Archives November 2011

I woke up AGAIN last night between 3 and 4am even with shifting my shut eye time to around 10:30. Bizarre.

Last night after work I wanted to give my healing thumb a test by doing a test run of the normal mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge.  The test went well as I completed the routine in just over 3 minutes, a large improvement from my ultra-slow and controlled first attempt that took nearly 5 minutes.  I didn’t have the Flip running since I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do it all.

I have been going to my dentist for a long time, probably 10 years.  I like the people that work there and the care they provide.  However in the last couple years they have been aggravating the hell out of me with their billing practices.

When we first started going there we rarely ever saw a bill, they submitted their charges to our dental insurance and were paid the negotiated, lower rate.  They never tried to bill us anything over that.  Well for some reason that changed a few years back.

Now every time Ali and I go to the dentist we get a nice THANK YOU bill in the mail.  In many cases these bills are sizable.  Of course I am never the type to just pay an unexpected large bill without doing some investigation and mitigation if at all possible.  I have been through many rounds of phone calls with them where they try to explain their ridiculously poor billing system that does an awful job of breaking out costs so they can be easily digested.

The dentist recently started collecting partial payment up front based on what our estimated split should be.  But even with that practice, we often STILL see bills for additional dollars.

The office also has adopted a very annoying practice of sending me a bill before they even receive reimbursement from the insurance company.  To me it makes sense to wait until you have the money in hand from the insurance company before billing the customer for what you THINK they will owe.

So anyway, in this latest billing snafu I received a bill for a little more than $200.  This was determined to be my portion for a late September visit that included a cleaning and putting sealant on two small dents on different teeth.  The total charges for that visit was $542.  Ok well some quick math would determine my 20% of that bill should work out to about half of what I was being billed for.

So I called up the dentist once again to dispute their voodoo math.  I presented my numbers and asked why there was a disparity.  The only answer I got back was the dentist was office was not on contract with Cigna, my dental insurer, so maybe stuff was only being covered at a 70/30 ratio instead of 80/20.  I quickly pointed out that even at a 70/30 split the numbers don’t come close to adding up.

The best she could do was to tell me to look at my EOB statements and see if something was turned down for payment and she could resubmit it. Ok great, I will do that.

So I get a hold of my EOB’s and take a look.  For each procedure I had done there is a column for what the dentist charges and the contracted provider amount that was paid out.  I was confused by this since if the dentist was not “in network” for my carrier why would I be seeing negotiated reduction pricing on the EOB?  That difference in pricing is the clear culprit.  The dentist is billing me based on full boat price instead of what Cigna says they agreed to bill at.

So I decided to call up Cigna to get a clarification.  They confirmed that the dentist is not in their network. However through some other 3rd party they are actually supposed to be honoring the reduced billing  amount.  I found this very interesting.

I asked the Cigna representative how do I convey this to the dentist?  She said that she would call them herself today to attempt to clear things up which was a much better option.  I am sure my saying “Cigna says you are billing too much” would not have gotten me anywhere.

I asked the Cigna rep to call me and let me know the result of the conversation so I can follow up again with the dentist office.  I do not take being unnecessarily billed for things lightly, in case you haven’t noticed.

Ali applied the 5.01 update to her Iphone yesterday and it whacked all sorts of shit.  The biggest problem was it screwed with her calendar which she meticulously maintains.  I advised her that since her calendar has had a long time problem with duplication that she writes down her existing calendar items and I blow it away so she can start fresh.

When I looked in her calendar in Outlook she still had stuff that was set up by PocketMirror, the app we used eons ago to get our Palm devices synched up.  I also discovered that the default iCloud settings are problematic if you are using something like Exchange with ActiveSynch.

By default iCloud is set to back up your calendar items and contacts to the cloud.  Well this winds up causing duplication if you use Active Synch which has it’s own processes already in place to keep items between your Exchange mailbox and Iphone synched up.

So anyway, I turned off cloud synch of calendar and contacts, wiped out Ali’s calendar and all was well.  Yea it will take some time for her to get all of the items in there but it needed a good housecleaning anyway.

Today is my mom’s birthday. Mom has had a rough go of things since her last birthday with her more off again than on again employment issues.  She also has been struggling with the aches and pains of getting older which is never fun.  I am hopeful her recent reentry into the employed field will kick start this upcoming year into a much better one than the year prior for her.

Mom is exactly 20 years and one month older than I am. When I was younger that amount of time seemed monumental.  Now it doesn’t seem like much at all.

I already called and wished her a good birthday.  We are going to take her out to dinner Saturday night to Sweet Tomatoes per her request. Should be fun.

My gouty/sprained thumb is getting better.  I have regained much of the functionality  in it.  It’s still swollen and somewhat sore but at least I can hold a tooth brush and turn the ignition key in the truck with my right hand again.

I saw the Bob Costas phone interview with Jerry Sandusky that aired last night.  The best adjective to describe it was, creepy.  Jerry’s lawyer was live and in studio for the interview.  I was pretty shocked that first of all Jerry would even agree to do an interview at this point and second that he basically said he was innocent of all charges of sexual abuse.

He admitted he showered with the boys after “workouts” and that there was “horseplay” (a word he used often) that went on but he flat out denied there was any sexual contact.  Jerry’s lawyer said he is confident that several of the victims will flat out deny that any sexual wrong doing occurred.

I find it hard to believe that anyone that heard/saw the interview would be swayed one bit towards believing Jerry was innocent, despite his claims to be.  He didn’t come off as anything  more to me than a sick, perverted old man that has fooled himself into thinking he can get away from his darkness one last time.

I think Jerry would be best served to never speak publicly again and consider gargling with a .357 magnum to save the world from seeing just how awful this is going to become.

Once again last night I found myself waking up between 3 and 4 am after a dream, 3:46 am to be exact.  It seems that this is the designated waking period regardless of when I close my eyes.  Last night I was out at a ridiculously early 9 pm.  It’s very odd.

I have been watching a movie I heard about on Bubba of all places the past few nights called Burzynski.  It a documentary you can stream on Netflix or watch via the link I just provided.  You really should check it out.

In a nutshell, Dr Burzynski has devoted his life to finding cancer curing alternatives that didn’t have the awful and sometimes deadly on their own side effects that conventional chemotherapy has.  Well he has done it.

He utilizes something called antineoplastons, a non-toxic substance, to treat cancer.  He has been treating patients since the 80’s and has had a remarkable success record, in many cases completely curing patients that had inoperable tumors who were given death sentences by the conventional medical community.

I am only about a third of the way through the movie at this point but already what I have seen is pretty shocking.  There has been a tidal wave of opposition to his treatments from the aspects of the medical community that make fortunes treating cancer the old way.  They basically have been trying unsuccessfully to put him out of business for two decades plus.

It isn’t only the cancer business that is trying to squash the great innovation, even agencies like the Texas Board of Health and even the FDA has gotten in on the witch hunt, not because there has ever been anything proven medically wrong with Dr Burzynski’s practices rather because of the financial leverage that has been applied to these agencies from the corporations that wish to see cancer eternally treated instead of cured.  They don’t want a cure for cancer, it’s bad business.

Now Burzynski’s treatment is of course not the silver bullet that cures all cancer all of the time.  However the studies show that somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30% of his patients were cured of cancer where they had no shot using more established practices.  If I had cancer I would take a 1-4 or 1-3 shot at beating it over zero anyday.

