Archives 2011

The other day I went to get out of my truck and heard a crack and saw something fly (a spring) as I pulled on the door handle.  The plastic door handle bezel had been cracked for awhile but now the whole assembly went kaput.

To exit the vehicle now requires me to grab the wire and give it an awkward yank.  I was afraid that it may be difficult to get a replacement part however a 5 minute search and $12 had the part ordered and on it’s way to my house.

The Tacoma is now 12+ years old so unfortunately these sort of things are going to start going wrong.  Even with these little nagging issues and paint that is a mess I have no plans on retiring the truck anytime soon.  It still runs like a champ even with 130k on the odometer.

Last night I hit a bodyweight exercise milestone, managing to get 20 full ROM pull ups in one set.  It was my first attempt at this month’s Bar-barian challenge which is max pull ups. I did the set indoors on my Iron Gym.  It is a bit awkward doing pull ups for me on the IG because of my long arms, my knees just barely miss the floor.  When I got my chin to the bar for a 20th time I was pretty pumped.  It made some other movement goals I have like the muscle up seem much closer.

As expected, I have not heard back from The Manhattan Club regarding their deceptive registration process that makes it far too easy for people to unintentionally commit to nonrefundable reservations. I plan to initiate disputing the charge with American Express.  I have heard from more than one person that more often than not the merchant won’t even bother to dispute the charge back as the process required for them to validate the charge is more trouble than it is worth.

So yesterday I had our credit card bill with me at work.  Ali had pointed out to me when she was doing the bills about some credits that were not there, one from RCI and one from The Manhattan Club, the place I originally reserved a room at but later had to cancel.

I handled the RCI issue first, it was a small amount of money, $27, but I’ll be damned if I am going to let RCI screw me out of one more penny.  This credit was tied into my airfare reservation I placed with them.  When I tried to book the flight online their site continuously crashed.  The credit was to make up for the difference between the higher fee for booking via the phone which for some reason they charge more for.

When it all went down I asked for assurances REPEATEDLY that I could expect the credit to be applied and I was told REPEATEDLY it would be.  Of course this is RCI we are talking about, the credit wasn’t done, surprise, surprise.  So I called up and explained the situation.  The woman I spoke to ASSURED me the credit would now be applied although she couldn’t explain why it wasn’t done initially.  Now I have to babysit my statement further to make sure the credit actually shows up.

Next up was a call to the Manhattan Club.  I originally booked this online for two nights.  When I booked the reservation I had no idea I was dealing with a timeshare, they don’t do a very good job of pointing that out on the web site.  I logged on to the site, picked my dates, picked the lowest rate and was done.  I didn’t realize it was a timeshare until I received the email confirmation that said our stay required us to attend a 90 minute sales presentation.

I called the place after I realized it was a timeshare to get some clarification.  I told the person on the phone that when I booked the room I had no idea it was a timeshare.  The woman said I could cancel the reservation if I wanted and book at the higher standard room rate or just attend the presentation at the lower rate.  She said as long as I met the prequalifications for the presentation, which I did, there isn’t an issue.  So Ali and I resigned ourselves to just sitting through the sales pitch.

Well a few weeks later I realized that when I booked the room for two nights I made a mistake.  I had it in my head that our flight left Saturday when in reality it left Friday evening.  Upon talking to Ali we agreed that I should just cancel the Manhattan Club reservation and book somewhere that didn’t require us to waste a couple hours since we now had less time in NYC than we first thought.

I called MHC again and told them I needed to cancel my reservation.  The woman told me it was easy to do, all I had to do was go back on the web site and enter my original confirmation number.  I followed her instructions, cancelled the reservation and made a one night reservation at a nearby Sheraton instead. Ok problem handled, so I thought.

So yesterday I call up Manhattan Club to handle what I assumed was just another oversight.  Somehow they must have just forgotten to issue the credit for my $435 cancelled reservation.  I wind up being connected with a woman named Stephanie.  I explain to Stephanie that I cancelled my reservation back in June but had not seen a credit on my card yet.  Stephanie told me that was because there won’t be one, the money in  not refundable…

As you can imagine I went from 0-60 in the flip of a switch when I heard this ridiculous sentence.  I asked her what she meant, why would it be nonrefundable, I cancelled the reservation? Stephanie said that the “special promo rate” that I signed up for was a nonrefundable rate and that in order to make the reservation I would have had to agree to those terms.  I told her I have no recollection of that being mentioned anywhere in the booking process.  Stephanie could sense this conversation was just about to get ugly so she said she would transfer me to the person in charge of “online marketing”.

So I began a new conversation with Maritza.  I explained the background of the situation.  I told her much like I had no idea initially I was making a reservation at a timeshare I had zero knowledge that the money I was laying out was nonrefundable.  I told her that this was not made clear on the site in any way.

I also told her that I had phone conversations with MHC staff twice regarding cancelling the reservation and never was there a mention of the the money being nonrefundable.

Maritza repeated Stephanie’s line about my agreeing to the non-refundable rate. She said that I could reuse the credit anytime in the next year.  I told her I was not going to be going to New York again in the next year so that was worthless to me.

I went to the site and looked at the check out screens.  My “agreeing” to the terms meant I clicked a checkbox next to hyperlinked TERMS and CONDITIONS. The only way you saw these terms was if you clicked the link, they are not presented to you directly before handing over your credit card information.  I, like most human beings, don’t typically take the time to read what is normally pages of legalese when performing a transaction like this.

Maritza crowed that whenever she puts in her credit card information on a web site she always makes sure to read all of the terms and conditions.  Yea, sure you do.

So now we were at a clear loggerhead.  Manhattan Club was taking the stance of “too bad, so sad.  We tricked you into agreeing to terms that were not transparent. ”  I of course was now in full bare knuckle fighting mode.

I battered Maritza with various points.  First I asked her how my making and then cancelling a reservation a month and a half in advance costs The Manhattan Club a single penny.  She said there were costs associated with taking reservations on the web site.  I told her I worked in IT and that she was basically full of shit.  Any prorated cost for the miniscule bandwidth that I utilized doing the transaction could be measured in pennies.

Next I asked her why the Manhattan Club thought that $435 was an adequate amount of money to rationalize all of the negative word of mouth that will come out of this.  Again her response was weak, saying it was MHC policy with little else.

We were in full out argument mode for quite awhile.  To be honest I am surprised she didn’t hang up on me.  Then she offers the first chink in the armor, saying that “maybe” she can get one of the two nights credited back to me.  I told her if she can get one night credited, she can get both nights credited.

Maritza did not like that I didn’t accept her halfway offer.  I tried to switch tactics and calmed down a bit.  I asked her to put herself in my shoes for a second.  Obviously from the get go there was a misunderstanding regarding the reservation and all I am asking is for MHC to step around policy in an effort at customer satisfaction.

Maritza calmed down a bit and said she would “see what she could do” and get back to me.  Of course I don’t have a lot of faith of her actually doing anything but I am crossing my fingers that I don’t have to be the one to make the next call.

If MHC ultimately decides that keeping my money is worth it, I will repay them with an onslaught of negative commentary that will surely be picked up on by the Google spiders for all to see.  In addition, since MHC is an RCI affiliated resort, I will be making my feelings known there as well.  Finally I will file a dispute with my credit card company which hopefully will remove the money from their accounts via brute force.

I hope they see the light.

