I have never even played with RSS feeds, I just haven’t had the need, however I know many people use them. I just discovered that my blog has built in RSS support so I thought I would post the feed URL for anyone that would like to use it.
Plug this URL into the RSS reader of your choice:
https://blog.duf.net/mtlog/duf/index.xml
Wallah!!
I tried it in the Google RSS reader and it worked just great! Let me know if you have any problems with it working.
Wow, 6 days off in a row, I don’t think I have taken 6 days off from work in a row for a looong time, maybe 10 years. My Xmas break ran the gammut. The days up to and including Christmas were rather busy. On Friday I wanted to knock out whatever I could to free up the remainder of time off. We had to clean up for my mom coming over Christmas eve as well. I enjoyed the feeling of having many days off in front of me. The first day of vaca is always the best for me, as the end of the time off approaches I spend a lot of that time mourning the end of the fun. I thought that perhaps as Christmas neared, my holiday excitement level would possibly increase. It never happened.
On both Saturday and Monday, Ali and I went for 2.5 mile + runs. For her birthday I bought her this sweet little wrist worn GPS. It is used to accurately track your runs. It is amazing. It tracks every aspect of your run you can imagine, including a graphical representation of the course you followed. You can have it act like a virtual partner that runs at a set pace to help keep you up to speed. It actually motivates you to run more and faster. I think of all the gifts Ali and I got for our birthdays/xmas, this was the coolest one.
On Christmas eve afternoon I went and picked up my mom. Ali made a lasagna that was fantastic. We finished off the night watching the Polar Express. It was a cute, different kind of holiday flick. On Friday I watched the original, uncut version of Christmas Vacation. I forgot how much better it is when the swearing and non PC content is put back in. I love that movie.
Christmas morning came and I got Ali up around 7’ish, a far cry from the 5am ish start times I used to push for. There was a lot of stuff. It took probably an hour and a half until we opened all the gifts for me, Ali, my mom and the pets. It took forever. It was mostly anti-climactic because so much stuff arrived for us unwrapped or in boxes that identified its contents. After everything was opened, a sense of dread / anxiety overtook me. Seeing all the shit everywhere and thinking about how I was going to get it put away/installed/used was digging at me. This feeling was compounded by the normal melancholy following the completion of the xmas ritual.
After eating a french toast breakfast my mom prepared I tore into the pile. Ali could sense my anxiety and helped organize and put stuff away. I threw the wireless controller onto the xbox, I installed and configured the USB Bluetooth adapter on Alison’s computer to work with her Treo, I set up the cat water fountain, I replaced our Cable/DSL router with a new one and played with the wireless weather center I got.
Mom and Ali took some time to sit out in the sun while I continued with my madness, frantically trying to restore order to what I saw as chaos. Ali and I took my mom back to her place in the early afternoon. The three of us walked down to the beach for a few minutes just to say we did. The weather was cool and overcast, not good beach weather. We found someone had taken the time to spell out Merry X-mas in shells on the beach. We took Mom’s pic in front of it to use at a later date. It was the first time we had been to the beach since the hurricane came through. All in all it looked ok. We walked back and thanked mom for coming over and went home.
Even though the end of daylight was soon approaching, I headed out to construct the mounts for my outdoor weather center. I had to do some trial and error to locate the stuff where it could communicate with the base unit inside. I wound up mounting the stuff in the orchard. I then attached the base unit to Ali’s pc and installed and configured the software. The software allows me to upload the current weather to my web server. Very geeky but I like being able to monitor the weather conditions in my yard realtime. I finished up just as the sun was going down.
Christmas night I was still itching to get out of my skin. I tried to describe to Ali how I felt. It was a big snowball of negativity that I knew was uncalled for but I could do little to make it subside. I felt empty, discouraged, anxious, sad and angry all at the same time. I went to bed that night knowing that future Christmas holidays will probably follow the same path unless we decide to have a kid.
