Archives April 2013

So I left for my quick east coast visit with Randall and Tracy late Friday afternoon.  Time was of the essence since the Marlin – Phillies game started at 7.  I wanted to get across the alley as quickly as possible.  That plan was quickly derailed when I saw no less than 8 cars pulled over westbound with another half dozen state troopers waiting to nail more in a MASSIVE speed trap.  I was paranoid that a similar trap was waiting for me around some corner so I kept my speed generally no higher than 75 for most of the drive.

Despite my lower than anticipated cruising speed in the SSR I pulled into Tracy’s driveway right around 6.  After dumping my stuff and quickly changing we headed right out the door.  For some reason I thought it wouldn’t take that long to get to Miami, even on a Friday evening.  Boy what  a stupid thought that was. Traffic was in a word, awful.

I was quite glad Randall was driving.  He has adapted to the “everyone is an asshole” driving style which I simply can not stand.  This style requires non stop hard acceleration, hard braking and squeezing into any tiny opportunity to get your vehicle in front of the thousands clogging the roadway. It was crazy.

The traffic resulted in us not getting into the building until the third inning.  Before finding our seats we hit the food stand, I was hungry by then.  Two personal pizzas and two beers cost a FCKING ridiculous $37, a theme that repeated throughout the night.

So when Randall told me about the tickets he bought I quickly looked at a seating chart and thought they were good seats on the lower level somewhere.  Well I had no clue just how good they were.  We descended and descended until we were 5 rows off the first base line, the best seats I ever had at a MLB game, kudos to Randall.

I have been to Marlins stadium before but when I did the roof was closed.  Friday night it was wide open, giving the stadium a different feel.  To be honest, because of the high humidity I wouldn’t have minded if they closed it up and flipped on the AC.

The seats were fantastic, I couldn’t believe that Juan Samuel, the Phillies first base coach whom I remembered quite well from his days as a shortstop/2nd baseman, was within 50 feet of us.  It was very cool.  Being so close to the action was a new experience.

The Marlins, despite being in a brand new stadium for only the second year already have fallen right back into piss poor attendance.  The stadium might have been 20% full.  Of course the executives don’t help matters when they sell off their quality players year after year.  They gutted what was a potentially solid line up after the end of last year.  That and Miami has always been just a terrible place in terms of support for their football and baseball teams. We were surrounded by as many Phillies fans as Marlins fans.

I had decided, despite the ridiculous prices, I wanted to drink some beer.  I kept the flow of Bud Lights going for most of the game.  A loose wallet inventory at the end of the night revealed that in total I had spent around $90 on food/beer, crazy.

The alcohol kept what was sort of a boring game, exciting.  I had my first legitimate shot ever to get a foul ball, ironically I didn’t try to get it.  When it came our way I was pretty drunk and had an almost full Bud Light in my hand.  The ball came bouncing our way and popped up in a trajectory that was almost exactly over my head.  For whatever reason I was more interested in not spilling my beer than catching the ball.

Randall, who was on my right and a young guy that was on my left had different ideas.  They both sprang up and grabbed wildly for the ball.  The kid outreached Randall but the ball bounced off his hand and into the lap of a Phillies fan a couple seats to my right.  I probably could have easily outreached both Randall and the kid but if I caught the ball I would have wound up giving it away to a close by kid anyway.

The game wound up going extra innings with the Phillies winning in the 10th after Chase Utley hit a RBI triple.  Randall and I stuck around for the post game fireworks.  It seemed weird the Marlins put on a fireworks show after a loss.  As a Phillies fan it seemed totally appropriate. 🙂

Randall and I didn’t get back to Tracy’s house until a very late hour.  I don’t think my head hit the pillow until a little after midnight.  I was exhausted and drunk.  This was an issue because of a commitment I made earlier in the night.

Somehow I missed the fact that Tracy was training for her first ever full marathon, in Alaska, no less.  She had mentioned she was doing a 16 mile training run Saturday, starting at a bright and early 5:30 am.  I had my SSR meet up on Saturday but it didn’t start until 9:30.  Some quick math in my head worked out that I could do both without a major problem.  Too bad part of that math didn’t figure in that I never ran 16 miles before.

