Well the Eagles keep piling on to this season of fail, this time losing a prime time game, at home to the 2-8 Carolina Panthers. At this point I am pretty numb to losing, having it happen 7 times in a row will do that to a football fan.
The porous Eagles defense was just the ticket for Cam Newton to revitalize his season, he ran and threw for a total of 4 TD’s in the win. The Eagles defense under Todd Bowles has been unbelievably poor. They flashed a stat that showed that since he took over, the average QB rating against the Eagles is in the mid 140’s. (VERY VERY high) The D gets no sacks, no interceptions and blows coverage routinely like a cheap hooker.
Bryce Brown stepped in for LeSean McCoy and had a monster game, running for over 170 yards. Unfortunately he also fell prey to the Eagles biggest problem, turn overs, fumbling the ball twice in the 3rd quarter.
Nick Foles did little to help win or lose the game, throwing for a small amount of yardage with no TD’s or INT’s although the Panthers dropped at least three easy picks. Evidently Foles has the common problem a lot of young QB’s do, staring down one receiver, making it easy for a safety to anticipate where he is going.
This team is so inept I almost feel bad for Andy at this point. Yes Andy has the monster share of the blame here since he is the personnel man as well as the coach. His decisions to throw Juan Castillo in as def coordinator and hitch his wagon to the back of Mike Vick are probably two of his biggest mistakes of the last couple years. The high priced free agents the Eagles landed the last couple years have been outright busts as well.
One thing the Eagles were always good at was working the free agent system, both knowing when it was time to cut someone loose as well as making wise free agent acquisitions. That definitely has not been the case recently.
In Andy’s defense, the injuries the Eagles have had this year, particularly to the offensive line have been horrific and disruptive. Throw on top of that the injuries to Vick, McCoy, Jason Avant and now Desean Jackson, you have something like 75% of the Eagles original starting offense sidelined.
But injuries are part of every NFL season and the good teams have back ups or systems that are able to continue forward and be successful despite them. In the Eagles case the wheels have totally fallen off.
Now, as the team with the worst record in the NFC, should the Eagles just continue to play Foles and lose their way to the first or second pick in the draft? It’s fine with me. I’m ready for a fresh start in 2013, if we are still here.
I utilized my Xbox 360 and the WatchESPN service to catch the game. It was a far better alternative to the ATDHENET.TV site I used to use to pull in Eagles games not shown on the Sunday Ticket. The picture was near HD quality although some of the streaming burps were a bit annoying.
However there was one part of the experience which was incredibly annoying, the way commercial breaks are handled. For some reason when games are streamed on WatchESPN they are not allowed to show commercials. So instead during every commercial break they just throw up an ESPN logo with an incredibly annoying and repetitive music track. I literally could not take it anymore by the second quarter and was muting the tv during the breaks, which there were a lot of. I never thought I would find myself thinking, “I wish they would just show a damn commercial…”
The Eagles game capped a disappointing week in fantasy football. I wasted a 51 point performance by Tony Romo with horrible showings by Marshawn Lynch and the Texans defense coupled with goose eggs from Vernon Davis, Pierre Thomas and DeSean Jackson. I now sit at 6-6 after losing three games in a row.
So I have been trying to find ways to help my mom save money on her monthly expenses. One of those targets are her non-electric utility bills, namely what she pays for internet, tv and phone. I already pay for her cell phone but unfortunately she gets very poor reception in her condo so she has a land line that is bundled with Century Link DSL service. The land line includes no free long distance minutes which is very lame.
So I got into an online chat with Century Link customer service posing as mom. I told them that I was on a fixed income and needed to lower my monthly expenses. I said I saw a better deal on Comcast and wanted to see what Century Link would do for me.
I have used the reverse strategy on Comcast several times via online chat and it has always been successful. I currently pay 29.99 for my cable internet, although it is one of their slower packages.
Well the Century Link rep made zero effort to appease me. Immediately saying there was nothing he could do but he wanted to let me know about their 39.99 Prism TV promotion. I said “Wow. I guess I’ll call Comcast.”
I looked at Comcast deals. It looks like we would be able to get a better deal through them if we bundled internet and tv. I would then install a Magic Jack so mom would have unlimited long distance calling.
Unfortunately I need mom to actually do the leg work on this since I can’t set up service on her behalf. I gave her a game plan to follow.
This was one of those weird times where the 4 days off actually felt longer for some odd reason.
On Wednesday night I went to bed very early, I was probably out cold by 9:30. The reason for this was my alarm clock was set at a ridiculously early 3 AM for the Thanksgiving Race I was timing. I had more responsibilities than normal for this event so I wanted to make sure I was there as early as possible. I’d much rather have it done with time to spare than scrambling.
Well imagine my surprise when I woke up on my own at 1:36am. I knew there was no way I would fall back to sleep as I instantly had race related details running through my head. So after checking my email, eating breakfast and announcing my awakening on FB, I finished loading up the truck and headed down towards the race site.
As I approached I actually came upon Matt the race director setting up some signs at about 3:15 am. He had a bunch of stuff to set up on the course and I was tasked with setting up the registration area. He followed me to the race location and directed me to the tents and tables he had stashed the night before. I threw them in the back of the Tacoma, slammed a 5 hour energy and got busy.