On Monday I noticed that my outdoor temperature reading was 10 to 12 degrees higher than it should be. My initial design did not shade the remote unit from sunlight so the suns rays were artificially raising the temperature. I went out and built some additions to my mount to block it on 2 sides from the sun. It seemed to keep the temps more inline with reality. I worked more on getting things put away throughout the day and by the end of Monday, most things were back in order. I felt less anxiety than the day before.
We watched a lot of movies over the break. We saw Cinderella Man, Dodgeball and Anchor Man. I though the first 2 movies were great, Anchor Man was garbage. The funny moments were very slim in that flick. I have a ton more movies to play on my xbox media center.
Tuesday and Wednesday, Ali was back at work so I had the days to myself. Tuesday I wanted to crank out any and all remaining housework so I had Wednesday to WoW till I dropped. I finally dug into the ebay pile of stuff and listed 8 or 9 things online for sale. I did some minor outside work and then played WoW the rest of the day. Wednesday was even more hardcore Wow. With nothing else on my schedule, and no dog at home to demand my attention, I had a marathon session. I basically played from 6:30 am to 9:30 pm with maybe an hour and a half break thrown in there. I played almost exclusively with my rogue and traveled all over the Eastern continent. It was over the top ridiculous playing that long, but I had fun and it was nice to totally ignore everything else. With my rogue I find myself looking for trouble, killing horde whenever possible and just basically being a thorn in other player’s side. It relaxes me.
I’m back at work for a 2 day work week and then it’s another 3 day weekend, yahoo. We are running yet another 5k this weekend on New Year’s Day which will dictate a mild New Year’s celebration.
This could be the last blog entry prior to the big day so I’d like to wish everyone out there that reads this little square of my mind on a semi-regular basis, best wishes for the season. I hope your holiday is a great one.
I’ve been waiting for 2 months to simply have a pool cage company at least give me an estimate on rebuilding our cage. I call and call and never get a call back. Last night on my machine there is a message from an individual in a heavy spanish accent.
“Uh yes this message is for Shawn Duffey. I heard you need work on , how do you say, screen repair? Give me a call back.” That’s it. No name of the company or individual and no phone number. This sucks.
My grandfather always used to have hard candy sitting out at his house. I preferred the red and white peppermint swirly things. However once in awhile he would not have those so I would pop one of those root beer barrel candies. They were horrible. I don’t recall if I ever made it to the end of one without spitting it out. I have avoided them ever since.
I just got my “permanent” retainer for my bottom teeth. It is a wire glued to the back of my teeth. So far I am not digging it, it feels like I have shit permanently stuck between my teeth. At least they are straight. The top teeth, the ones I really wanted fixed, still have 6 or 7 trays to go. The two teeth that bug me the most don’t seem to have moved much to me, they have a ways to go in the next few months.
On Friday after work we went to Carraba’s. There was an hour wait so I drank 3 beers and then drank a woman’s gin and tonic. She got 2 for happy hour but only drank half of one so I didn’t want it the other to go to waste. However the prospect of having to leave a vehicle there and the whole having Mom along thing, made me shut it down before we sat down for dinner. The alcohol did help dull the sting of being firmly entrenched in my late 30’s, if only temporarily.
On Saturday morning I went out to run errands and try to wrap up my Xmas shopping. Going out into the shopping areas the week before Christmas is asking for misery but I went for it anyway. As expected, each place was jammed with people circling parking lots, people filling the stores and just basic madness at every turn. As I was waiting in a long line at Sam’s Club, I took a moment to just look around and saw that basically every nook and cranny of the store had someone in it, doing something. There are just too many people. Unfortunately all my effort didn’t result in my wrapping up Xmas shopping for Ali. I need to snag her something this week yet, sometime, somehow.