So despite getting home late, drunk and tired, I set my alarm on the phone for 4:30 am and pulled myself out of bed.  When Tracy saw me up she laughed and reminded me I totally didn’t have to come.  I told her it was fine.  Once I mentally commit to doing something, even something ill advised as this, I have a hard time derailing it.

A rational person would have never even considered doing this.  The farthest I have ever run is the 13.1 mile half marathon distance and the last time I did that was at the Hooters Half Marathon the first weekend of March.  Since then I have run 6 or 7 miles, once a week.  Jumping up to a 16 mile run from that level  would be stupid in any conventional running wisdom book.

Tracy was doing the run with her local Team in Training group.  She was concerned that they would be keeping a pace she wouldn’t be able to maintain which is why I offered to tag along, to keep her company.

So we showed up a little before the run start time.  They had a nice spread of pre-run food and drink available.  I had heard of team in training before but I never knew the level of support they offered.  They had several groups out on the road, different pace groups, ranging from walking pace to fast running pace.  Each group included at least one Team in Training coach or captain who was responsible for making sure the group was ok as well as offering encouragement and advice.

So we headed out into the dark streets, walking for what felt like close to a half mile before we started running.  The pace was intentionally slow since the distance covered was going to be quite long.  Tracy was worried I would mind running so slow, I assured her I didn’t care, especially when venturing into distances I never had seen before.

The Team in Training style of run isn’t something that would appeal to me if I was training for a race.  There was a lot of stopping during the run, too much for my tastes but something that works better for a less competitive mindset.  Not only did T in T have the food and water at the start, they had no less than a half dozen water stops set up along the course.  They really put a lot of effort into supporting runners in their program.

The mileage early felt ok but not great.  It didn’t take long for my right hip to start throbbing.  As we got into double digit mileage everything else from the waist down chimed in with their mutual dislike of being asked to carry my body along for such a long distance.

During the run there were lots of “interesting” people to see.  The most memorable for me was the guy that had what looked to be a male “tramp stamp” on his pelvis, easily visible above his low hanging shorts.  There was a 10 minute section of the run where we were subjected to the maddening sound of sea wall being driven deep into the sand with a pile driver.  Damn that was annoying.

Although the pace was never enough to make me really breathe heavy, except when we went up some bridges, my legs felt like total cement as the run came to a close.  I just wanted to stop the pain.  Finally, roughly three and a half hours after we started, the 16 miles was behind us.

In my head, there was too much stop and go for me to count it as an official run but that is just the way my brain works.  My body disagreed, I was beat.

By the time we got back I had to jump in the shower and then head immediately out to the SSR event, despite an overwhelming urge to just crash on a couch for a couple hours.  I didn’t wind up getting on site until after 10:30.  Since I wasn’t having any scheduled work done it wasn’t really a big deal.

The format of this event was different than the last tech session which was very hands on.  At this location we had use of a garage that was fully staffed with mechanics whom were tasked with doing most of the work for the SSRFanatics.  To be honest, I would have preferred a more hands on event.  Even so, a lot of the fanatics were giving the mechanics tips on how to complete certain tasks since they had more hands on experience with the trucks.

I basically did a lot of observing, coffee drinking and donut eating along with mingling with the other SSR guys.  One guy showed me this cool rag/cloth that can give similar results to clay bar’ing your car with much less work.  Another guy showed me the way he handled the fading rubber on the running boards.  The group is filled with endless tips and tricks.

I bought a set of cool LED projection lights.  Once installed they project the SSR logo on the ground.  I’m not quite sure how/when I will install them but it should be kind of cool once I do.

I did bring my Craiglist, factory chrome wheel along, hoping that maybe I would be able to get it swapped out with the badly pitted wheel that is on the truck now.  Luckily they had a kid free that could do it for me.  He moved the tire to the “new” wheel without major incident.

The wheel that was pulled was in the worst shape of the 4 by far.  To be honest the wheels now look good enough that I might not even feel the need to look for long term replacements.

I was feeling increasingly zombie-like as the event went on due to the long run.  I cut out around 1:30.  I definitely enjoyed myself more at the first get together but I still had fun regardless. You can see all my pics from the event here.