When I first signed up for Hulu Plus I was complaining how a lot of their content when viewed via the native Xbox 360 app was not available, saying it was WEB ONLY.  Web only means the content is only viewable if you browse Hulu from a PC with a web browser.  It’s pretty stupid restriction if you ask me.

Well last night I realized I had a way around this, using playon.tv.  When I use playon, which is running on my home server, it is essentially like sitting at a PC so all of this content is unlocked to me.  Now there are some drawbacks to doing it this way.

Navigating Hulu programming via playon is not nearly as slick.  There is no search ability, you just wind up drilling through tons of menus to get to what you want.  Second the video quality is not nearly as good as when you use the native application.  It’s SD quality at best because of compression.

Even with these warts, I appreciated actually being able to watch some Iron Chef America for the first time since I cut my ties with Comcast.

Late yesterday afternoon Ali called me and asked if I wanted to do a training run with her.  I was a bit surprised since normally if Ali wants a training partner she will ask me in advance so I pack appropriately.

On Monday I wore my green Adidas Firebird retro training pants and had no shorts.  I also had my “normal” sneakers instead of my New Balance running sneakers. Despite this I told Ali I would run with her as I always try to support her running as much as I can.

We did about four and a half miles around Sugden.  Even though the sun was behind clouds the entire run it was still extremely humid.  It didn’t take long until I was unhappy I was wearing long pants for the run.  By the time I was done they were sopping wet.

I was surprised that my gym sneakers felt ok to run in.  They are running sneakers but not anything I tailored to my running needs like I did with my NB 1080’s.

One of my recent favorite YouTube channels is called Gymidiots.  It is basically clip after clip of people doing stupid things while working out.  Since I am in a gym 5 days a week I especially appreciate the humor.  Hell I have pulled a few boners that could have easily made the site.

One time years ago when I didn’t ask for a spot on a heavy bench press I wound up setting the bar on the safety hooks with my hand pinned underneath it.  As calmly and as quietly as I could I stood up and lifted the bar with the other hand to relieve the crushing pain.

Then who could forget the epically stupid L-sit attempt on the squat rack which wound up with me flipping backwards onto my head?  That was an all time gym idiot move. Well as you all know I am an observationist, not only of my own weird situations but of others.  Today I spotted a new gym idiot.

The guy was of very average build with absolutely no sign of any muscle tone on his body.  He wore a black t-shirt that he obviously cut the sleeves off himself. The shirt only had a motivational saying on the back, “it’s you against you!”  The black color helped to hide the small spare tire underneath.  He had on his mp3 player, lifting gloves complete with wrist wraps and the best part of all, an Under Armor skull cap, you know the thing a lot of football players wear under a helmet.

Without seeing just how much of a dumpling this guy was in person, I don’t know if I can describe just how silly the skull cap looked on him. The funniest part was he wore it so it was high above his ears, it sort of looked like an oversized yamica.  Maybe he had a large head or just bought too small of  a skull cap.

Well anyway of course once I spotted this guy I kept tabs on his workout.  Every single thing I saw him do was done wrong.  First he was on the cable machine doing ab crunches, except he wasn’t crunching.  Instead of using his abs he was bouncing his ass up and down on the back of his legs.

Then he moved to a seated bench and did this odd movement where he held a 45 pound plate and rotated it overhead with his arms bent. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be a shoulder or arms exercise but it wouldn’t have targetted either in a very effective way.

Finally he wrapped up doing what I think was supposed to be shoulder shrugs. Unfortunately he was bending his elbows close to 45 degrees with each rep instead of actually using the shoulders.

I sincerely hope this new poser continues to visit the gym during my lunch hour.  It will help the time go by faster for sure.

So Obama announced there is a tentative deal for the budget fiasco.  A quick review of the agreement seems that for the most part it was more caving to the Republicans.  The only major concession I saw was purely for political posturing for the election where they won’t have to revisit this mess until after the 2012 elections.

My new political theory idol Robert Reich had some interesting thoughts on the agreement and I also stumbled across some thoughts about the feudal facist direction that America has been careening towards for the last 25 years or more. even though it apparently was written during the Bush meltdown it seems spot on still today.  You have to love political discussion that includes the F word.

In a nutshell the agreement is more dirty politics that leaves the rich, enjoying their lowest taxation rate in 80 years, unscathed as the rest of us are asked to make do with less and less.  The budgetsfocus has only been on one half of the problem, spending,  and the rich will continue to pay extravagantly for tons of political influence to keep the other cheek of their cherished tax breaks firmly turned in the other direction for as long as possible.

On Friday night before bed I let the dogs out and was greeted by the customary shrieking of the neighbor’s chihuahuas.  It was loud, long and persistent.  I thought it would be a good time for me to grab the Iphone and record the barking if I need it for future reference.  I recorded about a minute of the horrible noise.  If you would like to hear why I find it so annoying you can hear it yourself here.  Because of the location of the fenced area the dogs are in, their bark echoes and amplifies as it bounces between the two houses.

I was surprised when I came inside and saw Ali was on her phone.  She said she was texting the neighbor about the noise as Ali could hear it clear as day inside the house.  I had already gone the text message route with the neighbor multiple times in the past where I was promised all sorts of remediation, none of which has happened.

Well there was a long text message exchange where Ali was again given multiple excuses as well as a different core reason for the dogs being forced to live outside the majority of their existence.  Evidently the new husband doesn’t like the dogs being inside.  Before Ali read me the text messages after I took a shower she cautioned me that maybe she shouldn’t since she knew it would aggravate me.  I assured her I wanted to hear it.  I wish I didn’t.

I wound up lying in bed stewing for at least an hour before I could fall asleep if not longer. I was so frustrated that the woman that Ali and I went out of our way to make feel welcome and help when she moved in next door has repaid our efforts with 6 months of apathy towards our complaint.

I confirmed with Ali that her text message exchange qualified as her effort to keep the peace and that I had the green light to let the neighbor know that a nuisance barking complaint with county animal services was next on the agenda.  Luckily for the neighbor, for the most part of the weekend she kept the dogs out of my sight at least while I was outdoors.  I am pretty sure it will only be a temporary effort on her part as all of efforts thus far have proven to be.

The neighbor doesn’t quite understand that the barking is only the symptom of the true problem, keeping the dogs outside. Specifically dogs that absolutely should not be kept there primarily.  Why she thinks that banishing them outside is better than letting them get adopted to a home that is better suited for them is beyond me.  Chihuahuas are HIGH maintenance.

So on Saturday Ali was scheduled to do another hideously long training run of 17 miles.  Ali and I agreed that we needed to get started earlier this time so we decided 6am would be the time.  Christy said she would meet up with us and run the first 10K loop.

We were surprised when we arrived at the waterpark and found it’s gates closed. I’ve never seen those gates closed.  I thought they were always open or at least open very early because of the gym on the property. Ali texted Christy and told her.  We decided to meet up at the Target parking lot instead which is further up on the loop.

Instead of running the 10K loop I decided to stay on the bike for water support reasons.  Running while carrying a water bottle for 6 miles is just a pain in the ass.  Plus I figured I would get my running in on Sunday during our normal brick day.

Starting early helped avoid at least an hour or so of hot sun and humidity.  Ali and Christy did a nice job on the first loop.  When we got back to the car Christy headed out, I headed to the Burger King to take a leak and Ali headed back out on the road for me to catch up to.

The second loop was going to be a very long 11 miles.  I had mounted a second water bottle holder to my bike plus I had a third bottle lying on my aero bars.  I knew Ali would need all of it.