Saturday afternoon we had another 5k. This was a Christmas run, complete with little bells that the runners wore on their sneakers. It was the smallest field of any race we ran so far, maybe 130 people. This race we basically ran by ourselves from the get go. A pack went ahead of us, a pack was behind us and we had at least 100 yards in either direction for most of the race. Again we had a fast pace and I tried to keep it that way. Ali struggled but managed to battle through it to another personal best, breaking the 31 minute and 10 minute mile mark at 30:50. She was totally spent. I was very proud of her effort. We stuck around for the award ceremony in case Ali managed to place but she didn’t get one. Originally we had planned to watch the Marco Island Christmas parade right after the run and we went up to the parade route and sat down in a ditch, for about 5 minutes, after which we both agreed that we would rather just get home, so we left. Finding our way out of Marco, avoiding the parade route was a challenge but thanks to the GPS we managed to get out. On the way home we stopped at Pizza Hut, a place I haven’t stepped foot in for at least 2 years, to grab dinner. My bad knee was hurting enough that I iced it when we got home, however it felt better the next day.
On Sunday I watched the dreadfully bad Eagles game. I can’t remember being less excited about an Eagles victory. Both teams played uninspired ball and it was sloppy as hell. I could not believe how many false start penalties the Rams had, I bet it was close to 10. Mike McMahon is just terrible, he threw another 3 picks. He needs to be moved to a different position like wide receiver.
After the game I was complaining to Ali how I was basically devoid of Christmas spirit. We sat down and watched Charlie Brown Christmas and the Grinch movie. It helped a little bit but my holiday needle is still pointing at 1/4 tank or less. I have a 4 day week then took off additional days so I won’t be back to work till next Thursday.
Today I’m officially 38. Nowadays when my birthday rolls around I normally do a brief inventory of my life. In some ways, my path has strayed off where I thought it may be. In other ways, I have exceeded expectations and am proud of some the things I have accomplished. I am probably in better shape now then I was 15 years ago. I think the area of my appearance that has been the most affected by time is my face. If I have no expression on my face it isn’t obvious, but if I smile, there are lines and creases that spring to life that never existed in the past. Overall I realize that in most ways I am very fortunate to be in the position I am. I still have the moments when I stress out about not having a definitive idea of what is next down the road for myself. I insulate myself from these moments the best I can by keeping myself busy for most seconds of the day. We are going to go to one of my favorite restaurant’s tonight for my birthday, Carraba’s. I’m gonna drink a little bit.
The Aprrentice wrapped up last night. I think the final two were the best final two since the show has aired. Randall won which was a pretty obvious pick. The guy was as sharp as a tack. I found it very interesting at the end when Trump basically offered up to hire both of the final two since they were so good and he asked Randal’s opinion on it. Randall was good friends with the girl he was in the finals with, yet he held his ground and told Trump that he thought the Apprentice was all about finding ONE winner, not two. Rebecca was obviously pissed with his actions, but hey, he won, he was the better candidate and he felt that she shouldn’t slide in as a consoloation prize. If that was me, I would have taken her along but that is why I am not on the Apprentice.
Today is the last day for Howard on regular radio. I bought my Sirius satellite radio over a year ago, waiting for this time to come. Since then, I fell in love with satellite radio for tons of reasons besides the fact that Howard was coming. The music choices are endless, I love the NFL and other sports broadcasts they offer and they have talk content to fit most any taste. Stern will air January 9th. I can’t wait. I am sure he will go a bit overboard initially with the swearing and sex related content. I look forward to when he settles down a bit and can just have conversations without having to worry about chosing his words carefully. Actually my favorite part of his show is when the different people on the show rip into each other. I could care less if he had another stripper on the show ever.
At the gym Wednesday I saw a character that I had seen a few times before, whom annoyed me then and annoyed me even more now. Both times I saw the guy he was wearing a tight, plain, white t-shirt, the type that old men normally wear underneath a button down dress shirt. This guy constantly breathes like he just got done holding his breath for 5 minutes, he inhales and exhales loudly, ALL the time, even when he is just walking around the gym. When he actually gets onto a piece of equipment it is amplified, the noises get louder and are accompanied by hideous looking grimacing. It’s very distracting. Plus he likes to slam the weights onto and off of the bar, perhaps to punctuate just how hard he is working. I mean this guy is over the top, you can hear him breathing from 30 feet away. He will be forever identified by me as Hyperventilation Man.