When I got back to the house I snuck in a quick nap after an ice cream/grocery store run with Randall and Tracy.  Randall and Tracy were invited to a birthday party Saturday night.  I told Randall I was fine tagging along.  With enough alcohol I can manage to blend in, even in a situation where I don’t really know anyone.  Randall brought a number of BLP’s to assist me in the process.

The party was fun, held at a cute house that was on a canal, complete with a dock and boat.  Everybody there was nice and I never had an issue bouncing around between various groups.  I drank every BLP that was there and ate way too much of the very good food laid out on the table.

It felt good to sleep Saturday night.  I woke up at a very late for me, 8:30 am.  I had told Randall I was heading out late morning.  That gave us time to go out and have breakfast.  Tracy had suggested we go to a place she heard a lot of good stuff about named OB House.

We arrived and saw a big crowd waiting outside.  Tracy put in our name and was told we had about a 30 minute wait.  Randall and I walked around a bit while we were waiting, first to take a look at a city wide bike rental thing where you can grab a bike from one location and return it to another.

We then walked by the science museum/Imax theater.  The museum includes this incredibly cool perpetual machine type thing where balls make their way along a wire mesh track that is HUGE.  I could have sat and watched it for a long time.

We finally got to sit down, the wait was probably closer to 45 minutes.  The indoor seating area was pretty small but cozy.  The one negative that hit me right away was the noise level.  The hard floor and walls teamed with a small area made for a very loud space requiring substantial effort to make the person across the table from you hear what you were saying.

The food itself lived up to the billing, all three of us liked what we ordered quite a bit.  The $8 orange juice made me cringe a bit but Randall was nice enough to pick up the bill. I threw down the tip.  As we were leaving we were interacting with his incredibly friendly and cute french bulldog.

He LOVED people and would go from person to person looking for affection.  He was so cute.  We also ran into some other friends of Randall and Tracy that were coming as we were going.

So once we got back I packed up and got ready to roll.  I thanked Tracy and Randall for the hospitality as always.  It was great to see them.  I had a lot of fun jammed into a small block of time.

The ride back across the state was entirely top down despite the bright sun and hot, muggy air.  I arrived back at the house with a toasted face, not a good thing for someone with a history of basal cell skin cancer.  I spent the rest of my Sunday attending to only the bare essential must do chores.

Next weekend is going to follow a similar blueprint with Troy rolling into town on Saturday for a 4 day visit.

If you want to see all of my pictures from the weekend look here.

I watched Tower Heist last night, my latest entry in the Netflix DVD queue.  It was a comedy filled with big names like Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Ben Stiller and Matthew Broderick.  The plot has a very Bernie Madoff type taste to it.  The movie was adequately entertaining and funny enough that I didn’t feel badly about spending 90 minutes of my life watching it. I’d give it a middle of the pack B.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me.  This afternoon I leave for the east coast.  Randall and I are going to a Marlins/Phillies game tonight and then tomorrow I will be attending another SSR meet up in Boca Raton.  The rest of the time I will be hanging with Randall and Tracy, it should be fun times.

Yes not much is going to get accomplished at the homestead this weekend, oh well.

So after my dentist appointment (no cavities), I stopped at the local Comcast office to try to straighten out the issue with the convertor box.  As usual, the waiting room was packed with people, most of which were exchanging their negative thoughts regarding Comcast.

The funniest of these was a very old woman seated next to me.  She was complaining that they no longer have a payment window with a clerk.  I pointed to the box on the wall in front of us that was labeled DROP PAYMENTS HERE.  The woman said she couldn’t do that because she doesn’t know the amount to pay. Evidently she comes into the office every month, asks what she owes and then writes a check for that amount.  Yea, that is efficient.

So my interaction with the clerk was very brief.  She actually listened to what I said about a filter being put on my line and agreed immediately that it was the cause of the problem.  She said she would schedule a tech to go out to the pole to remove the filter but once again the turnaround is very slow.  He won’t be out until next week.  Thankfully it won’t require me to be home.

Comcast has a real big image problem.  I have yet to find somebody that thinks they offer good value or good customer service.