It’s just another example of big business trying to squash innovation in the name of preserving their cash cow, regardless of the morality involved.  This happens so frequently that it seems to just be accepted practice.  Food, medicine, banking, government, it’s all corrupt at it’s core.

A lot to say today, refill the cup of joe.

So my three day weekend got kicked off with a very laborious project, tree trimming.  I normally do this project once a year and do it during this time period because of the cooler temps and a desire for the trees to look nice for the holidays.

In the past Ali has helped me with the project but her dislike of the process has been well established and she had no desire to miss her fraternity luncheon in order to lessen the load on me.

I was outside early, right around 8 am with loppers and extension ladder in hand.  I also tried to dress for the job wearing jeans, gloves, glasses and my wide brim hat from Duluth.

I like to do this project systematically, working front to back.  The front tree is one of the tallest on the property, it is also one of the messiest.  It had a bunch of old cross thatch branches that were hanging haphazardly from the upper section of the tree along with the some old cut branches that were protruding out too far, detracting from it’s appearance.

After I was done with the loppers, knocking off any low hanging branches and those straggly, messy seed branches I still had more work to do.  I grabbed my machete and started hacking at some of the remnants of branches of years past.  Swinging the machete is very hand/arm extensive as well as requiring some practice to get the angle of impact right for effective wood removal.

After my hack and slash session I still wasn’t pleased with the top section of the tree where there are a number of cut branch stumps extending out too far.  I decided to get some power tools involved.  I pulled out my chainsaw that I haven’t used in ages.  I was quite skeptical I would be able to get the thing started with the way ethanol loves to clog carburetors and fuel lines when left untouched for prolonged periods of time.   Surprisingly, getting it running wasn’t all that tough.

I knew running a chain saw while untethered 15 feet high on a ladder was a dangerous act.  If a safety conscious person saw me slicing through branch stumps above my head with the blade about 18 inches from my face, they would have shit a brick.  I remember thinking to myself as I was cutting, “I am pretty sure that one of these years I will die doing this”

After rotating the ladder around the tree I finally had it looking half decent.  One tree down, 28 to go.

Each year this job gets a little more difficult as the trees get bigger and taller.  It is just an exhausting process.  After I finally got done lopping limbs for over 4 hours my reward was now being able to go back around the yard and pick everything back up.

The clean up process thankfully doesn’t involve working over your head on a ladder.  Instead it incorporates bending over a thousand times to pick up yard waste.  I would stuff the back of the Tacoma with as many branches as possible and then drive them back to the fill pit to dump them.

The ONLY good part of this process was Nicki was laying in the truck with me, enjoying the ride.

Finally, finally I finished up the dreadful project, somewhere around 7 hours after I started.  It felt good to finish but I was just spent.

Well I had no time for rest.  Ali and I were signed up to run a rare night time 5K Friday night.  The race was scheduled to start at 5:30.  It was the first time I ever took a shower BEFORE running a 5K.  I was covered in tree grunge.

We left for the race around 4, I said I wanted to get there about an hour early.  The race instructions advised parking in the county parking garage near the race.  With county garages if you have a beach sticker you can park for free.  Before we left I saw the Camry’s beach sticker had actually expired in August but I figured they would just let us park for free, after all it’s Friday evening, far from prime parking garage time at the beach.

So I swing into the garage and some old woman comes up.  I wave to her, expecting her see my 2011 sticker and wave me on through.  She doesn’t. Instead she carefully inspects my sticker and says, “your sticker expired in August, you have to pay $8 to park”  I was astonished at this woman’s lack of courtesy.

Obviously I am a Collier County resident, else I wouldn’t have a sticker in the first place.  Obviously it is just a formality for me to get a new one. Yet this old coot saw fit to try to inflict some financial penalty on me for no good reason other than to be a bitch.  Well I told her there was no way I was going to pay $8 to park, that was ridiculous.  She said then I would have to exit the garage which I did.  I did happen to say loudly out the window as I exited “Thanks a lot for cutting us a break!” as I used a bunch of obscene adjectives describing the woman.  Ali agreed with my frustration with the situation.

So we found another spot to park and check in.  We were all ready to go with nowhere to go.  Evidently we really didn’t need to show up an hour early.  We spent some of the time standing around and being chilly.  We tried to warm up by walking down to the beach and looking around a bit.  It’s the first time my feet touched sand in months.

Finally we heard an announcement that the race was starting in about 15 minutes and we should head to the starting line.  Neither of us knew where the line was so we just followed everyone else and started walking, and walking, and walking.  I couldn’t believe how far away the starting line was from the registration area.  It literally had to be damn close to a mile, unheard of.

This was the first year for this race so they evidently had a few things to learn.  This again made itself evident a few times during the event.  Before the race Ali asked me what my goal was, I told her simply my goal is always to PR.  To me a “race” is exactly that, a race not against others but yourself.

To be honest, a PR goal was not very realistic since I haven’t done much consistent running since August when I fried my knee during the Ireland trip.  After a prolonged break I only rebooted my running program a few weeks ago with cautious, short runs on gym treadmill, none of which exceeded two miles in length or 9:15 mile pace. Regardless, I planned to push myself to do the best I could.

Once the race started another flaw in planning was revealed as they had runners running with traffic on the road for almost a mile.  Running 101 is you always run against traffic to ensure both the runner and driver have a clear view of each other to avoid potential impact.

I started off pretty fast with short bursts of extra speed to get myself out into open spaces within the pack of 200+ runners.  During the first mile or so I passed a lot of people.  I then settled into a group that was all running a similar pace.  In my situation it seemed like almost all of these people were women.

I settled into a pretty steady pace, taking turns setting my sights on whatever rear end was in front of me and tracking them down one at a time.  After mile 2 I tried to accelerate the best I could.  My pace felt good but I hadn’t looked at my GPS at all during the race to verify it.

As we approached the finish I saw the final race issue.  After a sharp 90 degree right turn you were running on a boardwalk.  At the end of the boardwalk there were STEPS.  I have never in my life been involved in a race where you ran down steps. It’s just dumb and dangerous.  After the steps you were on the beach for maybe a short 50 yard sprint to the finish.

As I crossed the finish line the race clock was just under 24:30 which would about equal my PR I set during the Naples triathlon 5K segment in June.  However based on my GPS which I started once I crossed the start line I had a time of 24:11 which would indeed be a clear new PR.  On the downside, my GPS also showed the distance as .05 miles short.  Ali’s watch showed the same shortness although somebody else said their watch was right on so who knows.

Regardless with all of the circumstance leading up to the run, my lack of training, injuries and 7 hours of tree trimming beforehand, I was quite glad with my result.  I attribute part of it to my body weight being low, it definitely helps my efficiency.  The other part of it I attribute to just wanting to get it done.  If you go into an event with anything less than a can do attitude you will not do, I guarantee it.

I waited for Ali and Christy to finish which they did right around the 28 minute mark, a great time for both of them.  Afterward I decided to rehydrate with beer, in total I had 4 beers, the two free each runner was entitled to.  (I drank Ali’s two as well)

Slamming those beers when I was dehydrated from the run was a surefire recipe for quick drunkeness.  I hadn’t had a sip of alcohol in quite awhile.  I forgot that it is nice to be drunk once in awhile.  I was drunk enough that Ali drove us home after we hung out on the beach for a bit.  Despite the course shortfalls and the nazi parking garage lady, overall we both enjoyed the event.

