Like a sack of potatoes, found money, I see old people…, Apes, swamp sighting, excited for automotive nail treatment, back in black

So Saturday morning Ali and I decided to cut ourselves some slack and instead of getting up at 4:30 AM to do the GCR club run we instead decided to just run by ourselves a bit later.  Before running we stopped by mom’s place.  We had a bunch of items from our garden to give her and I also needed to pick up her tax information as well as her artificial Xmas tree that we store in our smaller shed.

We decided to run around the water park, doing the big 10k outer loop.  About an 1/8th of a mile into the run I suddenly found myself crashing down on to the sidewalk.  I somehow managed to get the toe of one foot stuck in the shoelace loop of the other, tripping myself.  I was stunned for a second and Ali was worried I hurt myself seriously, I went down pretty hard.

A quick physical inventory turned up some brush burns on the side of right knee and some banged up palms but other than that I felt ok.  I got back up and told Ali I was good to go.

Ali kept up with me for the entire run although she was really struggling during the second half.  The worst part of the run just happened to be the last part of it when we turned onto Livingston Road and got smacked in the face with a wind tunnel that lasted all the way back to the park entrance.

There were a few points where I thought Ali was going to stop.  I can normally tell when this will occur based on her breathing which gets uncontrolled and heavy.  To her credit she pushed through those spots although she later admitted to me that she did want to stop multiple times. One advantage of Ali running with me is I can push her to run harder than she would run on her own.  She has been making some strides in her pace lately, running her first sub 8 (7:59) speed mile ever at track practice earlier in the week.

When we completed the 6 miles Ali was spent.  I took a Goo and a drink of water and ran the 2 mile loop inside the park myself, I wanted to make sure I at least upped my mileage from the 7 miles we did last Saturday.  Despite already running 6 miles I trekked the last two at a decent clip right at or under a 9 minute mile pace.

By the time we got home it was close to lunch time.  After eating lunch Ali retreated to the bedroom for a nap. I attended to the remaining house chore items before sitting down to do mom’s taxes on the TurboTax web site.  I have used the TurboTax online version for several years to do mom’s taxes and have had no complaints.

Mom was concerned about her taxes for 2011, figuring she would have to pay into the system since she had to pay taxes on her SS benefits.  When she was collecting unemployment she at least had the taxes taken out up front.  With mom’s current income stream the last thing she needed was a big tax bill.

Well by the time I was done I had good news.  Instead of paying in, mom instead was getting a refund, a sizable refund, probably the biggest amount she ever got back.  Mom of course was very happy to hear the news and was very surprised.  I told her it was because of her low income level, sort of a bitter sweet situation.  Yea it is nice to have a super low tax rate but it would obviously be better to pay more taxes if you had more of an income stream coming in.  Anyway, the extra cash will certainly be a good thing.

Saturday night Ali and I decided to go out for our official Valentine’s Day dinner.  I suggested to Ali we do it Saturday and then on the actual holiday I would treat Ali to pizza since that is her favorite meal of all.

We decided to go somewhere that we knew would be a madhouse in season on a Saturday night, the Naples Carrabbas.  We thought we would be “smart” and get there relatively early at 5:30.  That put us at the beginning of happy hour so we have plenty of time to take advantage of 2 for 1 drink pricing and also hopefully put us ahead of the Saturday night dinner crowd curve. Well one of the two things worked out.

5:30 may be early for traditional dinner goers but it is right in old person prime time.  I was a bit shocked when after I parked the SSR Ali reported a 60 minute estimated wait time. Oh well typically they will overestimate the wait so they can deliver an actual wait time that is less so I figured we would have a seat in 40 minutes or so.

Ali got the happy hour kick started by getting my 2-1 Bud Light taps and her double serving of white zinfandel.  The area around the bar was quite crowded so I suggested to Ali that we head outside to sit on a bench, which we did, briefly.  The cold front had already started rolling in and it was too cold for Ali’s tastes outside, we decided that being warm but crowded was a better alternative.

Well we found a small section of floor that was out of the main flow of bodies.  We entertained ourselves by people watching, primarily old people watching.  I would estimate that 75% of the patrons were 65 years or older.  Seeing what potentially waits down the pipeline for me is pretty depressing although I told Ali I certainly hope to expire well before things would progress too far.  I just have no desire to simply exist where the highlight of my day is a meal.

The four beers I downed did a good job of making the wait tolerable, even as it extended past what we were originally told.   We wound up standing around for 70 minutes until our buzzer lit up. Eventually we got seated and were greeted by our polite but rather generic waiter.  One thing that we typically enjoy at the Naples Carrabas are servers that make an effort to engage the customers in a very friendly way.  Well this guy was not up to snuff in that regard.

Our meal itself was good as normal.  Since it was “Valentine’s Day” I didn’t even make a fuss about getting desert after a caloric bulging pasta and bread filled meal.  Ali I shared  some chocolate desert that went well with my coffee.

