Archives March 2012

So we are coming up to one week to go before we move Ali to her new place.  We have been trying to work through the various details for how things will work in the short term.  I am confident that we will be able to handle any issues that come up, that is what we do.

One of those details is how I am going to configure Ali’s computer to function as a remote participant in my local home network.  I am going to mess around with using Microsoft’s remote access features to try to tie everything together.  It is a feature I haven’t had much experience with so it will serve double duty as a learning opportunity.

My new financial reality makes me look at everyday expenses in a whole new light, for instance when I filled up the SSR today.  Not only does the Corvette motor in the truck require expensive, high octane gas, it also has a HUGE gas tank, I am guessing it is close to 25 gallons.  Dropping 82 bucks to fill it used to be an event that would not cause a second of pause.  That is not the case any longer.

This money awareness has already affected other behaviors.  Around the house I am much more conscious of leaving lights on, computers unattended but turned on and any other activity that could be unnecessarily sucking money out of my pocket.

The trip across the alley in the party van to watch Ali’s race now has a price tag associated with it as I imagine the gas costs to push the 16 year old party van back and forth across the state.  It is just the way things are going to have to be, unconscious spending is no longer a luxury either of us can afford.

Besides Ali’s race on Sunday and the regular house chores, I am sure this weekend will be the official start to packing.  Ali has at least 50 boxes in the dining room waiting to be filled.

I have still found myself to be in cylon mode recently, not feeling any of the waves of emotion that hit me the first couple days after we decided to separate.  I told Ali that maybe it is because I am focused on the logisitics of what has to happen to make it all go down.  Maybe it is just a self defense mechanism.

Our neighbors are in the process of getting their house Rhinoshielded.  Evidently Sadie found it impossible to contain her excitement about all of the people next door and tore a hole in yet another section of screen.  In addition to this I saw the panel in the door was once again loose from the result of her head butting it.

Last night I decided to get the repair out of the way.  The panel was a bit of a pain in the ass to fix because of the rose bush in front of part it and the hold down wire that crosses in front of it.  It wasn’t one of my cleanest looking repairs but it is “good nuf”.

The old screen is just brittle at this point.  I am hoping the Super Screen I have been replacing it with holds up better.

Ali has been bringing home a ton of boxes in preparation for her move.  Our dining room is now stuffed with boxes waiting to be filled.

The boxes are the first real visual sign of the impending major change that is rapidly approaching.

In preparation of our sofa and leather chair following Ali to her new place I have started looking at used furniture on Craigslist to replace it.  I’d like to get a a big sectional to fill the space.  The biggest issue will be transporting it.  No sectional will fit in my Tacoma without multiple trips.

A lot of people are not only surprised by the fact that Ali and I are separating, they are surprised even more by how we have been keeping things pretty much status quo since making the decision.  Our routine, thus far, has not changed much.  We still are sharing the same bed and carrying on almost like nothing is changing.  Yea I guess it is sort of odd but it feels fine to me(us).

This weekend I am still planning to pile the dogs in the van in the early AM and drive across the state to support Ali in the Nautica triathlon.  Again, this could be viewed as weird by some.

I never claimed to be normal.

Yesterday I turned my cost cutting focus to Comcast since I recently came off a promotion for my cable internet service.  The price had ballooned to $45, way too much for my now much more frugal tastes.

I was able to get my price reduced without speaking a single word, handling the entire transaction via Comcast online chat.  I took a downgrade to 12 mbit service, which is still plenty for me.  I secured a rate of $29.95 for the next 12 months which I could live with.

Ali has been getting a taste of hassle as well as she is trying to lay the groundwork for her move.  For the first time in her life she is going to be dealing with some stuff that was normally exclusively handled by me.  I have been trying to help her make some of those choices but of course the ultimate decision will be hers alone.

I have been sort of numb to my upcoming new reality the last couple days.  Even though a major change in my life is rapidly approaching it almost seems surreal. At this point I wish I could fast forward through all of the emotions that are sure to leak out and plop myself safely on the other side of the split.