I had given a decent amount of thought regarding how to set up the registration area to alleviate the congestion problem we have had in the past. I set up two tents, facing the lot with 8 foot signs attached to each, one designated for the untimed runners/walkers and one for the chip timed participants.
It was sort of peaceful setting everything up by myself since I knew in a short time the area would be overflowing with humanity. By the time Ali showed up I had the registration area pretty much ready to go. I also set up the PA system at the start line as well as staging the finish line equipment.
The combination of the layout and Ali and others work on creating race packets ahead of time for chipped runners helped expedite the registration area greatly. Despite almost 2500 total participants, the lines never got out of hand.
So race start time was approaching. Around 7:15 Ali stepped away from the computer table saying she wanted to take a few pictures. That left me to man the table to make any last minute changes. After helping a couple people I knew I needed to get to the start line but Ali was nowhere in sight. I grabbed the bullhorn and made an announcement for her to come to the desk but still, no Ali.
Well finally I could not wait any longer and I started over to the start line. As I did I finally see Ali whom ironically appeared to be at the start line being asked where I was. I was obviously annoyed as I ran past Ali to the start, she said I didn’t have to wait for her. I was under the impression she was only going to be gone for a minute instead of nearly 10 so obviously there was a miscommunication.
So I run towards the start line and had some club members unroll the timing mats while I got the box up. Evidently Matt was freaking out because he didn’t know how to work the PA system to make announcements and no one else in the area did either. I turned up the volume dial on the mic and we had sound, magic!
So I immediately could tell Matt was in freak out mode which is never good. He starts giving me a countdown to the start of the race, regardless of my readiness or not. He starts playing the Star Spangled Banner on his trumpet which was a like musical timer. I am scrambling to make sure I had the timing box cleared and synched. I manage to get it done a few seconds after the song finishes and Matt is now desperate to start the race, like there was a guillotine above his head.
I tell him the box is up and ready and he starts the race. Well in the mad rush to start I neglect to check my atomic watch for the official start time and to hit the button on my stop watch to start the time. Matt immediately starts in on me saying this can’t happen, he NEEDS me there on time….
I was REALLY angry. I told he had to chill out and that rushing the start caused problems (for the second year in a row). He should only start his pre-race deal once I gave him thumbs up. I have never had a race out of the hundred or more that I have timed where the race director is interested in starting a race before I was ready.
This isn’t even taking into consideration all the other aspects of the race that I was handling beyond the actual timing. He was ultra-focused just that the race didn’t start 3 seconds late instead of the much more important concept of the race starting accurately. I didn’t have time to go Hulk Smash mode on him.
I was planning to use two of the timing mats I used at the start for the finish which in retrospect was problematic. With a race this big there were a number of late stragglers so I wanted to leave the mats down a bit to catch them. Then when it came time to pull them up we had to get the herd of fun runners to get out of the way.
I had two of our guys lug two mats to the finish area. I fast walked by the registration area carrying the start line laptop. I yelled to Ali that I needed the main laptop taken to the finish line. I was still fuming from the start line fisaco and told Ali the reason I was held up was because I was waiting for her to return. She didn’t agree and I knew it was of little consequence now anyway. I just had to fix it.
So I get to the finish line and start a mad scramble. I dig into the start line times file to try to get a decent estimate of what the race start time is. As I am doing that Ali delivers the laptop to the table, and walks away, obviously pissed at me. I look at the laptop and see it is the wrong one. FCK! So now things are getting really desperate. I leap up from my bucket that doubled as a chair and sprint back towards the registration area. I see Ali along the way and tell her she brought me the wrong laptop. I snag the correct one and run back to the finish line at an even faster pace.
I slap the computer on the table and quickly make the connections. I set the time on the timing box, clear the history and get the finish line mats up with about 45 seconds to spare before the lead runner came across, around 21 minutes after the race start. Man, that was way too close for comfort.
As runners started to stream across the mats I just sat there with my head in my hands in disbelief that for the second year in a row, timing this race was a Chinese fire drill, despite all my efforts to make sure it wasn’t. I felt bad about getting short with Ali, which I later apologized for. In the end the race got timed and we had actual chip start times so it was an improvement over last year although the actual race start time was fuzzy, which I am not happy about. The start line fiasco will not happen again, one way or another.
By the time the race was over my 5 hour energy was wearing off, I felt beat. After breaking down everything I loaded up the truck and headed home, very glad the monster event was over.
When I got home I had to quickly get the results processed before getting ready to head right back out. I caught absolutely NONE of the Macy’s parade. I think it may be the first time as an adult that I have not seen any of the parade, that was kind of a bummer. Mom had agreed to host Thanksgiving Dinner, we invited Ali as well.
I met Ali at her place and the dogs and I piled in her Volt for some gas free transport. Mom had prepared a nice meal including Tofurky, something I know mom isn’t thrilled about but I really have come to enjoy. As much as I like the tofurky, the star of the meal is this pineapple casserole type thing that mom makes, it is so good.
We didn’t stay that long at mom’s. Both mom and Ali were attending secondary Thanksgiving celebrations, I was closing out my Turkey Day at home.
