Ok let’s try again
Maybe it was the awful smell from the old guy at the gym that smells like mothballs but my head is clear enough to try this again. Speaking of the gym, since stopping supplementation with Creatine and Endothil, my strength has fallen off the table. The 275 bench I was flirting with would pile drive my chest now. It is amazing the fall off has been so quick. Oh well I also lost 7 or 8 pounds which should help me with the running and volleyball.
Ok, Friday I had my follow up appointment with the doctor. I was thrilled to walk in and see the waiting room was totally empty. Even so, it took over a half hour until the doctor came in to see me. I guess it doesn’t look good if they wait on you too quickly. I didn’t have to wear a robe this time, instead she came in and sat down. She looked over the chart and asked “Was I the one that gave you the initial exam?” I was a bit taken back by that. How could she forget giving a hernia exam to me a week ago? How many hernia exams does she give to beet red faced men in the span of 7 days? She had to be kidding. I told her about my surgeon visit and how he was certain I did not have a hernia. She didn’t seem concerned that his opinion contradicted hers. I asked her if a strain could cause the symptoms I was having. She said it could. Her treatment plan followed the surgeon’s, take it easy, take some anti-inflammatories and if it doesn’t get better or gets worse let them know. As a token that she was doing something of worth, she wrote me a prescription for industrial strength Motrin, which I threw out afterwards. Knock on wood, it has been feeling better.
November’s chore of the month was cleaning the perimeter of the house. That means cleaning the soffets and gutters which over the past 5 years have become dingy gray and in some spots almost black. I never have done a thorough job cleaning them since we have lived there. Once in awhile I hit the front of the house with the pressure cleaner but it never did a great job, especially on the high eves. After my experience, this chore is right at the top of the “jobs I hate to do” list. It is side by side with pressure washing the pool cage.
I decided to use a super duper cleaner someone recommended to me called Greased Lightning. My technique for cleaning went like this. Prop the ladder against the house, spray a roughly 6 foot section of the gutter and soffet thoroughly with greased lightning, scrub the 
area thouroughly to remove the dirt and mildew, hit the area with a hose and then wipe quickly with a cloth, move the ladder and repeat. The greased lightning was strong stuff. It removed paint if left on too long or scrubbed too hard.
The front of the house was especially grueling. Cleaning the high eves required me to go high on the ladder and reach. Greased Lightning and water was dropping all over me. I had goggles on to protect my eyes but nothing else. In retrospect that was a mistake. Anyway, I labored for 2 to 3 hours Saturday and another 2 hours on Sunday . It f’in sucked. I was relieved when I finished the last section. Everything looks much better now although I was bummed that it stripped some of the paint. If I would have looked at the bottle I would have read the warnings about using it on painted surfaces as well as the warnings about having prolonged contact with your skin! Prolonged contact, hell I practically took a bath in the stuff! As a result of my stupidity my skin nows has a shiny glaze to it. I don’t know if it melted it or what. Another weird side effect, all I have to do is wet my hands or hair and they become instantly slippery, no soap needed. Sometimes I really should read directions.
Saturday night we watched Cars. It was yet another entertaining computer animated flick. The graphics were amazing but I am so used to seeing amazing computer animation it doesn’t stand out nearly as much. I enjoyed Over the Hedge a little bit more. Cars was kinda of targeted for kids of Nascar fans. It gets a solid B.
I bought a “better” cooler for my CPU. The Pentium D processor runs hot and I was hoping to drop the temp a few degrees by getting a a copper based heatsink with cooling pipes. After a lengthy and aggravating install process the damn thing does a worse job than what I already had in place. It’s very annoying. So now I plan to drop the bucks and get a heavy duty cooler, the Scythe Ninja. That should cool just about anything.
After a weekend that was filled with work, I coasted the last part of Sunday, playing WoW for an extended amount of time. I had a funny episode late Sunday in game. One of the things I like about WoW is it lets me do one of my favorite things, be annoying. My level 28 paladin was in an area of undead zombies. My quest was to kill 20 of them. There was also a Warlock in the area, killing the same zombies I needed. Paladins have a spell that will make undead enemies run for a short period of time. So I decided to have some fun. While the warlock was fighting one of the zombies, I walked up and cast this spell on it, making it run away. While it was running away it “aggro’s” (aggro – to cause a monster to attack a player) 3 or 4 other monsters, causing them all to attack the Warlock, killing him. He is quite angry about this and sends me a message, warning me to not do it again or I would be sorry. So of course I immediately did it two more times. He was beyond pissed.
Well evidently “you’ll be sorry” meant he was going to have his level 55 horde rogue buddy come and harass me. Since I am only level 28, killing me should be child’s play for the rogue. The rogue comes and jumps me, almost killing me but I start running away with about 10% of my health. I have an ability that makes me run slightly faster than normal. This ability makes me slowly pull away from the rogue, making him unable to finish his dirty work. I start laughing and pointing at him (in game) as I am running for my life. He realizes he can’t catch me on foot so he hops on his horse. He gets up to me and dismounts and just as he does I change direction suddenly, quickly putting distance between him and I, once again making it impossible for him to catch me. This sequenece is repeated forever as he chased me around the graveyard for a good 10 minutes with me laughing at him the entire time, surely infuriating him.
I eventually ran into a different zone and didn’t see him anymore so I finally stopped. His thirst for revenge was deep and he evidently continued to follow me as he finally got to kill me. I resurrected my player 3 more times and he killed me each time. However I didn’t run, I just sat there and laughed at his incompetence as he hacked and slashed away. After the fourth death I thought it was time for revenge. I didn’t resurrect my paladin right away. Instead I popped open another window of WoW and logged on my 60 druid. I flew him to the zone where my paladin was and went stealth. I resurrected the paladin, ran him to a hill out in the open, away from other stuff and started him dancing and laughing. He was bait. I was hoping the obvious taunting would draw the rogue in for another kill. It worked like a charm.
With my druid standing near by, invisible, I see the rogue sneak in. Then in a blink of an eye my druid jumps him. He is obviously surprised and doesn’t respond right away. By the time he figures out he was set up it was way too late. I dropped him easily. I repeated this scenario 5 more times, moving the paladin and laughing and dancing all the way, only to have the rogue’s plans to drop him thwarted by my druid waiting in the wings. I was ridiculouly patient, sometimes waiting over 10 minutes for the rogue to work up the stupidity to try again. Finally after dying yet again he finally left the area. It always is good to have the last laugh. These random in game soap operas that can pop up at anytime are a part of the experience I find very enjoyable.