I got a shiny A on my dentist report card.  They were very impressed with the improvement of my gums due to a focus on flossing I made over the past 6 months.

The announcement of Ali and my separation seems to add to the steady stream of other long time couples splitting up recently in our circle.  Over the past year there have been a number of people that either split up or in the process of doing so.  It’s not a bandwagon that I am all that happy about jumping on but oh well.

So my blog entry yesterday was like my cyber press conference announcing our upcoming parting of ways.  As expected a number of people were taken by surprise by the announcement but universally nothing but kind words and support for both of us have been put forth which we both appreciate.

So both of us have started on the mountain of details that will need to be handled in order to facilitate our separation.  Yesterday I worked on changing a number of accounts that were set up to use the American Express credit card that going forward will be solely used by Ali.  I changed them all to bill to my Amazon rewards card instead.  I was surprised by just how many accounts there were, I bet in total I had to change almost a dozen.

Then I turned my attention to the necessary process of reducing monthly expenditures as money will now become something I have to pay much closer to attention to than I have for the last decade.

The first thing I did was kill a universal life policy that I have had active since my 20’s.  It was only for 100k and it’s premiums were rising quarterly.  I have life insurance through work and a much larger policy Ali and I set up a couple years back so there was no reason to keep this one active.

Cancelling it was sort of a lackluster experience.  The phone rep on the other end could have cared less I was cancelling a policy I had in place for around 20 years.  She basically said she didn’t have to cancel the policy, I just had to stop paying for it and it would die.

I remember when I was pitched the policy in the 90’s it was presented as not only a life insurance policy but an investment vehicle that could potentially generate some serious dollars.  Lol, what a joke, the cash value on the policy is basically nothing.

Next up I called Truly Nolen, the company that we have utilized for pest control at our house since it was built.  They have been annoying me for awhile, raising their rates several times over recent years.  I got a woman on the phone named Wendi.

I told Wendi that I just received the latest notification of a rate hike and I was thinking about cancelling the contract altogether as it is just too expensive.  Wendi said she could exempt me from the rate hike if I liked, ONLY charging me $127 for the 15-20 minutes the guy spends at our house once every 3 months.

I told her I still felt that number was excessive.  Wendi became obviously annoyed that I didn’t lavish her with praise for offering to not raise my rate further.  She then asked me what I would consider a reasonable rate.  I told her something less than $100.

I could hear Wendi rolling her eyes through the phone as she told me in a perturbed tone there was no way they could do that.  Hmm so I guess ZERO dollars is better than a 100 bucks.  Without any further attempts at remediation she said she would cancel my account.  When I asked her if there was some sort of confirmation number of the cancellation she said “Use my name and today’s date, GOOD BYE”  Haha you are welcome for 10 years of business Truly Nolen, I’ll be sure to look elsewhere if I look to reestablish pest control in the future, you pricks.

My final cost cutting of the day was a call to ADT whom we pay for monitoring our security system.  The security system was something that we did entirely to help Ali’s feeling security living out in the boonies.  Once we got the dogs, especially the addition of Sadie it was hardly necessary as the dogs sound like dual Cujo’s whenever someone approaches the house.

Anyway, I called up ADT and told them I was interested in cancelling.  Unlike Truly Nolen, they seemed more interested in keeping my business, offering several reduced rates before finally accepting my repeated desire to just cancel, although I did thank the rep for their efforts.

So thus ended the first round of cost cutting measures, I am sure there will be additional austerity measures on the way.

I am conflicted though, there are a couple items for the SSR that I really should take care of, the panhard bar and an upgraded radiator fan.  The bent panhard bar that resides under the truck now could literally allow the rear tires to hit the wheel well if I cornered hard.

The stock fan on an SSR is dramatically underpowered.  When I sit in traffic the engine temp routinely will climb to 235 degrees.  With the brutally hot Florida summer on it’s way I really should replace the fan with the upgraded unit.  This fan swap is something most owners on SSRFANATICS have already done.

