All posts by Duf

Last night I remember waking up hearing the pleasant sound of the cat throwing up so I knew when I got up this morning I would have something to clean up. I turned the corner and saw a small streak of barf, ugh oh well no big deal. I get to th kitchen, another puddle of puke but hey it’s on the tile, not bad. As I walk back to the first spot with a wet paper towel I see more all over the table leg and the carpet around it. What the F, why in the world did the cat have to throw up there, stupid animal. Now I was getting angry. I clean up the spots and then find yet another one to the right of the kitchen island, I am fuming, yelling at the cat now. I turn on the light to the office, another pile there! You goddamn f’ing cat, I scream at her and throw the empty carboard roll from the used up paper towels at her. I am slamming things around and am in full rage mode now, feeling like I would be quite capable of twisting the cats head off at that moment. Finally I treat the 5 spots and get to start the enjoyable act of scooping cat shit. I flick on the light and see yet another pile on the little carpet mat all ground in with cat litter. By now Ali was awake from my carrying on. The cat kept trying to come into the laundry room to eat but I kept screaming at her to get out of my sight and she scurried away. I was so angry…..when I get that that mad I entertain doing things a sane person would never consider. Nicki thought I was mad at her too and she hid in the bedroom.

I get a 3 day weekend again. Damn working for the government is sweet.

I had a followup visit to the dermatologist on Tuesday. Ali noticed I had another discolored spot inside my hairline a little above where the bad spot was cut off. The doc took a shaving of it and I got a call yesterday saying it was a “mildly suspicious mole that could develop into a melonoma” and they wanted to cut it out. So now in a few weeks I go back in to have more flesh carved out of my head. I am not looking forward to it.

Last night Ali and I were running and I indicated in a breathless sentence that we should go back via Lakeshire. Ali said “what?” I quickly corrected myself and said “Lakewood, I meant Lakewood..” Lakeshire is the name of a town in World of Warcraft…

In the world of MMORPG’s there is a whole new language to learn that is filled with acronyms. Acronyms are used to minimize typing time. One of the acronyms you don’t want thrown your way is “L2P”. L2P stands for “Learn to play”, a way for someone to indicate that they think you are a player with a low skill level. Sometimes it will be even more cutting by saying “L2P noob!” A noob is short for newbie, meaning someone new to the game that knows very little. Few things will piss another player off more than throwing those few letters their way. I have received and delivered that insult many, many times.

When I got home last night I went around with a flashlight and uncovered the plants. It wasn’t pretty, we had a lot of damage. Many of the plants and trees took a hit. Hopefully they will bounce back. It was bad timing, our tomato plants are just starting to pump out tomatoes and our apple, lemon and lime trees had fruit on them as well.

We had a nice valentine’s day, I sent roses to work for Ali and per Ali’s request we picked up pizza on the way home. We followed up with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. Ali surprised me with a gift certificate to a spa. I never had a spa thing so it should be interesting.

After work I stopped at the vet to pick the ashes of Maggie. Bringing them home again stirred up the sadness from the event. Tuki is still frequently making Maggie’s noises, seemingly waiting for her to reply. We sold her cage and threw out her stuff, but the sense of loss still lingers….

We skipped running after work last night because we wanted to get home while there was still daylight to cover whatever plants we could. Ali bundled up like we were going out into the arctic. We used weedblock, empty pots and bed sheets to wrap up the delicate plants and trees. We finished up just as it was getting pitch dark. This morning the one outdoor thermometer read 37 degrees (the one on a house wall) while the weather station read 27 degrees, I guess the actual temperature was somwhere in the middle. Everything was covered by frost. Hopefully this is the end of the deep freeze, it is supposed to get to the mid 60’s today and then back into the 70’s for the forseeable future. I think I have finally been in Florida long enough that my tolerance to cold is dropping. The cold seems to sting more than I remember.

Nicki likes to flop on our bed in the morning while we get ready for work, I took a cute picture of her this morning.

