyway, a good game, good entertainment, and good food (thanks to Ali) wrapped up what was good weekend overall.
I have noticed over recent weeks something leaking from under my truck. At first it only seemed to happen if I was parked on an incline so I tried to avoid parking on inclines. However this weekend it leaked on a flat surface and it leaked a LOT. I crawled underneath and looked around. The substance had a reddish color which would initially make me think transmission fluid but it was too watery to be trans fluid. I checked the trans fluid level and verified it was fine.
I remembered that a lot of newer coolant now is reddish in color. I was pretty sure that was what I was looking at. I crawled under the truck and saw it dripping from under the motor on the driver side toward the front. I couldn’t identify the exact source of the leak however. I did immediately have a suspicion it could be related to the $1500 repair I had done in September that included replacing the water pump.
I took the truck back to the place that did the repair this morning. I didn’t mention that they replaced the water pump only a few months ago. Well I get a call mid-morning. “the water pump is leaking it needs to be replaced” just as he was starting to list the other items that had to be replaced along with it and before he could give me a price I stopped him and said “Yea, you guys just replaced that in September” “We did?” the surprised voice on the other end of the line said. I could sense the disappointment in his voice as another potential several hundred dollar windfall was fading. “Yep, I am looking at the invoice from the repair”
I gave him the invoice number. He said he would look it up and call me back. I was a little surprised that they don’t do any homework on people that come in there. They have a computerized billing system, they should be able to easily pull a history of the vehicle. I shouldn’t have to be the one to tell them that my truck has been there several times and that I have dropped over $2k in repairs in their pockets. Anyway, the guy calls me back and said they would replace the water pump under warranty. I was thinking to myself “no shit, if you didn’t I would be raising holy hell”
Hopefully this time I get a water pump installed that lasts for more than a couple months.
