Cliff notes Christmas

It’s been 6 days, it feels like Christmas was two weeks ago but hey, I’ll try to recall what I can.

I was off Christmas Eve, Ali had to work so the plan was for her to pick up my mom on her way home.  The night before on the way home from work I stopped at Home Depot to get the materials needed for my pull up station which I planned to build sometime over the break.

I kept myself very busy on Christmas Eve.  One thing I wanted to work on was the damn water equipment.  It hasn’t worked well for months and months, despite my best efforts.  Among the various problems was a pressure loss thing where the pump would run every 20-30 seconds to keep the pressure in the tank up.  I had figured out the other day that the leak was coming around the top of the tank. 

I sprayed the area with some Windex and noticed little air bubbles immediately forming.  It looked like the area was starting to rust and had little pinholes where air was escaping.  Considering we just had the system replaced in 2005 I was not thrilled that the f’ing tank was already starting to rust.  When I drained the tank in order to work on it I saw a ton of rust flakes come out, no wonder our water looks shittier than normal. 

After draining the tank I used some bathroom/kitchen caulk to seal the area around the lip of the tank that was leaking.  After I put it back together and re-pressurized the tank it still leaked a tiny bit but it held pressure at least.   It’s looking like this years tax refund might be funding a replacement water system, possibly a whole house reverse osmosis set up.

Another project for the day was building a ramp for the small shed.  I grabbed some 2×6’s at Home Depot for the project and I planned to use the decking off the old dog deck. As in most projects I do, all of the planning and design of the ramp was on the fly.  It actually turned out quite well.

The funny thing is if you looked at this picture you would never think I used the decking off the old deck which is very gray and weather beaten from 5 years in the Florida elements.  However when I flipped the board over they looked almost new so that is what I did.  What you see is the underside of 5 year old decking.

Those two projects kept me busy enough but I also found the time to do a few more things like plant some new stuff in the garden to replace some items that had gone kaput.  I planted some broccoli, squash and spinach.

When Ali and mom arrived I was anxious to show them the new ramp.  Ali was somewhat distracted so she wasn’t able to properly bestow much praise for my efforts, however I still felt pride in my work.  At least the dogs came and stood on it with me.

After a day of outdoor labor it certainly didn’t feel like Christmas eve, I had to keep reminding myself it was.  We spent our Christmas Eve eating vegetable lasagna and watching Elf on tv.  Ho ho ho.

As has been the case for the last half decade or so, I slept just fine Christmas Eve.  I no longer find myself wide awake in the middle of the night riddled with anticipation of the day to come.  Instead it was like any other night and I woke up around 6:15 or so.  Mom was next up and of course I had to encourage Ali to get out of bed somewhere around 7:30 or so.

I find I enjoy watching others open stuff more than opening stuff myself anymore.  It’s especially entertaining seeing Nicki around presents.  Somehow she has connected opening presents with fun.  She gets very excited as Ali opens presents on the floor.  Sadie was excited just because Nicki was excited.

Almost everything Ali and I got was on some list somewhere so there weren’t any big surprises like the two tickets to Chicago I gave her for her birthday.  Mom brought gifts as well even though I warned her ahead of time that any attempts to buy us gifts would result in me throwing her in the pool.  She was lucky she didn’t get wet.

It took awhile for us to get through the gifts, even with us buying fewer items than some previous years.  After the present exchange was done mom prepared her traditional Christmas morning french toast which we enjoyed outside.  We commented how we were one of the very few people in the country that could actually be eating breakfast outside.  Actually it was a bit TOO warm on Christmas day, or more specifically too humid. The one time of year that I would actually prefer to live in PA is Christmas.  No matter how hard you try, Christmas in Florida just has never felt right.

Ali needed to do a training run on Friday so despite it being Christmas, we decided to hit the track.  I was happy to see mom was willing to come along.  She strapped on her sneakers and walked a little over a mile while Ali and I ran a couple of miles.  As we ran we got to watch a Mexican pick up soccer game going on at the same time.

The rest of Xmas day was laid back.  Of course we received/made the various family calls and spent time cleaning up the aftermath of rampant gift opening.  I actually took some time to play with some of my Wii games I got for my birthday, Punch Out and Wii Sports Resort. 

