Archives December 2006

I added more pictures to my December 06 pics page.  Christmas day, a hawk that was hanging out at our place, the Nicki blanket I got for Ali for her birthday and my mini tree farm can all be seen here. 

I have another 4 day weekend ahead of me, I could really get used to this.

Why did John Edwards decide to run for president?  I mean what a waste, no one is going to vote for the guy.  Watch him talk, he blinks 5 times a second when he speaks.  I think the guy is about as phony of a politician as you can imagine.

Well it’s that time again, the time where I wrap up the year with whatever highlights I can remember and look ahead to the year to come.  It’s always hard to figure out where to start with these posts so I suppose the easiest thing to do is examine the goals I set for 06 and see how I did.

Getting the pool cage rebuilt – mission accomplished, although it took much longer than expected and the company that did it was not very professional.

Replacing the water equipment and pool pump – yep

Travel more, go to Vegas with Keener – No and yes.  The Vegas trip with Troy was great, but other than that, the only notable travel was our extended trip to PA with Nicki in the party van in June for the Rumble and a trip to Orlando with Ali’s family.  Part of the reason for that is Ali made a lot of trips up north in 06 to visit Pop Pop so that cut into vacation time as well as bank accounts. 

Pay off the mortgage – nope.  That goal was based on the real estate market continuing to appreciate, allowing us to sell our two lots for enough to wipe out the mortgage.  Unfortunately, the prices have leveled or tailed off a bit.  To make matters worse, we have had our taxes on these two lots increase 1000% since we have owned them.

Run a 10k – The most I ran on a training run was like 5.75 miles, a bit under a 10k.  Ali ran more than a 10k on a few runs but it wasn’t non-stop.  Then in June after the rumble I wrecked my knees.  At the time I thought running was history for me.  Luckily I have healed up and have started up again.  However a 10k isn’t a big goal for me anymore.  Running fast 5k’s will do just fine thank you, and probably will keep me healthier.

Play volleyball – again, my injury resulted in only playing two tournaments all year and again I thought those were the last two I would ever play.  However I think I will be able to take the court once again, if I can run, I can play volleyball.

Jump out of a plane – I didn’t get around to it, for no particular reason.  I still want to do it.

Kid decision – a lot of our circle is having kids, both friends and family.  When I see them I think they are very cute and from all accounts I have gotten from each new parent, the experience is wonderful for the most part.  However if you put a gun to my head, my answer would still be no.  Everyone tells me I would be a great dad and I think I would do a decent job, but to me that isn’t a reason to have one.  I would almost feel hypocritical contributing to the ridiculous overpopulation issues the failing planet faces, plus my negative viewpoint of the future makes me feel like I wouldn’t be doing a kid a favor bringing him into this mess anyway.

Ok so let’s see, what else was 06 about?  Well it’s about being old. I can not believe I have been around for 39 years.  How did this happen?  I can remember clear as day sitting with my mom in Ocean City as a little kid asking her about getting old and dying and stuff.  My mom was probably 12 or 13 years younger than I am now when that took place.  Of course logically I know to complain about it is a waste of effort, a waste of thought since there is nothing I can do to slow down the process, yet, I do. 

In many regards I am holding up better than many people my age.  In a perverse way when I see someone who is a physical wreck that is my age or younger I sort of celebrate inside.  For the most part I am healthy although there is no escaping some of the joys of aging.  I already get these mysterious pains out of nowhere, I heal more slowly, and I hurt myself sometimes doing mundane, simple things. Every morning I slap this creme on my face to supposedly keep it looking healthier and younger. Eh I don’t see much difference. I really do try to fight my never ending sorrow about being firmly entrenched in middle age.  Sometimes I do a decent job of accepting it, but not often.

Speaking of physical well being, mine had some big potholes this year.  At the beginning of the year I was feeling as good as I had in years.  I could run, play volleyball, and go to the gym with very little physical issues.  Hell the one day I played in a volleyball tournament AND ran a 5k.  Then I got greedy.  I started supplementation with creatine again, thinking that I could run, play vball AND get bigger and stronger at the same time.  I wrote off the problems I had years ago after supplementing with creatine as just bad timing.  Well in short order after supplementing again the injuries returned.  I got stronger but it came with a price.  All my joints hurt from moving heavier weight and the extra body weight I gained was no good for my knees.  After playing the Rumble in June my one knee was practically immobile for almost a week.  It turned out I had a meniscus tear.

After that diagnosis I had the idea in my head to shelve impact activities forever and just get big and strong.  I continued pumping creatine and added Endothil to the routine.  My strength matched all-time highs with my bench again topping out at 275.  However the pains in my joints just kept getting worse and one day a light clicked on.  I decided that it was more important to me to be able to be active, to be able to run, play volleyball, rollerblade than be some muscled up guy that hurts all over, all the time.  So I cut out the creatine, cut out the endothil, cut back the weight and tried to get healthier.  I lost the 10 pounds or so I had put on and to my surprise my knees started to regain their pre-injury resilience.  I am pretty set on maintaining that perspective on my physical fitness.  I will always be in the gym but I am more worried about functional fitness/strength as opposed to big numbers.  I think my conversations with a chiropractor I know from the gym helped convince me what was the better path to take. 