The run was not fun, for either of us.  I was uncomfortable on the bike last week just spending 9 miles in water support duty.  This time I was doubling that.   Although Ali certainly wins in the misery department since she ran that distance, I was not enjoying myself in the least.  I was constantly adjusting my position to relieve pain in multiple pressure points in my ass, feet and hands.  I also had that nagging burning between the shoulder blades for most of the ride.

At one point during the ride I was trying to relieve some of that shoulder pain by grabbing the stem of my handlebars with my left hand.  This hand switch inadvertently threw my balance left which promptly banged me into the guardrail.  I was thrilled when one of the body parts that hit the guardrail was the same shin that I smashed on the parallel bars a few days prior.

Ali was really feeling it the last few miles.  She was stopping for water frequently.  Finally we finished up close to 3 hours after we started.  We were both very glad to be done.

When we got back Ali took a quick ice bath and showered before taking a prolonged nap.  Of course I had stuff to do.

After weeding and tending to the garden I pulled the Cub Cadet back up to the garage.  Although during the week I replaced a pulley and got the tractor mowing again I knew the job was not totally done.  You see I had ordered BOTH pulleys involved in the PTO system but only replaced one of them because the other looked like a pain in the ass to do.

Well after I did the initial repair and watched the deck in action I saw that there was a ton of vibration in that pulley area which would surely cause another failure sooner rather than later.  Since I had decided the Cadet was going to be sold I didn’t want to sell it with something I knew I could fix with some more effort.

As expected, replacing the second pulley was indeed much more of a pain in the ass, especially since the bolt sleeve was somewhat seized, requiring some vigorous beating with the mini-sledge to free up.  However after maybe an hour of labor I had the new pulley in place.  The replacement took care of the nasty vibration I was seeing.  I felt better knowing I would be selling the tractor with no known warts.  We have spent over 300 hours on this tractor in the last 7 years, I was hoping it would continue to serve it’s new owner for a considerable period of time as well.

I then took to trimming the hibiscus bush that is on the left side of the garage.  It had expanded in size to the point where it covered part of the entrance.  When the Camaro shows up this will not be acceptable so I proactively trimmed it back hard with the loppers.

Ali was still asleep so I decided to keep my chore activities outside.  The back section of the property needed to be mowed and I had a new tractor to tackle it with.  The Craftsman mower did a fine job of mowing down the back area, even the very thick and high areas.  With the Cub these areas would require me driving very slowly as well as hitting the spots multiple times in some situations.  With the new tractor I could blow through the areas much faster and in only a few situations have to dust a few spots a second time where the grass was really high.

There was one negative to the job.  The tractor rode like a sherman tank over the very bumpy areas of the yard. I got bounced around like mad. I am pretty sure this issue can be resolved by letting some air out of the tires which are inflated to full pressure right now.

By the time I finished up Ali had woke up and I was able to turn my attention to getting some of the indoor things done although I did not get done as much as I normally would inside on a Saturday.  We had to hurry up since we had plans for the evening to go to dinner and then catch the final Harry Potter movie.

For the movie I used my Fandango discount I bought at Groupon a few weeks back.  If I recall I paid 5 bucks for the code.  The code saved me a total of $24 off the admission which is a very sweet deal.

For dinner we stopped at the Carraba’s in Bonita since it was on the way.  We arrived around 5 and were happy to see there were a lot of empty tables at this early hour.  After the meal I was suffering from my semi-normal post meal runny nose thing so I excused myself to the restroom to blow my nose.

As I was standing at the sink the door flies open and I see bodies fly by me.  At the same time I feel something wet hit the back of my ankle as I see a young boy and I assume his father scurry into the stall followed by the unmistakable sound of projectile vomiting.

Instantly I realize I have been puked on.  I then look to my right and witness more horror with splatters of puke on the other sink along with large amounts on the floor and the door.  Wow.  The smell of vomit started to hit me so I quickly wiped down my ankle with a wet paper towel and exited the bathroom, long stepping over the various piles that lead up to the men’s room.  Man something hit the kid in a majorly bad way.

As I left I went right to the hostess and gave her the unpleasant news that there was a vomit fiesta awaiting someone in the bathroom area.  Later we saw someone with a mop cleaning the floor all the way back to where the kids table was.  He must have snail trailed it all the way to the door, poor kid.

We got to the theater with about 10 minutes to spare.  Despite just having a full meal at Carraba’s both Ali and I opted to each get an oversized box of candy which was a mistake.  It was pure gluttony, I didn’t need to eat M&M’s and felt like an absolute hog for doing so after easily consuming a 1000+ calorie dinner.

In normal Cocunut Point style, the theater was nearly empty.  We opted to watch the 3D version of the film.  You may recall in my review of Part 1 of series I was less than thrilled, I found the movie kind of boring and confusing.  I was much more entertained during the finale.

The action and conflict was pretty epic although I still found myself getting confused by some of what went down.  I suppose this is to be expected since I only read the the first two of the seven book series.  Ali had heard that this movie was the best of them all and also was a big tear jerker.  Neither of us found either of these to be true.

We estimated we would put the ending in the top 3 of the 8 total films and there was not a single tear jerked from my eye.  The ending was somewhat surprising to me.  It was well done and I would recommend checking it out in the theater before it leaves the rotation.  It gets a solid A.  Harry Potter has been a consistent source of cinematic enjoyment for me for the last decade. It’s sort of sad to see it all go away.

I had told Ali late Saturday that I was ok with skipping our normal training brick on Sunday at the water park.  I knew she would appreciate being able to sleep in and that I would survive with not doing it for one weekend. Ali took full advantage of my offer, staying in bed till almost 9:30.  I “slept in” till 7.

I found myself feeling guilty as I sat in front of my computer playing WoW, thinking how I would normally be out on the bike or running at that time.  The negative feeling was compounded by pigging out so much the night before.

We worked on knocking out the remaining indoor chores.  I then asked Ali if she could help me shuck the huge collection of black eyed peas I had harvested the last couple weeks.  It was a huge job and best split between two people.

As we were dumping the dried beans into containers we noticed a couple little worms that I picked out.  Then we noticed that a bunch of the beans had small holes in them, presumably remnants of current or past worm habitation.

Now if it was just me, I wouldn’t sweat it.  I would throw the beans in water and cook them, cooking some worms along with the process.  Ingesting tiny cooked worms isn’t going to harm anyone.  However this idea did not sit well with Ali.

After we shucked all the black eyed peas Ali spread the several thousand of them on a towel.  We then spent close to an hour doing extensive black eyed pea quality control.  We would roll the beans around, carefully looking for any with worms or a worm hole in them and pulled them out.  To say it was tedious would be a huge understatement.   Hopefully the hard work will pay off in the form of some tasty meal involving the beans, sans worms.

Early in the afternoon we made a brief road trip in the party van to pick up some new RO filters as well as a pit stop at Pet Supermarket with the girls to take advantage of a 20% off coupon that was expiring. When we returned we spent some time going over our upcoming trip to NYC and Ireland.  We don’t want to have anything planned out in a regimented way but we collected a number of possible activities and sights that we would like to see.  I think being flexible will be a very good thing during this trip.

Ali spent a good portion of the evening cooking a quiche like dish that had a number of veggies in it including corn from our garden.  It produced massive amounts of dishes.  Ironically we didn’t actually eat the meal.  Instead we worked on our remaining left overs so they would not go to waste.  The huge quiche should provide dinners for us all week long more than likely.