I will have to decide if I want to bite the bullet and spend the money now.  It should be the only two items on the upgrade list that are mechanically important as opposed to other vanity/performance upgrades.

Over the weekend I had one of those parasitic home related expenses that seem to pop up so routinely.  The weed whacker died.  There was something wrong with the clutch, as I was running it the area around my hand was getting very hot and it coordinated with a  dramatic loos of power at the trimming head.  The engine was cranking but it felt like the head was “slipping”.

It was a cheap weed whacker to start with so there was no point in spending money to fix it.  I put the old weed whacker and the even older whacker with a gummed up carburetor I was holding on to for some dumb reason, out front where they were picked up by somebody in less than a half hour.  It’s always nice to have a built in neighborhood trash removal.  Almost anything I put by the road finds a new home somewhere, regardless of it’s condition.

I picked up a Poulan Pro weed whacker as a replacement.  It seemed to work quite well to finish up the second half of the property.

My new lunch box arrived over the weekend.  Well, new to me, it is actually a used box I grabbed on ebay.  It is an updated version of the 20 year old box it is replacing.  It looks slightly bigger on the outside but it’s interior dimensions are the same which is all that matters.

It feels kind of weird carrying in a box that does not have pieces of plastic falling off.  It seems to work just as well as old faithful.  My original lunch box will find it’s way onto some shelf on the property. I just don’t feel like tossing it out.

Last night I tried to keep some of my normal routines in place, heading outside for a brief work out.  You can see the first video of a GUTS routine along with my attempt at Bar-baric mode of this month’s challenge, dragon flags.

It was the first time I ever got a full ROM dragon flag on video.  This move is really tough for me since I have such a long build.  After the third rep I literally started seeing stars so I stopped there. 🙂

Well it is anticipated if you are in our inner circle and already have a clue about what I am referring to.

I am not a fan of those people that like to post ambiguous things on Facebook as a status update and then leave the reader to guess what the fck they mean. so to avoid that, here you go, Ali and I are going to be separating.

Yes that is not a typo.

To say it has been a tough weekend would be an understatement although to the casual observer they probably wouldn’t even know as both of us are pretty good at putting up a facade.

The separation conversation started after we had one of our “virtual” arguments, started by my blog post on Friday that was met with Facebook action from her later.  Anyone that follows me/her knows that more than once we have aired our squabbles via cyber mediums.

Surely it is not an effective way to resolve such issues yet we have gone down that path more often than I care to admit.

So anyway, I knew when I got home I would be walking in the door to an unhappy camper.  I tried to cut to the chase and asked her quickly if she wanted to clear the air so we could move on with our night.  She came out but quickly the discussion turned on to an expanded subject matter.  I told her for the past several weeks that I have noticed she was being unusually cold and distant towards me.

Ali sort of shrugged her shoulders and said she was tired of things, tired of issues that we have always had but never resolved.  Instead these issues get pushed below the surface for a period of time until they pop up again and again. Ali and I have struggled with this our entire relationship.  It is very mentally draining.

I agreed that I was tired of them as well and asked her what she wanted to do about it.  I was a bit surprised when Ali was the one to first mention separation as the next step, something we have talked about at various times in the past, but we never had the courage to approach it seriously as an outcome.  Although this wasn’t the path I expected my Friday evening to go, I agreed with Ali’s general premise and the conversation continued from there.

Typically when you hear about married people splitting up it normally is accompanied with stories of a hellacious argument that starts the process, things getting thrown, things getting broken. It was nothing like that for us.

Instead we talked out a basic framework of how it would go down in a surprisingly civil and calm matter.  We both agreed that although it is going to be the source of much pain and anguish, in the long run, this would be a move we both looked back upon as the right thing to do.

It was a very bizzaro situation.  After our discussion we ate our pizza and watched Biggest Loser, just like a normal Friday night.

We kept up the business as usual exterior on Saturday morning as we timed a race, not letting on to anyone that the Duffey team was going to be splitting up.