Besides the knee problems my health wasn’t bad except for the flu/cold thing from hell that had me feeling bad for almost three weeks.  I am just getting back to normal now.  I should have gotten that flu shot. Oh and I had a weird strain that I thought was a hernia but was later diagnosed as a strain.  That is just finally going away as well.

Each year I am amazed when I go back to see all the financial expenditures that take place and this was no different and probably set new records in terms of personal spending.  Early in the year we picked up the party van, originally with the intention of using it to cart around Ali’s family in May when her family came down and then later in June for the Rumble.  The party van was a big 2006 money sink.  After the initial outlay of cash, it sucked close to another 3k out of our wallets for repairs.  I was looking to sell it and had what I thought was a serious buyer but through a comedic series of lies, excuses and bullshit from the buyer, the van is still in our possession and at this point is slated to takes us out west to see my dad/sister in 07.

The pool cage rebuilding process burned close to another seven thousand dollars from our coffers.  I think the cost to rebuild it was ridiculous and the fact that it took 9 months to get it back up even worse.  We dropped a lot of money on Ali’s trips back and forth to PA to visit her ailing grandfather but some of that got reimbursed.  My trip to Vegas cost some bucks but I did well enough gambling out there that I call it a wash. I put together a new computer in 2006 and got a hot 22 inch lcd monitor for my birthday, more $$.

  Then of course the biggest and most exciting expenditure of cash was for the 07 Camry hybrid.  For at least two years Ali talked about getting a hybrid, namely the Prius.  The Prius is cool but it is just damn small.  Well when the Camry hybrid came to be it really sparked my interest although the price tag shoved it to the back of my mind.  Well In November after a long, frustrating sale process we took ownership of one.  A combination of financial sacrifice and expected funds from the sale of the van (which never happened) was what made me pull the trigger on it.  It put a big dent in our reserve funds but we absolutely love the car and can see us owning it till it literally falls apart. Oh, we spent way too much at Christmas, just like every year.

Howard Stern came to Sirius this year.  The shows have been fantastic and having satellite radio has made all the time we spend driving much more enjoyable.  I discovered Bubba the Love Sponge as well.  He is actually dirtier than Howard but he can be damn funny as well. 

2006 was a rough year emotionally with Pop Pop getting ill and finally passing away in late November.  It was extremely difficult for Ali and hard for me as well.  He was my psuedo grandpa.  The last time I saw him was in June, however Ali was back and forth at least a half dozen times to see him in the last year and a half.  When we went up for his funeral it was brutally emotionally painful.  I broke down repeatedly, something I avoid as much as possible.  The images in my brain from that day will stay with me forever.  It was very admirable how Ali did EVERYTHING she could to comfort him as his time wound down. 

My hobbies for 06 remained the basically the same, WoW.  It is amazing to me that I am still playing this game, a solid two years now.  How can a game keep someones interest for so long?  Play it and you will see.  I generally have things toned down and stay up late far less than I did in the past but there are still times where I go into a WoW coma and play till my eyeballs fall out.  I still fly my rc planes a bit, play my xbox occasionally but WoW is basically it.  In a couple weeks the expansion to WoW comes out which will add another huge pile of things to do in game, I may play this till retirement.

My work situation is much the same as it has been for the past 6 years.  It’s stable, pays well, normal hours, low stress and for the most part, uneventful.  I feel a bit stagnated, off the leading edge of tech.  There just is no real need for me on the forefront of the latest and greatest anymore but I still feel I should be.  The last training class I went to was for Windows Server 2003.  Well I plan on taking some courses this year and there are a lot of things coming up at work in 07 that will keep me busy. My job is a big reason why some of my discontent with aspects of living here in Naples are mostly swept under the rug.

Ali’s job has been stressful for her as always, much more so lately.  She is looking forward to the day she can leave that place which may actually happen at the end of 2007.  She will be fully vested in her 401k contributions then.  After that we aren’t sure what her work situation will be.

In 06 we became closer with our neighbors.  They are good people and we are lucky to have them right next door.  Having a next door dog sitter has been a blessing on many occasions through out the year.

2006 was a light year for visitors, Ali’s brother was down for a bit and I can’t think of any besides that.  I think in 2007 we will have a lot more people coming down.

We lost a pet this year.  No, not Buttons, the diabetic cat that has nine lives, it was Maggie our cockatiel that I more or less hated.  Even though I thought I had no feelings for the annoying bird, I was very sad during her final hours.  It was very touching how she snuggled with Ali as she was dying.  In a weird way she lives on through Tuki who still mimics all of her sounds.

There were very few house projects going on this year.  I basically maintained what we have which would be more than enough for many people.  I feel kind of lazy for not doing more though. 

I FINALLY got done with my invisalign/braces this year.  I am pleased with the end result but not 100% satisfied.  It took twice as long as they said it would and the one tooth that I am most obsessed with has moved back a bit since the braces were taken off. 

Unlike 2005 which was hurricane hell, the predicted monster storm season of 2006 never materialized.  It was a very quiet season and we are both very thankful.

Ali took on organizing a race which is scheduled to go off in early 2007.  It will benefit the local humane society.  She has done a fantastic job of getting sponsors and putting a lot of thought into what will make for a good race.  I hope it all turns out well.

 I’ve had various crusades over the year against various businesses/individuals/things. The lunk alarm, time share assholes, car sales personnel, quick oil change shops, bullshit van buyers, and pool cage builders comes to mind.  It seems this is one aspect of my personality that I adopted from my dad who always had some business on his hit list.