I continued to feel out of sorts most of the day because of missing the morning brick along with having to do more housework than normal deep into the weekend.  I tried to burn off some of that energy by doing some work on the rings along with handstand practice.  Neither activity went particularly well.

Sunday evening I got around to posting a Carigslist ad for the tractor.  Shortly afterward I got my first “offer” via email, a very spartan “Take$375?” To which I responded back even more concisely with “no” (I posted it at $575)

Then around 9 o’clock last night my cell phone rings and it is about the tractor.  Again before any questions about the tractor are asked the financial negotiation begins, the guy on the other end of the phone sounded Haitian.  He offer me $450.  I said since I just listed the tractor a few hours ago I was not willing to discount it that much.  Then he comes back with $480.  I told him the least I would accept at this point was $500.

After he agreed on that price THEN a few specifics about the tractor were asked.  The weird thing was the guy I was talking to was not the actual buyer.  He was translating back and forth for his “uncle”.  I thought great, the guy that actually wants to buy it doesn’t speak English.

At first there was some confusion about when the transaction would take place.  At first they talked about coming right now but then I found out that Rodney, the actual buyer, who did speak English, works night shift and would not have time to come out to my place and back during his “lunch hour”.

He then asked if he could pick it up early this morning, like before 7.  Most people would not be very agreeable to this time of day but it was fine with me.  I told him I typically left around 7 so the earlier the better.  We settled on him arriving sometime between 6:30 and 6:45am.

Ali had overheard my exchange with the potential buyer and was not pleased.  She is not comfortable with strangers coming over to our house and she was even less pleased that I informed the guy that I leave for work at 7.  In her normal overly cautious way, she was concerned this guy was a criminal and I was exposing the household to danger.

I explained to Ali that a tractor was not something that I could meet someone in a parking lot with to exchange.  We also have had several other individuals come over to our house for CL transactions and Ali did not make as much of a fuss.  Although I didn’t agree with Ali’s level of concern I followed the request she left for me via a note on the counter when it came to the transaction.  She wanted me to have the tractor out front in the driveway with the garage closed and to not let the person inside.

So Rodney gave me a call this morning even earlier than I expected around 6:15.  I was in the middle of packing lunches.  He said he was at Randall Blvd and needed a clarification in directions which I gave to him.  I had to start a quick scramble where I threw on shorts and drove the Cub Cadet from the shed to the driveway.  Luckily I had more time than I expected when Rodney gave me a second call as he thought he had missed the turn.

Rodney was not what I expected him to be.  The combination of being identified as someone’s uncle and the sound of his voice made me think he was an older guy.  Instead he looked like he was in his early 30’s at most.  I could instantly tell he was a good guy and Ali had nothing to fear from this encounter.

He told me literally was going to be using the tractor this morning for his side landscaping he does in addition to working 3rd shift at a local Wal-mart.  I gave him a brief rundown of the controls before I started it up.  His inspection of the tractor was surprisingly brief, he basically was taking my word for it’s condition.  I included the original manuals so he has them for reference.

To get the tractor into the bed of his full size Ford pickup truck I had him back up in the grass in front of the house mound and used my loading ramps.  We got the front two wheels on the bed of the truck via me driving the tractor.  To get it all the way in I had to hop off and push the tractor with Rodney as the deck was getting hung up a bit.

I saw nothing else in the bed of the truck.  I asked Rodney how he was going to get the tractor off?  He said he might have to go buy a ramp set for himself.  Ugh, hope he has help.  Rodney handed me a wad of money which I quickly counted out before he hopped in his truck and was on his way.  I thanked him and wished him a safe trip back.

It’s funny how what I thought a transaction was going to turn out to be a pain in the ass instead turned out to be quite pleasant.  I hope my trusty Cub Cadet serves Rodney well.  It made me feel even better about the effort I made to replace that second pulley. It is never a bad thing to make $500 before 7am.

Man the Eagles have been going nuts in player transactions.  On top of the defensive back they traded for Kolb they also signed THE biggest name free agent out there Nnamdai Osumugha (quite the mouthful), an All-Pro d-back from the Raiders.

The didn’t stop there, signing Vince Young as Vick’s back up and also a couple high quality lineman.  I mean just take a look at their recent transaction list.  The player moves certainly have done a good job of spiking my excitement level for the upcoming season, despite the tiresome labor quagmire that preceded it.  On paper the Birds should be lighting it up.  Of course staying healthy is always the biggest obstacle each and every season.  Hopefully the Eagles can navigate the season without any star players getting sidelined in a major way.

I totally forgot to mention the latest Eagles news.  First of all they completed the long rumored trade of Kevin Kolb to Arizona.  From all accounts they got good value for their former QB of the future, scoring a high level defensive back to throw out there opposite Asante Samuel.  They also obtained a 2nd round draft pick.  Of course this means that all of the eggs are now firmly in Michael Vick’s basket.  I have mixed feelings about the situation.

First off I don’t think Kolb ever get a real shot to establish himself in Philly.  He was knocked out of the very first game after one half of disappointing play.  After that he never was allowed to resume his role as THE QB because of Vick’s surprising good play.  When Vick was hurt later in the year Kolb had some very good games.  I wish him success in Arizona.

With Vick I do not feel quite as optimistic as many of the bandwagon types do for two reasons.  First off Vick and his scrambling style, while exciting to watch is also a recipe for injury, especially as Vick is now moving towards his mid 30’s, he isn’t a kid anymore.

Second, at the end of last year Vick struggled much more.  Teams figured out how to beat him, basically overwhelm him with pressure.  Now if the Eagles O-line is improved this year maybe this won’t be as large of a problem but I will have to see it to believe it.  I still remember just how ordinary Vick looked in several games.

The Eagles appear to be flushing their special teams core and I am not quite sure why.  They did not offer David Akers and Sav Rocca new contracts.  Akers was promptly snapped up by the 49ers.  I don’t really get it.  Both players had good seasons last year.  Sure there were spots when Akers missed a few easy kicks that could have swung a game or two and Rocca was prone to mixing in a few shanks along with his booming punts.  I can only assume this was all about money.

I was also surprised that the Eagles weren’t offering a contract to Stewart Bradley, whom they proclaimed as THE answer at middle linebacker last year.  He had some injuries last year but I am curious what exactly reversed their outlook on him so dramatically?

As far as personnel moves go, the Eagles have a pretty amazing track record of making the right move (except arguably in draft picks).  There have been many times when they cut or didn’t resign players where I was questioning the move only to be proven later that in retrospect it was the right thing to do.

Yesterday I left work early to meet up the with the people delivering the new mower from Sears.  Up until this point I was impressed with the communication regarding the purchase/delivery.  I had been contacted 2 or 3 times to verify everything was in order.

I received a message Wednesday night that the delivery window was from 1:15 to 3:15 on Thursday.  A little after noon I received another message that the delivery guy was actually ahead of schedule.  I called the delivery guy and let him know I was planning to be home around 1 but I would leave immediately.

When I pulled up to the house the delivery truck was already in front of my house and the tractor was sitting at the end of the driveway.  I did a walk around of the tractor as the guy was organizing the load in his truck to make sure there was no transit damage.  Everything looked great to me.

The driver pushed the tractor up into the garage for me.  He said all it needs is gas and you are good to go.  If I wasn’t so rushed I may have tried to make sure I had some cash to tip the guy but all I had was a $20 bill so all he got was a firm handshake and a promise to rate him highly when I get the phone survey regarding the delivery.

