All posts by Duf

Information overload regarding the people in your zip code.

I forgot to mention I got a kick in the ass over the weekend.  Remember the sweet Treo 750 I just got for Ali?  Well the reason I got it was because I was sure her plan expired in mid-September.  I don’t quite remember where I got that date from whether it was online or from a rep on the phone.  Well you can imagine my surprise when I see a bill notification from Verizon show up for 220 bucks!  Immediately I think to myself how those Verizon idiots charged me an early termination fee even though the contract was done.  Before I got on the phone, I wanted to grab an old bill so I had all of my account info in front of me when I was on the phone with them.  I pull out a bill and in big letters, right on the front it lists the contract end date as mid-NOVEMBER!  DAMN IT!  I cursed myself as I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on.  Shit.

Today is my wedding anniversary. Nine years ago I entered into marital bliss, for the second time.  It’s hard to believe that nearly a decade has passed since the big day.  I remember much detail about our wedding pretty clearly.  I remember I was unusually calm leading up to it but then right before the service started I was very nervous.  I remember Ali getting mad at me when we were exchanging vows because at one point I sort of half laughed but it was because I was trying to cover up.  Ali had tears in her eyes as I spoke and it made me start to well up, the laugh was an involuntary way to try to keep things under control.

It’s a weird feeling to be walking down the aisle of the church with a room full of people there for no other reason than to see you in that moment.  It is the closest many people come to being a rock star.  Maybe that is why such a big deal is made out of it.  I had a lot more fun at the reception this time compared to the first time, thanks to alcohol.  When I got married the first time I was still adhering to my “no drinking” rule, which I broke shortly after getting married, ironically enough.  Drinking at the reception really helped take the edge off and allowed me to enjoy the moment instead of dwelling on being the focus of the event.  It was probably the most fun I ever had at a social gathering. (well it’s right up there with some of the old Entre Christmas parties at O’Kelly’s)

Like all marriages, mine has had multiple peaks and valleys.  However compared to marriage number one, which was nothing but a stress factory, this is  a walk in the park. We have come a long way from living in a little townhouse on West Gaul street.  We both love the little home we have carved out for ourselves in SW Florida.

 We don’t have any huge plans for the event.  We are going to put off going out to dinner to celebrate until the weekend.  My weed whacker was my anniversary present.  I bought Ali a new cordless phone for the office as hers 🙂  Romantic huh?

Stories like this that appear in the local newspaper really annoy the hell out of me.  I don’t like living among a bunch of elitist assholes that have nothing bigger to worry about than if their beach parking sticker looks nicer than everyone else’s…

 A quote from the article:

“It’s our only identifier,” he said. “One of the badges of honor (of living in the city) is to have a city of Naples beach sticker.”

I hope this guy brushes his teeth with Ben Gay.

So last night after work I stopped at my mom’s on the way home with my meter so I could figure out what was wrong.  Of course I pull out the meter, hit the power button and it’s dead, the battery is toast…  SOB.  I pull the cover off the meter and see it runs on a 9 volt battery which I commandeered from one of mom’s smoke detectors.  Ok so I go out to the lanai and check the wires with the switch off, no juice as I would expect.  I tell mom to throw the switch.  I take another reading, still no juice.

Ok so I moved inside to the switch.  I pull the face plate off and decide to take a reading on the two screws on the side of the switch.  I reach in with the first probe and BLAM, a huge flash of light, a loud noise and me instantly dropping the probe and jumping backwards.  Obviously I grounded something out.  I looked at the probe.  About half of it had vaporized and what was left was a melted mess.  The meter itself was still functional.  Holy shit.

I don’t like admitting much scares me but electricity scares me.  I have had several run ins with electricity over the years that have not been favorable.  I remember when I just started at Entre computers I was assigned the job of pulling down a light fixture from the building we vacated.  The light was off so I assumed there was no power applied.  I took my cutters to one of the wires and was instantly knocked to the floor as electricity surged through the cutters and me.  Much like yesterday, the metal in the cutters was instantly melted.

