All posts by Duf

Last minute I decided to take this Thursday and Friday off.  I have a lot of vaca left and the boss said it was ok so viola, 5 days off, very nice.  I plan to try to enjoy most of it, watch movies, get my planes in the air.  Oh I have been recoding a bunch of Beavis and Butthead episodes into divx format for enjoyment at home.  A 6 pack and a Beavis and Butthead marathon would be awesome.

Another last minute decision was to skip the 300 workout today.  In the last hour before the gym I had some intestinal issues come up that just made the idea of a 300 workout sound far too challenging.  I also forgot my socks.  So I will do it tomorrow, a good way to punish myself for 5 days of gymlessness.  Of course the chest and back routine I did today will make the 300 more challenging than normal, just what I need….

So Friday night after work Ali and I pile in the car to drive 110 miles to meet one of Ali’s best friends, her husband and their two kids.  I found a Carraba’s that I actually have driven by many times going to volleyball tournaments in Siesta Keys.  The drive up was hellish.  Where should I begin?

Let’s see, well we were on the road during the tail end of rush hour which meant the road was filled with wall to wall assholes.  The weather was bad with intermittent downpours and nasty lightning, which further muddled the situation.  I knew it was only a matter of time until we hit a backlog, which first came maybe 15 minutes into the trip.  We saw no less than 3 cars off the side of the road, down in the ditch during the drive.

When traffic broke up a bit I was trucking along in the left lane doing 80 mph when I see a 10 year old Taurus come zooming up on the right.  He passes me and hits his horn as he is doing it, acting like I was driving 15 mph under the speed limit.  I instantly blare my horn back at the asshole and he responds by flipping me off as he zooms away.  Of course this instantly flicked on my “asshole” switch and I increased my speed in an attempt to get up to this jerk.  However, he was evidently in a huge rush to get off I-75 as he got off a minute or two after flying by me.  My blood pressure was boiling.

Then the grand finale of the trip occurred.  We just cleared a small incline and were greeted on the other side by brake lights.  I had plenty of time to react and slowed down accordingly.  As I am scanning my mirrors, I see a Toyota Corolla that also has just cleared the hill but is not slowing down.  I am mildly concerned at first but then become extremely concerned as I am watching the distance between this car and us close very quickly.  I start to speed up a bit to give the asleep at the wheel driver more space to stop.  It was very tricky as I was keeping an eye on the person in front of me while trying to avoid becoming a road casualty.  Finally this idiot wakes up and hits the hooks, hard.  Their front end dives down and I can hear the squealing of locked up tires.  I look in the mirror and the Corolla is RIGHT on my bumper, it couldn’t have been more than inches away.  I remember making out the driver’s hands on the top of the steering wheel, gripping the life out of it.  I remembered thinking to myself before the trip how we will probably wind up getting in an accident driving this far for dinner.  It was a split second away from becoming reality. 

Then, with the sounds of squealing tires still present, the Corolla veers to the left, on to the road shoulder.  I was waiting for them to veer left, else I would have done it myself to avoid getting smacked.  Once it started to turn, the Corolla spun a 180 from having it’s tires locked up.  I finally breathed again.  I was so f’ing annoyed that I was on the road, subjecting myself to this.  I couldn’t believe that we almost got rear ended.  Anger flashed through my mind.  I thought about what I would have done to that driver if they rear ended me.   Oh well, there was no revenge to be had, but I hoped the Corolla had 4 flat spotted tires that could serve as a noisy reminder about the driver’s lack of attention that almost ruined the day of both of us.  Over the weekend I noticed a small little scuff mark on the rear bumper, he may have actually been nose to ass with us.

We finally arrive at Carraba’s and have a very nice dinner with our friends.  I never met Shannon’s husband before but he was the type of person I got along with right away.  Their son carries my name, first and middle, Shawn Michael.  He’s a cute little kid.  We talked mostly of their week at Disney.  By the time we left it was 10 pm, by the time we got home it was bearing down on midnight.  Our drive was like living in PA and driving down to the Jersey Shore and back in one night, craziness.