On the way home I commented to Ali that my right thumb started really hurting.  It felt like it was sprained.  It was odd because although my tree trimming adventures heavily utilized my hands, I don’t recall doing anything in particular that was an “Ow, I just smashed my thumb” kind of deal.

Well when I woke up on Saturday it was even worse.  My thumb was clearly swollen and I could do next to nothing with it.  I was still baffled with the injury.  Trying to adjust to do things that I normally do exclusively right handed is always a fun time.

Sometime during the day Ali mentioned the word “gout”.  Gout is usually a condition you associate with people that generally abuse their health, something I generally do not do.  I knew a little about gout and have heard of it being caused by certain foods and in some cases, alcohol.  I wondered if drinking that alcohol when I was in such a dehydrated state could have actually given me a case of gout in my thumb.  Gout is basically a build up of uric acid in a joint which causes painful swelling and tenderness which were exactly my symptoms.

Throughout the day I worked around my tender thumb the best I could.  At one point I had Ali releasing the emergency brake on the SSR because I couldn’t push the button.

Speaking of the SSR, I did some minor work on it this weekend.  I first snapped in the replacement door reflector for the passenger door.  The seller nicely sent me another after my first one came through with a broken mounting tab.

Then I installed my modified air cleaner.  A SSRFanatics member took a regular air intake and modified it, cutting out the front plastic hood to allow greater airflow as well as dressing it up with some additional chrome.  I was impressed with his handy work.

Removing the old box took a bit of trial and error but eventually I got it figured out.  I was surprised when I removed the old box and discovered the side of it was totally broken, something I had not known.  Anyway after maybe 15-20 minutes of work the engine bay of the SSR looked a little slicker.  Who knows if the additional air flow will translate into additional horsepower.

We got some good news from mom this weekend. She got a job.  It is a seasonal job working at a small boutique.  It is only three days a week, Fri-Sun from 10-4.  It’s not a bad fit for mom although either a few more hours or a higher hourly rate would be helpful.  Mom was offered the job shortly after completing her interview which made her feel good.  Even though the job certainly isn’t going to make mom independently wealthy it will hopefully help rebuild some of her confidence and sense of worth that was lost because of the bullshit her old employer subjected her to.

Saturday night we had to do race prep for the 20k we were timing Sunday.  Although I wanted to get to bed early since we had to get up at 3:45 am, I still tuned in to Fox to see the UFC’s debut on broadcast tv.  It was a much hyped heavyweight championship match between Junior Dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.

Both Cain and Dos Santos were both unbeaten in the UFC. Cain was favored since he excels in many aspects of MMA where as Dos Santos is primarily just a great striker.  Well the fight ended shockingly at the one minute mark of the first round when Dos Santos hit Vlelasquez with a looping right above the ear that knocked him down.  Junior jumped on top and landed a couple more shots that knocked Cain silly before he could recover, fight over.

It was an exciting albeit very short outcome.  I was happy for Junior.  He was one of the coaches in the most recent TUF season and he seemed to be a really, really good guy.  You always like when nice guys finish first.  To his credit, Cain is also a very solid human being and was nothing but gracious in defeat.

Waking up so early in the morning never seems to get much easier.  I literally had to drag myself out of bed.  Our general rule is we want to get on site two hours before the race starts.  Since this race was a longer 20k it was starting at a very early 7am.  Since we live farther away than anyone else involved in race support we have to get up earlier.

This race is historically on the small side and doesn’t have a ton of walk up entries since not just anyone can roll out of bed and say let’s go run 12+ miles.  Ali and Christy were once again going to run the race.

Timing wise this race is good in some ways and not good in others.  The good part is the long distance means I have plenty of time to get the finish line up and running.  Some of that relaxing pace was absorbed by my using start mats for the race to get runners a chip start time, something runners appreciate and is good practice for the half marathon I am timing in January.

The bad part of timing this event are the people that sign up with no intention of “running” the distance.  They think there is absolutely no big deal with them walking the majority of the course.  Well the last runner crossed the timing mat almost three hours and twenty minutes after the start, an insanely slow 16 minute mile pace.  Somehow we need to do a better job of communicating to runners that if you can not cover the distance in the course maximum (in this case 2:45) then you need to train harder so you can do so instead of requiring the club volunteers to wait around for you to casually stroll across the finish line.

Other than the turtles, the timing for the event went fine.

By the time I got home and completed the post race duties it was almost time for the Eagles game against the lowly Arizona Cardinals.  My interest level for the game was very low.  I feel extremely apathetic about the Eagles after this season of massive underachievement.  That is why I decided to do yet another race related project during the game.

For the first time we are chip timing part of the Thanksgiving Run.  In order to do this as efficiently as possible I hashed up a plan with the event organizer to buy special chips just for this race instead of reusing the chips as we normally do.  By doing this we allow runners to pick up their chip prior to race day, totally eliminating their need to stand in any line the day of the event.  It also means we don’t have to do the labor intensive chip collection process at the finish line either.  Runners can just walk out of the finish chute and keep the timing chip as a souvenir from the race.

Now there is one downside to this plan, all of these chips have to have their unique code read into the timing system one at a time.  2500 chips were bought.  Although we were not going to use even half of that many for the event I figured I would just get them all entered so it was over and done with.  5 hours later I was close to losing my mind.

The chips came pre-numbered so in an ideal situation I would be able to just grab and swipe the chips over  a reader in rapid fire. However in the very first pack I noticed a problem in my number sequence, inexplicably a couple chips were in the wrong order.  Great, this now meant I had to take an extra second or two to verify the chips were indeed in the correct order.  When you multiply this small moment of time by 2500, it adds up a large pain in the ass.

While I was in the process of swiping and stacking I thought to myself more than once, maybe I should stop and do a mid-way save of the data, just in case.  I decided to just go full steam ahead since I have never had an issue entering chips before.  When I finally swiped chip 2500 I hit the save button in the application and got the busy cursor and it wasn’t going away….

As I sat there I saw the CPU hit 100% utilization.  I looked at the memory usage and looked in horror as the app just kept consuming additional memory, a surefire sign it is going to crash.  The thought of losing 5 hours of tedious work had me ready to pick up the laptop and smash it on the ground, literally.  Then, as if the computer gods sensed my panic a dialogue box popped up that allowed me to quickly save the file.  Shortly after doing so the program totally crashed.  Wow, talk about skirting with disaster…

As annoying as scanning those chips were, at least it helped divert my attention from the Eagles game which I basically listened to more than watched.  Man where do I start?

Like I mentioned I went into the game really not caring about the team much at all.  They have become the leagues biggest joke.  Well after this game the punchline got even funnier.

Just before the game started I hear the announcement that Desean Jackson was not playing.  He was being punished for missing a team meeting Saturday. Shit!  I ran over to my computer to see if I quickly could change my fantasy football line up but could not.  Now Desean and his prima dona attitude gets to cost me virtually as well.

I am really sick of him and to be honest I have never been a real fan as long as he has been on the team.  Despite his good numbers his rookie season I was instantly turned off by his showboating and his love of trying to run backwards before going forwards.