On the technical side I snagged a Treo 650 from my brother-in-law.  It has put me onto a new level with being plugged in 24/7.  It is an awesome bit of tech.  I moved all my web sites to a new home this year which has opened up a lot of options for me hosting wise.  I am hosting/developing a site for the Naples Half Marathon, a pretty big deal.  The blog is closing in on 20,000 views.

So what are the goals for 2007, let’s see.  There are some home improvement goals, one old one new. I still want to get the counters in the kitchen redone to either Corian or Silestone.  I think it would make a big difference.  I also want to do some interior painting.  After 5 years it is time to get some color on our all white walls. Color can really transform the look and feel of a space. 

We plan on driving out west in the van, with Nicki hopefully early in 2007.  I would love to go to Vegas again but we also talked of doing another cruise.  It will probably have to be an either/or situation, not both.  We have tons of timeshare points to use.

From a fitness level, I am just hoping to get back to where I was in late 2005/early 2006 where I was able to basically do what I wanted without a huge fear of hurting myself.  I am close to getting back there.  No more numerical goals of pushing a certain poundage off my chest or over my head.  If I stay in good shape, don’t develop a belly and feel generally healthy that is good enough for me. I want to run 5k’s and play some volleyball.

I would like for us to get back into a financial pattern of slowly but consistently increasing our financial reserves instead of the steady bleed that happened this year.  We make plenty of money to do this, it just takes so conscious spending decision making.  I have no big “things” in my head to buy as of now.  I really need very little.

In conjunction with better financials, I hope by the end of 2007 Ali can walk way from the job she dislikes so much.  To me an ideal situation would be for her to become a contractor dietitian where she sets her schedule and works as she sees fit.  Her ideal situation would be to not work at all.  If we sell our land we could get into a situation where the need for her to earn a lot of money would be reduced a bunch.

I want to take more time out to do things out of our routine more often.  I want to go to the beach, walk a trail in the multitude of wilderness areas, see things I don’t see everyday.  I need to force myself to do these things, I always wind up appreciating it afterward.  It’s good for you.  Far too many of our weekends follow the same general guideline, do housework, hang at home. Jumping out of a plane is a good example.  The world surely looks different as it rushes at you from 10,000 feet.

Of course the most important goal is to continue to try to find that elusive path to contentment while balancing it with my need to keep moving.  It’s a precarious balance that I have yet to find, but I am always searching for.

I hope your 2007 is full of realized goals, satisfying relationships and new experiences.

I forgot to mention my gym results.  They weren’t bad.  Numbers-wise I am weak but I think that is more from being sick for almost three weeks and being creatine/endothil free.  I didn’t fatigue as fast as I did the last time I gave it a go so all in all it was a positive experience.  Now I need to get my running cranked up again.

There have been two funny gym characters I saw the last two days.  Yesterday there was visualization man.  He was tall, skinny, dorky lookin guy with a q-tip full of tight curly black hair.  He almost looked like one of the Brady kids.  Well anyway he was over at the squat rack.  He did very little squatting and a whole lot of preparation.  He was constantly closing his eyes and mimicking the exercise. Then he would bend over at the waist, hold his arms out at 90 degree angles and move them back and forth like he was doing the robot. He would hop back and forth on each foot like a boxer getting ready for a round.  It was really weird.  I mean the guy only had 135 on the bar, it hardly required a zen-like trance to accomplish.

Then today we had Sir Speedy.  He is an older guy, skinny, long mustache, longish straggly hair, late 40’s, early 50’s maybe.  He looks like he got off the time machine from 1974.  Well his thing is to do ridiculous looking, ultra fast exercises with weight so light women would laugh at him.  He does this hilarious move where he grabs a 5 pound plate in each hand and pumps his arms up and down with blinding speed.  He gets on the bench and bounces the empty bar up and down on his chest at least 25 times.  Everything he does is ultra-light, ultra-fast and ultra-silly looking.  Eh, he isn’t a fat ass so it must be workin for him. 

Last night on the way home from work we stopped at the grocery store for a few items.  When I was there I was on the prowl for more of those live Christmas trees, like the one I got a few days ago.  I thought I may be able to get a good deal on them.  I was stoked when I saw a few on a shelf tagged at 4.99 each!  I paid 22 bucks for the first one!  So I filled my cart with three more and took them home.  It looked like a mini christmas tree farm on our kitchen island. 

I did some research on these trees.  They are actually stone pines.  Stone pines are the trees that make pine nuts.  These trees and their nuts have been harvested for as far back as you can go in history.  Although it looks like a mini christmas tree now, a fully mature one looks like this! Wow I had no idea it could become something so huge.  According to what I read they should do fine in our environment.  The trick is to find spots on our property that do not flood out during wet season since these trees like well drained soil.  So my plan is to plant a couple in the ground, plant one in a big pot to maybe use as a christmas tree down the road and maybe give my mom the 4th one.  It would be awesome if they took hold and grew.

Ali’s parents drove down from PA and rolled in last night.  They stopped by to drop off some christmas presents from my brother and sister-in-law as well as some stuff from Pop Pop’s house. Among them were two cool, working old clocks, an old baseball bat, old christmas ornaments, 4 stools and Pop Pop’s old artificial christmas tree. I have both of the clocks set up at work. 