My feelings were all over the map.  I would have repeated moments where I felt like crying if I allowed myself to think about past good experiences Ali and I shared or about the future arrangements which will include the dogs moving with Ali.  That will be the worst part moving forward.  Not having Nicki and Sadie around on a daily basis will literally break my heart.  It’s going to be damn tough on them as well.

Ali didn’t waste any time before looking for somewhere to live.  She found a couple possibilities and asked if I wanted to come with her since I knew more of what to ask, which I do.  It was a bit awkward accompanying your wife to look at a place to live without you but I’ll chalk it up to a life experience.

We looked at several places, all of them had some pluses and minuses but none of them got Ali terribly excited.  Well we got a suggestion from Christy about one more place before we were ready to head back.  Low and behold this was by far the best option we saw all afternoon.  It was dog friendly, new construction, in a great location and just inside the high end of what we figured Ali would be able to swing rent wise.

We went back on Sunday and finalized the paperwork, Ali will be moving there in early April.

The rest of the weekend kind of went the same way, lots of weird emotions that ran the gamut.  Ali actually seemed to be handling her new reality quite well, she was genuinely excited about her new living arrangements.  To be honest in a way I was jealous.  It would be pretty sweet to move to a nice place that is much closer in with no maintenance or long list of to do’s that have to be addressed week in and week out.

Ali and I both agreed her staying at our house would just be a mess.  Financially she couldn’t swing it and her attempting to handle all the upkeep that I do would have quickly became miserable.  Plus I have a lot more big items like the 3 vehicles that would have to stay there.  Her getting her own place was the only option that made sense.

Our attempts at normalcy continued when I accompanied Ali on a training bike ride late Sunday afternoon.  I suspect even once we are living at two different addresses we will continue to be each others training partner on occasion.

Over the weekend both Ali and I made calls to our parents to inform them about the major change as well as telling our close friends.  Of course everybody was surprised but supportive.  This blog entry will be my notice to the rest of the world.

I am trying to maintain an overall positive attitude about the changes that are now on the way.  I expect a lot of tears to be part of the process but I’m hopeful both of us can wind up in a better place where we both find meaningful happiness.

I think we both knew this day would eventually come, it’s just too bad we ate up 15 years getting around to it.

I forgot to mention earlier this week I found a replacement for my rapidly deteriorating lunch box.  It is a blue model that appears to have similar dimensions to mine.  It is used but I could care less.

I have already decided that I won’t be tossing my old box in the recycle bin, at least not yet.

After work I took a shot at normal mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge which is dips after a 20 second static hold.  My 25 reps was a little less than I hoped for but I absolutely had nothing left at the end, my tri’s were shaking.

Last night I finally got around to making some fresh juice for dinner, something that just hasn’t happened lately for a few different reasons.  Last night the mixture included carrots, beets, celery, tomato, spinach and apple.

The stuff I was watching yesterday about the insidious nature of wheat was pretty eye opening.  Finding out that a piece of whole wheat bread has a higher glycemic index than a spoonful of pure sugar puts an entirely new spin on things.

Plus the fact that wheat has undergone the same process as soy and corn where the plant is modified to be able to survive exposure to highly toxic weed killers is just more gas for the fire.

Our food chain is just full of landmines wherever you look.  Corn has been turned into the backbone of the mess between it’s use to fatten up livestock to it’s utilization as the world’s most insidious sweetener.

Soy, which has been pitched as a great meat replacement by the companies that profit by growing it, is actually not very good at all for you when you do some digging around into what it actually does when ingested.

And now I can add wheat and it’s “wheat belly” effect, causing  blood sugar spikes higher than if you were swallowing teaspoons of sugar.

Now short of growing your own food exclusively, there is no way to escape the evil food empire. The best course of action is to practice moderation as much as possible.  If you are slamming bread, even wheat bread or other grain based products like it is going out of style you definitely are not doing your body any favors.

During the week lately I hardly see Alison at all.  Since she has a triathlon coming up in two weekends she has been adding on to her group training sessions.  In total she has been doing 6-7 group training sessions per week. When she does come home at night she is typically has little energy to do much more than eat and go to bed. It surely doesn’t make for much quality interaction/communication.