At first I was sure I would pass out when I got home. The big meal combined with the 1:30 am wake up is a deadly combination. However somehow once I got done putting the race equipment away I got a second wind. I actually cleaned and weeded during the afternoon. I did collapse in bed shortly after 9PM, what a day.
So Black Friday arrived. I had loose plans to maybe dip my toe into the shopping madness although nowadays much of the hoopla starts Thanksgiving evening so I would already be late to the game. I headed out in the truck around 7:15 or so with my primary goal being grocery shopping.
On the way to Trader Joes I stopped at the Super Wal-mart, I figured there was not better place to observe Black Friday madness. Well it wasn’t so mad. Yea there were more shoppers than normal but it was far from chaotic. I bought some softener salt, a few houseplants, and my first self Xmas gift, an inexpensive Daisy BB Rifle along with 600 BB’s.
The prior week the idea got into my head that it would be kind of fun shooting empty Diet Coke cans off fence posts. They had a sale going on these lower end 650 FPS guns so I jumped in. I plan to wrap it up and put it under the tree (oh I DID set that up too) Merry Christmas to me. I’ll try to act surprised when I open my self-gifts.
I then headed to Trader Joe’s, Sam’s and Publix, in that order. At Sam’s I did some perusing of their Xmas deals but nothing thrilled me. If I needed a TV, this would definitely be the time to get one.
Ali planned to work on Friday so I picked up the girls on the way home so they could hang with me.
Despite my prior edict that there would be no or very minimal Xmas decorating this year I got the urge to to do just the opposite. I hung lights outside and even set up the Xmas tree.
Now I went far less subdued than years past, only lighting up the two front palm trees and running the rest of the LED lights along the fence line. Inside, besides putting up the tree, all I did was hang my monster stocking as well as Tuki’s, get out the snowflake dish towels, the black lab holiday area rug and the pine tree smelling candle.
It’s hard for me to explain why exactly I decided to do some decoration, other than not doing anything felt sort of like giving up, and I don’t like the feel of giving up, ever.
Later Friday afternoon I loaded the girls up to head to Home Depot for garden replenishment supplies. Ali had agreed to come out and help me with the project on Saturday. I loaded up a flat bed with many bags of garden soil and compost. Before doing so I had grabbed a reciprocating saw blade and laid it on the flat bed.
Well when I checked out it was hidden from view and I had forgotten about it. As I unloaded the dirt at the van I saw the blade laying there and realized I had just shoplifted the item successfully, unknowingly. I could have easily just say “F it. I spend a small fortune at Home Depot annually, what harm does not paying for a $12 saw blade do?” However my conscience took over, I marched back into the store and paid for the blade at the self checkout register.
The weird thing was when I left the first time, the security system at the door did not trigger. I assume the large metal flatbed absorbed the EMF field that typically triggers the RFID security tag. When I walked back in with just the blade in hand it blared loudly. However since I was walking in instead of out, no one cared.
Black Friday I also got around to installing my new LED back up lamps in the SSR. What should have been a ridiculously easy procedure became problematic when the passenger side bulb did not want to release conventionally. I wound up extracting it using brute force.
So Ali came out to the house late Saturday morning. I had all the bags of dirt piled by the garden ready to go. Her primary role was to pitch fork the empty beds and do most of the planting/seeding. I followed her forking with the rototiller, turning the soil over. Then I dumped the new soil into the beds and tilled them again. Finally I grabbed the hand rake and tamped down the soil lightly.
This winter’s crops are more kale, red lettuce, carrots, beets, peppers, tomatoes, sweet onions and two broccoli varieties.
After the garden work we worked on the unpleasant job of going through the Xmas ornaments. I had the Rubbermaid containers piled on the lanai for us to go through. We carried them inside and started the miserable task.
I knew it was going to be hard for both of us to do this. Ali got particularly emotional when it came to our shared destination memory ornaments. It got to the point where I asked her if I should just do it myself. I told her I would just keep all of those shared ornaments to make it simpler which she was fine with.
We also used it as an opportunity to donate some unwanted decorations and throw out some we just didn’t need/want. I told Ali I was fine with keeping anything really tacky or ugly, I kind of like a sense of humor in my Xmas tree.
The way it wound up, we took 80% of the Xmas stuff to Ali’s place, which was fine with me. I filled the back of her Volt with containers and loaded the girls up in the party van to take them back.
Ali invited me to stay Saturday night to eat dinner and watch Wanderlust, something she had wanted to see. We watched the movie while eating a Trader Joe’s meal I donated. Although this isn’t the kind of movie I would seek out on my own, it was quite funny. It had many comical and awkward moments, some of which I covered my face just because I felt embarrassed for the character on screen. You would like the movie as long as you aren’t too uptight about penises being front and center. B+
Sunday I had a very open schedule. Anything I wanted to get done had already been done. Ali again was working so I picked up the dogs after a coffee pit stop. We had a very laid back day except for maybe a half hour period where I decided to set a new personal pull up best.
30 pull up reps is a HUGE milestone, especially for an old guy like me, but I will talk about this more on Dufisthenics.
Ali didn’t come out to pick up the dogs until after 8. The dogs and I had a very chill day which included a two hour mid-afternoon nap. I had felt tired ever since Thursday, not all that surprising.