Across the street from us there is a hispanic family that we have never really spoken to. I believe the husband is in the landscape business, like many Mexicans in SW Florida. Most mornings when I am leaving for work I see what I belive is the wife walking to the end of the driveway, turning around and walking back up it and then back again. She uses the driveway as her own personal track, walking up and down, up and down. It’s an interesting way to get some walking exercise but at least she is trying.
Tomorrow evening we are running in yet another 5k, this time it is on Marco Island. We are running right before the Marco Christmas parade, along the parade route. There may be people lining the streets waiting for the parade that could double as race supporters. We hope to watch the parade after the run. It should be a good time. Since my strenuous weekend, my lower back has been hurting all week. I hope it clears up before tomorrow, otherwise I will require some advil to assist my performance.
I turned my cam back on so all could see my decorated office. I’ve had occasional issues with it blue screening my pc so I have had it off for awhile. But the holiday season is cam season so enjoy the holiday show.
Last night I was exhausted. The combination of my physically taxing weekend, compounded by staying up late Sunday night watching the Survivor finale, caught up to me. I was in bed by 9:30.
Friday is my birthday, I’ll be 38 years old. Even better, it will be full moon right around then as well. It should make for a miserable combination. I told Ali that any birthday celebration needs to include me drinking a lot of alcohol. The past year seems to have flown by in a blink. I remember when I was 11 or 12, a year seemed like an eternity.
It was a busy weekend. Friday after work I stopped at the local Home Depot to get materials to throw up a temporary fence around the pool area. I had a rough idea in my head of what I wanted to do, but didn’t have the fine details nailed down so I bought some extra supplies just in case. I wanted to get to bed early Friday night because I was getting up at 5am to drive up to Siesta Keys to play in a volleyball tournament. Of course I didn’t and wound up staying up till after 11.
I drug myself out of bed and hit the road. I got there in plenty of time. This tournament was run by a new group that was sponsored by Hawaiian Tropic. Supposedly the event was going to have authentic Hawaiian Tropic girls there which never panned out. The weather was on the cool side, starting in the mid 60’s and only warming up maybe a half dozen degrees from there. Randall got there an hour later than me so I spent the time just walking around, figuring I would see some familiar faces from the other tournaments we play. But no, I didn’t recognize anyone so I just walked around by myself, like a loser, waiting for my partner to arrive. They happened to be running a 5k race at the beach that day as well. It was a cool course, they ran right along the ocean shoreline.
This tournament had no BB division which is what we always play, so our choices were either A or B. I told Randall I vowed to never play B again so we opted for A. The last time I played in the A division was with Rich in the 2000 Pottstown Rumble. Playing in A, along with my abstinence from doing anything volleyball related since my last tourney in September, set my expectation levels low. There were 11 teams and we got put on a 3 team net, which was a weird format. Both the other teams on our net were good, one had a very good player that obviously could play AA or better. We lost to the team with the stud player twice and then we split with the other team. Every single game was close and overall I thought we played well with all things considered. 1-3 on our net was actually good enough to make the playoffs. However we sat for an hour or more before the playoffs. The upper 60’s temperature really accelerated the stiffening up process and both Randall and I had a hard time getting loose for the playoff game. Randall had a worse time of it than me as his back was really bugging him. We lost our playoff game without much fuss, but we could definitely could have beat the team in better circumstances.
I think of all the rule changes that have happened over the last few years in vball like the smaller court, let serves, block counts as a touch, nothing has affected our game more than rally scoring. Rally scoring makes you tentative with the serve, it makes any run of bad luck twice as bad because you lose points both on receive AND serve. The first year Randall and I played, we played mostly tourneys with the tour that still used side out scoring and we did well. This year the tour switched to rally as well and we struggled all year. Randall and I normally seem to have brief runs in the game where things don’t go well or we make dumb unforced mistakes like serving out or mishitting a ball. With sideout, the opponent just gets the ball, with rally they get the ball and the point which really makes a huge difference in the flow of a game. I really prefer the old rules.
