Buzzsaw, BIG window, Migration migraine, cut at the knees again, ten again, Terrific Tron, as expected
When I got home on Friday night I was on fire. I had it set in my head that I was going to buzz through the majority of my inside chores that night and man did I ever. In the span of two hours I had them all done PLUS some unexpected bonus cleaning. I cleaned out/organized the hobby/exercise room AGAIN. I think one of the other times Ali was out of town I did this and slowly over time it became cluttered again. I am going to really push for that to not happen again.
While I was in the process of working on the room I kept noticing this nasty, musty smell that was annoying me. I put my nose to work, smelling different areas until I could track down the culprit, the timing mats. You see the last race I timed it rained. After the race I left the mats out on the driveway to dry but evidently I didn’t let them out long enough. I took both mats out on the lanai, spread them out, and sprayed them with Lysol. They really smelled badly. Thankfully after two days the smell went away.
After my assault on house chores I got another urge, to go get a monitor. When I was at Sam’s Club on Thursday I saw they had a nice deal on a 27″ monitor. My plan was to use my Best Buy gift cards I received at Christmas and use them towards the purchase of a 27 inch monitor there. So I headed out around 7:30. I arrived at the store and beelined back to the computer department. I quickly surveyed the monitors they had and didn’t see anything larger than a 23″ monitor. Surely I must have just missed the bigger models. I went back and forth in front of the shelves several times, nope nothing bigger than 23″. SHIT, how can that be.
I walked out of Best Buy dejected but then decided to walk into the Staples right next to it. Same deal there, nothing bigger than 23″. Well this just was not going to fly so on the way home I stopped back at Sam’s and got my 27″ behemoth. It is SWEET. It provides a huge window into my digital second world.
On Friday the replacement server arrived. I spent a good chunk of my final hours before bed starting the migration process. It is going to be a long and twisty road until I get everything migrated. It is bringing back some of the headaches I encountered when I did something similar at work a year ago. Oh well it will be worth it when I am done. I just need to make sure to not trash any data along the way.
So Saturday morning I wasted little time before I was outside working on more projects. After weeding I planted all of the new garden additions. If we can avoid frost for awhile we could have a nice diverse crop this year including lettuce, swiss chard, peppers, onions, carrots, beets, tomatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. I also hung the new bird feeder and replaced a number of the solar pathway lights that were dead.
When I returned to the inside I got a call from Ali. Evidently my mom posted on Facebook that she was left go from her job again Saturday morning. Ali said she had called and talked to my mom for a bit and she advised I do the same which of course I planned to do.
So I called up mom to find out what happened. The last time I knew everything was fine at her job. When she was hired back part time she understood her role to be more of a relief pitcher. Basically she was supposed to take customers if the two full time salespeople were busy, otherwise her role was to do most of the support that is required to maintain the department.
Mom told me a month or two ago that her sales manager mentioned that he wanted her to start taking more customers. Evidently since that mention mom still was doing more support than active selling and instead of letting her know he needed more, the sales manager unceremoniously let her go without warning. It was a real classless move in my opinion considering he knew how important the job was to my mom. Since Saturday mom found out that this had been planned for awhile, the manager had already made arrangements to hire someone else, a relative of a friend, FULL TIME, to take mom’s spot.
I mean WTF, mom has worked at this place for years. The manager couldn’t have at least said to my mom that she HAD to start selling more or he would have to let her go? I got the impression the initial mention was more of a suggestion, not an edict. To go from that to “you are out of here” with no communication in between seems idiotic if not cowardly.
So now mom is once again left with a big ball of uncertainty. For someone that would rather be inside a rigid box of routines this is even more of a problem.
She no longer has any insurance coverage, her extended Cobra coverage ran out at the end of 2010. Her attempts to buy insurance so far have been unsuccessful, after all insurance companies don’t want to insure older people, they aren’t profitable. I would love for all these people that railed against health care reform to be placed into this situation and see if their tune doesn’t change very quickly. Now my mom has two options, hope she can land a job that offers benefits or roll the dice until she is 65 when she can qualify for Medicare. It just blows.
When I talked to my mom on the phone I told her I could pick her up and she could stay the weekend which she of course declined. She said she was in shock but fine which sounded as reassuring as a used car salesman making his sales pitch. I decided to drop in unannounced with the dogs in tow to cheer mom up.
Mom seemed ok outside of the chain smoking she was doing. After all it isn’t the first time she has gone through this. Her biggest concern was having to wait until Monday to get any answers as far her options go with unemployment and social security.
While I was there I got mom registered again for employment on the Home Depot site, a process that takes surprisingly long. I also did some maintenance for mom while I was there, running out to get a new flapper for her one toilet that was running periodically. I also put her Chrsitmas tree bag in the van to store it in our small shed, freeing up substantial room in her closet.
I reassured mom that things will work out one way or the other. The good news is she has enough money in the bank to ride out the financial deficit for a decent period of time, as long as she can avoid huge medical costs. Of course Ali and I are always there as her safety net.
It really upsets me to see mom get shafted like this, again. The business world can be a pretty cold and merciless environment. I will be hoping that karma does it’s best to repay the manager for his actions. For my part I will do my best to bring as many leads as possible to mom’s door and support her however she needs it.