Since then he has been consistently inconsistent.  He will manage to have a huge game three or four times a year but disappear for the most part the rest of the season.  I described him to some guys at the gym as the next Terrell Owens although that wouldn’t be quite accurate since Owen at least was much more consistent in his performance.

Like I mentioned last week, I think you would be hard pressed to find any football expert that would even claim Jackson is the number one receiver on this team, Maclin has taken over that role. F Desean Jackson, I would not give a shit if he is on the roster next year or not.

So lets get to the game.  A good portion of it was filled with uninspiring play on both sides of the ball.  Hell we didn’t even get a chance to see Kevin Kolb return to Philly, he was sidelined with an injury.  Instead we got some real tall dude I never heard of to QB the Cardinals.  The Eagles have a real good record of making backup QB’s look like pro bowl starters.  Once again they held true to form.

Even with their sloppy play, the Eagles entered the 4th quarter once again with a lead and once again they managed to blow the game. It was just ridiculous as the team found a new way to lose.  They are in a word, awful.  Let me just point out a few lowlights.

Steve Smith, the long time, high profile wide receiver that the Eagles acquired as part of their “dream team” building, is a fckin dog.  He has contributed next to nothing this year.  On Sunday he finally got more playing time since Jackson was sat down and Maclin was hurt several times.  On the long third down play he caught the ball with maybe a yard and a half needed to get the first.  He made absolutely no effort to get any additional yardage  and instead fell down immediately to avoid contact.  That shit doesn’t fly here Steve.  Hopefully your tenure as an Eagles is very brief.

The Eagles defense still sucks, just as it has sucked in almost every game this year.  I have never seen a team roll over and die as much as this team has.  Of course the finger has to point right at Fat Andy and his decision to replace Howdy Doody with a guy that has never coached defense in the NFL.  That is proving to be a huge mistake obviously.

How about Asomugha lining up offsides to negate a 3rd down stop which later turned into a game winning score?  Inexcusable, but that is exactly the type of brain farts this team executes with startling consistency.

Then we have Mike Vick dialing up probably his worst performance of the year.  I said in the beginning of the year I had a lot of hesitation with throwing a ton of money at Vick.  He has not been all that good since week 10 or 11 of 2010.  He is turning the ball over left and right and making many, many poor decisions.

This team is just an utter mess.  To lose at home AGAIN, to back up QB AGAIN with a 4th quarter collapse AGAIN is just beyond the scope of what a worst case scenario for this team would have been 2 months ago.  This isn’t a team, it is a bunch of talented individuals that evidently can not be coordinated under the tutelage of Andy “I have to do a better job of blah, blah, blah…” Reid.  It now takes a minor miracle for the Eagles to even think about the playoffs, including them winning their last 7 games in a row.  Yea, good luck with that.

For the past week or so I have had some odd sleep patterns going on.  More often than not I find myself waking up between 3 and 4am.  I have recollections of it being right after I got done having some sort of vivid, bizarre dreams and they aren’t the cheery, happy variety.  I usually awake feeling relived whatever I was dreaming about was a dream.  Luckily so far I normally am able to fall back asleep eventually but I am hoping this is not my new sleep thing.

Ali plopped a bill on my desk from the dermatologist.  It was for nearly $300, my share of the recent skin cancer surgery I had.  I found myself disgusted as I looked at the numbers.  I was in their office at most two hours.  The time the doctor actually spent working on me was if I am being generous was 15-20 minutes, tops.  The bill for the procedure, almost $2300. That is just plain ridiculous.

It’s no wonder health care in this country is so fcked up.  Doctors over bill insurance carriers, knowing they will get paid a portion of the actual bill.  Then they stick the patients with whatever is left.  It’s insanity.  I plan to call the doctors office for an explanation of how 20 minutes of time adds up to a $2300 bill.  Even though I know the effort will be fruitless, at least I can express my displeasure at their practice of financial rape.

 

 

 

 

So yesterday at the gym I saw the announcement that Joe Paterno  would retire at the end of this season.  I assumed this was something he agreed upon with the board of trustees of the university.  Well evidently that was not the case as this morning I saw the headline that Paterno was blown out last night and will never coach another PSU football game.

I am sorry to say I have to agree with the decision that was made.  Joe’s failure to escalate the situation in 2002 allowed Sandusky to go on for nearly another decade as a child molester.  As I mentioned yesterday there is a good chance that Joe knew of the situation prior to 2002.  It is also very likely that the actual number of young boys that were molested by Sandusky far exceeds the 8 or 9 that are listed in the grand jury indictment.

If I am theorizing on why Joe would not have gone further in making sure Sandusky was stopped I would imagine it was because he was afraid of how it would reflect back on him.  Of course in retrospect, some embarrassment back then would have been a far better trade off than the utter humiliation he now faces being blown out of the school he has been the figurehead for the last 50 years.

I saw the students are going nuts over the firing.  I can understand they are upset but maybe because they are too close to the situation.  If you step back and look at the circumstances there is no way you can justify Joe’s lack of action.

I applaud PSU for not being afraid to dole out punishment for this obscenity without hesitation, firing at least a half dozen high ranking university officials, including the president of the university himself.  Today there seems to be a lot of wrist slapping instead of ass kicking when it comes to paying the consequences for your actions.  Kudos to Penn State for knocking heads.

I had talked to Ali about working some smoothies into our diet.  Often Ali has been making us cut up fruit deserts that have blueberries, strawberries and greek yogurt.  With a smoothie I figured I could dump a couple scoops of protein in as well.  With Ali’s vegetarian diet her protein intake is not all that strong. Ali said she had hemp protein powder already in the pantry so I figured I could just use that.

So I pulled out our cheap blender that is probably around 15 years old.  I dumped in some ice, some frozen berries, and about 4 tablespoons of the hemp protein powder.  If you have never seen hemp protein powder it is not very appealing.  It doesn’t smell or look very appealing with it’s dark green color.

So I put the lid on the blender and hit the blend button.  After a second or so of hearing the ice cubes get moved around I then just heard the motor whizzing along but no blending going on.  I banged on the jar to try to get the process going repeatedly but had no luck.

I pulled the lid off and saw just a disgusting mess of hemp powder covered ice cubes.  I realized that this blender just was not designed to grind ice, the bottom of the blender is just too small and the cubes just get wedged above the blade.

So I dumped the mess in the blender and decided to try again, dumping in yogurt, some soy milk, some more berries and more hemp powder.  I was able to blend this concoction.  It still looked gross since there was still some green paste on the inside of the blender from the first attempt.

So after thorough blending I poured some of the mixture into a small glass and tasted it.  It wasn’t very good but I could deal with it.  Ali originally thought the smoothie could be her meal replacement but since she only got down a little more than half a small glass it wasn’t very filling.  I told her the key was to drink the smoothie like you would a shot, hard and fast.

I guess we will need to do some more planning for future smoothies.  One thing is for sure, it won’t include hemp powder.

I have off tomorrow for Veteran’s Day.  I already have my project for the day planned out, the dreaded tree trimming chore.  I normally will do this once a year, methodically circling the yard and trimming the overgrown cabbage palms.  Each year this gets more challenging as the trees get bigger and taller.

I like to do it this time of year for a couple reasons.  The cooler temps make the job a little more tolerable.  Plus doing it in November gets the trees in nice shape for whatever Christmas lights I decided to put out this year.