There was no disappointing Eagles game to clog up my Sunday. Instead I get to pollute my Monday evening watching what is likely to be another poor outing.
I am not very happy that I spent much of my weekend walking around with a slight limp since I am doing the Tough Mudder in a few days. I believe I injured myself doing the all out laptop sprint with no warm up on Thanksgiving. It hurt it some more yesterday when an excited Sadie stepped on my flip flop while my right foot was still in it. I turned but my foot didn’t move, sending a jolt of pain through the joint.
Of course it matters very little if my knee is healed or not by race day. I will grind it out and deal with consequences later.
The next 24 hours are going to be pretty insane due to the holiday race I am timing tomorrow. It started bright and early this morning when I had to download the overnight entries for the race, print out 100 pages of registrant lists and then transfer all the data to a laptop to be utilized for early packet pick up today. Then on my way to work I had to drop off the lists, laptop and a couple other things to Alison since she is one of the people working today.
Tonight I have to pick the laptop up and then get everything all ready to go, hopefully getting tobed at a very early hour since I plan on getting up in the middle of the night. Then tomorrow will be just one crazy blur until I emerge out the other side mid-morning. Yes, I am looking forward to it being over with.
Tomorrow I am going over to moms for Thanksgiving dinner, we invited Ali over as well (with the dogs of course) Yes I know, to many it sounds weird that Ali is going to be at the table with us but I never claimed our separation was conventional.
The rest of my long holiday weekend has a few things on the docket along with the normal household duties. For some reason I have an urge to get up early and go mingle with the Black Friday crowd. To do this would be odd on it’s own, to do it this year where Christmas is looking to be a near non-event in my household, makes even less sense.
I may throw a couple lights up outside and get out my big oversized stocking so it can hang there, empty.
So I got home yesterday to be greeted by a very excited Lucky. When I opened up the door to the back yard Lucky was off like a shot. He sprinted across the yard repeatedly like he was an energy balloon that just had it’s neck untied. It was so funny.
He ran around for a good 10 or 15 minutes. At one point he came right at me full speed and jumped, almost knocking me over.
When we finally went back inside I saw that 10 hours inside was a bit too long for him as I saw he pee’d in the bedroom. It’s longer than he is normally left alone so I didn’t bother to try to correct him. I just pulled out the rug cleaner and cleaned the spot thoroughly.
Don got out to the house around 7:30 or so. I was outside walking around with Lucky when he pulled up. I figured Lucky would appreciate one last chance to run around freely. (he did)
I gave Don Luckys report card which was all good besides the small bathroom incident. Don was very surprised that Lucky went on so many road trips without losing his lunch once. We loaded up Lucky’s bed, food and toys and they we were on their way. Obviously Lucky is welcome to come out at anytime, the house felt particularly empty last night after he left.
So we are now in countdown mode to the big Thanksgiving race where somewhere close to 2500 people are going to collapse into a relatively small area. Ali and I have a large role in trying to make the event go as smoothly as possible. Last year was quite chaotic, I am hoping we can keep things a bit more under control this year. I plan on getting on site ridiculously early to make sure I get things up and going.
Friday night my buddy from work met me out at the house. He was dropping off his dog, Lucky. I agreed to watch him for the weekend while Don was out of town.
Don lives in a development so the wide open and leash free confines of my back yard were a totally new experience. At first Lucky didn’t know what to do and was hanging close to Don. Eventually he understood he could roam wherever he wanted.
Don and I positioned ourselves on opposite ends of the yard and called Lucky. He would sprint happily between us, it was cute.
Don didn’t want to have a traumatic goodbye so while I was in the backyard with the dog, he slipped out the front of the house. When I went in with Lucky I felt bad as he darted around the house, looking desperately in each room to see where his dad was. I assured Lucky it was ok. Eventually he settled down. You could tell he was a bit confused through out the night but he was ok and slept through the night, or at least until 3:30 am, when I had to get up to time the race…
The race was way down in Marco Island. I picked up Ali on the way there, she figured that would be a good way to make sure she was up. (and that the Volt wouldn’t have to go into gasoline mode)
Despite driving over 45 minutes to get there, we were the first people on the race site a little before 5:30 am. I got to work setting up the tents that were on site already. It felt quite chilly. I was regretting my decision to just wear a t-shirt. Ali had a sweatshirt and her pink Snuggie.
Soon other people showed up and the field turned into a beehive of activity. With this race Ali and I take on the majority of the pre-race registration organization. Leading up to the race there were some problems with some of the people that signed up on paper so I knew there were going to be a few problems to deal with.
In addition to the cold, it looked like it was about to rain any second. I’m not sure how we managed to stay dry. The start and finish line for this was out on the main road that cuts through Marco, Collier Blvd. In order to set up we needed the police to divert traffic which was supposed to happen at 6:30 am. Well after waiting for a half an hour we finally took matters into our own hands, using cones to divert traffic ourselves. We had the same problem last year.
As usual there was a mad scramble for me to get the mats at the start line up before the official race start time. I got them up with about 45 seconds to spare.
