All posts by Duf

Ali has been up in Orlando since Saturday with her family.  Tomorrow morning I am driving up there with Nicki to spend a day with the gang.  Ali has filled me in and it sounds like the week has been tiring going from park to park with two little girls.  The party van has been performing like a champ and our timeshare has been getting glowing reviews.

Last night the neighbors invited me over for dinner.  I took Nicki over and she played with their dog, Zoe.  Zoe is a little Jack Russell and is the only dog friend Nicki has.  While I was there I saw my first full episode of Deal or No Deal.  I could easily get sucked into that show.  After I got back home I watched the American Idol result show.  I was glad to see Paris go.  Even though she is a very good singer and probably did the best job of mutating to the different styles of music, she just was annoying.  She always seemed like a little girl playing dress up and that little baby voice just grated on me.

My week or so of flying solo has been uneventful.  The house seems empty without Ali around and Nicki has done nothing but moped for most of the time. It will be good to get back to normal.  We will be driving back on Saturday.

On Monday they had another huge immigrant march in Orlando.  These demonstrations, at least in our area seem to have had the exact opposite effect they were intended to.  Instead of drumming up support for their cause, the majority of people here are outraged.  The concept of people that sneak into our country illegally demanding rights that legal citizens have is outrageous.  Even though most illegals are surely hard working people that are just looking to better their lives it doesn’t change the fact that they are breaking the law doing it and are trying to take a shortcut to something that legal immigrants have to work hard to attain.  That’s bullshit.  The fact that most Mexicans do not use contraception because it is a sin, adds to the problem drastically.  It’s true that illegal immigrant labor is a big advantage to many employers because they can pay them less money and no benefits which helps pad employers pockets.  Mexican workers surely do many jobs that most would not want to do but that does not excuse them being here illegally. Although the illegals save businesses money in labor costs, they cost this country billions by not paying income or social security taxes while taxing the medical system by utilizing hospital emergency rooms for any ailment down to the common cold.

  The catering to hispanics in our society is also very disturbing.  More and more businesses and services are offering things in English and Spanish, no longer making it a requirement for the immigrants to learn English.  I mean really, wtf?   I’m for active enforcement of immigration laws, better enforcement of the southern border and enforcement for people in this country learning the language and following the proper procedures to become american citizens.  I mean if you were standing in a line at the movies a hundred people deep and someone walked up and stepped in front of you because they didn’t feel like waiting in the long line, wouldn’t it infuriate you?  Yet this is exactly what is happening daily across the mexican border. 

Tim found an online test to determine how addicted to World of Warcraft you are.  I scored a 65.  Tim scored an 83 so I don’t feel quite so bad.  Check it out here.

I have been leveling some of my non-60 characters in the Tanaris area.  Tanaris is a large open desert region by the coast.  Repeatedly my characters have been jumped and killed by higher level horde players in this zone so last night I decided to take my 60 rogue out there and get some redemption.  There was a sandstorm going on so it cut down on visibilty considerably.  I went to an area where I had been ganked by horde often.  Once I arrived I immediately started in on the slaughter, dropping many horde, including several that were in the act of jumping another alliance player.  There is nothing better then jumping someone who is jumping someone else.  Some of the horde grouped up in an attempt to find safety in numbers from my relentless attacks.  I would stay invisible and wait for the moment where each target was in a vulnerable position and then drop them in less than 10 seconds.  I took out a group of 3 horde, one by one. 

After about an hour or so of killing every horde in sight I went back to the main town of Gadgetztan and annoyed the horde there.  In Gadgetztan you can’t attack the enemy, else the guards will attack and kill you.  So instead I would just hit them with stuns that left them incapicitated for 30 seconds or so.  It doesn’t damage them but it annoys the hell out of them.  Normally after I stun them I would laugh and point at them fanning the flames further.  Eventually many of them would crack and try to attack me which would result in the guards killing them instantly.  As they were being pummeled I would again laugh at them and wave goodbye.  By the time I was done all the horde in town hated me.  It’s all payback for the year plus of torment they have inflicted on me.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Most people say the Eagles had a good draft although I saw a Fox Sports guy that rated the Birds draft as 22nd.  It’s hard for me to get excited about a draft where lineman are the featured picks.  I guess Mike Mamula always weighs on my mind when it comes to lineman drafts.  I’m still pissed they didn’t pick up a name receiver in free agency.  I don’t have much hope for the WR’s they picked up late in the draft.  I’m hoping the additions on defense can help make the unit formidable once again.  The defense was uncharacteristically weak last year, they didn’t scare anyone.

Ali pulled out for Orlando to meet up with her family on Saturday.  She took the party van and headed up I-75.  I talked to her a few times along the way.  She said the drive was scary because the strong winds were buffeting the van back and forth.  She made it to the timeshare intact. 