For a couple years I was trying to do the trimming almost exclusively with a long pole saw. Doing it this way worked but it was very frustrating trying to cut branches 20 feet overhead.  It burned my shoulders to a crisp. However last year I bought a long extension ladder and a better loppers so I could get right up in the canopy and cut with reckless abandon.

After the cut-a-thon it becomes a branch clean up marathon as I fill the back of the Tacoma 5 feet high with branches and dump them in the pit out back.  I figure the chore will take a good portion of the day.

I can’t expend all of my energy however because Ali and I are signed up to do a 5K Friday evening.  It will be my first 5K race (or any kind of race for that matter) since the sprint triathlon I did in June.

On Sunday I also have a 20k race to time.  I guess the Eagles play at some point, I think they play the Cardinals.  I am really down on the team after the Bears game.

I’m sure the SSR will get some attention as well.  Maybe I will try to install my modified air cleaner.

I saw Facebook is no longer going to offer the feature to import blogs into FB as I have done for at least 5 years.  I’m not sure why they would remove functionality but whatever.  Those of you that like seeing the blog via FB format instead are going to have to deal with just clicking the link that is posted via my Twitter feed.

On Friday I recapped the neighbor chihuahua situation and laid out my plan of action to resolve it.  Well during the day Ali read it and decided it would be wise to intervene to prevent what probably would have been an ugly interaction if I was involved.

She went over and talked to the neighbor about the dog issue.  Ali reiterated much of what I was ranting about and passed along that DAS was about to be added to my speed dial list.  The neighbor told her that there was some sort of problem with the old collar but she had ordered another one.  Unfortunately, based on her track record, I have no way of knowing what is the truth and what is not.  I expressed my skepticism to Ali but she continued.

She said the neighbor again repeated what she told me awhile back that she would like to find a new home for most vocal chihuahua which is a far better solution than neglecting the animal and relying on a shock collar to control it.  So anyway, I thanked Ali for acting as a mediator, it saved me from going into Hulk Smash mode.

Over the weekend I was surprised to get a text that a new home has been found for the dog followed up by another yesterday saying the dog is officially re-homed.  Well that is great news indeed.  It will be so nice to not have to sneak around in my own back yard to avoid being screeched at.

It’s crazy it has taken this long for it to be resolved.  The most ideal outcome would have been the dog was housebroken and included as a full time part of their family unit.  Although since that was not the case this is the best outcome.

Yesterday I received my first “mod” piece for the SSR.  It is an altered air box that I bought from a SSRfanatic member.  He took the stock air cleaner and modified it to increase airflow and pretty it up a bit with some chrome accents.  The assembly has a Fram Air Hog air cleaner, something I was not familiar with.  It is a reusable filter, a less expensive version of popular K&N filters.

Being able to resuse the filter is a nice cost savings.  The catch is you need to do proper cleaning and prep of the filter to keep it working properly.  This involves washing and oiling the filter in a specific manner.

I have switched replacemement radio targets from the Kenwood DNX models to the Pioneer 930BXT.  The reviews on the Kenwood on the retail web sites just aren’t strong.  The Pioneer on the other hand is rated highly everywhere.  As a bonus, it is less expensive.

Last night I spent $2.99 to watch a documentary called Race to World First.  It is about the the elite guilds in World of Warcraft and their relentless pursuit to be the first guild to take down raid boss content when it is first released.

If you are a stranger to MMO’s this wouldn’t interest you much but maybe it would.  The film focuses on the players that make up these guilds from around the world.  Getting a glimpse at the mental make up of an elite WoW player was pretty interesting.  I thought it was severe when the one guy talked of raiding Sunday through Thursday night from 5pm to 10pm.  That was until they interviewed the Russian player whose guild will typically spend 21-22 hours per day raiding when new content comes out just to push to be the “world first”.

I heard about this documentary via the one podcast I still listen to regularly, The Instance.  It was worth the 2.99 to me although watching it from my increasingly uncomfortable office chair was less than ideal.

Yesterday I read through the entire grand jury indictment involving Jerry Sandusky.  Wow I knew the accusations were bad.  Now I know they are flat out horrific.  With 8 separate victims outlined in the document, the odds that Sandusky is not guilty are zero.  He is a first class child predator.

Reading the timeline also made it very clear to me that Joe Paterno knew of the accusations for AT LEAST the last 9 years. I would be surprised if Joe didn’t at least hear rumblings of this far prior to 2002.

As I mentioned a couple days ago, this thing is mushrooming like an atomic blast and is going to take down a number of people. It is now clear to me that Joe will be among the casualties.  Yes legally he testified as required but he did nothing when no action was taken against Sandusky.  Joe knew and kept quiet.

It’s an incredibly awful way for a coach like Joe Paterno have his 4 decade+ legacy in college football come to an end.  With all of the various college athletic scandals of the past 20 years I think this one will turn out to be the most scandalous of all.

I heard on the Stern show yesterday that Joe Frazier was in hospice after discovering he had liver cancer.  Today the news came that Smoking Joe checked out, that was sudden.

I have clear memories of his big fights in the 70’s with the likes of Ali, Ken Norton and George Foreman.  In more recent years I became reacquainted with him via his appearances on the Stern show.  He was borderline unintelligible with his speech in his later years, a testament to the joys of getting punched in the head a few thousand times.

I never would have thought that Ali would outlive Joe.

I really hate Monday night Eagles games.  They run far too late, it is quite a chore for me to stay up until the end.  Plus since I dropped cable a year ago I no longer get ESPN.  In order to watch the game I have to use a shady website that streams the broadcast.  Last night I was watching via a Canadian TSN feed.

The video quality of the feed doesn’t look particularly good on the laptop screen.  You can imagine what it looks like when it is blown up to fit a 73 inch tv,  it’s whatever the polar opposite of high def is.

The game started off poorly.  In less than 2 minutes Matt Forte already had 50 yards of rushing.  The Eagles defense looked like it reverted back to it’s swinging gate form displayed for most of the season.    The Bears seemed to be really dominating the Eagles on both lines, opening huge holes when on offense and hitting Vick constantly on defense.

Eventually the Eagles managed to slow the Bears and came up with a big fumble return for a touchdown shortly before half time to tie the game at 10-10.  I figured it was safe to go back and take my shower.

I come out and hear the game still going on.  I look out and see the Bears on on the goal line! WTF happened, I ask Ali?

She said the Eagles defense actually had forced a punt and dipshit Desean Jackson did his all too common run backwards instead of forward deal and wound up fumbling the ball.  Even with that fck up the Eagles defense held on 3rd down until a bullshit roughing call.  Babin was clearly shoved into the QB but the refs blew it.  The Bears took advantage and scored a momentum killing touchdown.

The Eagles came out strong in the second half, scoring two touchdowns, establishing a 24-17 lead.  That was right about when I fell asleep for good.  Those were the last points they scored.  I was not all that surprised to see this morning they blew their 5th late game lead of the season and went down in flames 30-24.

I am glad I didn’t have to bear witness first hand to the latest collapse.  It’s just so frustrating that a team with this much talent can’t sack up and make plays when it matters.

There are a couple goats.

Of course the defense, which seemed like monsters against the Cowboys got blown off the ball against the Bears.  Their linebackers pictures are found in the dictionary when you look up “mediocre”.  The vaunted secondary gets burned far more often than you would expect as well.