Ali’s parents are going to be doing a lot of their own thing since we can’t take time off during the week.  Her dad got a gps for the suburban so he is excited to put it to work. 

Told ya he was scary looking………

Christmas 2006 is in the books.  All in all I have no real complaints.  It was nice having a couple days off before the big day.

On the way home from work on Friday I stopped to get groceries.  I was excited to see Publix had these little mini-live Christmas trees.  I got one.  This isn’t one of those bushes they call a tree.  If planted outside it has the potential to reach 70 feet high!  My plan is to try planting it in a big pot and nurse it along for a few years until it is big enough that we could use it as a Christmas tree, afterward it could get permanently transplanted outside.  It’s an optimistic plan but who knows, maybe it will come to fruition.  I also grabbed three pointsettas.  Our neighbors planted one last year outside and now it is a huge, 5 foot tall plant.  I am planning to plant ours as well and am looking for similar results.

  On Saturday Ali was up early to go help work a race on Marco Island.  Originally she talked about going to work after the race but she reconsidered.  While she was gone I picked up around the house a bit and then took to the big task of cleaning the pool area.  Earlier that morning I flipped on the pool heater and set it to 90 so we would be able to get some holiday pool time in.  I stripped all of the furniture, plants and knick knacks off the pool deck and then pulled out the pressure washer.  Somewhere between two and three hours later I was finally done.

Saturday night we went out to dinner with the neighbors.  We went to a place that is owned by friends of theirs. It had great food, was tastefully decorated and I think I was the only hetero-sexual guy there. It was a bit weird for me but I got over it.  One of their friends that joined us for dinner picked up the tab which I couldn’t believe.  Evidently he is doing quite well.

On Sunday, Christmas Eve, Ali and I did some whirlwind cleaning to get ready for mom’s arrival. Then Nicki and I hopped in the car and went to pick her up.  We had a nice time.  We watched National Lampoons Christmas Vacation part in the pool, part inside.  Then we watched Napoleon Dynamite which my mom didn’t get in the least.  It still made me laugh a lot.  Finally later that night we watched The Devil Wears Prada.  I have head a lot of hype about it, how good it was.  Even though it’s plot didn’t seem like anything I would be interested in, Ali and my mom were both excited to see it so I watched it along with them.  It was ok.  It wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad.  Meryl Streep did a great acting job.  There were a lot of good looking women in it.  The plot though seemed like something I have seen played out a half dozen times.  Mom asked me my rating, I gave it a B- which was maybe artificially inflated because I didn’t want to give the impression that it was torture to watch it.  She surprised me when she said it was a C+, she wasn’t all that impressed either.  I guess you can’t always believe the hype.

Well just like last year, I slept straight through Christmas eve, something that used to be an impossibility.  I used to always wake up somewhere between 3am and 5am and not really sleep after that because of the anticipation.  Not anymore, I slept straight thru, waking up at my semi-normal time of a bit after 6.  Mom got up a little after me at 6:30 ish.  Ali got an early wake up call when the phone rang around 7.  I scrambled to get it.  I was thinking to myself “Who the F would be calling at 7am Christmas morning”  It was Ali’s work.  On the other end was a Haitian woman with a thick accent that made it hard for me to understand what she was saying.  She asked for Alison and I told her she was sleeping.  I asked her what was wrong.  She said something about not being able to find spaghetti sauce and some other stuff for the menu today.  Not wanting to wake Ali still, I asked her if it was something Alison could call her back about.  No, no I need to talk to Alison…  Ok, so I reluctantly go back to the bedroom and inform Ali that work was on the phone, something about missing spaghetti sauce.  Ali was not happy.  After she gets off the phone I ask her about it and she is so mad she doesn’t even want to talk about it.  She said the missing stuff is probably there, unfortunately the kitchen staff’s english skills are so shaky that they can’t reliably read labels on cans.  Ugh.

So we got an earlier start on opening presents than I thought we would.  Even though we spoke of the need to be more frugal this year, we had a big pile.  I would estimate we were at it a solid hour.  Nicki probably had more presents than anyone, lots of dog treats and toys.  It’s funny, she seems to get excited when presents are being opened, she even grabs them and tries to pull at the paper sometimes.

I made out very well.  If you can’t tell I am a 13 year old in a decrepit 39 year old body, my loot list should make it clear.  I got some more adult gifts like, an industrial strength nose hair trimmer, underwear, socks and a display case for the poker chips I collect from various casinos.  But I also got an RC helicopter, Hot Wheel Sizzler cars (electric hot wheels) and a World of Warcaft came card as well as a yet to come copy of the WoW expansion, Burning Crusade.

  I also got something I threw on my list as a pie in the sky item, the Logitech Harmony 890 remote.  It is an upgraded version of the Harmony remote I already have had and loved for a year or so.  This model has more functions, a color lcd screen, rechargeable batteries and is advertised as an IR/RF remote.  Sine my Bose Lifestyle 20 system uses RF instead of IR for remote control, I thought I could finally control EVERYTHING with this remote.  It was not cheap which was why I was surprised to see it under the tree.