Last night was pretty much par for the course, our main interaction was when I noticed Ali’s latest impulse purchase, a new pair of cycling glasses.

I asked her about the purchase, questioning the need to buy ANOTHER pair of glasses when she already owns no less than 5 pairs of sport glasses.  Ali’s logic was much the same as her purchase of a “swimming parka”, these glasses were specialized, and automatically change their tint level as daylight changes. If there is one thing she loves, it is specialization.

This weekend I have a race to time on Saturday.  This is my least favorite race of all to time because it is literally held on a beach.  Sand gets everywhere.  Sand and electronic equipment just do not mix very well.  I really would like for this race to not be chip timed . The hassle/benefit ratio just does not work.

I have a new set of plugs and spark plug wires for the Tacoma.  After 136,000 miles it is way, way overdue. I watched a video on the basic procedure to remove/replace them which appears to be a mild pain in the ass but nothing I can’t muddle through.

I think we will be doing a bike ride on Sunday but I won’t be swimming laps yet.  Although the pain in my ear is gone it still does not feel 100% normal.

I neglected to mention that today is my little brother Patrick’s birthday.  He turned 26 which is hard to believe.  He has such a bright future ahead of him.

Yesterday I received training on how to use an AED (Automatic Emergency Defibrillator).  They recently installed an AED at our office.  After receiving the training I wondered why it was necessary at all.  It makes the process pretty much idiot proof as long as you can read and follow direction.  The machine talks you through what to do.  One thing I did not know was it actually will do a test to verify if the persons heart is actually stopped before it advises you to administer a shock.

So after work I had a running club board meeting to attend.  It has become a tradition that I indulge in my once or twice a month McD’s habit before going to the meeting since I had an hour to kill.  I approached a near by location and pulled into the rather lengthy drive thru line which had 5 or 6 vehicles in it.

As I was sitting there an eternal dialogue began in my head.  I recalled my visit to the fair the night before and how I felt as I walked through the livestock area, specifically the miserable cow with it’s sad eyes.  I was conflicted about indirectly contributing to the demise of such animals by buying and eating hamburgers from McDonald’s of all places, one of the great facilitators of feeding the population garbage food.

The habitual part of me argued that the burger, small fries and Diet Coke would taste good, plus I only have this junk once in awhile, anything bad if it is in small enough quantities or frequency  is typically ok.

Well the logical part of my mind won out.  I pulled out of the line and headed down to the nearby Subway where I had a 6 inch tuna (never saw a sad tuna) on wheat bread with tomato, lettuce and spinach.  I washed it down with water.

I felt good about my choice and applying some willpower instead of just mindlessly consuming something that conflicts with how I really feel about animals in the food chain.  Although I don’t know that I will ever declare myself a hard core pescatarian(fish as only meat) or vegetarian I hope that when given an option I will go the non-carnivore route.

Of course one established part of a non-meat diet are whole grains, especially wheat. This morning one of my bar buddies posted a video of a professor speaking about the real deal with today’s wheat.

Now I was already familiar with the genetic manipulation of corn and soy to maximize yields while making them immune to toxic weed killers.  Well evidently the same sort of work has been done with modern wheat as well.

Of course this doesn’t really surprise me if I am being honest.  You can be almost assured that anything that is mass produced by the food industry is going to have shit in it that if you knew about would give you pause.

Anyway, if you want to get more depressed about the state of the food industry, take a look at this.

There were two surprises in yesterdays NFL news. The first was the news that Tim Tebow was traded to the Jets.  This didn’t seem to make any sense to me considering they just gave their starting QB,  Mark Sanchez a huge contract extension that he really didn’t deserve based on performance.  It seems like a horrible fit.

Sanchez has a history of having a rather frail personality.  Having Tebow on the team means he will be constantly looking over his shoulder and the fans will surely be chanting for Tebow the second Sanchez screws up.