DeSean Jackson.  Yea I have a bit of extra venom for him since I wasted a high round fantasy football draft pick on him but it doesn’t change the fact that he is overrated.  I think it is clearly established he isn’t even the number one receiver on the team anymore, Maclin is.  For every good game Jackson has, there are two or three where he basically disappears and does nothing.

I can’t tell you how many times he has tried that “I’ll just run backwards and outrun the defenders” bullshit only to have it wind up being an epic fail.  Someone needs to shake him around and tell him this is the NFL, people are almost as fast as you are, dumb ass.

Finally, how about the Linc?  The Eagles built this beautiful facility and have a pretty awful record there since it opened.  Why exactly do the Eagles play so poorly on their own home turf?  I don’t really know.  I have been there a couple times and it seems like the fans still get loud, albeit possibly not as loud as the fully enclosed Vet was.

Maybe the players feel pressure from a fan base  that is starved for the ultimate winner?  Maybe Andy spends too much time eating the cheesesteaks when they are home and not enough time working game plans?  Maybe the Linc is haunted?

Whatever the reason is, the Eagles have no tangible home field advantage at all (who can forget all of those NFC championships lost at home)

Well the bottom line is now the Eagles have to come close to running the table the rest of the way.  If they miss the playoffs the only bright spot could be it would make dumping the Fat Man once and for all a remote possibility.  With this much talent there just is no excuse to perform this way.

Good old Andy Rooney died this weekend, scarcely a month after he finally left 60 minutes at the ripe old age of 92.  I always enjoyed when I got to catch his commentary, even if sometimes I thought it was silly.  I always appreciate someone that is good at expressing their opinions in an interesting manner. RIP Andy, the show will never be the same without you.

I, as many others were horrified to read the story of alleged  sexual minor abuse charges against Jerry Sandusky, the long time defensive coach for Penn State football.  His image walking the sidelines along Joe Pa is a very familiar one with all PSU fans. The acts he are accused of are downright awful.  It gets even worse as you read about members of the administration that had some knowledge of what was going on yet ignored/covered it up in some way.

It’s a very dark cloud that is sure to tarnish the squeaky clean PSU football reputation.  I am sure the more details that come out the bigger the mushroom cloud of implication will become.  Even though Joe is not officially included in the investigation it seems pretty hard to believe he had no knowledge of it.

Unfortunately now is the season when happy hunters start posting pictures of their kills.  For me, a person that would rather trap and release a spider outside instead of squashing it, I have a very hard time understanding the mindset.  Proudly holding the horns of the innocent animal you just blew away just seems so wrong to me on so many levels.

Of course like anything else, it is the end result of what you are raised with.  If you are raised going to church with the family every weekend there is a good chance as an adult you will have a belief in God and heaven.

If you were raised by a family of fat asses that stuffed their face incessantly, didn’t exercise and watched 40 hours of tv a week you are very likely to follow a similar path and not think there is anything wrong with that.

Hunting I guess is just the same scenario.  If ever since you had the ability to hold a rifle you were taught it is fun sport to kill innocent animals, it is logical that would carry through into adulthood.

I am sure most of the the hunters have their slain animals butchered so their death is not solely to satisfy man’s primal urge to kill.  I guess there is some small redeeming quality in that although I am quite content to not have that primal urge satiated.

Regardless, no matter how much logic I try to apply to the situation, it doesn’t prevent me from feeling somewhat sickened when these images wind up in front of me.

 

Saturday morning Ali was up and out of the house early to meet the girls at the GCR club run.  I got up with her although it wasn’t to run.  I hopped on my computer, caught up on my email and headlines.  I then ran through a couple instances in WoW but found myself annoyed with the people I was playing with at that time of day and bagged it.  I figured I may as well get to work.

I had stripped/flipped the bed, swept the house and had the Scooba running in the kitchen all by 7:15 am.  It was still a little dark out so I passed the time by jumping in the van with the girls and doing a DD run.  They were happy to ride shotgun.

When I got back I headed outside to do the weeding.  In the  garden I pulled out an eggplant that was past the productive stage.  It had gotten huge, probably 3-4 feet across and 3 feet high.  Pulling that out freed up another bed for additional planting.

I then pulled put the weed whacker and got busy.  Ali had mowed with the tractor on Friday.  Almost all of that standing water we had from the deluge last week is finally gone.  I hadn’t run the trimmer in probably 3 weeks so it was time.

Now there was a method to my bright and early chore start, I wanted to clear up my schedule to work on the SSR.

First up I wanted to change the oil and filter.  The SSR actually has an engine oil monitoring system that tells you when you should change the oil.  Based on that, it said I had 43% oil life left.  However the oil change sticker on the windshield indicated the oil was due at 27,500 miles.  The odometer was sitting at 28,500.  Plus since I have no idea how the prior owners maintained the vehicle, it was a good idea regardless to get it done with factory recommended Mobil 1 synthetic.

I was worried that the low profile of the truck would prevent it from being able to navigate my ramps.  Luckily they just cleared.  Once I was underneath I did a quick visual inspection.  For the most part the underbelly of the truck looked fine.  The only blemishes I saw were some scrapes/surface rust where somebody obviously bottomed it out.  I hit those areas with a quick blast of rust retardant rubberized undercoating.  I had some left from the massive clean up I did on the bottom of the party van.

So I locate the oil filter and oil drain plug.  I was less than thrilled when I saw both were right around the junction of the cross brace (used for convertibles for stiffening the structure).  The brace made access to both items less than ideal.

I also immediately noticed words stamped into the oil pan near the drain plug.  It basically said “Refer to service manual for proper oil changing procedure”  I was like shit, is there some special trick to change the oil in a SSR that would be different than the dozens of other oil changes I have done in my life?

Well I certainly didn’t want to do something stupid so while I am on my back, under the SSR laying on my creepy krauly I pull out my Iphone.  I have the SSR owners manual in my Dropbox so I quickly pulled it up and scrolled down to the maintenance section.  I saw nothing in the oil change pages that seemed unique except the reminder to reset the built in oil monitor in the car.

I later double checked with SSRfanatics that I had not missed an important step.  They said that indeed all that was referring to was resetting the on board oil monitor.

So after draining the oil I removed the oil filter.  I was worried that the oil filter would be on very tight.  With the cross brace right under it I would have a difficult time applying much torque.  Luckily it wasn’t on all that tight.

So I pull out my replacement filter, apply a thin coating of oil and try to screw it back in.  I can’t.  When I bought the oil change supplies at AutoZone the clerk said there were two filters that would fit the SSR, one was slightly longer than the other.  I told him to give me the longer one, figuring a bigger filter equals, more filtration area, a good thing. No, bad thing….

The new filter was less than an inch longer than the one I pulled out but that was enough of a difference to make it impossible to get past the cross member.  I had two options, remove the cross member or go get the smaller filter.  I chose the latter.

The girls were quite happy to hop back in the van for their second trip of the day.  The weather was awesome and they both had big dog smiles as we cruised down Immokalee Road with the windows all down.  When I checked the filter reference guide at Wal-mart I only saw ONE compatible filter.  I’m not sure why the AutoZone dude gave me conflicting info.

After getting the correct filter I was able to complete the oil change without incident.  While I was at it I replaced the air filter which appeared to be pretty dirty.