I also got gift cards, both plastic and virtual ones that will let me buy stuff at Home Depot, ebay, amazon, Tiger Direct and anywhere when mom gave me an American Express gift card.  It was quite the stash.  Ali seemed pleased with all of her stuff I got her.  The last thing I gave her was a gift certificate to a local dance studio where she could take classes in the style of dance of her choice.  She is a great natural dancer and loves to dance.  I think she will really enjoy it.  I wrapped the certificate in a box, along with a 5 pound plate weight to throw her off, a tactic I have used several times throughout the years.

Mom made a french toast breakfast which we enjoyed out on the lanai.  Unlike last Christmas that was very chilly, it was almost summerlike, with temps in the mid 70’s in the morning and lower 80’s later in the day.  After breakfast we all went into the pool for a Christmas day swim.  The heater had some more time to work and raised the temperature another few degrees from the day before, it was right around 91 or 92 degrees.  We stayed in the water a long time as we talked and played with my pool torpedo.  By the time we got out I was totally pruned up.  We made our rounds of holiday phone calls.  We couldn’t get ahold of my grandmother which I felt bad about.  Luckily I got ahold of her later that evening for a brief, mostly confused conversation.

Mom stayed for lunch and then shortly afterward she was ready for me to take her home.  Again Nicki accompanied me for the trip and we dropped mom off and thanked her for everything.  I think she had fun.

When we got back, Ali had already started the tedious process of trying to clean up some of the Christmas chaos which I was glad to see.  I jumped in and did the same, trying to put away everything that I could.  Then I started playing with my stuff.  I configured the new remote control but was annoyed to see that I was wrong in my ideas that it could control my Bose system out of the box.  Bose, while they make a nice system, they aren’t big on making it a compatible system.  In order to control it, I need to find some converter that allows it to use IR signals.  The good news is there is/was such a device that does it, the bad news is it seems to have gone out of production and all sources that used to carry it, no longer do.  I scoured the internet looking for leads on this elusive device called the C-1024 to no avail.  My only hope is to find a used one I suppose.  Evidently the RF part of the new harmony remote is just an RF extender that allows you to control devices that are not in line of sight or are tucked away in a media cabinet, oh well, it still is cool.

I spent a lot of time playing with my new rc helicopter.  A few years back I got a toy rc copter.  However it had a severe limitation, you basically couldn’t control it.  The only control it had was for the speed of the rotor blades and supposedly through careful manipulation of that you could control direction.  Well that was bullshit.  All you could do is get it up in the air and then chase it down from whatever direction it decided to go.  It just wasn’t much fun and I sold it on ebay shortly afterwards.

Well evidently technology has improved over the last few years.  the new one I got cost almost half what the shitty one did, like 39.99 but it works much better.  It has full dual stick control, a lithium battery for long flight times and a tough and ingenious dual rotor design that makes it survive abuse and make the learning curve less steep.

My initial flights were a bit rough.  The copter would shoot right into the air but had a bad tendency to spin which in turn resulted in me overcorrecting, sending it plummeting to the ground.  Also, heavy throttle would make it climb very fast and if it got within a foot of the ceiling it would suck itself up to it, pinning itself until I cut throttle severely, resulting in another plummet.  However after maybe three or four flights I got the hang of it.  I moved the trim adjustment as far as it would go to cut back on the spinning.  It still spins more than it should but for 40 bucks what can you expect?  I learned how to be light with the controls and was able to keep it hovering for as long as I wanted.  It is very cool.  Nicki is scared of it, of course.  If I can get a day where there is absolutely no wind I may take a shot at flying it outside where there are no ceilings or walls to interfere.

Later in the afternoon I went over and picked up the neighbor’s dog.  We dog sat because they went up to Sarasota overnight.  It’s always fun when she is over, for the most part.  Her and Nicki interact together well and Zoe is entertaining in her own right.  That night she did her normal sleep in bed under the covers move.  Unfortunately she picked me to lay up against which woke me up several times an by the time morning came I was perched on the right most 6 inches of the bed.  I was up very late Christmas night playing WoW.  I had to do the next part of my epic mount quest which I didn’t finish up till damn close to midnight.

Yesterday was very laid back.  I had off from work but Ali didn’t.  So I had Nicki and Zoe home with me.  Basically my day consisted of doing laundry, taking the dogs out several times and playing warcraft.  I took the dogs out together each time.  It is very funny.  They seem to always want to go in opposite directions, often leaving me out in the yard in a crucified position as my arms are fully extended in both directions holding onto a leash with each one.  Zoe is fascinated with excrement.  When Nicki does her business I need to hold Zoe back, otherwise she would be in there with her nose, inches away.  After Nicki finishes, Zoe insists on inspecting the result and peeing on it.  Dogs are weird.

Zoe also can be very needy.  Sometimes she will just sit there and start at you and whimper and whine.  At one point she just sat there and stared at me forever.  She had recently went out and ate so I had no idea what she was yearning for.  Several times I would try to appease her by giving her extra treats.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.  She is very protective of her household, whichever one she is in at the time, she carried on like bloody murder when the postman, ups guy and a box turtle approached the house.  She would bark like mad.  It actually scared Nicki and she would come and hide under my legs at the computer desk.   Eventually Zoe chilled out and napped for awhile on the sofa.  She is a funny dog.

Yesterday I finished up my epic mount quest, it was involved and expensive but now I have an awesome , fast horse.  It has flames coming out from everywhere.  I also got a new headpiece for my warlock that makes him look scary as hell, it’s bad ass.  When I am on my flaming horse it just looks like you wouldn’t want to say boo to me.