Then later in the day there was news that the Tebow trade was back in the air and he now had an option to go to the Jets OR the Jaguars.  The Jags seemed to be a much better fit if for no other reason that the presence of Tebow would help pump some much needed excitement and attendance numbers into the franchise.

Well once again this morning the report is Tebow will be going to the Jets after all, that’s a real head scratcher for me.  It certainly doesn’t make the Jets brain trust appear to be very sharp.

However the real shocker for me yesterday was the news that the league was suspending the Saints coach, Sean Peyton for the entire 2012/2013 season for his role in the team bounties.  Evidently the defensive coordinator for the Saints, Greg Williams, was offering bounties for his defensive players to injure opposing QB’s to the point where they are knocked out of the game.  Williams, who is no longer with the team, has been suspended indefinitely.

Anyway, I thought the suspension was really severe.  The idea of bounties in the NFL is quite old.  Hell I remember Buddy Ryan talking about them openly during his time with the Eagles.  Well evidently in the new warm and fuzzy NFL this is a major no no.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think offering money for players to try to hurt an opposing team’s player is cool at all.  I just think the year long suspension without pay (will cost Peyton 6 MILLION DOLLARS) is over the top.

Sure, suspend him for a few games him but don’t cripple the team for the entire year in the process.  Hell they also took two draft picks away from the team in addition to a hefty fine.

Obviously this was intended to send a message.  I am sure the rest of the teams in the league heard it loud and clear.

So after I got home and made the dog’s supper, Ali and I headed over to the county fair which is literally a mile away from our house.  It is one of the very rare things that we don’t have to drive a minimum of 15 minutes to reach.

We have had a mixed experience with the fair over the years.  The first few years after we moved out there the fair used to actually give people on our street free tickets as a thank you for putting up with the noise the event generates for 10 days.  That good neighbor policy ended about 5 years ago.

There was a number of years when the fair ran in February that it landed in the middle of horrible weather.  I recall several years it rained almost the entire week and others where it was ridiculously cold by Florida standards.

There have been a couple years where we were disenchanted enough with the fair that we didn’t bother going at all.  The revocation of the free passes and the bullshit parking fee just made the event not seem worth the money.

Moving the fair to mid-March was a wise move as far as more friendly weather conditions for sure.  They have had great weather, last night being no exception.  They also wised up and stopped charging people extra to park.  On top of that, last night was half price night since Tuesday night isn’t typically a big crowd time of the week. We got to the fairgrounds around 6:30.

Going into the fair I had two loose agenda items.  I wanted to see what this years “big” ride was, since it was advertised as “The scariest ride in America”.  I also was interested in seeing the high dive act, something I never saw at the fair before.

We planned to eat at the fair so the first thing we did was walk the grounds, checking out our various food options.  As we did we passed the “Beer Tent”.  I have never had beer at the fair for some reason.  I decided I would try it to see if it enhanced my fair experience.  The answer was definitively, YES.

I sipped my beer as we entered the hardcore carnie area of the fair, it is an atmosphere that I really do not like.  I hate having these people getting in my face to play dumb games with prizes I don’t want.  I had various tactics tried on me during our walk through the area.

Several people tried to appeal to my manhood, insisting I should try to win one of these ridiculous oversized stuffed animals for my woman. One guy offered to let me play for free because I was drinking Budweiser.  Another held two quarters out to me and said I could play for free.  All of these people got the same response from me, “No thanks buddy…” with no eye contact.

I was somewhat bummed when I saw the the BIG ride was actually something I had ridden before.  It was called SPEED. It is basically a large rotating arm with a car on either end that has two seats.  It simply rotates you around at a high rate of speed.  Because of it’s large size it is pretty intimidating.  I recall getting the sensation of flying when I did it years ago.  However I would not classify it as the scariest ride in America.  Oh well it saved me 10 bucks.

On the way back I was ready for my second beer.  Since I was drinking on an empty stomach at this point I was feeling the effects pretty quickly.  Plus the beer was reasonably priced, $3 for a draft filled to the absolute rim.  When I got the second beer the old woman taking the money clued me in that after 7PM happy hour started where I could get TWO beers for $5.  I thanked her for the tip.