Then there is the Buick incident.  The wiring in the dash shorted out somehow turning my beautiful convertible into a burned to bare metal pile of junk in the span of 15 minutes.  Ever since then, the smell of something that is electrically hot sets me into a mild panic as it reminds of the what I smelled right before the flames started shooting out of the dash.

If there was a positive to come out of the incident at mom’s it was that we now knew which breaker controlled that circuit as it tripped after my ill advised probing.  Mom’s next door neighbor is an electrician.  She is going to see if he can take a look to see why we aren’t getting juice out to the lanai.  I was fine with that. 

So the Phillies made the playoffs for the first time in 13 or 14 years.  I was mildly excited about it and hoped to catch the games.  I caught exactly one inning before they got swept away by the Rockies.  The first two games were at 3 and 4 in the afternoon so by the time I got home the games were done.  On Saturday night the game didn’t start until 9:37 pm.  I was exhausted from busting ass all day and fell asleep after watching the first inning.  It’s awesome that they made the playoffs but getting swept definitely stings a bit.

It is looking like the indian casinos in Florida are going to be getting “Vegas Style” slot machines as well as being able to run blackjack tables.  That would be very cool since blackjack is one of my games of choice.  It would give me more of a reason to venture 15 miles east to gamble once in awhile.

Here they are and they all speak english.

Jeremy and I normally talk back and forth about our fitness routines.  He has been intrigued by my 300 routine and has even tried it once or twice himself.  On Friday I was describing the various exercises and how with some of them I pause to take small 10-15 second breaks in the middle of them.  I told him how I was only 16 reps from that magical 300 I have been working towards since the beginning of April. He suggested that I should just throw in whatever additional rest I needed and add those last 16 reps in and then just work at getting the time down from there.  After a brief pause, I agreed, I should do that! Today I did.

My energy level was not high due to a weekend of hard work.  My shoulders were especially tired. It didn’t matter, I had my goal laid out.  Just as I was getting my stuff ready, I was annoyed to see the trainer the gym employs back in my room, stealing my Reebok steps for his “client”, a young girl he does nothing but flirt with the entire time he is training her.  He is the worst trainer I ever have seen at the gym.  With this cute young girl he flirts constantly and is very attentive.  However when I have seen him with other people like older folks and fat guys he acts totally disinterested and just directs them to machines and tells them to do some reps while he looks around the room, checks his phone, etc… He is really bad.

Well anyway I knew there was going to be an issue when I got to the box jump/floor wiper sections of my routine since I use the steps for both of them.  I started the torture anyway.  When It was time to do the box jumps they were still on the steps so I mixed up the order of the exercises for the first time ever.  I did the one handed clean and presses after push ups. By the time I got done with those, which were a mighty struggle with my tired shoulders, the happy couple had moved on to other things.  I grunted out 50 box jumps and then set up for the wipers.  I threw in one extra mini-break to get to 50 reps.  Sweat was running down my arms as I finished.  All that was left were the last 25 pull ups.  

I was so tired already, I was taking an extra long break before starting.  I knocked out 15, dropped off the bar and rested for a bit.  I hopped back on and was able to get another 5 before the muscles started seizing so I dropped off again.  Another panting rest period and then back on the bar to get the last 5 reps. 296, 297, 298, 299, 300! I stopped the watch which read a disappointing 30:32 but I didn’t care all that much.  The routine got thrown out of whack from the lousy trainer so I think I would have easily been sub 30 if things went normally.  It felt good to hit the number, the number that 7 months ago seemed impossible to hit when I struggled to squeak out 156 reps.  Damn, I finally did it. Now I just have to get my time down.

I plan to continue on doing the 300 for the foreseeable future.  I like the changes in my body since implementing it.  As tough as it is, the effort is worth the satisfaction of completing the routine.  I like the looks from people at the gym, wondering what the hell the hairy faced guy back in the corner is doing. 