So I had a trial hosting account with Dreamhost.  They bill themselves as being a host that specializes in WordPress shared hosting.  The control panel they present customers is not the standard Cpanel variety you will find most places.  Supposedly this is a custom control panel they wrote themselves.  I have to admit that I actually prefer Cpanel.  I found the Dreamhost panel dated and not very efficient.

Getting a site up on Dreamhost was easy enough but it wasn’t long at all until the issue that caused me to cancel popped up, performance.  Response was consistently poor, with some clicks requiring a 10 second wait until anything happened.  It got bad enough that I contacted support multiple times.  Each time they said they found an issue that they corrected.  After these support contacts, the site performance would be better for a short while only to return to sluggish city shortly thereafter. I can only assume Dreamhost either doesn’t monitor server performance very closely or their shared servers are overpopulated.

There were other things that annoyed me about Dreamhost like having to pay extra if you wanted phone support.  Basic shared accounts are relegated to email only support with a response within 24 hours. (shitty)

So anyway, I pulled the plug on Dreamhost today although I did keep the domain name I registered with them, I might utilize the name going forward.

IX webhosting actually seemed good in comparison to what I saw at Dreamhost, scary.  I’d really like to host with wpengine.com.

So after my epic waste of time with Comcast on the phone last week, the end result of which was my getting Blast internet and digital tv service for 49.99 for 6 months, my single convertor box arrived yesterday.  My plan was to hook it up to the tv in the bedroom, enabling me to have conventional cable tv access in one room of the house.

To make it work I needed to spend some time in the sweat box attic, redirecting one of the dozen lines of coax I have in the house to connect to the Comcast feed, which has been used exclusively for internet the last couple years.  After doing this I hooked up the cable box and let it sit for awhile as directed in the instructions, presumably for it to configure itself on the Comcast network.

So I went back in later and turned the TV on, I was supposed to be seeing an activation screen.  Instead I saw nothing.

I unplugged the box and plugged it back in.  The LED’s on the front of the box went through a series of flashes and on screen I saw messages about the box booting up.  However after the boot screen went away I was once again returned to blackness.  WTF?

I immediately had a theory as to the source of the problem.  When I went internet only with Comcast, a tech put a filter on my feed from the pole that blocked the frequencies used for tv service.  In my phone discussion with the clueless woman last week, this was never brought up and I am 100% sure that physical filter is still in place.

So it was later at this point, I fired up an online chat with a Comcast rep named Mary.  I explained the background as well as my the reason I suspect it is not working.  She proceeds to totally ignore the information I gave her and starts going through her script.  “Are the cables tight, unplug the box, blah blah”

I explain to “Mary” that I did check all of these things and that I have a decent amount of experience when it comes to connecting AV equipment.   She ignored that information as well and just kept spitting out items on her checklist.

Mary’s final diagnosis was something is wrong with the brand new box which I am 90% sure is not the case.  She said she could have a technician come out, ON FRIDAY.  I laughed out loud out at the idea that Comcast had so many problems that the quickest they could get to me was 4 days later.

I shared my amusement with Mary at Comcast’s inability to address my problem in a faster manner.  She said if I wanted I could go to the local Comcast office and swap the box. Great, so I get to go out of my way to swap a box that I am sure is not the problem, awesome.

I chose the latter option. I am hopeful I will get someone behind the desk that actually listens to what I tell them and arranges to have a tech take the filter of my feed.  Of course it probably is a pipe dream.  I knew when I hung up the phone last week the odds of this going as planned was slim to none. Nice of Comcast to meet my expectations.

On Saturday I handled most of the stuff that needed to get done for the weekend, including tending the garden.  I harvested another big load of broccoli.  My broccoli crop this year has been the most productive in recent memory.  I bet I have been pulling florets for close to 3 months at this point with no signs of it slowing down.

I had the girls out at the house with me most of the day Saturday.  As always, their presence makes anything I am doing better.

I also had a chance to watch Battleship, the latest Netflix dvd that was sitting on my counter for a week or so.  It was a quality action film that kept me entertained from start to finish.  It’s a strong rental if you like this type of genre, B+.

I had to do the prep for the big 10K race I was timing on Saturday.  With this race I take on some additional responsibilities beyond race registration and timing, namely making sure the registration area is set up and running efficiently.  I got the truck all loaded up and ready to go Saturday night, I wanted to be on the road EARLY.