I had a LONG ass list for the weekend, it creeped into a second column, it was that long.  One of the things I wanted to get done was to swap out the blades on the Cub Cadet.  They hadn’t been changed in awhile.  Earlier in the week I picked up a set at Home Depot.  But before I worked on the tractor, I wanted to pressure wash the bird cage.  So I pull out the pressure washer, hook it up and squeeze the trigger.  After a little short burst, I get nothing.  The engine is running but I am getting nothing out of the end.  I unscrew the end from the trigger portion and I get water out of the trigger by itself.  My expert troubleshooting skills then told me the wand end was clogged.  I fumbled around with trying to stick something in there to unclog it but had zero luck. Ok well I guess everything has to go on hold until I go to Home Depot and get another wand end.

So I speed off in the truck, get to the store, gasp a little bit at the $40 price for a new wand but bit the bullet and bought it.  I run home, attach the wand and bingo, back in business.  So I clean the bird cage and then pull the tractor up for the blade transplant.  I remove the mower deck and after much straining, break loose the thick nuts that hold each blade on.  Then the horrible reality hits me.  The blades I bought are not correct.  The new blades have a star like center hole, the ones on the tractor have a conventional round hole.  Damn it!!!!!!

I give Ali the bad news that I got the wrong blades.  So for the second time in a couple hours, I am back off to Home Depot, this time to return the wrong blades and hopefully get the right ones.  So I return them and go over to the shelf.  I look and I look and I look again.  They do not have the correct blades for my three year old tractor.  How can they sell Cub Cadet tractors and not have blades for a three year old model???  Lunacy!  So now I have to get back in the truck and I drive to a Lowe’s, 20 miles away.  Surely they have them.

So I arrive at Lowe’s and examine their replacement blade supply.  They do not have the Cub Cadet blades for my model but have a third party brand that was stacked by a tag that said Cub Cadet, although the box said they were for Murray tractors.  Well the center hole was round so maybe they also work with Cub Cadet.  So I take them home, praying that I finally got what I needed.

I rip them out of the plastic, stick them on the deck and immediately notice that the hole is bigger than the shaft.  After some foolish initial thoughts that maybe I could just tighten the nut really tight to keep it in place, I realized that it would be dangerous to even try it.  I gave up, put the old blades back on and that was that.  I was so annoyed that the two huge home improvement chains did not carry the blades for what should be a very common mower.  I have gotten blades before for it with no issues.

I was f’ing pissed.  So I dug into more of the list.  I spent the entire afternoon outside, picking weeds, cleaning the pool,  pressure washing the pool deck, trimming trees and hedges.  To add to the misery was the brutal heat and humidity.  It was in the mid 90’s with humidity levels that felt the same.  The little gnats were driving me insane.  Awhile back I bought some OFF at the grocery store.  However I didn’t buy the Deep Woods Off I normally get.  Instead I got the more friendly “family” version.  Well this shit doesn’t work.  The bugs laugh at it and continuously dove at my eyes and ears the entire time I was outside.  It eventually pushes you to the brink of madness as you start smacking yourself in the face increasingly harder as each gnat you swat is replaced with 5 more.  I was wiped out Saturday night.

Even though I busted ass on Saturday, there still was a good chunk of stuff to do on Sunday.  The grass still had to be mowed and weed whacked.  Even though I didn’t think it was possible, it felt hotter and more humid.  I weed whacked first, I was drenched in no time and then developed a sandy/grassy coating from the debris flying around.  As I was finishing up, Ali got home from the gym and took up mowing.  The bugs were driving her nuts as well and she took me up on my offer to finish up the mowing.  I threw a towel over my head in an attempt to keep the bugs away but it didn’t help, they still flew at my face non-stop.  I was so annoyed by the time I was done.  I will be purchasing Deep Woods Off this week.  It probably causes genetic mutations but I don’t care.

Late Sunday afternoon we went to a matinee of the third Pirates movie which we hadn’t seen yet.  I had heard many opinions about it, both good and bad.  We arrived 20 minutes early.  I thought that was overkill and expected the theater to be next to empty since it has been out so long.  I was amazed that by the time the movie started, all that was available were seats down front, it was packed.  For me the movie was just “eh”.  It went on forever.  All the effects that were gee wiz cool in the second movie were old hat now.  I just didn’t really care for the movie.  I certainly could have waited to download the dvd version. C+

After the movie I went to yet another Home Depot, a big one, in hopes of finding the elusive mower blades.  Once again, I strike out.  The bigger store just had a larger number of the same blades that don’t fit.  I expressed my aggravation to the clerk that was helping me try to find them.  I said how I couldn’t believe that they don’t stock blades for a three year old tractor.  So when we got home I went to old reliable, Ebay, and found them in 30 seconds.  With shipping, I probably paid less than I would have walked out of the store with them, yay.