After the guy left I admired the new tractor some more.  A few things stood out as noticeable.  First the tractor has very wide rear tires, considerably wider than what is on the Cub Cadet.  Who doesn’t like fat tires?  The mower deck design looked pretty smart.  The blade pulleys are mounted in an elevated position from the deck, leaving at least 6 inches between the pulley and the deck surface.  This is in contrast to the Cub where the pulley is right above the deck and as a result becomes constantly clogged with grass in short order.

I also liked the way it handles mowing reverse.  With my Cub Cadet you could NOT mow in reverse unless you weren’t willing to McGyver your tractor.  I actually disabled a switch to enable it.  With the Craftsman tractor all you have to do is move the key to a secondary position once the tractor is on to enable backwards mowing.  This is a much better way to do it.

I read later that the mowing deck actually has a wash port.  After you are done mowing you attach a hose to a fitting on the deck to blast out the crud underneath, keeping the area free of debris for maximum efficiency, how slick.  The tractor looked physically bigger than the Cub even though it sports the same 42″ cutting deck.

I needed gas for the tractor so I loaded up the girls and filled up two of my 5 gallon containers.  By the time I got back I was surprised to see Truly Nolen was there, they were early as well for their pest control appointment.

So I gassed up the tractor and had at it.  There were some minor control differences from the Cub.  Instead of an electric PTO clutch you actuate the blades with a big handle.  The accelerator and reverse pedals are 2 separate things in the Craftsman mower instead of one in the Cub.

Immediately I noticed the huge jump in power.  The tractor ripped through high grass like nothing and shot grass out the side chute like a submachine gun.  I could pretty much mow as fast as I wanted to go.  This tractor also has an 8 inch turning radius which allowed me to pull off new moves I previously could not do before.  I mowed the entire property, some of which had high and thick grass, in record time.

Ironically I also received the parts to fix the Cub Cadet.  After I got done mowing with the new tractor, I pulled the old tractor into the garage to complete the repairs.  After I put the new pulley on I gave the Cub a bath to prepare it for sale on Craigslist.  It never hurts your bottom line to clean something up before you sell it.  I told Ali after using the Craftsman I wouldn’t want to use the Cub anyway.  Plus it will be nice to get a few hundred bucks to offset the cost of the new tractor.

After I got done outside I jumped in the pool to do some tethered swimming.  The first time I tried tethered swimming I couldn’t last more than a couple minutes at a time.  I did something like 15-16 minutes of tethered swimming and I probably could have done more.  It really is a good way to train for open water swimming since it is non-stop effort with no wall pushing every 25-50 meters.

Yesterday at work I saw a tiny baby anole lizard in the warehouse.  It couldn’t have been much more than an inch and half long.. I knew if it stayed inside it would die in short order so I corralled it in my hands.  As soon as I got it in my hands it stiffened up and looked like it died.  I thought perhaps I gave the little thing a heart attack.  I carried it outside with my palm upright as it laid there, motionless.  When I got outside I gave it a couple bumps to see if it was just playing dead.  Luckily it was as he moved an arm.  I put him in the mulch under a bush.  I am awaiting a comment from Randy Romero.

You may recall that I was stuck forever on the Vulcan level of Tower Defense: Lost Earth Iphone game.  I resorted to looking for help on the internet to get by this level that seemed impossible.  Finally by using some advice and a picture of a recommended tower layout and then expanding upon it I got by the hellish level.  It was pretty smooth sailing until I got to the final level where again I ran into repeated failures.  I eventually managed to figure out a strategy on my own to get by it.  The game is officially beaten although I may go through it again on the harder level on Ali’s Ipad.  It will be a good way to pass the time on the airplane.

This weekend Ali has another massive training run to undertake, 17 miles this time.  I am again going to be her support team.  I am going to be exclusively on the bike this time.  Running with water is a pain in the ass.  I am planning to have my bike loaded up with water as well as donning a back back to carry more H2O.  We are going to get out there before the sun rises to both beat the heat and get the damn thing over with. I figure if I want to get my own running in I could do it as part of a Sunday brick.

This weekend Ali and I hope to dedicate some time to mapping out our NYC/Ireland trip a bit more.  We have a lot of sources of info to go through.  Ali is very good at getting the details lined up when it comes to travel.

Donovan McNabb will be playing for his 3rd team in 3 years after being traded from the Redskins yesterday.  Once again the Eagles look like freaking geniuses in terms of knowing exactly when to get rid of veteran players.  They got a 2nd and 4th round pick when they traded him.  All the Skins could manage was a 6th rounder for McNabb.

I’ve said it before, as a hardcore Eagles fan I get a twisted sense of satisfaction that the curtain has been pulled back on McNabb a bit.  People used to think we were crazy for complaining about him at times, despite the good W-L record.  He isn’t clutch and he never will be.

Yesterday we got our third or fourth robocall from our douchebag governor, Rick Scott.  The message was translated by the Vonage voice translation service which automatically attempts to transcribe voicemails so you can just read them in your email.  The mistakes it makes in the transcription make me laugh sometimes.  Here is what it thought it heard Ricky say.

“Hi, this is governor Rick Scott calling again to share some more encouraging news letter every to turn the state’s economy around and get for ready and back to work. The lace employment figures around and despite a ride to the national unemployment rate we can tell you about that Trent pretty more new jobs here in Florida since the beginning of the year. We’ve created 85,502 jobs. And well, eight, 5500 new jobs for all lot of jobs. They’re still too many of our spell for you, how to work, that’s why I’m focused, each and everyday I’m making Florida. The best place in the country to do business and I won’t rest until we get Florida back to work. Thank you for your time. Paid for by the Republican Party of Florida”

85,000 jobs huh? That math is as fuzzy as it gets.  What governor has approval ratings so low that they pester constituents with robocalls 6 months into their term? Unreal. This has to be a first.

Last night I headed outside for another outdoor work out session.  I had no set agenda going into it.  I wound up doing work on the rings, parallel bars and the ground.

The highlights of the workout included my best handstand effort ever that I held for at least 5 seconds and a brief press planche on the parallel bars. The lowlight was when I was trying to transfer my hands from the bars to the 4×4 supports. I missed getting my one hand in place properly and the end result was my left shin smashing into the corner of the wood.  You can hear the impact clear as day on the tape.

My leg immediately started to bleed but I didn’t bother with it.  By the time the workout was done I had blood on my sneakers as well as all over the front of my shin.  When I took a shower later in the night I noticed I had a HUGE bruise on the front of my shin as well from the impact.

Today the new tractor is scheduled to be delivered.  I will be going home this afternoon to meet the delivery guys.  I plan to waste no time before putting the new tractor to work, all the grass I didn’t get to when the Cub broke down is looking mighty shaggy.

So I listed my spare Kinect hardware on Craigslist late last week and received zero calls until Sunday.  I received a call from a person named “Jules”.  If I were to go strictly off my communication on the phone I would imagine Jules was a pimply faced teenager that is a bit of a recluse.  His verbal skills made mine look presidential.

Anyway Jules said he wanted to buy my Kinect but not on Sunday, he said he would stop out around 6 on Monday, he lived in a development that is less than 10 minutes away. Well 6 o’clock came and went last night with no contact from Jules.  I didn’t really even think about it.  Based on our prior conversation I didn’t put much stock in his interest.