Timing the race went pretty smoothly and we were out of there by 9:30 am. When I dropped Ali off I picked up Nicki and Sadie to bring them out to the house. I figured they would love to meet Lucky, especially Sadie who loves to run around with other dogs.
When I got home I left the girls in the truck while I left Lucky out into the back yard, I didn’t want to confuse the girls with another dog being in “their” house. After a quick sniffing session between the 3 dogs, Nicki and Lucky were off to the races, taking turns chasing each other around the yard, it was very cute.
The play continued inside and for most of the afternoon while I worked on getting various things done around the house. Eventually all three of them passed out.
I was supposed to take mom out to a birthday dinner along with Ali. After seeing how much Lucky loved Sadie and knowing that he was not a danger to relieve himself indoors, I asked Ali if she minded if I brought him along to stay at her place while we went to dinner. She was fine with it.
I was nervous loading Lucky in the van. Don told me that Lucky gets car sick. Basically anytime they go somewhere he throws up in the vehicle. I prepared for this possibility by throwing a towel in the van. If he throws up in the party van, who cares, it’s made for vomit.
Well I was quite surprised that I made it to Ali’s place vomit free. I could tell Lucky was nervous but he held up like a champ. I know Don is an aggressive driver so maybe that contributes to Lucky’s motion sickness, plus, the party van is like riding in a rolling living room.
Lucky had no fear of Ali’s place, anywhere Sadie and Nicki went he felt safe to go to as well. Lucky took to Ali right away, he has such a nice temperament. I really had no worries at all of leaving him there even though I only had him for less than 24 hours at that point.
Mom had asked that we do the dinner at Seasons 52, a place I never had frequented although both Ali and my mom had lunch there in the past. I was immediately impressed when I walked in the door, it was absolutely beautiful inside and the staff at the front door were extremely nice and appeared genuinely friendly.
I didn’t know the place has a seasonal menu and that everything on the menu is prepared to be 475 calories or less! Wow that is awesome. We all enjoyed our meals. Ali and mom got to catch up since they literally had not seen each other since we split up. Of course a cool dining experience like this doesn’t come cheap, but I didn’t expect it to be. I will definitely be going back in the future.
Instead of taking mom right home we decided to go to Ali’s place first so mom could see it. All three dogs were thrilled to see us and there were no disasters created while we were gone which was nice. Mom thought Ali’s place was very cute. We didn’t stay long though since mom had to work the next day.
I loaded Lucky up in the van and dropped mom off. Once again Lucky survived the long round trip to Bonita and home with no incidents.
Sunday morning I had to head over to Ali’s to do get some labels printed for packets she and some of her friends were stuffing for Thursdays Thanskgiving race. While I was there I set up her new printer and loaded up the old printer so it could redeployed back at the house.
I once again loaded Nicki and Sadie up so they could spend the day at the house with Lucky. They had so much fun all day playing. Lucky totally adapted to life on the Duffey estate in no time at all. Watching Sadie and Lucky sprint around the yard just made me smile. Nicki tried to get into the play as much as she could with her physical problems. She tried to get Lucky to wrestle with her but he didn’t take the hint.
Oh man. each week I think the Eagles can’t play any worse and each week they prove me wrong. They made the 3-6 Redskins look like Super Bowl contenders as they obliterated the Eagles 31-6.
The game was so ugly in so many levels. RGIII made so many Eagle players miss tackles I lost count. He completed every pass he attempted except ONE. I had to pick my jaw off the floor when RG III threw a bomb to a wide receiver whom was blanketed by two Eagle defenders, the safety, Coleman and Boykin, a DB whom seems like his specialty is sucking badly. Coleman fell down and Boykin tackled like a girl, allowing a ridiculous touchdown.
The game was just filled with terrible moments. Nick Foles definitely did not impress in his first game starting as the QB. In an attempt to get the ball out quickly he did a lot of throwing before the receiver was expecting the ball. As the game went on he looked increasingly unsure and rarely threw a ball over 5 yards. Of course having one of your starting offensive lineman literally be on the street the week before (was out of football) is never a good thing. Just to make things extra miserable, McCoy got a nasty concussion late in the game.
I can not come up with one positive coming out of that game, the team was terrible in pretty much every way imaginable. At this point I think Andy getting let go is pretty much assured. They need to reboot the franchise, much of the core of this team just isn’t that good, Asmongua, Cromartie, Vick, DeSean Jackson, the entire offensive line.
I think somehow Jason Babin and Trent Cole had their souls ripped out since last season, both of them are basically ghosts, after turning in a dominating season in 2011. Really, the only guy I would be concerned about keeping is LeSean McCoy and the kicker whom is having an outstanding year.
Otherwise this team is just filled with a whole lot of overpaid suck, all of which Andy is personally responsible for putting in place.
Yesterday I also spent some time making signs for the Thanksgiving race. Ali had the idea of using dry erase boards so we could change the signs as needed, I had the idea of mounting them on 8 foot sections of PVC. Here is the result.
I had Nicki and Sadie until late in the evening, I went outside with all three dogs repeatedly so they could play. When Ali eventually took the girls home Lucky was upset that he could not join his new dog friends.
Ali called me and said as she drove away Sadie was perched up on the seat looking out the back window towards the house, probably wishing the same thing.