Speaking of tips, I wound up handing out a number of them while at the fair.  Each time I hit the beer tent, a total of three times, I threw an extra dollar in the tip bucket.  Two food vendors got tips and the friendly bathroom attendant got a couple bucks out of me as well.  Why there was a bathroom attendant at a county fair is beyond me but he did a nice job of keeping the area clean so I had no issue throwing him a couple bills.

Generally speaking, I try to be kind and courteous to people working at the fair.  I always am conscious of just how tough it has to be to try to carve out a living in that environment.

I decided to try something different for dinner, I got an arepa, a Cuban item.  It was two corn meal patties with cheese in between them.  It was really good.  Ali had a few bites of it as well and agreed it was some good stuff.

Ali scored a slice of pizza for her dinner which we ate in an area with some small picnic tables.

We then headed over to the “barn” and looked at the turkeys, ducks, chickens and rabbits that were on display.  I always enjoy seeing the animals but I need to keep my displeasure of seeing them in small little cages tucked away.

We also went into the petting zoo where you could pet and feed various animals (if you paid $1 for a small container of carrots).  I fed goats, yaks, sheep, and ponies.  Ali opted to not feed the animals this year.  She always feels bad realizing the life of captivity that most of them must endure.

It was now getting close to 7:30, high dive show time.  I told Ali I wanted to hit the bathroom again and take advantage of the happy hour beer deal before we headed to the high dive.  While I was in the bathroom I also had Ali pick me up another Cuban food item, some sort of stuffed, fried potato.  It was good but not up to arepa standards.

I was surprised that Ali actually claimed one of my two happy hour beers for herself since she historically is not a beer drinker at all.

Well by the time I was done it was already a few minutes after 7:30, damn it.  The walk to the high dive area which was near the entrance to the fair was pretty long as well.  By the time we arrived at the show we only caught the grand finale, a young kid jumping into a 10 foot tank from 80 feet high on a tower.  It was cool to see but bummed me out that I didn’t catch the entire show. Oh well, it was my fault.

In the tent towards the front of the fair there were a number of exhibits including art, tables for politicians, people handing out bibles and an anti-abortion group, which I thought was totally inappropriate.

However the we were quite interested in an animal organization that had some pit bull puppies along with a huge Great Dane named Prince. For $1 you could have Prince “sit on your lap” and take a picture with him.

At first I encouraged Ali to do it but she seemed to think I would be a better choice for some reason.  Well of course I was happy to do it so we handed over our dollar and I sat on the “throne”.

Prince has obviously done this drill many times and of course he was much to big to sit on anyone’s lap.  Instead he just sort of backed up to me and plopped his rear end on my knee, it was funny.

Ali never got a chance to kiss the pit bull puppies.  The one time we stopped by they were asleep, the other they were busy wrestling with each other.

So we walked back into the heart of the fair to score our desert.  As we did, we walked by the main stage where various acts perform.  I saw a young man and a woman doing tandem juggling which of course peaked my interest since I am a basic juggler myself.

I also thought it was funny that there were like four people watching the show.  As we watched the act, where they were tossing juggling pins I had to chuckle a bit as they routinely dropped pins.  I then spotted the baby carriage on stage, complete with baby inside.  To be honest I had a bit of a car wreck mentality at first as we watched them perform.  The beers I had definitely were helpful in the situation.

Well then out of nowhere comes an older guy.  Wow he just exuded energy.  Part of his intro included claims he was a world class juggler, named Steve Mills.

He was simply a FANTASTIC entertainer.

Sure he was a great juggler but that was only part of why he was so good.  He was funny as hell and able to improvise on the spot, repeatedly involving the audience in creative and funny ways, including myself.

At one point Steve brought out a mountain bike with a simple challenge.  If anyone in the audience could ride the bike for 20 feet he would give them $20.  He followed up with a brief demonstration where he performed the feat pretty easily.  He showed us why it would be difficult, it was a trick bike with reversed steering.  If you turn the handlebars left the wheel goes right and vice versa.