On Saturday I knocked out the majority of my housework and then glued myself to the PC playing WoW of course.  On Sunday morning I had the idea to take Nicki to the dog park.  She hadn’t been there in a couple years.  When we took her there before she would just cower in fear and hide between my legs when approached by other dogs.  My mom had the day off so I asked her to come along.  Well it was pretty much the same deal.  These big, huge dogs came up and Nicki hid.  She wasn’t quite as timid as before but she’ll never be a social butterfly dog.  As I was watching the other dogs wrestle and play I wished Nicki would give it a try instead of only wrestling with me. 

I decided to get off the creatine once again.  For two years, including almost a year of running, my knees had been solid, only offering minimal problems now and then.  Well since I started on creatine again my knees once again have been painful.  The latest episode after running on Thursday was serious.  My bad knee has been sore ever since. After hearing Ali remind me that I had the exact same shit happening after I took it last time and me reading on the internet about others that had joint pain after supplementing with creatine, I decided to pull the plug.  In a weird way I could almost identify with someone like Barry Bonds.  Taking creatine makes me stronger and going to the gym each week and being able to do more than the week before is almost an intoxicating thing.  It motivates you, it makes you want to do more.  So my plan as of now is to be clean and see if my knee gets better.  If it does I will either try Kre-Alkalyn or Endothil CR and see how those products work with my body chemistry.

Speaking of my increased strength, I had yet another odd gym moment on Friday.  Friday is the day I try for one rep max on the bench.  Shortly after putting up 270, as I was sitting on the bench, an older guy came up to me, maybe in his 50’s.  I saw him a couple days prior and immediately pegged him as gay and I had the feeling he was “observing” me.  Anyway, he comes up to me and says, “Is your name Clark?”  I immediately sensed what he was implying but I just gave him a look.  He continued, “You know, Clark, like Clark Kent”  I said “as in Superman?” “Yes!” he says and then goes into some story about his son also being tall and strong. Evidently he was impressed by the iron I had just pushed off my chest.  He asked me how tall I was, he guessed I was 6’8″, I gave him my actual height as 4 inches shorter than that. It was very awkward and I just tried to exit the conversation as quickly as possible. Although I have to admit, the comment further solidified my desire to keep supplementing. Even though I weigh almost 200 pounds now, I still look pretty “skinny” so to some, it looks impressive to see this skinny guy lift some decent weight.

Took down 270 today at the gym today.  Five pounds to go to  match my all-time best.

We did our run last night, Ali relented and ran with me.  We did our long run, close to 4.75 miles.  During the run I felt some discomfort in my bad knee but I was warm enough that it didn’t make me stop.  However once we finished it was hurting.  I iced it last night but woke up this morning with one very sore knee, probably the worst it has been since we started running.  I’m sure there are tie ins to the creatine.  Since I started it I have gained close to ten pounds of body weight which increases the pounding on my knees.  Even so, I took my heaping teaspoon of creatine this morning.  I want to set a new personal best with my bench press so I am willing to deal with the knee pain for now.  I may switch to a different type of creatine that supposedly offers less of the undesirable side effects.  I may switch to Endothil CR as well.

My neighbor IM’d me yesterday and said there were people working on our lanai yesterday.  I was surprised to hear this since I was told the work wouldn’t be done until the earliest, the end of May.  When we got home we saw that they removed the last of the damaged cage and installed new gutter along the back of the house.  We were happy to see some work done although confused why it was done now.  I’m not sure if the rest will still be done at the end of may or if we somehow got moved up on the ladder.  The only downside is the removal of the old cage remnants left a gap in my temporary fence enclosure on both sides.  I’ll have to rig something.

Even though I pretty much despise the Republican party anymore, I am still a registered republican.  Being a member of the party allows me to get junk mail from them.  Yesterday I got a letter from President Bush himself asking for money to help support the 06 republican elections.  The letter repeated the bullshit we hear W say on the news.  The postage paid envelope even suggests that you use a stamp to further save the party money.  So I took the letter and wrote on the back with a black Sharpie:

Dear President Bush,

Thanks for steering the country into the toilet! Go to HELL. Your presidency is an embarrassment to the American people.

Sincerely,

America

I put one penny in the envelope, sealed it and sent it back, without a stamp.