A while back Ali made up a cleanup schedule. It basically listed one area of the house that we would thoroughly clean each month. It was a way to keep things in order. However we have not really paid attention to it. This past weekend I told her I wanted to start sticking to it. February was garage month. I haven’t thoroughly cleaned the garage since we moved in. We pulled every thing out of it, swept it out, sucked out the spider webs, threw out shit we didn’t need, organized and put everything back. It was probably the biggest of all the cleanup jobs we would have. The entire process took about 3 and a half hours. Doing so enabled me to rediscover things I forgot I had, we had a shit load of junk in there. It looks 100% better and after rearranging the shelves and the fridge we have much more room.

Because of the cold, (Ali hates running in cold), we haven’t run since our 5 miler last Thursday. This Saturday we have our first race in over a month. It is another 5k but this one is big. It is run right before a huge parade along the parade route. The parade typically draws between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators, so the race will be lined with parade viewers cheering us on. I heard from others that it is one of the best 5k’s around to run in. I can’t wait.

It has been cold here for the better part of a week. In general this winter has been colder than any I recall since moving here. It has been getting down into the lower 40’s at night but tonight they are saying it could dip all the way into the 20’s!!!!!!!!!!! That is unbelievably cold for Naples Florida. Yesterday almost felt like a Pennsylvania winter day, it was gray and cold all day. Of course it could be worse, PA got over a foot and a half of snow on Sunday.

The county fair ended yesterday. We didn’t go once. We didn’t go for two reasons, we had a bad taste in our mouths from spending over 20 bucks just to get in the door last year for all of 45 minutes of time spent there and second, it has been cold all week. I could see the fair out our front window. They had a couple rides that looked interesting to me but I guess it will have to wait till next year.

My mood has been dark again. I asked Ali this morning if it was full moon again and of course it is. It is nasty, I feel like just crawling into a hole. Nothing feels right.

I caught a little of the Winter Olympics, I wish I saw the opening ceremonies, I saw some clips of it that looked pretty spectacular.

I downloaded Pumping Iron which we watched this weekend. It is a film from 1975 about Arnold’s Mr Olympia years. It was more entertaining than I expected. Seeing the world of bodybuilding up close along with seeing the mid 70’s style and fashion trends made for 90 minutes of good entertainment. Some of the things Arnold said during the movie made me understand where his political aspirations came from. One of the most shocking things he revealed was when his dad died he did not attend his funeral, he did not want to be distracted from his training for an upcoming event.

Last night we hit another running milestone, hitting the 5 mile mark. It was the farthest Ali ever ran and the 2nd farthest I ever did. We did it at a decent pace as well, covering the distance in 48 minutes and change. I was really wiped afterward. Even after eating a big supper and drinking a big glass of water, I stepped on the scale and weighed 4 pounds less than the day before. I was so tired that I dozed off for the last third of survivor. Running distance really gives you a sense of accomplishment, a sense of mental toughness but on the flipside it really wipes you out like little other exercise can do. If we can do 5 miles we could do a 10k (6.2 miles). We will give that a go soon.

Today at the gym I benched 325, well not really but sort of, kind of. I was doing lockouts which are basically taking the barbell off the hooks to the extended position and then back down to the hooks. The theory is doing lockouts at a heavy weight (much more than you could do a normal benchpress) conditions your body to doing heavier weight. I was able to move 325 exactly 1 time. In total I doubt if I moved the weight much more than 6 inches but at least it moved. It felt like if I tried to move the weight down towards my chest it would cut me in half. How these guys do 500-600 lb bench presses is mind blowing.

The blog recently passed 14,000 hits. In comparison to big sites, 14000 is nothing but for me it is a big number.

Anyone see the commercial moveon.org is running that morphs a pic of Nixon into Bush? Even I think it is a bit over the top but hey anything that will wake people up can’t be a bad thing.

Yesterday we took the party van to work. Ali and Nicki slept in the back while I drove. It was kinda cool.