Yesterday on the way home from work, the radio show I listen to, Stan & Haney, were taking calls from people about old video games. Haney, whom is around my age is still a very avid gamer. After hearing people call in and reminiscing about games like Pac Man, Space Invaders, Asteroids and more I was ready to call in myself and chip in, unfortunately I didn’t have the studio number available.
I don’t know if I ever talked in detail on just how big video games were in my life as I was growing up, so now I will. Read on.
I think the first exposure I had to electronic games of any sort was the handheld Mattel Football game. The game was incredibly simplistic, You controlled a red LED via 3 directional buttons and simply tried to avoid being touched by the lighter colored LED’s (the defense). I remember when my mom bought it for me from Two Guys department store. I felt like I had just been handed a pot of gold.
My first home console was an Intellivision, I never owned an Atari 2600. The Intellivision was more advanced than the the Atari, with better graphics, an unique disc controller with keypad buttons and even games with voice! (later)
My brother and I played that thing to DEATH. We especially enjoyed the sport titles for the Intellivision. I can not tell you how many thousands of games of baseball we played. I can only tell you I won more than I lost. 🙂
Of course arcades were extremely popular back then. An arcade to me was like a drug dealer for a crack head. A pocket jammed with quarters meant I had a couple hours of video game “high” ahead of me.
I played all the early favorites incessantly, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Missile Command, and literally hundreds more. I was never fantastic at these games, I would put my skill level at mildly good.
The arcade that I most frequently visited was at the local bowling alley which was within bike riding distance. I can still imagine quite vividly the smell of the place, the mixture of the oil used on the lanes, stale cigarette smoke and the antiseptic they spray in the rental bowling shoes. If I added up the hours I spent in that place it would be staggering.
A real treat would be when I went to the Berkshire Mall and visited the huge arcade up on the second floor. They had all the latest and greatest games.
I could literally do a few books describing my experiences and thoughts about various games. Like the exhausting, huge trackball football game where you literally controlled X’s and O’s on the field. Or how about the laser disc games like Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace that sucked enough quarters out of my pocket to pay off the national debt. They were maddeningly addictive.
My hard core video game habit even lead me to a life of crime. One time when we were on vacation in Rehoboth (boardwalk arcades were AWESOME), I actually snuck money out of my mom’s wallet once my own personal stash of quarters was consumed. I felt really bad about it and eventually confessed my larceny to mom. I remember after that happened it made me really evaluate just how much time/money I was spending on video games.
Even with my slightly less obsessed attitude towards gaming, I have continued to love the hobby all through out adulthood. I have owned an Intellivision, Colecovision, Neo Geo, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, NES, Super NES, Wii, Playstation, Original Xbox, and Xbox 360. I may be forgetting a couple.
Well into my adult years, I spent a lot of time and energy on console gaming. I remember when my idea of a good time was going to malls/video game stores and seeing what new titles were available. I would actually drive 50 miles to other areas in the hope they had something I could not find locally.
Although I obviously am still quite tied up in the virtual world of today it is a bit different. My love of console gaming has faded in the past decade or so even though if I throw a game in my 360 I almost always enjoy my time playing. But for whatever reason the desire to get me to throw a game in there just isn’t present.
If I do game it is either on the PC (Wow) or the occasional game on the Iphone or Kindle Fire.
I do credit my life of gaming to some positives as well. It definitely helped mold my mind into the troubleshooting tool that I use both with my line of work and in my personal life. Speaking of work, my love of gaming definitely helped steer me to my career in IT which I have done very well in.
So if you ever want me to talk your ear off, bring up old video games. It’s one subject I can never run out of things to say about.
This weekend I will have a new dog under the roof, Lucky. Lucky is the dog of my friend from work whom is going out of town for the weekend. Instead of kenneling the pooch he asked me if I would watch him which I of course agreed to do. I met Lucky before, he is a good boy and reminds me of Sadie in a number of ways.
It should be interesting to see how he adjusts to my surroundings for a few days. I know he will love having the backyard to go crazy in. I also look forward to having Nicki and Sadie come out to meet him. Sadie will appreciate having a set of younger dog legs to run around with.
Today is my mom’s 65th birthday. It’s hard to believe that number, almost as hard to believe as my number will be 45 next month. The years click by so damn fast at this point. I am taking mom to dinner Saturday night to celebrate even though I don’t think either of us really feel that “celebrating” birthdays is very genuine at this point. The last birthday I recall being excited about was 24 years ago.
So I saw more women pop up in the general sex scandals. I also saw pictures of all females involved, including the wives of General Petraeus and Allen.
When you compare the pictures of the wives versus the alleged mistresses there is obviously a stark contrast. Do you think any news outlet would be bold enough to post a headline like “Survey says, generals prefer sexy 40 year olds to dumpy wives” The inverse can be true as well, Jill Kelly’s husband looks like he is built like a weeble wobble.
Today a friend of mine sent me a link that talked about information cited by this woman regarding climate change. She stated that overall global temperatures have plateaued for the last 15-16 years. This is based on average temps collected from various worldwide monitoring locations.