The alarm clock went off at a very unwelcomed 3:30 AM but I pulled myself out of the sheets, the drive to get the task accomplished taking control.  I was on site at 4:30 AM, a full 3 hours before the race start and an hour earlier than I normally would show up for any other race.

I was the only person there other than the security guard for the Philharmonic who let me inside so I could set up the registration tables.  I worked solo for nearly an hour, it was kind of weird, knowing that in a short period of time the area was going to be swarming with people.  I enjoyed the calm before the storm. By the time others started to stream in I had the registration area ready to go and had done everything I could until the equipment truck showed up.

The timing for the race went well, even with over 800 runners signed up.  Other than a few minor things everything ran smoothly.  I got off site by 10 AM, not bad for a 10K event.  Unfortunately I still had a bunch of race work to do once I got home as well.  This race has some additional requirements, similar to the half marathon which require me to do some data massaging.  I had a frustrating issue getting a file created for the race photographer, something I had done before, which made it more frustrating.

Right was in the midst of this aggravation I received an email from a race participant.  The man was complaining that we based age group awards on gun time (time when race starts to when you cross the finish line), instead of chip time. (time you cross timing mats at start line to the finish line).   I responded back to him saying we always base awards on gun time, thinking that would be enough to satisfy him.  No, instead I get this back in a few minutes.

Thanks for the reply. But I remain curious as to the reason?

I find it useful to be able to compare my true chip time time amongst the entire field of participants.

If GCR uses a computer program – this ranking can be done in seconds.

Just some feedback.

Well maybe I was just cranky from being up since 3:30 or it was the building frustration from my data export problems, but these few sentences really annoyed the shit out of me.  Especially the suggestion that I could meet his needs in a few seconds if we used a “computer program”.

I wound up deleting my original draft email which was chock full of sarcasm.  Instead I took a few seconds to locate an article that explained that the primary reason this is done is because it is the official way a race is to be scored by the the USATF, the governing body of the sport.  Luckily, this response was sufficient to answer his curiosity and end the message thread. If it would have continued beyond that my inner smart ass would have run wild.

I finally figured out my data issue and decided to go blow off some stress in the SSR.  I hadn’t driven the truck for over two weeks.  I made a road trip up to the outlets.  A few hard acceleration starts where I chirped the tires in second gear followed by top down highway cruising with Linkin Park blaring was all I needed to ease my bad mood.

The outlet trip was to buy stuff for one of my Bar-baric buddies in Russia.  He won a contest back in January but his prize somehow managed to vanish in the shady Russian postal system, never arriving at his door.  So I bought some new prizes and am hopeful they arrive safely this time around.

On the way back I had a weird urge.  I wanted to find a set of pull up bars and do some reps.  I remembered someone telling me that Pine Ridge Middle School had a decent set of pull up bars as well as other outdoor exercise stations.  After finding the school I walked around, having no idea where the stuff was located.

The school grounds looked a bit dated by Collier County standards which has a number of modern, lavishly equipped schools dotting the area.  In contrast this place looked like it had been around for at least 30 years.

Finally I found a huge field behind the school and spotted the pull up bars.  The bars, like everything else outside looked old.  I hopped on and did 20 pull up reps, it felt solid enough.

I then started walking around the perimeter and came across 10 more fitness stations, including monkey bars, parallel bars and even a balance beam.  I did a little something at each station.  I imagined how cool it would be to make a full workout of the circuit.  I estimate the run around the outside of the field is at least a half mile long, probably longer.  Repping and running from station to station would be a great way to spend an hour or two.

This was the first place I have found outside of my back yard in the Naples area that has legit calisthenics equipment.  I was very pleased with my discovery.  If you want to see the pics of the different stuff you can see it here.

The combo of the SSR ride and the the quick bodyweight work out soothed my inner beast.  It was a good weekend.

When I was messing around with the AWESOME Craigslist search aggregator, searchtempest.com, a couple weeks ago I stumbled across a guy in Jacksonville that was selling a rear SSR factory chrome wheel for a SUPER cheap $75.  Although the guy was way too far away for me to go pick up the wheel and my being pretty sure it was sold anyway, I sent him an email expressing my interest.  I was surprised to hear it was still available.