When I do weeding, the first thing I start with is the garden, since it is the largest pain in the ass.  Of the 8 or 9 plants we planted 6 or 7 weeks ago, only one is alive now, the pepper plant.  The honeydew and cantaloupe grew like crazy and even yielded some quality fruit, however like always, despite my vigilant spraying, they were destroyed by these little green worms that devour the leaves.  I have yet to find a solution to these little bastards that derail any attempt I make to become a competent gardener. I need to do some research on how to eradicate these things.

If you can’t tell from the post, the good mood that I posted about on Friday is long gone.

I woke up this morning in an oddly good mood, especially considering that it is full moon time again.  I dunno things just seemed good.  I had an interesting little project at work I was wrapping up today, I had some projects on the planner for the weekend that will be worthwhile, next week I have Wednesday off for 4th of July, I am doing a 300 work out today and Ali was going to the Wellness Center to join and was planning on doing a few of the group classes.  It all added up to a feel good kind of thing.

Speaking of feel good, I have certain articles of clothing that just make me feel good when I wear them.  A lot of my big sweatshirts do that for me, although since moving to Florida I don’t have a lot of opportunity to wear them.  I have many t-shirts that are in the inner circle of favorite clothes.  I have had a new recent addition to the comfort clothes group.  It is the long sleeve t-shirt Mom bought at Kennedy Space Center to wear to stave off frostbite.  She wouldn’t normally wear something like that so after the visit she gave it to me.  For some reason I just love wearing it, especially after doing some sort of hard physical activity.  Many times after my 300 workout I will take off the sweat soaked shirt I was wearing and throw on the KSC shirt. It just makes me feel good for some reason.

Tonight after work we are driving all the way up to Sarasota to meet Ali’s friend and husband for dinner at Carraba’s.  They are down for a week in Orlando so we are meeting somewhere around half way.   A 3 hour round trip for dinner is rather insane but Ali agreed to do it and although I complained quite a bit, I agreed to go with.  Ali would do it for me if I asked so it is only fair.

Today is my brother Todd’s birthday.  He is 37.  I am not sure what is more shocking, me being on the cusp of 40 or Todd being right on my heels.  Todd has really been revelling in his role as a father and has built the business he took over from my dad into something very profitable.  I’m proud of him.

In the middle of the night I was woken out of my slumber by the increasingly loud, rhythmic sound of a cat preparing to throw up.  I could hear the noise coming from around the door to our bedroom.  I strained to see in the darkness and could see the silhouette of the cat.  I quickly feel around for a pillow and in one whip-like motion, hurl it at the cat.  My aim was true and the cat ran outside the room and then threw up right outside the door instead, a small victory.  I may start keeping a small pile of rocks on my nightstand.

When I got up this morning I knew I had at least one vomit pile to clean up.  However true to form, vomit never travels alone, there were two more piles on the far side of the room as well.  Nothing brings a smile to my face quicker than cleaning up vomit first thing in the morning.  It really puts a spring in my step.

In the span of 24 hours I had to trim my bushy eyebrows, take a scissors to the unending bushes of nose hair and then use a tweezer to pull an inch and a half long hair from my ear lobe. 

Last night after work I felt very wiped.  I was extremely tired.  I slept through the night once again which is encouraging.

Ali got the official word that she would be kept as a consultant at her facility, albeit at greatly reduced amount of hours, which is pretty much exactly what she wanted.  She also will be putting the word out to pick up ad lib consulting jobs for other facilities.  She knows a lot of people that can help her get the word out.  On the down side, she will lose her office at the building and Nicki won’t be able to go with her in to work.  Her last official day as an “employee” is next Thursday.  She is very excited about her new impending freedom.

I am out of my normal protein shake stuff so until my shipment arrives I am using up some old packs of stuff we had lying around.  The first one I tried was “berry flavor”. Once I shook it up it looked like vomit, complete with little chunks of “fruit” in it.  It tasted only slightly better than it looked.  I could only take a couple swigs of it before I couldn’t stand it anymore and dumped it.