So as I am starting my pre-bed routine around 9pm my phone rings, it’s Jules. “Uh is it too late for me to come buy the Kinect?”  I said it was ok since he lived nearby.  So after finishing up my duties I paced the house, awaiting a pair of headlights to pull into our driveway.  Well 9:30 came and still no sign of Jules, I was now annoyed.

I call him back.  Jules answers and immediately says “Uh yea, can I get the Kinect tomorrow?”  I said no, that I wasn’t interested in selling it to him anymore and hung up.  What a dipshit.

I am surprised I haven’t gotten more interest in my spare Kinect hardware.  I’d hate to have to resort to putting it on Ebay.  It’s funny that now Ebay seems like such a pain in the ass to do business on now despite me literally selling hundreds of items on there in the past. I hate their RCI-like, “fee you to death” policies.

It has been a slow period at work.  There isn’t anything major going on this time of year and since I have most things set up in a way that requires little maintenance I have had some long days.  Of course I could be trying to innovate some aspect of the process but not receiving any COLA for 3 years and then following that up with a cut in pay has a way of letting all the wind out of the sails of ambition.

Our trip to NYC and Ireland are going to be here before I know it.  Yesterday I did some research on the power layout in Ireland.  It became quickly obvious that I needed to be taking an adapter with me if I want to do stuff like use American electronics over there since they use a 220 volt system running at 50 hertz.  I found a combo adapter/transformer for $30 that should fit the bill.

I also need to make SURE that any Iphone data usage over there is via WI-FI only.  Failure to do so could result in MONUMENTAL cell phone bills waiting for me back home when we return.

I am sure this is only the start of what will be an increasingly stressful lead up to the trip.  There are a lot of details to make sure are buttoned up, not to mention the social dynamics which will surely take place during the excursion.

So last night Ali actually was home before me which was a pleasant surprise.  She was getting ready to hop on her bike trainer.  I figured I would head outside with my new rope and try setting it up.  I threw it over the high bar, evened up the ends and started twisting.  When I got to the bottom I wrapped a zip tie around the rope to keep it from unraveling.

I put on my gloves that have little rubber grip dots all over them and grabbed hold of the rope.  I got up in the air but my hands immediately started to slip.  I gave it a couple more tries with similar results, damn it.  Although nylon is a good choice to stand up to outdoor conditions, it apparently isn’t a great choice if you want to be able to actually hold onto it.

I unraveled the rope and put it in the garage for a rainy day, bummer.  Jesse, a friend of Jeremy’s that has a lot of body weight exercise background suggested wrapping the nylon rope with something like hockey tape.  I suspect the tape would have a difficult time adhering to the rope as well but it might be worth a shot.

After my rope fail I decided to do my mini-work out outside.  A quick 10 minute session had me sweating through my shirt.

When I returned inside I worked on a small project that had been on my mind for awhile.  I wanted to pull off the shower head in our bathroom.  For awhile we have had an issue with one of the two stages in the shower head not delivering much water.  I suspected that perhaps something was clogging the feed for that stage.

So armed with my new big ass slip joint pliers I took the shower head off and took it apart.  I didn’t see any obvious blockage but I still dumped some bleach into the guts of it to possibly dissolve anything that could have been hidden from view.

After rinsing out the bleach I returned to our bathroom and started putting the shower head back together.  As I was attaching the one head I plopped the big pliers on a fitting to make sure it was good and tight.  Without applying much pressure at all I heard a disheartening “snap”.  A plastic portion of the fitting snapped, essentially trashing the shower head. Argh.

I told Ali of my error.   We decided that after dinner we would do something unconventional for a Monday night, head to Bed, Bath & Beyond to get a new shower head.   I let Ali take the lead as far as picking out the replacement.  As long as it had a detachable shower head I was fine with it.

While we were there I wandered over to the area where they sell their outdoor chairs.   I was looking for caps for our chaise lounge we bought at BBB last year.  After I bought the lounges I discovered one of them was missing the little plastic inserts for the bottom of the front legs.  As a result, after a year the bare metal is starting to leave rust stains on the pool deck.

A store employee walked by and asked if I needed help.  I told him I was looking for the inserts for these lounges, that mine was missing them.  He said he had to quickly do something and then he would be back.  To be honest I was skeptical if he would even return but I mulled about in the area for a few minutes giving him a chance to actually return.

Well he did come back and he was carrying a pair of scissors, weird.  Imagine my surprise when he lifts up one of the lounges in the store and uses the scissors to pry two of the caps out.  He hands them to me and says “here you go”.  Wow, that was nice.  He told me that he also has been able to find similar caps at Lowe’s in the past.  I thanked him genuinely for his effort.  When someone goes above and beyond in the retail environment it is very noticeable because it happens so infrequently.

While we were driving to the store I was talking to Ali about the neighbor situation.  I asked Ali if she wanted to be involved when I tell the neighbor about my plans to call animal services.  I had called their office earlier in the day to get some information.

Although the dogs housing arrangement does not violate county code, nuisance barking can be acted upon.  Basically they come out to the person’s house, inspect the situation the animals are in and issue a warning about the barking.  From that point it is the animal owner’s responsibility to address the issue.  If subsequent complaints are filed there is the possibility of fines eventually being levied and even the eventual removal of the animals.

I told Ali I planned to tell the neighbor about my plan of action sooner rather than later but I wanted to see if she wanted to be involved in the communication process.  I have no problem telling her myself but depending on the reaction I get from the neighbor, things could get ugly.  I have so much built up frustration about the situation that all it will take is a little spark to ignite me.

Ali said that she agrees the situation has to be addressed but at the same time she hates the idea that our relationship with our neighbor which is already distant at best will now be permanently mutated into a confrontational situation once I deliver my edict without a smile.  I asked Ali what her preference would be?

Ali said that if it was up to her, perhaps she would invite the neighbor to lunch to talk about it in that environment.  I told Ali that was fine with me, although I would not be part of the lunch.  I told Ali to feel free to play good cop, bad cop.  I have no issue with Ali playing the peacemaker, saying “Listen, my husband is about ready to blow things up between us.  We need to do something about this.”

I am willing to let Ali try this approach but it has to happen pretty damn quick.   Ali said she will try to figure out a time to do it when she has a free hour or two.  Personally, I don’t think nice works with the neighbor.  I tried nice.  Maybe Ali will have better luck but I am very skeptical.  It is no longer acceptable to get more promises of future resolution, it needs to be addressed immediately.  No more excuses.

So evidently last night Obama and Boehner took turns making televised addresses about the budget deal or lack there of.  I did not see either of them and to be honest, I had no need to.

The republicans and the mastermind millionaires that are pulling strings behind the curtain are doing a brilliant job of brainwashing the average Joe.  If you just say “no new taxes!” with no qualifiers it would be hard to get a person to disagree with you if you are just talking as general philosophy.  Nobody wants to pay more taxes, no one.

Another nice generalization is government is wasteful and spends far too much money.  Again, yes, in the big picture this is absolutely true.  The story of $400 toilet seats and $200 screw drivers all remain burned in taxpayers minds for eternity.

The republicans are using these generalities to pull the wool over the average Joe’s eyes.  Look Joe! Obama and the democrats want to RAISE TAXES.  They also want to SPEND MONEY. This has to be a bad thing right?

Yea it’s bad, if you are one of the wipe your ass with Franklins, ultra-rich that paid good money to make sure their indentured servants in Congress ensure the tax breaks that were implemented as a temporary measure early in the last decade are continued ad infinitum.