Let me back up a sec.  My SSR, although incredibly awesome, has a few warts.  One of them are it’s wheels.  The prior owner evidently took a set of factory painted wheels and had them chromed.

Well either the chrome job was not good or this is just normal for 7 year old rechromed wheels, but the finish on the wheels has started to pit.  Some wheels are worse than others.  They are 15 footers, looking good from a distance but not so sharp as you get closer.

I saw some ridiculous prices for a set of new factory SSR chrome wheels, somewhere in the neighborhood of $2500, f that.  So anyway, you can understand why picking up a factory chrome wheel for $75 made my eyes light up.

Now normally with a Craigslist transaction, at least every one that I ever participated in, delivery of the item is handled in person as a local transaction. Obviously driving to Jacksonville and back for a $75 wheel would be rather silly, probably costing me upwards of $100 in gas and 10 hours of drive time.

I asked the seller if he would be open to my paying him with Paypal and him shipping the wheel to me.  Of course I would pay all shipping costs.  I was mildly surprised he said he would do it, cool!

The wheel arrived yesterday, packed with care.  Other than a small nick in it which I already knew about, it was in really good shape.

My plan is to swap this wheel with my driver side rear which has the worst pitting of the four.  Hopefully I can score similar deals to eventually get factory chrome on all 4 corners.

MMORPG alert, next few paragraphs are about WoW, something many of you will not care about or understand.

I have talked a few times on here about how surprised I was that once I became separated that my time gaming and specifically playing WoW fell off a cliff, the exact opposite of what I expected.  I figured a life where my only considerations were me, myself and I would include plenty of recreational time to do something like play WoW, my prime source of gaming enjoyment for over 7 years.

There was a long period of time where I was spending up to 30+ hours a week in the game, not that it was a good thing.  I just found it so engaging and enveloping, feeding into my need to always have something to do, even if those tasks are virtual. There were some nights where I didn’t crawl into bed at a ridiculous time early in the morning as I always had just one more goal to accomplish.

I found the game to be fascinating, not just because of the game but because of the dynamics of the millions of people playing it with you.  In many ways WoW felt like a real society upon itself, your interactions in game relied on many of the dynamics of human nature.  You ran into all types, the asshole, the bully, the coward, the whiner and even the occasional all around good guy.    I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think it was these interactions that made the game really interesting.  Fast forward to 2013.

Over the years the game developers have made a number of improvements to the game to make many functions in the game significantly quicker and easier.  For example, to do an instance (a challenge where 5 players work together to accomplish a goal) you used to have to do a lot of work.  You would announce in a town that you were looking to get a group together and then wait until you could find enough people to fill the various group roles.

Once you had that group together you literally had to travel to the area where this instance is located, in some situations this could have meant doing 10 minutes or more of virtual travel until you arrived at the location.  This situation was indeed laborious and time consuming.  But there is something else it did, it committed you to accomplishing the goal since there was a lot of work involved in both assembling the group and getting to the instance location.  Many times you would create in game friends during this process and going forward would often seek out these friends to do other instances since you knew them and they knew you.

One of the game improvements was making this process basically instant.  You no longer had to assemble a group, you simply joined a queue to do an instance and it would pair you up with a bunch of strangers.  In addition you no longer had to travel to these instances, it simply pulls you to the instance magically and pops you back to where you were after it is complete.  For sure, it made this sort of in game activity dramatically more convenient and less time consuming. There were many areas of the game where this type of streamlining was done, making tasks that took longer and required interaction with other players, into quick hitting items that required very little else of others.

So the end result of this tweaking has been a game that is much more convenient but much less engaging.  Many times you can do an instance without a single word being exchanged between the 5 players involved.  The player to player engagement in all areas of the game is dramatically less than it once was.

Once again, in a way, the game is reflecting real life where convenience is king. Fast food, 140 character thoughts, quick weight loss, instant credit and other sorts of instant gratification are what our basically lazy society demands.  Very few people take the time to think about what falls by the wayside in the process.