Saturday night I started watching season 4 of Breaking Bad.  Randall had given me the season on a set of DVD-R’s.  Well the 360 can be weird when it comes to playing content on DVD-R’s.  Although I watched Dexter on burned DVD-R’s as well, for some reason the BB discs absolutely would not play.

Well after futzing around unsuccessfully with it for a bit I punched “breaking bad” into the 360 Bing search to see what my online options were.  I saw I could get episodes on Vudu, a service I never used before.  If I signed up for the service I got a $5 credit which was enough for me to “buy” the first two episodes.

Well of course I had no intentions of buying all of the episodes. I later figured out a work around.  I throw the dvd into my computer and create a 4 episode AVI file that I can stream to the 360.  I tested it out last night and it works well.  It goes without saying that so far the current season of Breaking Bad is outstanding.

When I woke up Sunday morning I felt crappy.  Basically the lower half of my body just felt shitty.  The spot where I fell not only had painful brush burns but also some bruising as well.  Me left knee didn’t feel fantastic either.  I was walking around like a stiff 80 year old for a good portion of the morning.

Sunday was very low key for the most part.  I was feeling unmotivated plus it was damn cold outside, in the 40’s for a good portion of the day.  I did have one suggestion, to take the dogs out to the swamp for a walk, since the cold temperatures would help prevent them from getting overheated. We headed to the swamp after lunch.

As expected, the dogs definitely had more endurance walking in the cold air, we wound up going the furthest into the swamp on foot than we ever had.  I sort of expected to see a lot of gators out trying to warm up in the sunshine.  I was surprised that we saw no adult gators at all, only 3 baby gators up on a log.

We did have a swamp first as we were on the way back.  A decent sized animal, a little smaller than Nicki, darted out on the path in front of us.  It paused for a few seconds before the barking of the dogs scared it away, it was a bobcat.  Ali and I knew that bobcats were a pretty common Florida predator but they are typically nocturnal.  This was the first time we ever saw a bobcat in the wild.

After the dogs settled down we continued walking until we ran into two women walking into the swamp that Ali happened to know.  We were surprised that after we told them of the bobcat sighting, pointing back to where we saw it, the bobcat had reappeared, standing in the middle of the path, interested in something. It was a cool way to wind up the hike.

Sunday evening I watched the Planet of the Apes movie, the new one of course.  Ali started watching the movie with me but soon bailed.  The theme of the chimps getting abused was not something that she was interested in watching. Of course the abuse lays the groundwork for some payback later on.

I liked the movie overall although there were some loose ends that were sort of left dangling in the wind.  I couldn’t help but think about that woman that had her face ripped off by a chimp repeatedly through out the film.  I’d give the flick a B+, worth a rental.

I have outlined once or twice the annoying problem I have with toenail fungus.  It has been an issue for a long, long time, probably pushing 10 years at this point.  Thankfully it has been isolated to only 3 of my 10 toes.

Well over the years I have been trying various things to clear it up.  I have applied various creams to the affected toes before bed and then covered it with a sock.  I have soaked the feet in warm water and epsom salts.  I have cut the nail super short and tried to file the affected area.  None of it has really worked.

Now I think part of it is a lack of patience and consistency on my part.  It takes a long time to treat this sort of thing and an even longer time for the affected nail to grow out.  I think I have not been diligent enough.

Well anyway I recently did a search for home remedies for the problem and hit on this page.  Two of the suggestions I had not heard before, using vinegar and/or WD-40.

WD-40 is truly a magical substance.  I have heard it suggested for all sorts of applications outside of it’s intended automotive lubricant designation.  Anyway I read multiple reports of people treating their fungus successfully by simply applying WD-40 to the affected area twice a day, simple enough.  Hey I have nothing to lose.

On a related foot subject, when I was at Sam’s Club Friday I got the inspiration buy some new socks.  My sock drawer has been filled with mostly older socks that are the varying shades of off white / gray that socks go through during their lifespan.

Well I saw packs of BLACK socks and was inspired.  Black socks make so much sense. If black socks get dirty  they still look black, what a brilliant invention.  I had two choices, Burlington socks and New Balance branded socks.  Seeing the Burlington socks were made in the USA and the NB socks were made in Mexico made the decision a no brainer.  I threw out any even slightly questionable old white socks I had in my drawer and added my 11 pair of fresh black socks to the mix.

Next week my dad, step mom, my brother, his girlfriend and the two dogs will be arriving for an extended visit.  I am taking all of next week off as a result.  I am hoping to get all of the SSR radio upgrade stuff ordered so I can use some of that time to do the installation.  Dad is always looking for a project to help me with when he visits anyway.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention Whitney Houston died.  As you can tell I am really broken up about it.  I have little sympathy for someone with so much talent that threw it away and basically turned into a crack whore.  I have a very Amy Winehouse’esque attitude about it.  If you are going to keep playing Russian roulette with your life, don’t be surprised when you finally hit the chamber with a bullet in it. See ya later Whitney.