Ali and I went running after work on Tuesday.  We have been on a schedule where we were running on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work and then Sundays.  We had worked up to running 5 miles + and doing it in under 10 minute mile pace.  Awhile ago Ali had some respiratory thing that affected her for 2 or 3 weeks, during which we did very little running.  Since that period it’s been a struggle to get back to where we were.  Well on Tuesday we were doing our “short” 30 minute run.  The run started on a slow pace, somewhere around 10:30 miles.  I had done legs at the gym over my lunch hour so they were tired already so I didn’t mind running on the slow side.  However as the run continued Ali’s pace slowed down from there and I started to get annoyed.  I knew she was capable of doing much better because she has shown me she can.  So I started offering up a couple bits of encouragement.  The pace still slowed, I offered more encouragement.  Finally we came into the last minute of the run and I said something about finishing strong which was received with venom.  We wound up covering 2.84 miles in 30 minutes, a pace we used to do 5 months ago.  Well I knew Ali hates getting any running advice from me, she views it instantly as criticism but I couldn’t help it.  I told her there was no point of me being her training partner if she wasn’t going to allow me to help push her.  That is what a training partner is for.  During the run she was using her watch to check her pulse and used that number as justification for not going faster even though I could tell from her breathing she was doing just fine.  I blurted out something about maybe it would be better to look for reasons to do better instead of excuses to do less.  Well of course that was not received well and she told me she didn’t want to train with me anymore, how she didn’t care about how fast she ran.  Well once I open the door it is hard to shut me up when an argument ensues.  I pointed out how she was the one who set the goal of doing a half marathon and how attaining that goal is going to require pushing herself.  And the bottomline is since we got started back up we haven’t been pushing nearly as hard as we did before.  I continued on, pointing out to Ali how she instantly recovered from the run, another sure sign that it was on cruise control.  It was pointless for me to continue talking as she already had turned me off and wasn’t interested in thinking logically about what I was saying.  She only heard it as criticism, nothing else.  So by the time we walked back to her work and stretched I stopped talking about it.  

She has had a chip on her shoulder ever since.  She said last night that she wanted to run at the gym tonight because then there would be no speed issues, we could both run at our own pace.  I told her that wasn’t my issue, I don’t care about running as fast as I can and running on a treadmill just doesn’t compare with real world running from a training benefit standpoint.  I told her I will keep my mouth shut and I just had to get it off my chest.  She grumbled something at me.  So we’ll see where we run tonight.  Hopefully if she can get by the anger she will see my point.  If she was running with anyone else but me she would actually consider their opinions, but I basically can’t say a damn word.   

Damn I just have not been following the Eagles that closely this off season.  Yea I know they cut TO whom signed with the Cowboys.  They resigned Runyan and picked up a D lineman and a tightend.  Other than that I don’t really know what has been going on.  I’m not happy with TO signing with a team in division.  I expect for at least a year TO will once again be on best behavior and have another great year.  It’s cool they signed Runyan but I think his skill is definitely sliding.  I remember multiple games last year when he looked average at best.  The McNabb interview where he stated that the TO comment about the team being better with Brett Farve bothered him more because Brett is a white QB, really rubbed me the wrong way and showed a side of McNabb that I didn’t know existed.  Maybe he isn’t all that smart.  I am disappointed the Birds didn’t snag a name WR in free agency.  They should have landed Eric Moulds, no excuse for that.  My expectations for this year are not high.  If the Eagles make the playoffs I wouldn’t be surprised with a one and done.  I think the crest has been reached and they are on the downhill part of this core group’s careers.

Would I see 2 Porsche SUV’s parked within 20 feet of each other in the gym’s parking lot.

I noticed last week the blog has hit the 15k mark, not bad, not bad at all.

My first weekend back after Vegas was back to normal, meaning I busted my ass.  On Saturday I worked on a list at least half a dozen items long.  After that was done we worked on this months cleaning project.  Ali made a list awhile ago of rooms and months we would do a thorough cleaning on them.  April was kitchen month. This was the last weekend we had available to do it so we cleaned it but didn’t start till 5pm Saturday.  We grumpily finished around 8 at night, both feeling very sick of the process.  Sunday morning just for good measure I cleaned the bird cage, swept and mopped the kitchen and utility room floors, dusted, swept the house and cleaned out the inside of the party van in preparation for Ali taking it to Orlando for her family next Saturday. Was I really on the Vegas strip only a week ago?  These sort of weekends make me think of how simple life could be in a condo. Of course there are a lot of things you give up in condo living as well.

Sometime on Saturday I started seeing a small black dot in my vision.  In floats around in my field of vision sort of following whatever I am looking at.  It hasn’t gone away although now it is a bit lighter and fuzzier than it was at first.

We picked up a new color laser printer this weekend for the office, an HP 2600N.  It was very cheap but came with a built in network card and does a fine job of printing.  I am going to try to sell the old Magicolor 2200 (that needs a new OPC drum) cheap in the paper.  I also finally bought a replacement for our frustrating digitial camera.  Our old one is a Canon that for some reason has a hell of a time focusing.  It requires for you to sometimes sit there 15-20 seconds while it decides what to focus on.  I am getting a Nikon Coolpix S4.  It is sweet because it is a 6 megapixel compact digital camera but it has a 10x optical zoom.   

 In my other reality, World of Warcraft, I now have four level 60 characters.  In addition I have three more characters I am working on leveling.  I have a human mage, night elf hunter and night elf druid that need to be leveled to 60.  Once that happens I think I will be done creating new characters.  However there is an expansion pack on the horizon, once that hits there will be an entire new world to explore.  Just when I thought I had a chance to escape….  Yesterday I paid someone 30 silver to show me how to get on top of the gates at Stormwind City.  It was well worth the price as I stood up there and made a spectacle at the ants beneath me, all wondering how I got up there.