So I washed out my cup and grabbed a different kind, Lean body FOR HER.  It is stuff we got Ali awhile back but she didn’t like the taste of it.  So anyway I fill my cup with water, dump the stuff in but then get distracted for a couple minutes doing something else.  I finish up what I am doing, pick up the cup and start shaking.  I didn’t put the lid on tight!  Water and protein powder explode out of the cup all over my desk, my keys, my cell phone, my pants and my keyboard.  The cell phone was most concerning so I immediately picked it up and wiped it off the best I could.  The rest of the tedious clean up took a solid 15 minutes. 

I’m lucky it wasn’t worse.  I have my laptop on the desk but luckily the direction of the fluid and the subsequent splash just missed it. 

Well I am back at work and feel better, although I still am weak.  No 300 until at least Friday.  I slept through the night last night although I had some problems falling asleep initially.  I stayed up till 11 watching part of Rocky V.

During my time home yesterday I spent some time feeling sorry for myself.  I was thinking about how it is unbelievable that I am going to be 40 YEARS OLD in a few months.  It just seems surreal to me.  I thought about my state of being.  I am financially secure, have a house in a desirable area to live, a pool, a dog, a wife, nice car, blah, blah, blah.  Minus the kids, all the stuff average Joe blow guy is supposed to strive for I guess.

 But I see other people my age and they seem so much more mature than I am.  It freaks me out sometimes.  Am I really just a slacker that doesn’t want to accept the weight of being a responsible adult that plans families, retirement strategies and aging gracefully?   

I think these thoughts all come from the fact that I have no major goals to push for right now to distract me from the descent into the 2nd half of life….  

It was a weekend of illness.  It started on Friday night.  I woke up around 4am and then was unable to fall back asleep.  Although my body was very tired, my mind refused to cooperate.  My head was filled with random, meaningless garbage that was firing off non-stop, I was unable to clear my head.  I couldn’t get comfortable either, no position felt good and I tried everyone imaginable.  So I laid there in bed wide awake with my eyes closed until maybe 7 in the morning. 

So I got up, still feeling disoriented.  I told Ali how I felt weird and she said it sounded like symptoms from dehydration.  I went out to the kitchen but did not do my normal cat maintenance routine.  I was really f’d up in the head.  I had no motivation to do anything, I felt exhausted and confused.  I grabbed pop tarts and milk and sat on the sofa and had them while staring blankly at the wall.  There was a big cat vomit mess on the floor that I could do nothing about.  Ali came out and cleaned it up. 

I literally felt like a zombie.  Ali had me drink some water as well.  During the night I also started having sweats followed by chills.  I would feel like I was in a sauna and then shortly afterward have the covers pulled up to my neck, freezing.  I had all this stuff I wanted to get done on Saturday and I realized that absolutely none of it was going to happen, I was just wrecked.

The entire day consisted me eating next to nothing, passing out/sleeping at various spots around the house and just feeling miserable.  Sitting up was work, I couldn’t do it for long.  Standing and walking was worse and would lead to an immediate hot flash.  Ali gave me a Tylenol PM to help me sleep, I think it added to the already dense fog that was around me.  I was so drained I didn’t even sit in front of the computer the entire day, now that is sick…

By the time Saturday night came I felt slightly more awake.  I had crackers for dinner and was able to give myself a shower.  I even forced myself to stay awake to watch the Ultimate Fighter 3 hour finale.  On Saturday night the insane images stopped flipping through my mind and I was able to get some sleep.

On Sunday I was still very weak but not paralyzed like I felt for most of Saturday.  But now whatever bug was hammering me moved into my gut.  The day was filled with horrific bathroom episodes that were just disgusting.  I lit our Yankee Candle in a pointless attempt to make the house smell better.  Luckily for Ali she had to go into work for a portion of the day.  I still didn’t have much of an appetite but ate more than the day before.

I passed the time watching the first two Godfather’s well most of them.  I was pissed to discover that the 2nd one cut off two hours into a three hour movie.  The first one was good.  What I saw of second was good except for all the flashback shit.  All of the flashback was done in Italian which was maddening.  I found it so annoying that we were supposed to guess what they were saying.  I will have to get the full 2nd movie to see the ending even though I went online and got the summary version.  Out of the recent mob movies I have seen, Good Fellas, Scarface and the Godfathers, I would rank them in that order, with Godfather being third.  All the Italian and Marlin Brando mumbling most of his lines just made it annoying at times for me to follow.