On Saturday evening my buddy from work stopped over to watch some playoff football. We had a good time drinking beer and eating subs from the nearby Italian pizza place. He stayed until the Seahawks shocked the world by beating the Saints. I got to taste tequila for the first time, I was not impressed.
Sunday morning I made arrangements to be a surrogate runner with Ali’s girlfriends, Michelle and Christy. Michelle said she was planning to run anywhere from 7-10 miles. Hearing numbers like that a month ago would have prompted a “thanks, but no thanks” response from me. However since I had the ten mile miracle run the day after Christmas I knew I could do it.
I met up with them at 8:30. Before we started I stripped off my training pants and hooded sweatshirt. The 52 degree air felt pretty darn brisk on my exposed arms and legs but I knew once we got moving I would be fine. I also decided to wear my new sneakers to give them a true test, they passed.
Christy stayed with us till the 3.5 mile mark where she turned around to run back. Michelle and I decided to do the full 10. Michelle had it in her head that she needed to do 10, even though she hasn’t run any significant distance in quite awhile. It’s the same kind of thinking I utilized for my first 10 miler so I was happy to help Michelle push to her goal.
I let Michelle set the pace the entire run, I didn’t want her to feel like I was pushing her. We wound up completing the distance close to 3 minutes faster than I did the first time. I actually felt better this time around. I still had the legs that felt like concrete the last two or three miles but I didn’t have the hip and foot pain that I encountered the first time, perhaps a testament to the new sneakers.
It felt good to accomplish the magical 10 mile mark once again. It even has me thinking about trying to do the Hooters Half Marathon in a few months. That would be an unexpected feather in my cap. It’s only another three miles farther, I think I can grind it out.
I thanked Christy and Michelle for allowing me to tag along and headed home which included a stop at Dunkin Donuts of course.
I had precious little time at home. After letting the dogs out I almost immediately had to head right back out. I wanted to go see the 12:40 showing of Tron at the IMAX theater. I thought I might be arriving just as the previews started but it turned out I made it with 15-20 minutes to spare. I was quite happy to see only 20 or 30 people in the theater.
I saw the original Tron many moons ago but don’t remember all that much about it. The biggest thing the first Tron was known for were the special effects which were spectacular for it’s day. Well the present day version of the movie had some pretty awesome special effects as well.
It is the perfect film for IMAX, the immersion into the computerized world of Tron was really made complete seeing it in that environment. I really thought the movie was solid from start to end, I enjoyed the hell out of it and would give it a solid A. No it isn’t the next Avatar but it is pretty damn good. If you want to see it in IMAX you only have a precious few days left to do it before Green Hornet takes over.
Sitting in the theater for a few hours really stiffened up my legs after the long run. I walked like an old man across the parking lot to Best Buy. I wanted to spend my gift cards. After some perusing I decided to buy three 360 items, an Xbox Live points card, a voice headset and some Kinect dancing game that I thought Ali would really enjoy.
By the time I got home it was just about kick off for the Eagles game. I went into the game feeling very uninspired about their chance for winning. To me the last few games of the season set a bad tone as well as exposing just how to beat the Eagles, blitz Vick.
Luckily I was pretty distracted during the first half of the game as I was working on labeling extra timing chips for the half marathon. The Eagles languished through the first half playing more uninspired football, they looked overmatched on both defense and offense. Akers also developed a case of shankitis to boot.
In the second half the Eagles managed to get a couple breaks and big plays. They actually wound up in the position to be driving for the winning score with less than a minute to go. When Vick tossed the interception to end the game I didn’t yell out in anger, didn’t make any gestures with my hands, I just turned it off. It was odd.
In a way it is nice to be emotionally disconnected enough from the outcome of the game so that it hasn’t carried over into my personal life. There have been many, many times where the playoff losses would hang with me for an extended period of time. Not this one.
Despite my apathy there are a few things I am really tired of with this team.
Howdy Doody defensive coordinator Sean McDermott is a failure in my book. Despite being mentored under Jimmy Johnson for a number of years, he is no Jimmy Johnson. The defense has basically sucked all year long. You need look no further to justify his dismissal than the fact that the team had the worst red zone TD percentage IN THE LEAGUE, yep, dead last. Basically if a team got inside the 20 yard line they were guaranteed to get a TD. McDermott has to go.
Andy Reid. Sure this has been said again and again. He is a good coach, he isn’t a great coach. A great coach knows how to manage the clock. A great coach doesn’t have the worst challenge record in the league. A great coach doesn’t have his team be among the leaders in penalties time and again. I truly don’t think we will ever win the SB with fat Andy on the sidelines.
Lincoln Financial field. Ever since this place has opened the Eagles have enjoyed no significant home field advantage. I was having a hard time finding their overall record there since the place opened but I know it isn’t good, slightly over .500 at best. Teams used to FEAR coming to the Vet. The Linc is like a resort in comparison. Why the team has been unable to transform the energy of the crowd at the Linc into wins is beyond me. All I know is the team has next to no home field advantage. Hell our kicker doesn’t even know how to kick in it yet.
In the big picture, I wrote this season off before it even started so making the playoffs is just a bonus. It’s just too bad that even with a different cast of characters the script still plays out the same.
This week is going to hellishly busy.