Pressured, sneakered, Wolfman, still sick, Craigslist caution,shaved, Thank the football Gods

Saturday morning Ali and I headed out early to go to the running store to get sneakers.  Ali has been buying a new pair of running sneakers every few months, probably even before she hit the magical 300 mile mark.  I don’t subscribe to the same time frame for running sneaker replacement.  I think my current pair of New Balance are somewhere around 5 years old.

The store is run by George, one of the big wigs at the runner club.  I went in there with one request for a sneaker, max shock absorption to protect my fragile knees.  For some reason I thought the process would be much more consultative with George maybe measuring my foot, looking at the arch etc.  Instead George seems to go more on what feels good, giving me about half a dozen different sneakers to try on and simply asking me how they feel.

Of course walking around a store is a lot different than running mileage in a shoe so I wasn’t really sure if I was making a good choice or not.  I went with a pair of Nike’s that definitely felt like they had the most cushion although they didn’t feel as supportive as my NB’s through the arch. George put a different insert into them to give some additional arch support.  The real test will come when I run, whenever I am well enough to do it.

When we got back Ali had to pretty much pack up and go to meet Christie for their ride up to St. Petersburg for their half marathon. I wished her good luck.

I had already done the normal outside chores I had to get done.  Ali had done weeding earlier in the week when the cleaning was going on which saved me time.  I had a couple big projects to get done before the holidays, pressure washing outside and trimming the palms.  I opted to do the pressure washing.  The tree trimming would be greatly enhanced by Ali’s second set of hands.

So I was outside for almost 6 hours with the pressure washer, enough to go through four tanks of gas.  I did the pool cage and lanai first, the largest pain in the ass.  I still was feeling under the weather so manning the high pressure wand and all that comes with it felt more physicaly demanding than normal.

Once I finished there I headed to the back yard.  Before blasting the two sheds I turned my attention to several other wooden items in our landscape.  On the east side of our house we have several things made out of pressure treated lumber.  These items routinely get sprayed with the raw well water in the sprinkler system and also get only half a day of sun.  As a result they were completely covered in black mildew.

The pressure washer excels in addressing this situation.  It made short work of the black coating of gunk.  When I was done it was like the wood was dipped in the fountain of youth.  The difference in appearance was remarkable.

So I by the time I finished cleaning both sheds daylight was pretty much exhausted as was I.  I put all of the equipment away and called it good for the day.

After I made the dogs dinner I quickly grabbed the clippers and went to town.  I didn’t make this head shaving session an internet spectacle, I just wanted my hair shorter and didn’t feel like bugging Ali to do it.  At first the plan was to just do 1/4 ” all the way around but I found that that length on the sides just doesn’t look great.  I grabbed the 1/8″  attachment and did the sides and the back of my head looking in a mirror which was a challenge.  I THINK I did a decent job of blending it in.

Saturday night I watched my latest Netflix DVD, Wolfman.  I had already confirmed with Ali that she didn’t want to see it.  She frowns upon scary, violent movies.  This flick had healthy doses of both.  I enjoyed the remake of the old horror classic but even I cringed at some of the gore.  I may have witnessed even more than those that saw it in the theater since I chose the unrated version. If you ever need to find out the meaning of “eviscerate”, watch this.  I’d rate the film an A-

After the movie I was so tired, I considered going to bed even though it was before 9pm.  I decided against it and played some WoW pvp for an hour or so.

I woke up Sunday morning feeling like I sort of relapsed with my illness.  The incessant runny nose had slowed down but I had a new and different bad feeling in my throat as well as a steady feeling of lethargy.  Luckily I didn’t have much to do on Sunday and I took advantage of it.

I spent the day doing as little as possible.  I just felt very rundown, unmotivated and melancholy.  Being ill usually brings those feelings around.  Being ill over a full moon amplified those feelings I’m sure.

Ali texted me that she finished the race and turned in a PR, beating her previous half marathon best by around eight minutes, a great job by her.  She didn’t get back home until around 4.  As expected she was wiped out and took a nap after filling me in on her race which sounded pretty nice.  I found out she got to run on the field of the Tampa Rays stadium which was cool.

I “cooked” dinner.  To be more accurate I threw the frozen eggplant parm into the oven and set the timer.  I also did something similar with the garlic bread.

I really don’t like prime time Eagles games, especially when I am already sleepy before kick off.  We watched the game in bed.  Well I didn’t watch most of it.  I inadvertently passed out somewhere early in the second quarter, I just could not keep my eyes open.

In a stroke of good luck I magically awoke with 5 minutes left in the game, just in time to see the Eagles almost put it away, almost choke and then put the game away for good.  I could not believe that Samuels fumbled.  As soon as he grabbed the ball I said to myself “Just don’t fumble!”  When I saw him aggressively trying to gain yardage I was like WTF?  When I saw him get drilled and lose the ball I silently screamed “You f’ing IDIOT!” since Ali was still asleep.

It seemed like the Birds were setting themselves up for another colossal collapse when they let Manning scramble for a first down however this time they benefitted by a bone headed play on the other side.  Instead of safely sliding for the first down, which he had made easily, Manning dove forward and as he hit the ground the ball popped out.  Since he had not been touched by an Eagle the ball was live and it was a fumble which an Eagle grabbed.  Wow, now that was some true luck, the kind of luck a team needs during a season to get somewhere.

So even with the fumble the Giants had a chance to get the ball back since they had all three timeouts.  I totally figured the Eagles would run the ball ineffectively three times and have to punt the ball away, giving me more unwanted drama.  Instead McCoy broke a huge run that put the Eagles into field goal range that allowed them to tack on three points to win the game.

It was a great win.  It sounds like it was a good thing I fell asleep when I did to miss the Giants marching right down the field twice in short order to score two TD’s.  I never expected the Birds to be at 7-3 10 games deep into the season but I’ll take it.  Bring on the Bears.

I have been monitoring Craigslist for a decent deal on a used Xbox 360.  On Sunday I saw one that had potential, a Xbox 360 Pro console.  It was just the system with one controller and the AV cables, no games.  When I compared it to other 360’s I had seen posted in the last couple weeks I thought the $140 asking price was a little high which I told the seller via email, he had no phone number listed in his ad.

He responded back to me that he would do $110 if I could do the deal today which I initially agreed to.  I told him to call me and let me know where he lived and I would pick it up.  He didn’t call, instead he responded back saying he didn’t have a phone and that the money from the 360 sale was to help him buy another one. He wanted to meet me in the parking lot of a Taco Bell.

Well all of a sudden this raised a red flag for me.  Sure meeting in a parking lot isn’t that uncommon for CL transactions, most people would prefer to not have random people on the internet showing up at their door.  However the lack of phone contact even after I offered up my number smelled fishy.   It felt like the guy was trying very hard to minimize my ability to contact him after the sale just in case he was pulling a fast one.  I decided to walk away from the deal and emailed the guy back saying thanks but no thanks.

It was a decent deal but there are plenty of used 360 fish in the sea.  I’ll keep fishing.