This weekend was extremely busy as I knew it would be.  On Saturday Ali was out the door early to go work a race and then she went into work to get caught up.  I spent the next 3 hours on a tornado like chore spree.  In that period of time I sprayed the cantaloupes in the garden, ripped out the rain barrel that was cracking,  did the pool maintenance, filled the bird feeders,  installed the pulled captain’s chair back into the party van, washed the bug guts off the front of the van and then washed and vacuumed the Camry. 

After that blitz it was only a little before 11.  I was hungry so I made myself a sandwich and watched one of the movies I downloaded that Ali had no interest in seeing, 1408.  I see very few scary movies anymore for the reason mentioned in the previous sentence but I do like them.  When I was younger I loaded up on Freddie Kreuger, Halloween and other similar type movies.  It’s fun to be scared sometimes.  1408 did a nice job of working up a good scare.  The corners of the main characters life (John Cusack) all get pulled into a somewhat confusing storyline.  It had some very scary moments and also some very sad moments that started to soften me up.  I liked it. B+

After my movie break it was back to work.  The carpets need to be steam cleaned.  Doing this is a very lengthy process.  First I had to vacuum the house thoroughly and then hit it again with the steam cleaner.  Steam cleaning is a slow process.  On the up stroke you squeeze the trigger to apply the solution, on the pull the solution gets vacuumed up.  Normally I will go over each area multiple times to pull as much solution off the carpet as possible.  This translates into a ton of pushing and pulling.  By the time I am done my right shoulder is normally burning.  Each time I emptied the dirty water tank my efforts seem validated by the muddy looking water that was coming out, the carpet needed it.
So finally I get done, the carpet looks a shade or two lighter and is perfect, pristine condition, almost like fresh snow.  I am admiring the fruit of my effort as I walk around.  Then I see it.  Right in front of the kitchen island, a f’in fresh SKIDMARK!  Although I said nothing, in my head I am thinking “OH NO YOU DIDN’T”.  The f’ing cat just drug her ass across the carpet I have been working on for 2 hours!  I was insane with anger.  Instantly I scan the room looking for her.  She isn’t hard to find, she is just sitting by wall acting like nothing was wrong.  As she saw my body language and heard me screaming at her “YOU F”ING CAT!” she tensed up and then tried to escape.  Like a WWE wrestler applying a death grip, I slap my hand on the scruff on her neck and yank her up.  I carry her over to the stripe of feces, slam her in front of it and yell “YOU DON’T WIPE YOUR ASS ON THE CARPET,  WHAT THE F IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!???” As I finished my speech I throw her angrily towards the tv which she decides to scamper behind for cover. 

 During my screamfest Nicki came running in.  She loves when I yell at the cats and when I threw Buttons she chased her like a dog toy, eager to add to the humiliation.  Anyway, I wasn’t done ranting yet.  Buttons going behind the TV only fueled my rage.  I had images running through my head of the dried up cat excrement I discovered back there a couple months ago.  So I yank the TV away from the wall, grab Ali’s rolled up yoga mat and start jamming it behind the TV, screaming at the cat to get out. Nicki was waiting at the other side to pounce.  Buttons had to decide what was the lesser of two evils, getting hit with a yoga mat or chased by the dog.  She chose the latter.  She sprints out from behind the tv and Nicki immediately gives chase.  Buttons scrambles behind a big basket for cover.  Luckily I had our bedroom door closed, else she would have surely went under our bed.  I’m still furious, I stomp over, pick her up again and carry her over the sliding door.  I open the door and throw the cat out like I was rolling a bowling ball.  Buttons barrel rolled once or twice and then skidded to a stop.  She scurried under the gas grill.  “WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOME!” I shouted as I slammed close the slider. 