I sometimes watch Trading Spouses, a wife swap sort of show. Normally it is just fun watching the train wreck. This week there was a guy that was basically a jerk, he wanted everything his way, he ignored 2 of his 3 kids and seemed like a real asshole. Despite the efforts of the stand in mom to make him see the errors in his ways, he totally resisted and dismissed it all. Then just when we were ready to write the guy off as a total loser whom will never change or get it, he breaks down and admits he is doing things all wrong and if he doesn’t change he will wind up having kids that will hate him. It was a stunning reversal that totally changed his image to the viewer. It’s amazing how a little honesty and self reflection can be a powerful thing.

No more football, (the Pro Bowl doesn’t count), a bit of a bummer but it opens up my weekends to do a few other things.

Suffering from the lowest approval ratings of your presidency? Getting hammered on all sides for your budget, deficits, ignoring international law, tax cuts, shitting on the environment, spending the social security surplus, Haliburton, domestic spying, corrupt officials and the Iraq disaster? Then I have the solution for you!! Float a 4 year old story about how you thwarted a terrorist attack to try to plant more fear in the hearts of Americans and divert the focus from all the things you have f’d up. Look America, we are keeping you safe. It is such a self-serving, transparent move it disgusts me. He is such a boob.

It’s quite chilly here today.

I recently got my second WoW character to 60, my warlock. It was a long time coming but opens him up to doing some cool things in game. With recent changes to the warlock classes, most horde players will steer clear of me in a one on one situation because of the capability a warlock has to make life miserable for the opposition. Luckily they don’t know I am only an average pvp player at best.

I haven’t done much ranting recently about the state of the world. I suppose I just have dismissed the world as being on the tracks to self destruction and my lamenting it does nothing. The latest proof of this is the widespread violence and death related to a political cartoon, yes, a cartoon. WTF is wrong with people? It is unfathomable to me that it has progressed to the degree where people are dying over this. Now you don’t even have to commit an act to cause riots, just say the wrong thing or worse yet draw a cartoon. Pathetic.

Did you see Suzy Colbert during the Super Bowl? Wow she looked bad. She is developing old lady neck and worse yet she has nasty, gnarled man hands. Next time you see her on screen, take a look at her hands, it was really crazy. What was Broadway Joe thinking?

It was a busy weekend, busier than I prefer. We went to the neighbors place Saturday night and then to a Super Bowl Party Sunday night which compressed the time frame for everything else.

We finally got substantial rain this weekend, the first major rain we have gotten in a couple of months. It was nice to have to not spend an hour to an hour and a half watering the landscape. My mom’s mailbox got knocked off last week and she asked if I could replace it. I went there armed with all the supplies I thought I needed but when I arrived I found that the piece of 2×6 that is used to mount the box was missing. I scoured my mom’s place looking for some suitable wood, I even went to a couple of her neighbors houses looking for wood. No luck, I had to go to Home Depot and have them cut a 1 foot section off an 8 foot board. The bad weather meant that most people decided to spend the dreary day shopping, driving, and eating making traffic miserable. Most parking lots looked like it was Christmas, they were that full.

After I got the mailbox installed we had a stop planned at the Wal-mart supercenter. I don’t know why I do this to myself. I knew it would be insane, I knew it would be filled with hordes of people, most of whom will annoy me, yet I parked the party van and ventured inside. This place is huge, yet with all of the space and wide aisles every corner and aisle still was busy, it is amazing and disgusting at the same time. Every time I leave that place I somehow feel dirty for contributing to the madness. I sort of felt bad, at one point we were in yet another crowded aisle and an older woman moved her cart to the side of the clogged aisle so Ali and I could squeeze by. As we walked by she said “YOUR WELCOME!” At first I had an urge to fire back some smart ass comment but I just kept quiet as I realized I deserved the comment, it was rude of me to not acknowledge her simple act. Somehow the dark light Wal-mart put on my mood made me not care enough to exhibit common courtesy. I complained to Ali how ridiculous the scene was, repeatedly. Soon she tired of my complaining and developed her own bad mood. We got what we came for and finally headed home, a couple hours later than we planned and late enough that we had to clean up and get ready to go to the neighbors shortly after getting back home, adding to the stress. I was less than energetic at the neighbors place, we played some game called Cranium Turbo. It was a game that required much more personal involvement than I was willing to invest at that point. I had a few beers that amplified the drowsiness from minimal sleep. I collapsed into bed around midnight.