I am a huge Punch Out fan, dating back to the original arcade version of the 80’s.  I have played many iterations over the years and ascended the to the championship in each version.  With the Wii version you have two control options, you can use the nunchuk and controller to flail wildly at your on screen opponents.  I tried this method initially and it worked for the low level opponents however I found as I progressed, I needed the instant response that conventional control offered.

I progressed pretty easily through the first few opponents.  You follow the same game plan with most of them, look for a sign they are ready to punch and then duck/dodge and counter punch.  I was happy to see Nintendo kept a number of the established boxers from the game as well as adding some new funny opponents.  The graphics are good for a Wii title and the humor in the animations of the boxers is great.

Currently I am on the precipice of winning the title however I have had my ass handed to me by The Sandman a number of times.  I have watched a few videos of how to beat him so I think I am ready to take the crown.  It’s a great game that really requires some quick reflexes.

I had big expectations of Wii Sports Resort.  I have heard several good reviews of the game.  The game comes with the Wii plus adapter that allows the controller even more functionality.  I ran through a number of the new games but only found one that was truly compelling for me, Ping Pong.  The Wii Plus adapter really comes into play here, allowing you full control over the type of shit whether it is a huge hooking down spin shot or dancing back spin variety.  I really enjoyed my matches and even had mom play for a bit.  She managed to win a few matches herself.  However other than Ping Pong I can’t say anything else really jumped out at me as all that much fun.  I will need to dig into the title a bit more.

Christmas evening we watched The Blind Side.  Mom said she wanted to see it.  It is based on a real life story about a down and out big black kid that gets taken in by a white family and winds up going to the NFL.  It was a feel good story and a good flick overall but there wasn’t anything that made it stand out above any other feel good films.  The thing I kept noticing more than anything was that Sandra Bullock has very wide hips and a big old ass, something I never knew before.  I’d give the film a B+.

On Saturday Ali had a long training run scheduled.  I asked mom if she minded if I began construction on my pull up station.  The construction of the station is documented in the prior entry so I won’t rehash it except to say the project went pretty smooth and I am very pleased with the end result.  Over the following couple days I did a ton of pull ups utilizing numerous grips.  I plan to use it on a regular basis.  Nothing will build overall upper body strength much better than pull ups.

Saturday night was the Chicago (the musical) performance.  Ali was excited for it and of course I was not but I was more than willing to go since I knew Ali was into it.  We sat down in prep for the show.  A large group sat behind us, the person right behind us was some old guy.  When he coughed I was lucky enough to catch a whiff of bad breath that smelled like he chewed on some mothball mints.  Throughout the first act I got to enjoy that wonderful scent repeatedly.

I tired to prepare for the performance by slamming a cup of DD coffee en route.  I was already tired from waking up early.  Sitting through a musical would be like taking a sleeping pill. 

The performance itself was fine.  The “star” of the show was Tom Wopat of all people.  Yea Tom Wopat from The Dukes of Hazard.  Tom is much older now of course but he did a decent job playing the slimy lawyer.  The female leads of the show were both very talented and the singing and dancing was all top notch.  One thing cool about Chicago is a lot of the females are basically wearing nothing but underwear.

I paid attention for most of the show however during the second act I did catch myself shutting my eyes a few times.  The show finished up around 10:30.  I asked Ali if she liked it and of course she did.  She knew I wasn’t that into it but I told her it was ok.  If nothing else it was interesting to see the performance live in a venue I never had been to before.

  Sunday morning mom was antsy for me to take her back home so I drove her back mid-morning in the van with the dogs hitching along, they love going on rides.  Mom thanked us for the gifts, especially the gift card that we cleverly concealed in the joke box.

Sunday afternoon we caught the Eagles game, well the last 2/3’s of it.  I was on the phone with DirecTV because my receiver refused to show the game, saying it was blacked out.  Normally a game will be blacked out on satellite if it is being shown by the local network affiliates.  Well I told them the game was not showing locally, they needed to fix it.