 I was so f’ing pissed.  Even as I am getting out the SpotBot to clean up the cat shit I am swearing to myself about the cats and how sick I was of them.  I entertained the idea of picking Buttons up and throwing her  into the pool.  Let’s see if cats swim.  Eventually I calmed down and Buttons was allowed back in the house an hour or two later.  It was like nothing happened as far as she was concerned.  It was almost like she expects hell to be brought upon her when she uses the rug as toilet paper.  She takes the abuse and then it is back to business as usual.  It’s amazing how much I loved cats growing up compared to how much I hate them now.  I now realize it was because I wasn’t their primary care giver.  Mom was always the one to handle the nasty end of things.

Ali came home around 6:00 or so.  We had vegetarian brauts and sweet potatoes for dinner while we sat down and watched the latest FF4 movie.  To me, the Fantastic Four and X-men movies have always been sort of the ugly step children of the super hero movies.  Of those two the FF4, are the least enjoyable.  I almost feel like I am watching arena football or minor league baseball.  It was just ok.  They sort of jumped the shark with this one when the flame guy inherited the powers of all four of them at once to beat the bad guy.  I mean where do you go from there?  Plus the Silver Surfer angle doesn’t correspond to what I remember in the comic books.  I thought he was just another super hero fighting baddies.  In this flick he is basically bad until the end.   By the end of the movie I just didn’t care what happened to any of the characters, it was lame.  I’ll award it a C, which is terrible for a super hero movie considering I am so biased towards liking them before I even see it.

As busy as Saturday was, Sunday was busier.  Ali, Nicki and I piled in the truck.  Before we left I collected all the stuff I imagined I would need for the dry wall job at mom’s and loaded it up.  I dropped Ali off at the gym for spinning class and then headed to my mom’s.  The plan was I could do the prep work and then pick Ali up, go to Home Depot to get the drywall and accessories and then back to mom’s to do it.  The roof over mom’s lanai leaked like mad for ages.  The landlord drug his feet getting it fixed but finally got around to having someone do it a few weeks ago.  The leaking water destroyed the old drywall ceiling ages ago, most of it simply fell out.  

What remained was the warped, shorted out ceiling fan, a few pieces of drywall around the edges and the old screws that held it in, lots of screws. It was quite humid outside, mom hooked up a small table fan to assist in keeping the air moving which helped a bit. The fan and the old drywall was down fast, the screws took a lot longer.  I opted to back each one out instead of turning them in or breaking them off with a hammer.  By the time I got the last screw out it was just about time for me to go pick Ali back up, good timing.

So I leave Nicki with mom and pick up Ali and head to Home Depot.  What I was hoping would be a quick stop turned into an extended visit.  We picked up a number of things for our place as well as the stuff for mom’s, including a new fancy shmancy Cub Cadet weed whacker WITH blower attachment. (more on that later)  Getting the blue board dry wall sheets into the cart and the back of the truck was a bit difficult.  They were difficult for Ali to manage on her end.  500 dollars and an hour and a half after I left mom’s we return.  We were both hungry so mom threw a small pizza in for us to chow down on before the labor begun.  Since we were going in and out a lot mom didn’t want to have the ac running, as a result as I sat at the table and looked at the thermometer on the fridge, an 86 degree reading stared back at me, whew…

So finally the work began in earnest.  I never had done drywall before so although I knew the concept was rather simple I printed out some pointers I found on the web.  I didn’t refer to them once while there though, relying on what I read ahead of time.  Doing drywall on a ceiling adds a new challenge to the mix.  Of course it is much harder to support something overhead, get it lined up and screwed in.  Thank goodness mom and Ali were there, they used a small rake and an old mop to provide auxiliary support while I went around and secured the drywall..  We had some issues with the first piece because the wall of the house was a rough texture and not straight, so in some parts the drywall cleared where other spots the bulge in the wall was hanging it up.  Eventually we got it jammed in there at the expense of a few bent spots on the edge that could be patched up with plaster.  The second piece was trickier.  It was the one that had to have a cut out for the ceiling fan.  We had to mark the cutout twice as the first time we reversed what it should have been, not thinking about how the drywall would be inverted when put into place.  After some grunting and groaning we got the piece in and the cutout actually lined up.  I was pretty pleased with myself.   