While I was working my neighbor from across the street stopped mowing to take a look at my new toy.  He gave his stamp of approval, he said he always liked the SSR’s.

I also had some other small SSR things I wanted to do.  I had ordered a replacement reflector for the passenger door off of Ebay.  The car was missing it for some reason.  The reflector arrived last week but I didn’t bother to open it until Saturday.  Well when I unwrapped it I was pissed, one of the two mounting tabs was broken, making the reflector garbage. I later contacted the seller and he agreed to send me another one.

I also bought a replacement cup holder for the driver side of the console.  Luckily that was not broken and installed easily.  The other item I purchased was a 2nd key fob, the car only came with one of the two original fobs/keys.

I found out there is no way I can match the fob to the SSR myself, it can only be done at a dealership.  So I called down to the local Chevy dealer after verifying they have Saturday service hours and asked if they had time to do it for me.  I already knew it was a 10 minute procedure at most.  They said they would be happy to do it for me and they charge $45 to do so.  Wow, that translates out to almost $300 per hour, what a deal.  Well it isn’t like I had much choice so I headed out.

It was a glorious day to cruise with the top down.  Driving the SSR just puts me in a good mood.  Hell by the time I got to the dealership I hardly cared they were going to rape me for $45.   I was surprised when I pulled up to the service overhang and there was nothing going on.  I was literally the only car there. Wow things must be slow in Chevy land.

I explained to the service writer what I needed done.  I also said I would like to have a second key made while I was there.  He said I should go inside to the part counter and have them do the key first and then come back out.  I did so.  Unfortunately when I came back out the service guy was involved in a lengthy phone call.  He didn’t turn his attention back to me for close to 10 minutes.

He took the keys and said it would take 20-30 minutes.  I told him I would go for a walk and come back.  He said I shouldn’t walk too close to the showroom or they may sell me a car.  I reassured him there was no danger of that happening.

About a block away was a Sports Authority, I headed there.  I needed to pick up some supplies for my upcoming Tough Mudder.  I wanted to get a long sleeve Under Armour shirt and some cheap lifting gloves.  The shirt will be very helpful in protecting my skin from the various things I will be pushing, pulling, carrying and crawling through.  The gloves serve the same purpose.

Many of the obstacles in the Mudder involve you getting totally soaked in cold water.  I figured a dark colored, cold gear, Under Armour shirt would be my best option.  From pictures of other Mudders I see a lot of competitors go this route.  I was a bit stunned with just how expensive UA stuff is.  I have never paid that much for a shirt.

I still have not finalized what I am going to wear on the lower half of my body.  I assume shorts would be good but exactly what type I am not certain.  Footwear is a BIG concern.  To cover 12 miles via foot I need to be wearing some good running shoes if I want to have any shot of completing the event without two blown up knees.  The problem is whatever footwear I decide to wear will more than likely be destroyed in the process.  I am sort of leaning towards just wearing my good NB 1080’s and then buying a new pair after the fact.  It’s not like I will be doing any running in the time period shortly after the Mudder.

So after buying my two items I hoofed it back to the dealership.  I only had to wait a few minutes until my SSR was driven back out front.  Ok second set of keys, complete.

Ali had mentioned she wouldn’t mind going back to Sweet Tomatoes Saturday night since she has some coupons after she joined their Veg Club.  I was fine with it, plus it was another excuse to drive the SSR.

Before we went to dinner we stopped at Staples to ironically buy a stapler.  We have had our stapler forever and it sucks.  It jams more than it staples.  We invested in a nice $10 model that should put our curse word riddled stapling sessions behind us.

As we walked to the restaurant at about 5:45 Ali jokingly asked if we have turned into that old married couple that eats early and with coupons.  I said I guess so.

Once again we had a nice experience, sampling small portions of many different food items.  Sweet Tomatoes will never supplant Carrabas as my all time favorite place to eat.  A meal at Sweet Tomatoes is efficient.  It’s relatively cheap and all of that time consuming taking your order, waiting for the food to be made, etc, is all eliminated.  Of course there are times when you are looking for that dinner experience to be more about the mood of a place and less about efficiency.

On the way home we again had the top down although by that time the air was getting cooler.  I turned on the heat and Ali even utilized the heated seat feature of the SSR to keep her cozy.

On Sunday morning I had talked to Ali about taking our bikes out for a ride in that new area we enjoyed a couple weeks prior.  The big long squares on sparsely trafficked streets is a perfect combo for Ali.  Ali was down with the plan until Sunday morning actually came around.

She woke complaining of a sore back and absolutely did not want to go.  Well a little dissent wasn’t enough to dissuade me so I basically said we are going as I loaded up the bikes onto the Camry bike rack.  Ali was not very pleased with my insistence.

So we got to our spot and headed out.  We wound up having a 20 mile ride and by the end of it Ali actually thanked me for forcing her to get out on the bike, I was quite surprised.  Although the pace we kept doesn’t push my cardio, just being on the bike for 80 minutes is good regardless.  My ass was quite sore.

Since I had most chores already done it freed up a good portion of the rest of my Sunday.  I again devoted more attention to the SSR.  I wanted to hit the pitted chrome wheels with polish to see if I could clean them up a bit.

I knew the pitting was far too advanced to be fixed via elbow grease.  The only way that will happen is if I get the wheels rechromed or replace them with genuine factory chrome wheels, both very expensive and low priority items right now.

My efforts did help somewhat, the wheels definitely did look better.  I would classify them as 10 footers right now, they look good from 10 feet but the closer you get, the more warts show up. I also used the leather cleaner and conditioner I picked up to make the seats look nice.

Mid-afternoon I had to make a run to Pet Supermarket which is in mom’s neck of the woods.  I called mom and asked her if she wanted me to pick her up to take a joyride in the SSR since she had not seen it in person yet. She said sure.

Mom was impressed with the truck and loved cruising around sans top.  We extended the drive by adding in stops at Home Depot and Walgreens along the way.  It was fun.

By the time I got home daylight was fading thanks to the clocks falling back Saturday night.  I had ideas of trying a hard mode version of this month’s Bar-barian challenge but instead decided to just try  a max muscle up set again.  I hadn’t done any muscle ups in over a week.

I was happy that I equaled my previous best of 5.  I was so happy that I didn’t think about trying a 6th rep which in retrospect I think I probably could have grinded out, oh well.

I have to say a week plus into my SSR ownership experience that I have no regrets, I LOVE the vehicle.   Some time behind the wheel with the top down is an instant mood stabilizer, much better than popping pills or spending time on a shrink couch IMO.

 

 

 

I am running the challenge again this month on the Bar-barian’s forum.  I made my first attempt at normal mode last night.  This contest is based on the BBR’s (bar-barian requirements)  To qualify to be an OFFICIAL Bar-barian you need to be able to do 5 muscle ups, 45 dips, 25 pull ups, 55 push ups and another 5 muscle ups in less than SIX MINUTES.  It is a physical feat that few can pull off.

Well for the challenge we are doing the same exercises but less repetitions. In normal mode you do 5 pull ups, 23 dips, 13 pull ups, 28 push ups and another 5 pull ups in as little time as possible.  I didn’t think I would have a very difficult time doing this mode.  Well I was wrong.

One of the points I stressed about this challenge on the forum was to use good range of motion.  Many times when I see people attempt this they wind up doing half reps of the various movements because they are pushing for time.  Half reps do save you time but they are also easier to do.  I wanted to make sure my reps were as clean as possible.