The woman on the other end had no idea why it was not showing the game.  She had me try various things, none of them worked.  Finally just for the hell of it she resent the authorization to my receiver and that somehow fixed the problem, yay.

So by the time I tuned in the Eagles had the lead and quickly extended it.  Before long they were ahead 27-10 and it looked like an easy blowout win.  Well the wheels fell off.  In classic Eagles form, the team went through a prolonged funk where they made mistake after mistake, allowing the Broncos to score 14 points within a couple minutes to get right back into the game.  All of a sudden the Eagles offense which was clicking on all cylinders could now do nothing. 

The game was then tied 27-27.  The Birds seemed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  They finally were able to move the ball after a now rare McNabb scramble to get a first down followed by a fantastic catch by Maclin to get them in field goal range.  Akers booted it through with 4 seconds to go to seal the win.  Whew.

Thanks to the Bears knocking off the Vikings, the Eagles can actually lock up 2nd seed in the playoffs if they beat the hated Cowboys Sunday.  Man that would be SWEET. 

Wow I still had two days off yet.  I figured I had busted my ass quite a bit already so I didn’t have any major labor planned.  On Monday I decided I would take my camcorder outside to a shoot a video demonstrating proper technique for the upcoming 300 challenge that Randall and Jeremy will participating in.  Of course the thing was shot with comedy in mind.  I was disappointed to see that much of the audio was stomped out by wind noise.  Evidently with the shitty on board mic the only time you get audible narration is if you are behind the camera shooting.  Most of what I said while the camera was on the tripod can’t be made out.  I tried to accommodate by adding captions to the final video.  The final cut is funny more than anything which is what I was going for.  When Ali saw it she just shook her head in disbelief.

Yesterday the highlight of the day was me going to the local Chevy dealer to actually look at Camaros.  I saw in an ad that they supposedly had some in stock, cool.  I parked and was greeted by some older, skinny, obvious chain smoker salesman.  He looked like he was in the business a looooong time.

I told him I wanted to check out the Camaros and told him I already know most of what there is to know about them, probably more than he did.  He told me all they had on the lot were the V-6 models including two used ones that they bought from rental car agencies.  I told him I was interested in the SS but still would like to sit in one of the V-6 models.  He said there was one in the showroom I could sit in, a base LS model.

I already knew quite well what the interior looked like but I was anxious to sit in it myself.  As I crawled in I noticed my hair which is sort of long right now, was brushing against the headliner.  The seat angle was a bit more forward than I would normally have it.  After I adjusted it back I had a little more clearance. 

As I sat in the car to take it in I was asking the salesman some questions about the process of ordering a car as opposed to buying off the lot stock.  I was surprised when he said the entire process should only take two months after ordering the car.  I asked if there was any financing deals going on. there weren’t but he said if you waive the GM 60 day guarantee you get $500 off the price of the car.

He said they had 2 or 3 SS models coming in a few days although they were the more expensive 2SS models.  One of them is an orange 6 speed which is one of the two colors I am leaning towards right now.  he said he could call me when they came in if I wanted to check them out.  I’d definitely like to drive on.

This guy was very low key, very laid back.  To be honest it felt like he could give two shits if he sold me a car or not.  He scribbled down my first name and cell number on a piece of paper and that was it.  Hell when I sold cars we had a little info card that we filled out on everyone we talked to with as much info as we could pry out of the person.  This guy asked me nothing, not if I had a trade, money down, lease, payment range.  Maybe that is just how they work there but it certainly does not follow the car salesman 101 guidelines.  Hell he didn’t even give me a brochure.

I sent Ali a text message on the way home saying “I bought it!”  I was surprised when instead of getting something back like “What the F???” she instead sent “What color?” like she would have been fine if I went a bought a Camaro without any input from her.  I guess she really is ok with me getting one.  Anyway, I told her I was just kidding.  It was cool though to see the car in person although I didn’t feel quite as excited as I thought I would be.  I think in the back of my mind it still seems like a far off goal, too far to view it as tangible quite yet.

The rest of my 6 days off was uneventful, played some WoW did some pull ups. It was just fine with me, I had a pretty full 6 days as is.