I am not sure how I got on this tangent as my main point was that I hardly play the game anymore. Perhaps this is just part of the reason why.  Although there has been an expansion out for 6 months I still have 10 virtual me’s that have not made one step towards progressing to the new level cap of 90.  At this point I’m not sure if it will ever happen as real life and lack of interest consistently gets in the way.

This weekend I have a Sunday race to time.  It is a warm up for two more busy upcoming weekends.  The followiing weekend I wil be heading to the east coast to hang with Randall and Tracy, attend a Marlins game and attend a SSR meet up.  Then the following weekend Troy comes down to spend a few days which will surely be a good time.

I haven’t dropped my opinion on the North Korea situation here.  Since I don’t have anything else to write about at the moment I might as well take this opportunity.

North Korea reminds me of a ranting, bratty child. It’s like North Korea urinated on it’s brother, you put them over your knee, smack their ass, and they tell us how much the hate us for punishing them.  It seems like Kim Jong Un is trying to establish himself as an even looser cannon than his dictator father.  It seems every day there is a new quote regarding his promises of destruction against both South Korea and the US.

If am honest, my gut reaction to this idiot is I would be thrilled if he was taken out either by us or somebody we secretly employ.  Of course logic dictates a less violent path instead, hoping that an ever tightening noose of economic sanctions results in forcing the outcome we desire.

Anyone with a functioning brain would realize that if North Korea would ever fire a missile at a US target it would be lights out for them.  Kim Jong Un hopefully is not too far gone to realize this.

Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where we are in a no win situation (thanks W) because the countries are eternally divided by conflicting radical religious sects, I think if North Korea fell it would be a different story.  I see North Korea as East Germany.  If the dictatorship is removed and the North Korean people were allowed to breathe free air for the first time in decades it would be a wonderful thing.

That being said, if I was asked to predict the future regarding North Korea I would expect more of the same.  More ranting, more posturing and maybe eventually Un will eventually scream himself out, just like a 2 year old.

So I picked up Ali from the airport and dropped the dogs back off at her place yesterday afternoon.  It’s always a weird feeling after I have the dogs for a few days and the house returns to just being me and the bird that hates me.  Sure it’s nice to not have the Neato choked with dog hair, not picking up dog toys that Sadie leaves strewn through out the house and not deal with other ancillary dog related items.  But despite that I still found myself feeling sad as I got ready for bed without two dogs already nestled in, one on top of the bed, the other underneath it.

Last night after work I got the idea in my head that I wanted to set a new personal best in push up reps.  I have been going through one of those brief monthly periods where my physical energy level is highest so I figured I should take advantage of it.

My prior best in chest to floor push ups was 60 reps, accomplished a month or so ago.  I flipped on Linkin Park and had at it, not stopping until I squeezed out a 75th rep some 3 minutes later, obliterating my prior best.  I am hoping 2013 will be like last year where I keep setting personal bests, regardless of how high the pile of ripped off calendar pages gets.

I finally got to see the season finale of Walking Dead and the premiere of Game of Thrones.  Walking Dead was awesome as usual although as expected I have a lot of curiosity about how they are going to twist the plot from here based on what went down.  Game of Thrones was excellent as well and made me quite glad I have something to step right in to almost fill Walking Dead’s shoes.

So I posted some of my online chat interaction with a Comcast rep yesterday.  This interaction was spurred by my seeing the latest bill from Comcast which had rocketed up to more than $60 for just internet service.  When Ali and I first split I had secured a 12 month promo rate for internet that was dirt cheap, $29.99 although it was for the “Performance” internet which is not as fast as their “Blast” service. So anyway, just as I have done in the past, I utilized Comcast’s online chat system to try to secure a new promo rate, $60 for just internet is pretty outrageous in my opinion.

So as you read the chat log you saw I made no progress with my online interaction with Willmore.  The best he could offer was a measly $5 off the full rate and when I asked to be transferred to his supervisor to further pursue things, he flat out refused.

You keep hearing how Comcast is losing market share by the truckload.  I was sort of surprised Willmore was so willing to piss me off.  His suggestion was that I contact the local office to see if I could get a better deal which made no sense.  Comcast is Comcast, why do I need to jump around the same company looking for a better deal?