We did our Sunday run although Ali felt pretty low energy. She really struggles with Sunday morning runs in comparison to evening runs. Part of it is her morning lethargy, part of it was she drank considerable amounts of wine Saturday night. On runs like this I normally keep any communication to a minimum, otherwise if I say something that requires her to say much she gets very annoyed and we have a quick, breathless, angry exchange of a few words. Even so, we put in a half hour of running time. For the prior week we did over 9 miles of running, this week if all goes to plan we will be well over 10. After yesterday my bad knee was feeling a bit tender, I hope I can keep going.

I spent a good block of time pressure washing the bird cages and then washing the car and party van. I spent a lot of time on the interior of the van. I got a portable dvd player hooked up to the tv, reinstalled the arm rest on the driver’s seat and really cleaned the interior to the point where it looked 100% better inside. Now I just need a long road trip.

One of the things I did over the weekend was pressure clean Maggie’s cage one last time. It has been surprisingly difficult post-Maggie. We realized how quiet the house is now. For 10 years we have grown accustomed to her repeated chirps and noises. The feeling of having her there one day and gone the next repeatedly struck me, making me feel the sting from the finality of it all. Tuki has learned all of Ali’s noises which he continues to do, casting even more sadness when I occasionally hear Maggie’s sounds even though she is gone. I am amazed I have felt this degree of sadness from the loss of a pet that I really didn’t care for. Since Maggie died we have been making an effort to be much more interactive with Tuki. We worry that he doesn’t understand why his buddy that had been there all of his life is not there anymore.

Originally we were going to host another Super Bowl party at our house but then decided to go to someone else’s house for the big game. Their house was beautiful and big. One downside was they had hard surfaces everywhere, tile floors, granite counters which made everything seem loud. Trying to watch the game and/or commercials was not exactly easy do with the constant background noise going on. Even though I was rooting for the Steelers, I wore my Seahawks jersey and let Ali wear my only Steelers jersey. I got the Seahawks jersey back in the 80’s, it is a number 55 Brian Bosworth jersey. I figured I wouldn’t have many opportunities where wearing it would make much sense so I threw it on. The game itself was not very memorable. It was weird the way it played out because in most facets, the Seahawks outplayed the Steelers. They moved the ball rather easily but kept sputtering when they got close to the endzone and had a few bad breaks go against them. The Steelers simply made 2 big plays and that was more or less it. During the second half, after drinking more beer I was so damn tired I just wanted to close my eyes. However I was happy to see Bill Cowher finally win one and for my team of choice when I was a child to return to the top.

Some more notes from the party. The national anthem was terrible, embarrassingly bad. Don’t make the song “your own”, sing it the way it is supposed to be sung for Christ’s sake, stupid. I thought the half time show sucked. If you get past how ugly of a man Mick Jagger is, you realize he doesn’t sing very well anymore either. I didn’t think it was good at all. Because of all of the distractions I had a hard time paying attention to all of the commercials, although I saw some good and bad. The Burger King human burger and the Diet Pepsi commercials were stupid. I liked the Career Builder ones, the Ameriquest ones and a few others. Ali and I made a betting board again which was a popular part of the party. After it was all said and done we finished $1.75 up. The main food item at the party was chili. Jessie warned me that it would come back to bite me later as it was rather spicy. Wow he wasn’t kidding, my stomach was churning most of the night and I feel like toxic waste today. I’ll skip the chili next time….