I told Randall that if we got done early enough, I was going to try to catch the race that Ali was running in Fort Myers at 4pm. Randall asked me if I was planning to pull a Bo Jackson and run the race as well? Bo Jackson was a superb athlete back in the 80’s that played baseball for the Royals and football with the Raiders. I laughed and said, no I wasn’t going to run it. But that planted a seed. I did a quick phyical inventory of how my body felt and determined that I could probably still run a 5k. How cool would that be to play a vball tournament AND run a 5k the same day? So I called up Ali and asked her to pack my running sneakers just in case. She was surprised at my ambition to run the race instead of observe it.
Our playoff game finished up a bit before 2pm which gave me just enough time to get there, get registered and run. I was a bit tired, a bit sore and achy but now that I set the goal in front of me there was little chance I would not do it. I pulled into the parking lot about 3:30 and met up with Ali. I still had the powdery sand from Siesta Keys beautiful beach all over my arms and legs. I probably looked quite odd. The gun sounded and I was off, off into my second athletic event of the day. The race was through a beautiful park that took us winding through paths, board walks and small bridges, it was really cool. We started fast, very fast for Ali. We ran our first mile in 9:20 something, the fastest she ever ran a mile. The fast start made the middle part of the race tough for Ali but she pushed through and finished strong. We finished in 31:54, a big improvement over our first 5k we ran on Veteran’s Day which we ran in 34:20. To knock 2 minutes off your time in the span of a month is a big accomplishment. I held up ok during the race but I could feel the aches and pains from the vball gig. I was proud of my dual event completion.
Sunday morning, despite my significant aches and pains I was determined to get the temporary fence up around the lanai so I popped some Advil and got busy. We haven’t even been able to get someone to give us an estimate on a new pool cage yet, and we don’t expect to have it rebuilt for at least 6 months so I wanted to get a fence up so at least Nicki could go out there without being tied up. The process went pretty well and Ali helped me during the last half of the project which involved creating 2 doors at either side. It doesn’t look too bad and will keep the mutt safe and sound.
During the afternoon, Ali mentioned that the plants we have above the kitchen cabinets needed to be watered. The way she normally does this is to pull each plant down and water it thoroughly over the sink. I told her that I watered the plants in a much faster way a couple weeks ago by just filling up a big cup with water and using my long arms to water it right in place. Ali said that I shouldn’t do that because the water could overfill the catch tray under the pot. I assured her that what I did worked fine the last time, which it did, and I would take care of it. So I dump one big cup in, refill and dump a second big cup in the first pot. I refill and move down the line and start watering the others. Then I hear a noise, I look and see drops of dirty water falling onto the counter. I glance up and see the spill tray is filled to the top. ARGH! First I grap a few paper towels and try to wipe up the water, hoping it would only be a few drops but soon I realized that it was not slowing down, instead it was running down faster. I had to call Ali to go grab a towel. She came out half laughing, half cursing that her warnings proved to be accurate. We scrambled to move the shit on the counter out of the way. It was a big mess. I explained to Ali that I probably only used 1 cup of water last time, instead of two, explaining the flood we were cleaning up. She didn’t want to hear it and instructed me to NEVER try to half ass water the plants again. 🙂
I watched the Eagles game. It had some positive aspects to it. Ryan Moats is going to be a quality player. Reggie Brown was a great draft pick. However, even though the game stayed close the entire time, and the Eagles even forced overtime, I never really thought they were going to win it. I have no faith in Mike McMahon and he once again cost the game when he scrambled and didn’t sense the pressure, fumbling the ball deep in Eagles territory, setting up the game winning field goal for the Giants. I wonder if Mike has ever completed more than 50% of his passes in his games as a starter in the NFL. If he has, I am sure you don’t need to count past 2. He is just way too inaccurate. To be fair, the Eagles offensive line was porous. It seemed they had no clue when it came to protecting the QB. Jon Runyan was mowed down by Strahan over and over again. In the big picture, I know at this point it is better for the Eagles to lose than to win. It still is tough to swallow to see them lose game after game to teams you know they would handle rather easily if they had the same team they opened the season with.