So I got off the chat finally after wasting at least a half hour and called up my local office.  I explained that I needed to save money on my internet bill else I would have to look at lower cost alternatives like Century Link DSL.  The guy I talked to said he wasn’t seeing any good promos available but suggested he transfer me to the “retention” department since they supposedly have more flexibility.  I said fine.

I was on hold FOREVER, I bet it was 10-15 minutes until someone picked up.  Evidently Comcast has quite a few people that need to be “retained”.  The woman I got on the phone was nice enough but it became quickly apparent she either was not all that sharp or had just started there and was getting trained.

She had absolutely no grasp of what options she had available to her, she was just flipping through screens and asking me the same questions two, three, four times.  For whatever reason I never flipped the prick switch on for this woman, calling her out for being absolutely terrible at her job.  I guess because I could tell she wasn’t trying to be incompetent. I just patiently hung on the phone for a long, long, long time.

In total I think I spent close to an hour on the phone with this woman, literally smacking myself in the forehead in frustration with the receiver towards the end.  Who knows, maybe this is an intentional maneuver by Comcast, man the phones with incompetent people so you get so frustrated you just hang up and pay the damn bill.

So the end result of all of this was my getting Blast internet and digital cable for 49.99 for 6 months.  As you may know, my house has been running off of an HD antenna for quite awhile, I have no real need for conventional cable tv anymore but if they are going to throw it, fine.  I might hook it up in one room of the house although it will take some creative tweaking of my attic splitter configuration.

Needless to say, the experience yesterday lowered my already low opinion of Comcast.

Yesterday was my last night with the girls, Ali flies home today.  Just as I have many times in the past few days, I hung out in the back yard with the dogs for an extended period of time.  Nicki really seems to enjoy yard hang out time now, as much if not more than anytime I can recall in her life.

She loves to alternate between chewing on sticks, rolling around on and eventually sleeping in the grass.  After Sadie and I went inside, Nicki remained in the yard happily snoozing away.  She particularly loves laying on the St Augustine parts of the yard.

After awhile I went back outside and snapped a couple pictures of her, this was my favorite.

Part of my time outside was spent shooting various footage for this month’s BB forums challenge, take a look at normal mode here if you like.

I noticed my promo rate for my home internet service recently expired, more than doubling my rate.  As I did in the past I contacted Comcast online where they have been able to help me with a new promo rate.  Well this time I got connected with someone named Willmore that offered me a tiny $5 discount.  You can see part of the interaction here.  I am not pleased.

Willmore: The available online promotion for Internet Blast is $54.99/month for 6 months.

Shawn: yea I cant afford that

Willmore: I understand that, Shawn.

Willmore: For more options like the same service promotion or current customer promotions or discounts, you may check the local office.

Willmore: Local office promotions are different from online promotions.

Shawn:  I never had to do that in the past

Shawn: I thought Comcast would be more interested in keeping customers they have had for a long time

Willmore: Yes, that is why the local office option is available.

Willmore: If you were not able to do that in the past, that was because process changes as time goes by.

Willmore: What we can also provide here depends on what is available.

Shawn: no, I have already spent a half hour of my time

Shawn: trying to keep my business with Comcast

Willmore: We checked on what is available, however, you are not agreeable with it.

Willmore: In order for us to provide you what you need, we would also need your understanding.

Willmore: I apologize though if this seem inconvenient for you.

Willmore: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Shawn: yea what is your last name

Willmore: We are not obliged to provide such private information.

Shawn: ok

Willmore: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Shawn: can you transfer me to your supervisor?

Shawn: the woman I spoke to prior to you, provided her last name btw

Willmore: I apologize, but, the issue does not merit a supervisor.

Willmore: We use the same system and we have the same option.

Willmore: We are not allowed to transfer chats to supervisor with the same resolution in hand.

Willmore: You can have my ID number.

Shawn: so you are refusing to transfer me to a supervisor?

Willmore: If the previous rep provided hers, I apologize I will not provide my last name.

Willmore: You can have my ID number instead.

Willmore: We can only transfer chats to supervisor if the issue needs to be addressed by a supervisor.

Shawn: if a customer requests it, dont you think for customer relations it is wise to do so?

analyst Willmore has left room