I have pointed out some numbers in the past that define how ludicrous the wealth gap in this country has become.  Most recently the stellar financial results of the majority of publicly traded companies all the while middle class America is still standing in long unemployment lines is just another ugly reminder of what is going on.

Look at the stock market, it has been unfazed by the majority of Americans being in the dumps.  They could care less, as long as profit margins are high, they are thrilled.  So what happened to that trickle down economics theory that is floated as the answer by most Republicans?  It doesn’t exist, at least not anymore.

The average tax rate paid by the upper tier in American society is 18%.    When good old Ronald Reagan took office the tax level on the rich could be as high as 70%, an atrocity in anyone’s book.  However now the pendulum has dramatically swung the other way where the rich have manipulated the system down to where they pay a smaller tax rate than those far below them on the food chain.  Of course they like this and are willing to dump tons of cash to buy influence to keep it that way.

When a sensible individual faces a major budget shortfall, the strategy to attack it is to reduce expenditures AND increase income whether that comes in the form of a second job, selling items or whatever the means are to increase the money coming into the household.

Boner only wants to go halfway and the items he is targeting for cuts are some that are an absolute lifeline to millions of Americans.  He is also happy to scoop out the guts of the future generation of Americans by including dramatic education funding cuts as well.  All of this in the name of preventing what was planned all along, a return to the tax rate during the Clinton administration for the rich, which by the way was only 5% more,  a time of great prosperity by all recollection.

I could go on and on about just how ludicrous this entire mess is.  It sounds like once again Obama is the one that intends to do all of the caving as I read he has now stepped back again from letting the Bush tax cuts expire.

I am truly sickened by the state of our country, truly……

On Friday I normally do my Version 2.0 300 workouts at the gym.   Shortly before lunch Jeremy was urging me to go old school and do an original style 300 where you are doing 50 reps of various tough exercises consecutively.  I felt bad because Jeremy was upset with me earlier in the day for what he thought was an unflattering picture I posted of him, so for some reason I agreed to do it.

When I did 300’s every week for 2-3 years I didn’t use anywhere close to good form for the exercises.  Since my 300 glory days and my exposure to the Bar-barian community I have focused more on form when doing various exercises.  The 300 I did Friday was probably the most strenuous ever because I used good form through out.  By the time I was done I was SOAKED with sweat and stank like roadkill.  It was so bad that I actually did not trust my normal italian shower to get the job done.  Instead for the first time ever I took a quick shower at Retro.

I had not prepared for a shower so I wound up throwing on the same sweaty clothes (sans underwear) until I got out to the truck where I at least had a different shirt to put on.  The floor wipers, dead lifts and box jumps kicked my ass in particular.

On Friday afternoon Ali headed up to Siesta Keys with two friends of hers.  They were participating as a team in a sprint triathlon.  On Saturday morning I got the report that they won their category which was really cool.  Ali had a great performance in her swim portion of the race.

I had already looked at the way the weekend was going to go since Ali was supposed to do a 15 mile training run Sunday and knew I had to get a ton done on Saturday.  I figured that Ali would probably be home sometime early in the afternoon.  I was like a tornado of tasks, buzzing about the house non-stop before I took the dogs out mid-afternoon to visit run a few errands and make a stop at my mom’s place.  When I left  I was surprised Ali wasn’t home yet but I figured by the time I got back she would be.

One of the stops I made while I was out was Home Depot.  I wanted to get a matching no-slam toilet seat for our bathroom to match what I already installed in the guest bathroom.  You may recall that the last time I bought a seat I got the wrong style, thinking our bowl was oval when in toilet terms it actually is round.  Well believe it or not, I made the exact same mistake again.  I knew I got the wrong seat last time but I was SURE I bought round and needed oval. You can imagine the foul language when I realized I made the same f up again.

I also bought a 25 foot section of 3/4″ nylon rope at HD.  Why you ask?  I had a few people suggest that a climbing rope would be a good addition to my 11 foot high bar.  I did some quick price checking and saw that “official” climbing ropes cost anywhere form $75-$100.  Pricey for a hunk of rope if you ask me.

Well climbing ropes are typically 1.5″ in diameter.  The fattest rope Home Depot sells is half of that.  However I realized that if I twist the rope I will wind up with roughly the same thickness.  Since the rope will be out in the elements full time I went with nylon which should do the best job of holding up in Florida’s brutal environment.

Of course I won’t know for sure how effective this rope will be until I get it twisted and hung up on the pipe.  At least I spent less than $20 to try it out.

So when I got back from my mom’s place I was very surprised to see no car in the garage yet.  I knew the triathlon wrapped up mid-morning at the latest and even if they stopped for lunch I would have expected Ali to be home.  To compound matters she forgot her phone charger so I had no way to really contact her to see what was up since her phone was dead.

Well I had more stuff to get done so I continued on my list as my anger started on a slow boil.  I was getting annoyed that Ali was extending her post race celebration without any concerns of letting me know.

When I pressure washed the pool cage I noticed that there was another section of pool screen that was torn along the spline.  One of the things I was hoping Ali could do was help me with the replacement, an extra set of hands really helps when it comes to getting the new section splined in up top.  Well at that point I had no idea when Ali was coming home so I decided f it, I am just going to do it myself.

This was a very wide section of screen, knowing I struggled doing a shorter section of super screen myself I knew I had to change my approach.  As I removed the old screen I realized it was actual an original piece that I had not replaced before.  I was sure that I had replaced every back section at this point, evidently this was the last hold out.

Anyway, what I did was utilize duct tape as my extra set of hands.  I taped the new screen up on the cage so it would stay in place while I started the spline.  I was getting frustrated when the weight of the screen was pulling free of the tape, I had to retape it several times until I was successful.

The difficulty I was having with the screen replacement was mixing in with my growing resentment as the clock kept moving forward with no contact from Ali. Finally, around 5 o’clock she called me to say she just got back to the car and was on her way home.  I told her I was really angry that she would stay out all day long for an event that ended at 9 or 10 am without cluing me in.  She told me that she thought she told me that she would not be home until late afternoon.  I told her that was not communicated.

When she got home I was finishing up the rescreening.  Despite my difficulties, it is probably my best work to date, the new section is taut as a drum.  I told Ali I was very proud of her tri outcome but I was really angry that she turned it into an all day event without thinking it was important to give me a heads up.  Of course this spun into a large argument.

Later in the evening we both cooled off a bit and moved from our original positions.  I think sometimes I give Ali would I would love to get in return.  If I were to list out everything that I got knocked out around the house on Saturday it would eclipse the amount of pull ups I can do.

I heard during the day on Saturday that Amy Winehouse died.  Well more accurately she basically killed herself via a massive drug overdose.  I posted a status update on FB that read “Amy Winehouse died, boo hoo” as well as commenting on one of my friend’s threads where she was lamenting the loss , expressing my confusion over praising somebody that was ultimately successful at her own tireless self destruction. Well of course this was not a popular opinion.

Sure I liked some of Amy Winehouse’s music, she was a talented performer. But I just can’t find myself finding remorse for someone that continuously lights the fuse to their own implosion.   My disdain isn’t limited to drug abusers, it covers the broad spectrum of self destructive human behavior that is so common place in today’s society.  If you are going to keep hitting yourself in the face with a hammer, feel free to do so, just don’t expect me to cry about it.