Well when he asked for volunteers in the small but growing crowd (it grew exponentially once Steve got involved), there was no initial response.  My Bud Light’s kicked in and I raised my hand to be a volunteer/victim.  I hopped up on the stage as I heard Ali laughing, something she did pretty much non-stop during the act.

I hopped on the bike and as predicted was unable to ride it for even that short of a distance without my feet touching the ground.  My brain was just not wired to compensate for the reversed steering.

I stayed up on the stage for awhile, riding the bike around in circles as Steve continued to entertain the crowd.  I eventually conceded I just couldn’t do it.  Steve thanked me for my participation.

The show continued from there with the difficulty of the juggling/stunts intensifying.  They did some impressive team juggling and then compounded the difficulty by bringing out the unicycles and juggling while mounted on them.

It was SUCH a good show and provided so much more entertainment than I ever expected to receive from the fair.  After it ended and the crowd was dispersing I walked up to the stage and told Steve personally how good his show was.  He appreciated my compliment.  His show pushed this year’s fair undeniably to the top of the list as far as the enjoyment scale goes.  I was really having a good time.

We still had to score desert.  Ali and I both grabbed small cones of soft serve, something we may have two or three times a year at most.

On the way back we stopped back at the barn to walk through the other half which was closed our first time through.  This was the side that had the pigs and cows/steer.

I was surprised how many of the pigs were sleeping, I bet over half of them were out cold. They really didn’t look all that different from when Sadie is catching some ZZZZ’s. There was a cute black and white pig laying against the front of his pen that I interacted with a bit. I petted him for a bit, despite the warning signs all around that advised against it.

Then there was a cow laying down that had a very sad aura about him.  I commented to Ali how sad the animal looked.  Ali said she would be sad too if she was tied to a fence and knew she was going to be nothing but hamburger. Although I said nothing I agreed.

Walking around the pen made me sad, made me feel compassion for these innocent animals that are slaughtered to feed human beings. It just didn’t feel right.

Truth is my consumption of meat is DRAMATICALLY less than it used to be.  Seeing the animals that wind up on grocery shelves and freezers down the line face to face and eye to eye just makes me want to keep going along that path.

After we finished our cones we finally headed out of the fair after spending over two and a half hours there.  It was without a doubt my best fair experience ever.

I walked out of there with $2 left in my wallet and felt like the $50+ I spent was totally worth it.

Tonight Ali and I are going to venture to the county fair right down the street.  Tonight just happens to be half price admission night, meaning the two of us can get in for a total of $10.  When you add this with the new policy of no parking fee this year we will be getting in the door for a bargain basement price.

In addition to the animal displays which I like to see there are a couple acts that interest me, especially the high dive act.  I heard once again this year they have a “big ride” which the fair was missing last year.  It is described as the “scariest ride in America” .  I will make an evaluation when I get there if I want to ride it or not since I am willing to bet they will be charging $20 to do so.

For a few weeks when I take the dogs out for their last bathroom break of the night I have been noticing two very bright objects low in the western sky (around 9pm) .  I have since heard that these objects are Venus and Jupiter.  I have found it interesting to see the difference in their position relative to each other change on a nightly basis.  At one point they were parallel to each other but now one object is at about 1pm in relation to the other.

I assume the bigger, brighter object is Venus since it is much, much closer to us than then much more physically massive   but distant Jupiter.  I wonder if off the shelf telescopes offer enough magnification to make out any detail on either of these planets.

When I was younger I was fascinated by the stars above and would spend a lot of time simply looking upward at night.  I wondered what exactly was out there and how awesome it would be to find myself magically transported to one of those stars looking back at the rock we are all stuck on now. It was incredible for me to try to wrap my head around the idea that the light I was seeing actually left many of these stars thousands of years ago.

Astronomer was actually one of my earliest ideas as a grown up profession.

I spend precious little time gazing at the sky any more, but when I do the feeling of wonder comes back pretty quickly.  There is so much out there, we are literally a speck of a speck in comparison.