Wow that Eagles game was as good as it gets, seriously.  I am so happy to eat my prediction of utter failure for their season.  Instead they seem to be peaking at exactly the right time, much like the Steelers did last year.  Both sides of the ball are playing very well.  How can you top beating the Cowboys, in Dallas, for the second time this year, have it guarantee you a playoff spot, set you up to win the division and do it in convincing, ass spanking manner, on CHRISTMAS??!! Man it was sweet.  TO got a touchdown but was basically ineffective again and griped again afterward, I love it.  Jeff Garcia may not look pretty getting it done but he is getting it done and he wears his emotions on his sleeve which I really am enjoying.  There is something about a guy that gets visibly pissed off and excited when he plays that makes you cheer for him.  Good for Jeff.  I hope they can keep riding this wave, it is unexpected which makes it all the better.

Today I resume my gym routine.  I feel better.  Not 100% but maybe close to 90%.  I won’t have an accurate barometer till I see how the session goes.  I put in for next Tuesday off, I want to have back to back four day weekends, you don’t get a chance for that very often.   

This morning I had to go to the branch out by me so I took my truck.  I had a big box that had some stuff in it so I threw it in the bed of the truck.  When I arrived at the branch I was horrified when I walked around the back of the truck to pull out the box, to see that I stupidly left the tailgate down and there was no box to be found…  Cripes it coulda dropped out anywhere during the 17 mile trip from my house.  What a dipshit I am.  Luckily I got a message from Ali that there was a big box in our driveway.  I stopped back home and picked it up.

Today is Ali’s birthday.  Since she has to work today back in the kitchen where she normally gets quite dirty, she put the kabosh on going to Olive Garden.  Instead she asked if I could just pick up a pizza on the way home.  It’s her birthday, whatever she wants.

My salesman called me back yesterday.  He said he could get another 30 bucks knocked off the Sirius install.  Big woop.  I told him 30 bucks isn’t 76 bucks.  He apologized and said if I want a couple tanks of gas or something to let him know, he would hook me up.  Whatever, I can’t wait to cancel the extended warranty on them.

Merry Christmas to everyone out there as this will more than likely be my last blog entry before the big day.  Tomorrow I have a full day of house work planned.  Ali is going to go help work a race in Marco Island in the morning and then she said something about going to work afterwards.  That leaves me to clean the house and tackle the chore of cleaning up the pool area solo.  I am going to flip the pool heater on to get the water nice and toasty for the holiday weekend.  It’s always fun to brag to your friends and family up north about swimming on Christmas. We are going to pick up my mom sometime Sunday so she can stay over and open stuff with us Christmas morning.

My Christmas prep is basically done except for wrapping a couple presents.  I still don’t feel overly festive or overly anxious for the big day to come.  I think the years where I could hardly sleep on Christmas Eve night have gone by the wayside.  However I have noticed one thing and I don’t know if it is the holiday spirit or me just being mellow from feeling sick for the last half of a month.  I have been communicating more freely, more clearly and more comfortably than normal. People that normally may not get much more than a HI from me, I have engaged in conversations.  I’m in one of those cycles where I am stumbling over my words a bit less.  They are always nice but don’t last very long.

Well anyway, the best to you and yours, see you on the other side.

Tomorrow is the last day of work for me till next Wednesday, then a short 3 day week and another 3 day weekend.  Can’t beat that.

 I remembered one other thing I wanted to mention yesterday.  When we got home from work on Tuesday, there was a thing hanging on our doorknob.  It was from the Florida Dept. of Agriculture.  It said that they are trying to monitor fruit fly outbreaks before they get bad.  The pamphlet explains that they put a fruit fly trap in our orchard that I suppose they will come back and check sometime.  I don’t know, I just thought that was kinda cool.  Would never happen in PA.

The van lady actually came yesterday and picked up her deposit.  She had a stupid look on her face as I handed her the envelope with her deposit in it.  For some reason she felt the need to extend the interaction and asked me a question regarding auto registration.  I robotically gave her the answer and said my good byes, hoping to never see her again, kook.  Right now our feelings about the van have mellowed and we are even talking about driving it out west to see my Dad and sister.

The incident with the dealer continued as well. Supposedly they were going to call me to let me know if they “approved” paying the 76 dollars.  Well I never got a call so I called and talked to good ole Miguel.  He said the general manager was out cause he hurt his back but he would try calling him on his cell to get approval and call me back.  Well he doesn’t call me back, instead my salesman does.  I explained to him about all the bullshit.  He understood why I was frustrated. But unlike the other people there, he leveled with me and said the real reason they are making such a fuss about it is because if they credit back the 76 bucks they have to redo the entire deal which is a big paperwork nightmare.  He said it would be much easier if they could just give me something outside of accounting to compensate me.  I came up with getting a discount off the installation of the built in Sirius radio.  He agreed and said that would be cool.  However, I paid the 76 bucks without getting any definitive numbers from him about exactly how much the discount would be.  I think he will go to bat for me but we will see.  Regardless, as soon as the registration is in my hand, the extended warranty gets cancelled so they may wind up just redoing the entire deal anyway. Oh well.

Last night I had to make chocolate chip cookies for the office Christmas party, a full 6 tubes worth.  It’s one things I may do better than Ali in the kitchen.  I have a good eye as to when to pull them out of the oven, Ali normally leaves them in a bit too long and burns em a bit.