Then I saw along the edge by the screen door that the edge of the piece wasn’t all the way in place, it was hung up on the piece next to it.  I had already sunk a number of screws in place to hold the piece so I figured if I bumped the seam with something it would pop into place.  Well I hit it a bit too hard and instead of lining it up, I popped it through so now it was ABOVE the other piece.  I was pissed.  I dicked around with it for awhile trying to get it down.  The best I could do was get it lined up  with the other piece but then the entire joint along the wall was raised up a bit.  Mom repeatedly told me it was fine and to not worry about it.  It bugged me but I finally relented and just let it go.

The last piece we tried to put in as one section but since it was the last piece there was very little room for play and we had no luck getting the angle right to wedge it in there.  So we decided to cut it in half and do it.  It just meant one more small joint to tape.  Cutting it worked like a charm, both pieces fit in well.  I dropped in a number of screws to hold it all.  It didn’t look half bad.

So now we turned our attention to replacing the ceiling fan, we got her a nice outdoor model.  As mom assembled the fan blades I worked on the putting the main body together.  I hooked it into the electric, hung it and then before putting the blades on I wanted to flip the switch to make sure it was working.  I have mom flip it, fully expecting the motor to start spinning.  Instead I get nothing.  I pull the chain a few times, wondering if maybe it ships in the off position, nothing.  I tell mom to turn it back off. Shit.  I spend a few moments weighing the possible cause of the problem.  A flipped circuit breaker could have done it although mom was confident they were all on.  I went to the box which had nothing labeled and flipped all the 15 amp circuits off and on.  I tried the switch again, nothing. 

Then I noticed that on the fan where the blades are mounted there were rubber pieces screwed in that evidently are there to keep the motor from spinning during shipping.  Ah, that must be it.  I quickly remove them, confidently go back to the switch and throw it, NOTHING.  Damn it.  So I pull the fan down, thinking maybe the electrical connections I made were not solid.  When I removed the wire caps I saw they were still intact.  Even so I removed them reattached them and tried again. Nope.  Unfortunately one thing I did not bring with me was my meter.  I didn’t expect to have electricity issues.  I had no easy way to verify if current was coming out of the wires.  Mom even went next door to a neighbor that is an electrician but he wasn’t home.  Shit!  Well the fan project had to be put on hold until I could get back there with my meter.

While I was screwing with the fan, Ali had been going around with the plaster and filling the screw holes.  All that was left to do was the joint taping.  I started on it but almost immediately realized I was doing a shitty job of it.  I asked Ali if she wanted to try that as well.  She did a much better job.  She laid down the initial coat of compound and then I would press the tape into it and then she would go back over it and finish it up.  She did a great job.  We reached our stopping point for the day.  The panels were up, taped and compounded.  All that was left to do is sand down the compound once it dries, paint it and get the damn fan working.  We cleaned up the tools and materials and were out of there by around 3:30.  Mom was very grateful for our efforts as she spends a decent amount of time out on the lanai (smoking unfortunately) and having a ceiling overhead instead of bare studs was a nice change.

So we hurried home.  The weather looked rainish which wasn’t good since we had the left over drywall panel and a half in the back of the truck.  We made it to about a mile from our house before it started to rain.  I quickly dumped all the stuff in the garage to be sorted out later.  I wanted to dig into my new, expensive Cub Cadet weed whacker.   This sucker was expensive.  190 bucks plus another 80 or so for a blower attachment for it.  This thing had a long, straight shaft and used an unconventional (for a weedwhacker) 4 cycle motor, meaning you don’t have to feed it a gas/oil mixture.  Plus I have had a good experience with my Cub Cadet lawn tractor.  I expected more goodness from their weed whackers.