Some may read this and think I am implying that I have no self destructive behavior or I am preaching down to or “judging”.  I have plenty of flaws that cause myself many obstacles on the road to inner peace.  I just don’t blame anyone else for them but me, myself, and I.  If offering my opinion on a situation is judging, then the world is jammed full of judges.  I know in today’s politically correctness gone wild environment, offering any opinion outside the rainbow and unicorn filled mainstream is dangerous.  There is a big aversion to both telling and hearing the way it really is.

On Saturday while I was outside doing my various chores I was treated to the renewed screeching of the neighbor’s dogs after the heavenly 3 week hiatus.  After the absence of their nails on chalkboard noise pollution for almost a month, to be subjected to it once again was hard to take.

Well I decided on a new plan of action since any direct requests to the neighbor to do something about the problem has been met with nothing but unkempt promises.  I found the contact email for the county animal services department.  I relayed the situation next door and asked if I had grounds to file either a nuisance barking complaint or if the conditions the dogs were living under violated county code.

Depending on what response I get back will dictate my next move.  If I find out that what the neighbor is doing is beyond what is allowed by county code I plan on walking over to her door and informing her that my next step will be to file a complaint with DAS if she does not address the problem.

The relationship between us is damaged far beyond any hope of repairing it at this point.  I have absolutely no respect for her whatsoever and once that happens you might as well be dead to me.  Nothing will get you to that point faster than telling me you are going to do something and never doing it and/or treating your animals poorly.  That is really only the part of the iceberg when it comes to reasons I don’t want to associate with her. The saying, “the more you know a person, the more you generally will dislike them” really applies here.

So Sunday Ali was scheduled to do a 15 mile training run, yes, 15 miles.  Originally Ali thought that Christy would be able to ride her bike along with her for support but then something else came up.  I told Ali I would come with her.  I planned to run part of it and ride the rest although I have to admit I had bizarre ideas of myself just running the full 15 on a whim.  That didn’t happen.

We got to the water park early, around 7:30 am in an attempt to beat at least some of unrelenting heat and humidity that was to come.  I told Ali we could run the big loop, the loop that broke me when I tried to run it after riding to the water park a couple months back.  It is around 10K in length so running it twice with a finish loop around the park itself would be just about 15 miles.

I was really not in good shape to run.  Both my back and hamstrings were very sore from the 50 dead lifts on Friday.   Luckily the run called for a slow pace which was just fine with me.  By the time we were half way into the first big loop I was ready for it to end.  Despite the relatively early time of day the heat and humidity was raging.  I was sweating buckets.  My eyes were stinging from the salt that was getting excreted.

To complicate matters I didn’t want to drink any water.  I was carrying a lone water bottle during the run, which is annoying in itself if you ever tried it, and wanted to make sure that water lasted for Ali since she was the one that was running so far.  Any ideas I had about running the entire 15 evaporated very early on.

So when we completed the first big loop we went back to the car.  After a quick water break Ali was back out and running in the opposite direction.  I told her I would get changed and hop on my bike to track her down.

I had to take a leak very badly and nothing in the park was open yet.  I found a set of bushes next to a wall to offer me some degree of privacy while I did my business.  My upper torso was in plain view but it was early enough that not even the water park staff had arrived yet.

So I grabbed two water bottles, putting one in my bottle holder and laying the other on top of my tri bars and head out to catch Ali.  It didn’t take long until I realized that a road bike does not make the best run support vehicle.  The thin, highly inflated tires, make you feel each and every joint in the sidewalk.  Curb ramps are even more bone jarring fun. A couple times I had the water bottle laying on the tri bars get jettisoned off from the bumps.

Riding a rode bike at a running pace is tough to do as well, especially when clipped in to the pedals.  A few times I had to quickly pop out of them before stopping.  I also couldn’t find a very comfortable riding position, I had a persistent burning high on my back between my shoulder blades.

I didn’t complain to Ali though, she was the one mired in the middle of this hellish run.  She was totally drenched, she looked like she was thrown in a pool.  On the second loop we actually ran out of water so I rode ahead to the park, refilled and rode back to her.  By the time I got back to her  she felt so parched she had stopped running for a short while.

Finally she reentered the park for the final two mile loop.  The 15 miles is the farthest Ali has ever run.  The great news is next week she is supposed to run 17, geezus.

After the run we headed into the water park.  Despite my only running a 10k and spending the next hour and a half on the bike, I was plenty tired myself.  I still wanted to get some swimming in so I after changing into my swimsuit I was in the pool for 1200 meters.  I averaged a very consistent 8:30 for the three 400 meter segments.  Ali even jumped in the pool and swam for a little bit after some recovery time. We enjoyed a well deserved pizza and fries lunch and headed home.

There was one chore I did not do on Saturday, mow the grass.  Due to a Friday downpour there was considerable water on the ground Saturday.  By Sunday most of it had been absorbed.  Ali had to prepare the dog meals so I told her I would handle the mowing.

I had just started the second of 4 lawn sections when I started to smell something. At first I thought maybe it was just the wet grass (it had started to rain lightly) hitting the hot mower deck.  Well the smell got stronger and when I glanced down and saw smoke beneath me I immediately turned the blades off and shut the mower down.

I looked down and saw smoke coming off the upper deck belt, right at one of the pulleys.  Damn it!

I parked the tractor in front of the garage to take off what seemed to be the offending pulley.  I put my leather gloves on first as the metal was boiling hot.  When I pulled it off the bearing definitely felt like it was starting to go bad.  I spun the other idler pulley in the same area and it didn’t sound so great either. I was frustrated of course.

So I went to my online source for tractor parts and ordered both pulleys and a replacement belt as well since it was cracked and worn.  If the belt is getting hot enough to smoke it couldn’t be long until that sucker breaks as well.  The latest parts rung up to another $75 on top of the over $1000 I have spent in repair parts over the last 2-3 years for the tractor.

Despite ordering the parts to fix the Cub Cadet once again, I was motivated to hop back on Sears.com to check out the current deals on the Craftsman tractors.  Their current promotion was free home delivery, that sounded pretty sweet.  The tractor I was interested in has 24 hp, a huge upgrade from the 18.5 horse the Cub Cadet has.

The added power should translate to being able to blow through sections of grass where I need to go at “no wake” speeds with the other tractor. The Craftsman also has a super tight 8 INCH  turning radius which will allow it to pull off some maneuvers the Cub could never do.

Ali walked in while I was perusing the site.  I told her I was very tempted to just pull the trigger and get the new tractor.  She said go ahead, so I did.  I had already planned on retiring the Cub Cadet after this mowing season regardless, we are just accelerating the time table by 6 months.

Ali actually suggested using both tractors to cut grass mowing time in half potentially.  My initial plan was to simply get the Cub functional again and sell it for a few hundred bucks to offset the new tractor purchase.  Storage of two tractors is going to problematic as well but at least for the short term future we can see how it works out although I don’t really see it being worth the hassle.  The additional power of the new tractor is going to be a time saver in itself.

The rest of the day I tried to chill out somewhat.  I was spent from all of the chores and training. I actually passed out on the recliner for nearly 90 minutes while Ali napped in the bedroom.

Ali made a great meal using one of the eggplants from our garden.  It was restaurant quality good.

Oh I finally beat the Vulcan level in Tower Defense : Lost Earth.  I am now on the very last level and as you can imagine it is brutal.  One wrong step and you are done.  I have made about a dozen attempts and counting so far.

I went to bed exhausted, looking forward to going back to work so I didn’t have to work so hard.