Here is a WoW Christmas card I posted on our guild forums, it has all the virtual me’s lined up thanks to some Fireworks editing. From left to right is my druid, warlock, mage, rogue, hunter, priest, paladin and warrior.

I have been quite busy in WoW.  My latest short term goal has been getting my epic mount for my Warlock. An epic mount is a big deal. At level 40 you can get your regular mount which will allow you to travel at a 60% increase from foot speed.  However an EPIC mount allows you to travel at a 100% increase from foot speed, allowing you to gobble down long distances much faster when traveling. With most classes, getting an epic mount means you simply have to save up a lot of gold, 800-900 gold depending on your reputation with different factions.  But a couple classes like paladins and warlocks, can get their epic mount by completeing a series of quests which winds up being less expensive than 800-900 gold but still pricey.

 Doing the quests are extremely involved.  You have to spend a lot of gold and collect a bunch of stuff.  I have been mining dark iron from Burning Steppes, collecting ghost mushrooms from the Hinterlands and the Marudon instance in Desolace, and then bought a lot of the other stuff I needed off the auction house like large brilliant shards, arcanite and black dragonscales.  I could have saved some money by taking the time to farm that stuff as well but I want to get it done and I had the money to buy it.   Now I have to get some guildmates help me finish the rest of the quest chain because I have to travel to a couple instances and I can’t do it alone.

I also have been helping Charlie farm devilsaur leather from Un’Goro crater.  Un’Goro crater reminds you of Jurassic park, it is filled with dinosaurs.  Devilsaur’s look just like a T-Rex, very big and scary. Charlie and I hunted them on our mages.  Normally I would take one of my level 60 characters to do this ( my mage is only 52)  but I had to use the mage because he is my only character that is a level 300 skinner.  When you skin a devilsaur, you get devilsaur leather.  I gave all that leather to Charlie so he could send it to a leatherworker in our guild so he can make some gear for Charlie’s rogue.  The devilsaur gear gives a rogue a better chance to get a critical strike, making him more deadly.  Any of this make sense to you?  Unless you are a WoW cult member it wouldn’t. 

I have a bunch of things floating around in my head, much more than normal for a mid-week post.

Last night my cell phone rang and low and behold it was the van lady.  I was short, but civil to her on the phone.  She gave me more bullshit, saying how she was trying to get a loan from some place but they keep giving her the run around, not returning calls, saying faxes didn’t arrive, etc… I was a split second away from saying “Oh, like you have been doing to me?”   I mention how her cell phone was disconnected.  She said it was just a mix up, it’s all fixed now.  “Yea sure” I thought to myself.  Then she babbles about how she has been so busy with this children show stuff she does, she just hasn’t had time to do anything else.  “Um yea ok” I reply in as disinterested of a tone as I can muster.  Then she said she got the message about returning the deposit.  I told her it’s gone on too long and I just want to return her deposit and that is that.  She agreed to it but didn’t want me to send a check, instead she said she would stop by my office today to pick up the cash.  “Fine, whatever” I said.  She said that if she gets things worked out and comes up with the money and I still have the van for sale she will let me know.  I have news for her.  Even if she walked up to my door with the cash tomorrow I wouldn’t sell it to her.  She can eat shit as far as I am concerned.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t stop by to pick up the money today.  The woman has done NOTHING that she said she would do since this mess started.

Last night Ali saw there was a Peanuts Xmas Special coming on.  It was called something like “All I want for Christmas is a dog Charlie Brown”  It was an hour long, double the length of most Peanuts specials.  We thought we saw every Peanuts special there ever was but we had not ever seen this one.  We were pleasantly surpised, it was quite good and funny.  Any of the newer Peanuts specials we have seen (late 70’s or newer) had been pretty lame, they just didn’t capture the spirit of the classic series.  Well this special broke the mold, even though it was made in 2003, they did a great job of making it look, sound and feel like the older cartoons.  The voices for the characters were pretty close to what we all remember and the animation style looked dead on.  We both really liked it.  Check it out next year if you see it on the schedule.  Nothing matches up with the original Charlie Brown Christmas special but this one is a damn strong effort.

When I was having my argument with the dealer yesterday about the additional registration fees, I told him how they made plenty of money on us and eating the 76 bucks should be a non-issue.  When he said they only made 1000 on the deal I mentioned how we also bought the extended warranty which they also made money on.  When I said that he let it slip that I could cancel that warranty at anytime and get the prorated balnce refunded, so somehow that didn’t count.  Well that little statement got my wheels turning. 

This morning I pulled out our paperwork and looked at it and what they charged us for the extended warranty.  I knew from past experience that I could buy the exact same extended warranty from my credit union.  So I called the credit union today to verify that I could still purchase the warranty for the Camry from them.  Yep no problem, it’s easy to do and IT’S CHEAP.  It is almost a 1000 dollars LESS than the dealer charged and if you factor in financing charges, I could save about 1500 bucks over the life of the loan.  Then I read the paperwork for the warranty I bought from the dealer.  In it, it states that if I cancel within 60 days, I get the FULL amount refunded, minus a 50 buck fee. Perfect!!!  So once I get the registration in my hand, whether I wind up paying more for it or not, I am going to yank the extended warranty right out from under them and pick it up from the credit union.  F them.  All because they gave me a hard time about 76 bucks, they will lose 1000.  I love it.