As I unpacked it I noticed the head of the unit looked strange, it used a fixed length cord instead of the continuous feed I am used to.  It’s one “commercial” quality string instead of a spool of line that feeds out as it gets worn off.  That was my first red flag.  I was leery of the string holding up very long in my landscape where I am trimming up against concrete and wire fencing regularly.  I shelved my concerns, hoping that since it is a Cub Cadet, it would be fine.

The next thing I noticed was how long and how heavy the machine was compared to my Homelite curved model.  Again I told myself it is a Cub Cadet, I’m sure it is perfectly balanced to offset the increased weight.  I take it outside and add the oil to it thinking it would be nice to be more environmentally responsible using a 4 stroke engine that spits out less emissions.  I didn’t think about the need outlined in the manual to check the oil level every single time you use it and the regular, tedious maintenance that was recommended for a 4 stroke motor. (the 2 cycle motor in my old Homelite has never been “maintained” for 6 years) 

So I attach the normal weed cutting head, fire it up after a couple pulls and knock down a some grass.  The motor sounded much more civilized than what I was accustomed to and I noticed I had to be applying considerably throttle to get the head spinning fast enough to do damage, oh well no big deal.  After the whacking test run I switched attachments and put the blower end on.  I fired it up and had some fun blowing the chunks of grass I just cut off the driveway. I brought Ali out to show her my new toy, despite the reservations I had to that point.  Ok this isn’t bad I thought.  Let’s put it to a real world test.  I put on my long pants, my glasses and my bug spray and started my weed whacking circuit. 

It did not go well.  The shaft of the CC was long and straight, the intention being that you wouldn’t need to lean over to reach the ground.  It also made it very difficult to do any precise, down to the ground trimming.  Plus, my long gorilla like arms naturally held the unit too low, to keep the angle correct I had to keep my arms bent and shoulders tensed.  It didn’t take long at all for fatigue to start to set in.  Almost instantly I was feeling frustration with this thing.  The only thing it did well was cut down grass in an open area.  If I tried to angle it to cut low against an obstacle it was a major pain in the ass, requiring me to lift and angle the whacker awkwardly.  Even so I continued on, telling myself I needed to give it more of a try, this thing was expensive, it has to be awesome right?  Well I got maybe a third into my normal run when I turned it off in the middle of trying to whack along the fence in Nicki’s area.  I looked down at the commercial cord and saw it was already halfway gone.  I would have to be reloading string three our four times per run, fighting extreme shoulder and arm fatigue the entire time.  I said to myself, this thing sucks….

Defeated I walked inside and told Ali that I didn’t like it.  It was too heavy and awkward to be used in our set up and the cord configuration would be ridiculous to work with.  She felt bad that the excitement I had for it had turned to discontent so quickly.  Now I had to come up with an escape plan.  I called Home Depot to see if I could return the unit even if I ran it.  I was very relieved to hear YES come over the phone.  So I cleaned up the Cadet the best I could dumped the gas out of it and jammed it back into the box.  Even though it was 6:30 at night by this time, I wanted to get the situation resolved. 

I went to the Bonita Home Depot even though I bought it at one of the Naples stores.  An older grumpy guy handled the exchange.  He didn’t say more than a couple sentences to me.  I told him how I tried it but didn’t like it.  he said nothing and just went over to the box, made sure stuff was in there and then came back with a look on his face like someone just farted.  I had the feeling he thought I was lame for returning a weed whacker I already used but he completed the return, handed me the slip and that was that.

I immediately headed over to the weed whackers to make a more careful decision.  I learned several things that I needed in a weed whacker.  It had to be light.  It had to have continuous spool feeding and I it would be cool if it had the ability to add attachments.  I spent a lot of time comparing the models and ironically the only one that fit my specs all the way around was another Homelite model.  It was the lightest model, had the curved shaft I liked AND took attachments.  As a bonus, it was much less expensive than the Cub Cadet.  Yea sure it isn’t as high of quality as a Cub but the the Homelite I have at home has lasted since we owned the house, it ain’t that bad.  I was able to get a new trimmer with a blower attachment AND a hedge trimmer attachment for 40 dollars less than what I spent on the CC. 