Well I went overboard a bit.  My reps were so controlled and full ROM that it really fatigued me quickly.  My total time was 4:50 to complete the circuit which isn’t very good at all.  In my future attempts I will be trying to balance form and speed a little better.

My situation with the next door neighbor and her dogs has been well documented here over the past year.  For those of you new to the blog, basically she bought two chihuahuas, was unwilling to properly house train the animals and then decided to make her problem, my problem by banishing the dogs to a small outside dog run that just happens to be facing our house.

Well of course chihuahuas are not meant to be primarily outside animals, a point I made to the neighbor repeatedly.  So the dogs being put outside is something neither Ali or I agree with.  But that wasn’t the big issue.

The problem was one of the chihuahuas has a chronic barking problem.  Whenever it sees any activity in our backyard the thing barks, well actually it sounds more like a screech.  It is just a God awful noise.  It literally makes me nuts.

So it didn’t take very long until I pointed out to the neighbor, whom I had gone out of my way leading up to this to help repeatedly in various situations, that the dog barking was a problem.  She apologized and said the dogs were always relieving themselves inside the house.  This was her solution.

I pointed out to her that properly house training the animals was the real answer and that chihuahuas should not be left outside.  That was when the string of unkept remediation promises began.

Over the past 10 months or so I have been promised 7 or 8 different things that were going to be done to address the problem and none of them were followed through on, instead various excuses were handed out with more promises of action.

I also spent over $200 of my own money investing in two different sonic bark deterrent solutions, neither of which appears to be successful on this particular chihuahua.

Finally, a couple months ago, we actually had a good 3 weeks or so where the chihuahua was not barking much.  I thought that maybe finally the neighbor had actually decided to take responsibility for the problem once and for all.

Well one night I was outside loading up the truck with race timing gear and the chihuahua was back to screeching at me full volume, non-stop.  I had enough and walked next door and told the neighbor that the dog problem has to be addressed.  It was then that I found out that the reason the dog was quiet for a few weeks was because she bought a barking shock collar, something I would normally not endorse.

She said that she had taken the collar off a couple days prior and the dog had remained quiet.  Well I told her that evidently the dog figured out it was safe to screech again.  Again, the neighbor apologized and said she would put the collar back on.  She did and the dog was again quiet for a few days.

Well then the barking started again.  I would look over and see the collar was not on the dog.  I texted the neighbor and told her the dog was back to barking.  She gave some excuse like the batteries were dead and said she would put it back on.

Well this started some sort of bizarre game where every couple days the collar would be off, I would say something and would get another excuse followed by the collar being off again the next day.  It’s established that the only way the dog shuts up is if it the collar is on it yet the neighbor keeps pulling it off.

So I am tired of the games.  It’s been 10 months of bullshit and I am beyond tired of it.  So my plan is when the dog again starts screaming at me this weekend I will go over to the neighbor’s house one more time, let her know that I am officially done waiting for her to address the problem permanently and now my calls will be to domestic animal services for nuisance barking.  She then will have to talk to the county agents about the complaint and if she refuses to address it the knocks on the door by DAS agents will continue. The county staff will inspect the animal living conditions while they are there as well.

In addition I plan to turn on the audible siren portion of my sonic bark deterrent.  In addition to sending an ultrasonic noise it can send out a loud audible noise which is sure to annoy human ears as well.

It’s a shame that it has to come to this.  For her to continually disregard our complaints after we extended our help repeatedly when she first moved in is a real slap in the face.  Unfortunately she has now firmly established that her word is just no good.  If you know me you know how I feel about that sort of individual.

If you would like to hear first hand why I find this problem so annoying, listen here.

So I am on my way home last night on Immokalee Road and a couple hundred yards in front of me I see what I think at first has to be an illusion.  I refocus my eyes and verify it is a SILVER SSR.  The first thought that went through my head was “Could Ali have seriously taken the SSR out for a joyride??” as I thought of the abuse the clutch had taken.  Even though I knew that couldn’t possibly be the case, I accelerated.

When I got closer I saw that the vehicle had a trailer hitch attached so I knew it wasn’t mine but still I was amazed.  I have never seen in a SSR on Immokalee Road.  Hell in the past year I can recall ever seeing a couple SSR’s, max.  But somehow since I brought mine home on Friday I have seen THREE.  Seeing the exact same color as mine was even weirder.

This SSR was driven by a woman.  I assumed it was an automatic model but maybe not.  Plus I had no easy way to determine if it was an 03,04,05, or 06 model since the exterior design did not change during the SSR’s brief production run.

After work I made a stop at Autozone to grab SSR supplies.  Since I have no idea when exactly it was done last, I grabbed Mobil 1 oil change supplies along with an air filter, fuel system cleaner and some other cleaning products.  I am sure I will be spending considerable time on the car this weekend.

Thanks to my resources on ssrfanatic.com I have found out lots of information.  For example my pitting chrome wheels are the end result of them not being chrome wheels from the factory.  Instead the original satin wheels were sent out and had a poorly done chrome plating job done on them.  The guys on the forum could tell right away and I verified that by inspecting the original build sheet for the car which was provided to me by yet another helpful forum member.

I have some reservations about whomever owned the car before based on the cheap wheel chrome and the rig job on the ash tray door, another reason I want to change the oil ASAP.  I have however been over the rest of the car pretty extensively and haven’t seen anything else that raised a flag.

When I was pouring over the forums I came across one member that posted a story about his motor throwing a bearing at 26,000 miles.  Supposedly the dealer told him his oil was two quarts low.

The motor in my SSR is an aluminum Corvette motor.  If it dies there are MAJOR dollars involved with repair/replacement.  It made me visit the credit union website to review the extended warranty options they offer since I financed the car through them.  I can actually get coverage for up to SEVEN YEARS on the car.  I think that is some piece of mind I will be investing in down the road.

Yesterday Randall and I were chatting.  He said how he is going to grow the “tough mudder moustache” for the grueling event we are doing in early December. He encouraged me to do the same.  I told him I wasn’t really interested in the moustache look but instead I am going to just go for the King Leonidas look I grew back in 2008 for the Spartan challenge.  I am hoping a month is enough time for it to look decent.

The past two nights in a row I have woken up between 3 and 4 am and have had a hard time falling back asleep.  These nights have included some weird dreams, most of which I can’t recall the details.

I do recall one of them involved me walking outside to the left side of our house (as you are facing it) and seeing the corner of my fence taken down.  Along with that there was a full construction crew next door.  The neighbor’s house had been knocked down to the foundation and they were in the process of rebuilding the walls.

I was like WHAT THE F?  I found my neighbor in the midst of the anthill of activity and asked what was going on.  He told me they decided they didn’t like thier house the way it was so they knocked it down and are redoing it from scratch.  I said “Um, ok.  Why did they take down part of my fence?”  The neighbor didn’t know and directed me to construction manager.

So I ask the construction manager why he took down part of my fence.  He said they needed the room to get some heavy equipment in but I shouldn’t worry, they will put it back up.  I was astounded.  I asked “Why would you think it was ok to take down my fence without asking me??”

The construction manager tried to soothe me by saying “Listen it’s no big deal, we have a bunch of great workers here.  We will put your fence back up good as new!”  I told him “You are missing the point.” End of dream.