I have a couple outstanding Christmas gifts for Ali that have not arrived yet.  I am getting a bit nervous, I followed up with the suppliers to apply some pressure.  The stuff better get here.

Impressive mileage from a midsize car!

I went to the doctor yesterday.  Once again when I got there the waiting room was empty and once again I waited 20 minutes to go back for some reason.  Then once I got in the exam room it was another 15 minutes.   I had the nurse practitioner that I’ve had several times, I like her she seems to listen.  I explained to her how this has been going on two weeks and how my mother-in-law, whom I think I may have caught it from was diagnosed with mono.  She looked in my throat, ears,  felt my head and glands in my neck.  She said she wanted to do a throat culture and blood test which will detect mono among other things.

The nice thing about this place is they can do a lot of it right on premise.  Another woman came in to draw the blood and do the throat thing.  I hate having blood drawn and told her that ahead of time.  I could feel my face going flush and the cold sweats breaking out even before the needle went in because of the anticipation.  I looked away as she stuck it in.  I was ok although there was one moment where I could hear my blood falling into the vial like a faucet running water.  That went through me.  Luckily the whole thing was done in maybe a minute.

The throat culture wasn’t bad except it sort of makes you want to gag.  She said they would have the results in like 10 minutes, awesome.  The NP came back in and went over the results.  She said I was negative for mono and the other numbers looked ok.  However she said I may have a mild grade thing and she gave me a prescription for a 7 day antibiotic and some industrial cough medicine.  She said it was important to drink a lot and rest.  Going to the gym last week was probably not a smart thing.

So I am back at work, still feeling tired and like my tank is a quarter full but I am functional.  I’m skipping the gym all week in hopes that I can beat this thing down.  I certainly hope so, feeling like shit for the better part of two weeks doesn’t do much to enhance holiday cheer.

I still have not heard back from the van people.  If/when I do, I am not sure if I should fly off the handle at them or just try to calmly exit the transaction by getting their money back to them.  I mean they really have caused me a lot of inconvenience and have been incredibly rude in their refusal to get back to me promptly when I leave messages.  I guess it depends on my mood when the call finally comes.

I have yet another situation.  When we bought the Camry, they handled the transfer of plate and also were supposed to renew the registration. The registration ran out on my birthday on Saturday.  I called them last Thursday, being proactive, asking them why I have not received the registration yet.  They said they were waiting for some paperwork to show up (I don’t believe them) but they said they would expedite it, have the registration in their hands Friday and would mail it to me so I have it Saturday.  Well it hasn’t shown up yet.

So, I call back today, annoyed that they didn’t follow through but I was nice.  I talked to the woman whom I spoke to last week.  She didn’t quite remember the details of our conversation so I reminded her.  She puts me on hold for awhile and then comes back on and says it just came in yesterday and it should go out today.  Oh and there is an additional charge of like 76 bucks.  Woah, hold your horses!  I’m not paying a dime more.  Sensing what was about to come, she transferred me to another chick. 

 “Hi this is so and so, how can I help you?”  I hate when people do this, they answer the phone in a generic manner that does not indicate if they know what you are being transferred to them for.  So I say to her “Do you know my situation?”  She says, “Yes you owe us 76 dollars”  Well the way she said it on top of the indignation I was feeling about the dealership asking me for more money flipped on my “ugly” switch.  I told her there was no way I was forking out more cash with the money they have already made on me.  She said that I signed a paper at closing saying the tag fees were “estimated” and could be more.  “I don’t care” I shot back, it’s not my problem that they did  a poor job of estimating the fees.  I knew that this woman had no power and I asked to talk to my salesman.

I get transferred out to the sales floor but my sales guy is not there today, it is his day off.  So I ask to talk to a sales manager, his name is Miguel.  I explain the background of the situation.  He listens and basically repeats what the woman told me.  I told him that the dealership made plenty of money on me and I just was not going to pay them more money to get my registration that I had to call to get them to take action on.  He said he would call me back.

He calls me back after no more than 5 minutes.  He says everything looked correct and how the fee came back higher than the estimation because it was a hybrid and because they had to renew the registration.  He said he could maybe give me a free car wash, but looking at the deal, they hardly made any money on the deal.  I told him I didn’t want a car wash.  I told him this was ridiculous, I looked at the numbers, I’m not an idiot, you made plenty of money on the deal.  He said I got a great deal, they only made 4% on the sale, around 1000 bucks.  Without outright saying it, I called him a liar.  I know the numbers, they made a lot more than that.  Back and forth we went.  I told him if they were willing to cast a negative light on the entire deal over 76 bucks, that is their decision. I asked him why they would be so off on the fees?  He said well because it was a hybrid.  I said, “You have been selling hybrids for years”  He said “Well the Camry Hybrid is a different weight class”  I told him the Camry hybrid has been out since July and told him he was acting like they never sold one before. Well eventually he came back and said he would split the 76 dollars.  “NO” I said, it’s 76 stinkin dollars.  I was not budging.  If they can pay half of it, this big multi-million dealership can eat the other 38 bucks to keep me happy.  Well he wouldn’t agree to it and again said he would call me back.  I am awaiting the call.  Why do people have to constantly be trying to screw you?