My buddy loves to do this sort of thing, drop an internet link without offering a true opinion of his own. Then when I react to it he raises his hands innocently and claims he didn’t say things were one way or the other, although obviously the intent is there.
In this case, the intent is to say that concerns about global warming are overblown and exaggerated. Now unless you own a functional crystal ball, nobody really knows exactly how quickly global warming will negatively impact the planet. (ask New Yorkers their opinion) I compare it to fiscal forecasters that extrapolate numbers two decades in advance and then throw them out there as being reliable. It’s a guess, an educated guess, but a guess at best.
However to me, when it comes to global warming there is one thing that can not be disputed. Having 7 billion humans on the planet (and growing rapidly) adversely affects the climate. Our consumption, pollution and manipulation of natural resources has tipped the balance of CO2 in our atmosphere. Even this woman agrees on that simple premise, she just questions how quickly things are deteriorating.
The biggest problem with this sort of article is it encourages a “not now, we can worry about it later” attitude about the way we interact with the planet. I can imagine no scenario where you could logically argue that shifting the world to an ever “greener” way of existing is a bad thing.
If I told you I know you are going to have cancer but if you made certain lifestyle changes, instead of contracting it at 35 years old, you will be able to retard it’s onset until you were 75, would you want to make those changes? That sounds like a no brainer huh? Well now apply that simple logic to this blue globe we all share.
I don’t have much of personal interest to relate today.
So the headlines have been filled with the sex scandal regarding General Petraeus. To have such a high ranking individual, one of the stars of the Afghan/Iraq war (if there is such a thing out of that cluster f) be involved in an extra-marital affair is scandalous, just what mainstream America loves to devour.
To be quite honest, I have only skimmed the story. I know the woman was making threats to other women that they shouldn’t mess with her affair, I know she is kind of hot and that her and the general used a technique utilized by terrorist organizations to hide their email communication, utilizing a shared Gmail account and the draft email function.
I am not sure if I should force myself to care more about this but the reality is I don’t give a shit. Married people cheat ALL the time. It isn’t news to me that a general/ director of the CIA is not immune to this failing.
Have you ever known anyone that seems to require drama to survive, almost as much as food, water or air? Of course you do, everyone does. I often imagine how exhausting it must be to exist in this situation, where unless there is conflict or chaos surrounding this person, there is no comfort. Many times people like this will go so far as to manufacture their own chaos if there is currently none available from external sources.
Generally speaking, when I identify individuals like this I try to swing a very wide circle around them. It just isn’t my thing.
Yesterday I used Veterans Day, a day that is all about honoring men and women for their service to our country, as a day of personal rest.
After the tree trimming from the weekend I really needed to just chill out. I did make sure I did SOMETHING productive by hopping on the tractor and mowing the yard for hopefully the last time in several weeks.
I sprinkled in catching up on some Tivo recordings, Boardwalk Empire and Walking Dead.
Over the weekend I slapped the 1/8 inch attachment on my clippers and went nuts, shaving my head completely in less than 4 minutes. I had the Flip cam going. Historically, videos of shaving my head always do well in YouTube world, satiating the need of some individuals that REALLY like watching heads get shaved. Well I certainly didn’t want to miss out on potential AdSense dollars.
This particular video for some reason is off to a super fast start. It already has 500 views in only TWO DAYS, the fastest start of any video of mine in recent history. Perhaps it is because this is also the quickest buzz of mine on video, beating the prior best by over 90 seconds. Give the people what they want…. even if it is weird…
I have shaved my head this short two or three times before. No matter how often I do it I always get the same initial gasp reaction from people. It’s a huge visual impact, maybe that is part of why I do it.
Over the weekend Ali and I did some talking about the financial aspects of our split. Of course the biggest object in that discussion is the house. Basically a decision has to be made on how important the house is in my life.
Now having this discussion on the same weekend as I killed myself trimming 28 trees may have slanted my thought process a bit but it just put an exclamation point on just how much work I put into maintaining the place.
When I start to analyze my living at the house by myself over the last 7 months there are some very big cons. As I mentioned the work that I have been putting in to maintain the house and the 3 acres it sits on is borderline insane at times. To make that pill a little more bitter, there is nobody around to appreciate all that effort. All Tuki cares about is when I give him Nutriberries and little else.
Then we have the nearly 50 mile round trip I log to work everyday. The house is extremely inconvenient geographically. Granted, I have been doing the commute for so long I don’t even think about it normally but damn it would be nice to cut 10 or 15 miles each way off that daily journey.
Then obviously there is the financial commitment associated with the house. Thanks to our disastrous investment in two Lehigh Acres parcels during the real estate boom and our subsequent failure to sell them before the bottom dropped out, there is a much larger nut on the house to be paid, thanks to using an equity line to purchase the land. To be out from under that debt load would be refreshing to say the least.
Finally there are the constant reminders the house relentlessly provides me of what my life was for the last 11 years. Although somehow I have managed to not dwell on it much, it is always there, right under the surface, where it will jump out at random times, delivering sobering jabs of pain.
On the plus side, I love the house. I look out across the property with a sense of pride. I have put SO much sweat equity into it I couldn’t add it all up. Although the location is remote it is also quiet, peaceful and uniquely mine. The house is comfortable and fits me like a glove.