I hurried home as daylight was fading.  I quickly put the Homelite together and took it outside to give it a test run.  It was totally dark now but I didn’t care.  I weed whacked, blew grass clippings and trimmed hedges by spotlight.  It all worked decently and most importantly, the Homelite felt comfortable to wield.  It felt like a feather compared to the Cub Cadet.  I was happy to have the issue put to bed before I hit the bed.  I really need to be more careful with some buying decisions.  If I would have seen at the store that the Cub Cadet had that single line trimmer head I would have shit canned it right away.

I have had an impressive run as an early Alzheimer’s candidate this week, I have been forgetting things like mad.  So far this week I have forgottten:

My gym shorts
My watch to take to the gym
My water bottle
My gym towel
My keys to my office

Impressive huh?

Today’s 300 results are up. Two notable numbers.  I finally got my 25th pull up on the first set and my 284 reps is a new personal best.

So I can post my thoughts on the sign.

You have to check out this guys collection, some very funny. shit.

Ali’s brother recently got a new BlackBerry and was disappointed to find out that he was unable to do real time email, contacts and calendar updates, at least not out of the box.  I did a little looking around for him and found that in order to do this you need a product called BlackBerry Enterprise Server which works in conjunction with a corporate email system.  Well I just so happen to be running a scaled down version of a corporate email system at home, Exchange 2003.

I spent an hour or two last night setting it up.  Blackberry has some excellent, step by step set up videos on their site.  Normally this product costs $$$$ but they allow you to connect exactly one user for free, which is all I need, perfect.  I set up my part last night, today we have to see if Mike is able to connect to it.  It would be pretty sweet if it all worked.  In theory this would allow him similar functionality to what our Treo 750 has.

Speaking of the Treo, it looks like I was lucky to snap up that refurb deal.  I looked on their site yesterday and they didn’t have them listed anymore, only the new ones for $279 with activation.  It made me feel even more fortunate about the deal I got.

This weekend will be busy. (is there ever one that isn’t)  I plan to address all the little mini-projects in my head as well as the normal weekly ones.  Plus the dog needs a bath, the carpet really could use a once over with the steam cleaner and Sunday morning I am going to run over to my mom’s place to hang some drywall on her lanai ceiling and install an outdoor ceiling fan.  This Sunday is the perfect Sunday to do it since the stinky Eagles have a bye week.

Tonight after work I tentatively am going to someones house to work on a computer problem that could turn out to be quite lengthy to correct.  Even though it’s extra money, I’m not looking forward to it.  I would kind of like to just get my weekend started.

Last night Ali and I got into a “discussion” about how I wasn’t thrilled with how her schedule has been lately.  It seemed like she was never home when I got home during the week and that some of the things that we talked about happening once she started consulting weren’t happening anymore.  One of the reasons for this is the Nicki dilemma and her inability to be home all day without making a mess. 

Before Ali started the consulting, we had talked to our neighbors about them being able to let her out once a day on the days Ali worked.  However once Ali started working this hasn’t panned out so we have had to adapt.  The plan so far has been that Ali stays home on her working days until Nicki dumps twice, after that we are normally in the clear.  However what has been happening is it causes Ali to not get to work until very late, after noon most days.  So as a result she has less time at work to get stuff done, she falls behind, and then winds up either working late or working extra days.

So we decided that first off I was going to try to get Nicki to do her initial deposit before I leave for work so that Ali can get the second one done earlier.  Second, if for some reason Nicki doesn’t go twice, she gets confined to the kitchen.  Ali said that the gate we have to block her in is a pain in the ass to set up so we are going to look at alternatives. 

There were other issues that were talked about but as is normally the case when I bring anything up, I wind up feeling bad at the end for even saying anything.  It’s a catch 22.

 Did you see the clip of that annoying weasel from Survivor, Johnny “Fairplay” get dumped on his face by Danny Bonaduce at some stupid award show?  Funny stuff.