So anyway, by Sunday night I was hoping to have a good night’s rest and be able to go to work today. (no I’m not at work)  Instead it was a night from hell.  I woke up sometime between 1 and 2am and could not fall back asleep to save my life.  Again my mind was short circuiting, throwing up images and scenery non-stop, refusing to allow me to drift off.  It was maddening.  I woke up this morning exhausted, yet unable to lay it that damn bed a minute longer.  I called in to work and hope to be able to get some actual sleep during the day today.

I will probably wind up doing some chores around the house that Ali didn’t get done over the weekend.  She had procrastination mode turned up to high for some reason.  I will never understand how it is better to put something off to the very last minute so you have to bust ass like crazy at the end of a weekend or not get it done at all because you pushed it off so long.      

Randall was kind enough to double check my 300 math, maybe my illness was already setting in on Friday as I totally screwed up the numbers. Eh he is an accountant, he would pick this out…

I’m gonna have to audit your numbers old friend. You’re physical prowess may be Spartan-like but your math is terrible.

Pull ups – original reps – 13 Current reps – 20 = +35% (Should be +53%. 7/13 = .53)

Dead lifts – original reps – 25 Current reps – 45 = +45% (+80%)

Push ups – original reps – 25 Current reps – 50 = +50% (+100%)

Box jumps – original reps – 17 Current reps – 34 = +50% (+100%)

Wipers – original reps – 15 Current reps – 33 = +65% (+120%)

One arm C&P – original reps – 26 Current reps – 50 = +48% (+92%)

Last set pull ups – original reps – 10 Current reps – 14 = +40% (This one you got right!)

Total reps – original – 156 Current – 271 = +42% (+73% increase in total reps. +88% increase if you don’t count the extra pushups)

I had a 6 rep bump today in my 300 workout, the largest increase in awhile.  I’m only 5 reps away from the dead lift target.  I’m only 5 reps away from the first set of pull ups goal as well, but that one will take much longer to hit than the dead lifts.  The dead lifts have been an exercise I have increased slowly but consistently, I always have done at least one more rep each time.  I was looking at the increases in my numbers since I started and wanted to put some cold numbers to it.

Pull ups – original reps – 13  Current reps – 20 = +35%

Dead lifts – original reps – 25  Current reps – 45 = +45%

Push ups – original reps – 25  Current reps – 50 = +50%

Box jumps – original reps – 17  Current reps – 34 = +50%

Wipers – original reps – 15  Current reps – 33 = +65%

One arm C&P – original reps – 26  Current reps – 50 = +48%

Last set pull ups – original reps – 10  Current reps – 14 = +40%

 Total reps – original – 156 Current – 271 = +42%

The 300 program started April 2nd so this is in the span of just short of 11 weeks.  The numbers show good progress.  There isn’t a huge way to go as far as numbers go, but those last few numbers are going to come slow, especially the wipers.  I am at my physical limit every time I do them.

Today we had someone come out to give us an estimate for solar heating of our pool AND hot water heater. We would be able to keep our current electric pool heater as well, only using it when we want to do something crazy like power heat the pool when it is 50 degrees outside.

  I was surprised at the number they came back with, it was actually lower than I expected.  On top of that, there are approximately 2k of rebates we get from the state and federal governments for installing a system like this.  Of course until Ali’s new working situation becomes solid, we aren’t going to do anything.  But if her consulting works out, I can see us moving on this before the year is out.  It would save us a nice chunk on our electric bill. 

My sister commented on my entry yesterday about being brittle.

Dude! You are a FREAK! You are not BRITTLE, you are NEUROTIC!!! There is a distinct difference. Get a grip, eat a freakin’ steak, and perhaps stop working out like you are going into battle with thousands of Persians and you might feel better!!!

I would like to clarify, I am not preparing to go into battle with a few thousand Persians, it’s a MILLION PERSIANS!

My sister Torrin and I get along well nowadays.  When we were younger however, she was the target of torment by me.  Todd and I used to come up with many names for Torrin to piss her off.  I remember for awhile we were calling her Leonard for some reason.  It made no sense but it made her mad so we kept using it.  The most famous and most nonsensical nickname we ever came up for her was “Leechbonefangsmellers”  Don’t ask me to remember the details of where that combination came from, but boy did she hate it.

This weekend has no big highlights in it.  I have a bunch to do around the house and we may go out to the movies over the weekend.  I have Godfather 1 and 2 to watch as well.