I know everything on the property inside and out, down to minute details.
Then you have the sentimental part of me. You know the part that makes me still have 30 year old t-shirts in my drawer. To walk away from the house would be an excruciatingly difficult moment.
There have been many tough moments since the split so I am getting more and more accustomed to absorbing them.
Although I like the place that Ali is living now, a condo/apartment existence would probably not suit me all that well for very long. I DO like having stuff to do around the house, just not so damn much.
If I could find a happy medium between the two, that might be the ideal.
Saturday morning I had another race to time. Right now I am entering a tough stretch where I have a race going on for 3 consecutive weeks. Saturday’s race was not too bad though for two reasons. It only had 200 runners and it was a longer distance, 15K so I had plenty of time to get everything up and running. Even so I did have a couple weird issues pop up which resulted in a block of lost times that I had to recover using unconventional means.
When I got home I spent the next couple hours getting my indoor items taken care of after completing my post race duties. After that I decided to go outside and at least start on the dreaded and hated annual tree trimming project. I got the trees in the front yard trimmed before calling it quits for the day.
Saturday night I saw Skyfall, the latest James Bond film. I had heard various good things about it which included praise from Roger Moore himself, who called Skyfall the best James Bond film ever, wow. Well I think Roger, whom is now 85, may be suffering from dementia.
I like Daniel Craig as James Bond and I thought his first film, Casino Royale was really, really good. The next Bond film was dumb. I recall my thinking that it was one non-stop action scene with absolutely no attention paid to making an even mildly enjoyable story or plot. Well with Skyfall they went 180 degrees in the other direction and made this film so much about story and plot (and not a very interesting one at that) that it was basically, boring. Now granted, I was already half comatose when the movie started because I had been awake since 3:45am but the flick did little to help me stay awake.
I think the main villain in this was the weakest and silliest of any I have ever seen in a Bond film. I felt no emotion when he gets his at the end, that tells you he wasn’t a very convincing bad guy. The film also departed from typical Bond roots where James is always trying to save not only himself but also his current love interest in the end. There was none of that.
So anyway, obviously I didn’t really like the movie. I’d give a C+. I really would not encourage to spend theater type money to see it.
Sunday morning Ali dropped the dogs off at the house so I could watch them while she was going to work. I had nothing but tree hell on my schedule so it worked out fine.
Speaking of trees…. every year I profess how awful this job is and that is because it IS awful. In fact every year it gets a little more awful because trees grow taller. I have a couple of them that are right at the upper limits of what I can reach with a 20 foot extension ladder and my 8 feet of reaching distance.
It’s the tall trees that are obviously the most dangerous. In order to get the ladder as high as possible you need to have it standing at a shallow angle. When the ladder is standing at a shallow angle you have very little margin for error when it comes to your balance. With some of the limbs I was trying to generate leverage with the loppers directly over my head, you can see the potential for disaster. I flirted with that potential several time where either the ladder shifted or my center of gravity started to tip the wrong way.
On top of the danger is the pure misery of the work. F picking up trash, have the people that do prison work release come trim some cabbage palms. They’ll never break the law again.
Up and down ladders, constantly working above your head utilizing your shoulders in all sort of painful ways. My knees were killing me from them being propped against rungs of the ladders for hours and I must have hit the funny bone in my elbows at least a dozen times.
In addition to cutting palm fronds and seed branches, on several trees I spent considerable time with the machete. The machete is the tool of choice to deal with old, dead crosshatch that populates the trunk of cabbage palms. I hacked away like an crazed killer, sending wooden debris flying in all directions.
In total I pruned 28 trees, but that was only half the fun. Now I had to go back around the property and pick up the hundreds of palm fronds and all of that wooden debris, throw it in the back of the Tacoma and then dump it in the fill pit at the back of the property. I have no idea how many trips I made back and forth.
By the time I was all done it was 4pm. Between the two days I probably spent 9 or 10 solid hours in tree hell. Everything on my body hurt. I took a shower and put on pajamas at 4:30 PM, who cares… Next year, if I am still living here, I plan to buy a battery powered reciprocating saw (sawz-all) to make the job a little more bearable.
Hey, the Eagles lost again, this time it was to the hated Cowboys. To be honest I wasn’t really that bothered by it and actually saw some good things in this game. If you looked at the score you would think the defense was horrible but actually, outside of the first quarter, they weren’t. Most of those points came from special teams / turnovers. The defense actually put a lot of pressure on Romo and for the most part played well for three quarters.
On offense we got to see the first real world test of Nick Foles at QB after Vick went out with a concussion. For the most part I liked what I saw. Yea he made a couple mistakes which is to be expected but f, compared to the amount of mistakes Vick makes, it’s nothing. Foles made quick throws and seemed confident out there, not a scared kid. It gave me some hope for the future since I think the Mike Vick experiment has just about run it’s course.
I also think the Andy Reid era has officially run it’s course. In the past two weeks he set new “firsts’, the first time his team ever lost following a bye week and now the first time his team has EVER lost 5 games in a row. I mean if the Eagles miraculously could win the rest of their games I guess it would save him but there is no way that is happening. Everything changes sometime, it just so happens that 2012 looks to be that time for the big man.
