Category Anything and Everything

As you can tell by the title of this entry, I had an enjoyable 4 day holiday. No rush, no fuss with a little bit of excitement thrown in there. Long entry warning.

On Thanksgiving day I awoke relatively early and had a relaxing morning. I played Call of Duty, watched some of the New York Thanksgiving Day parade and did some work on my RC planes. I also took my jump in the pool. It was around 70 or 71 degrees, nowhere near polar bear material but cool enough to wake me up. Not having to worry about preparing Thanksgiving dinner and/or prepare for a large family visit really simplifies things. We got to the restaurant right about 2 oclock. We were able to be seated immediately. The food was great but there were a few glitches in the meal. First, the iced tea that my wife ordered was accidentally made with coffee, then one of the turkey dinners came out without the turkey and finally, when the bill came I was charged for the bill of the table of 9 behind us. All of the problems were addressed, the waiter was very nice and the food was very good so it didn’t really bother me much.

The entire thanksgiving dinner experience only took a little more than an hour. My mom had mentioned she would like to go to the beach on thanksgiving since she never got to do such a thing. We headed towards downtown, we had a lot of time on our hands so we decided to make our second annual thanksgiving day trip to K-mart. Unlike last year, we found very little of interest, in fact the store seemed to be filled with mostly crap. We bagged out of there with a stocking for Nicki and a thing to hold Alison’s pampered chef stuff.

We went down to the beach. It was probably around 4 when we got there. We were surprised with the amount of people that had the same idea as we did. A lot of people were hanging out, in the water, fishing and even some appeared to do their thanksgiving feast on the beach! We walked down to the Naples pier and hung out for the sunset. Beautiful as always. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera.

After we got back I went hard core into Call of Duty and finished the game. Bummer because I was planning on that entertaining me for part of the weekend. It is a great game with a bit of a disappointing ending. The beginning of the russian campaign is right out of a movie I saw in the past year where the russian soldiers are coming to stalingrad in boats with their officers telling them if they run they will be shot. It was freaky. I mean it was right out of the movie.

On Friday we planned to take Nicki to the dog beach we heard about. Before we went I wanted to get a run in. I had Ali take me to the end of the street and drop me off. It was 1.7 miles back to our driveway. The run went ok but I could tell the difference running on a hard road versus the treadmill. I felt a twinge of pain in the knee that I haven’t felt to this point. I guess I will stick to treadmill running for now. As I trudged up the driveway trying to catch my breath, I see a dog’s rearend go around the corner of the house. Hmmm. My mom had mentioned she had seen 2 dogs walking around our property three days this week, evidently they were back again. They were 2 cute little dogs, one was some sort of pug mix that was walking around peeing on everything and the other was some sort of mini collie dog. They were both very cute but you could tell they have had it rough. However they had collars and my mom said earlier that week they did not have collars. So obviously someone owned them. Ali was very distraught about the idea of stray dogs and was afraid of them getting hit by a car. She called animal services and they said they would come out. I felt bad about the idea of them going to the “pound” so I went out door to door with a picture of the dogs to see if I could find out who owned them. I went around for a half hour or so, no luck, noone knew them. Just as I got back the animal services van pulled up. The guy was very nice and explained that the dogs would get cleaned up, get shots and then have 5 days for the owners to claim them. After that a “decision” is made. We asked what that meant. What it meant was they decide if they are going to go up for adoption or put to sleep. Of course the thought of sending them to their possible demise made Ali feel terrible. She was crying. The guy explained that since they were little dogs the odds of them being adopted was very good. He loaded them up and took the little guys away. I felt bad as well, they were very friendly and just wanted someone to take care of them. We were finally ready to take Nicki to the dog beach, a couple hours later than we planned but oh well. As we pulled out of the driveway, we are stopped by the kids from 2 doors down. (I didn’t ask them about the dogs since I knew they didn’t have any) They asked us about the dogs, we explained what happened. They said they took them in a week ago as strays. Supposedly their dad left them on the porch but left the door open so they could go to the bathroom. Translation – he hoped they ran away. I don’t think the kids realized this. Anyway we told them all they had to do was call animal services and they could get the dogs back. I will be surprised if they call, I haven’t seen the dogs reappear at their house. In an attempt to find the original owners, we made 2 huge signs with their pictures and posted them at the end of the street with the animal services number. Hopefully it all works out.

We found the dog beach. Nicki is very nervous around strange dogs and people. She was excited but scared as she hung very close to us. A few dogs came up to her to say hello and she circled Ali with her leash and almost tripped her. We kept her far away from the action most of the time. She actually got all 4 feet in the water, a first for her. Eventually I told Ali we should take her off her leash and let her run free, there was no imminent danger and she obviously would run to us if she is approached by other dogs. Ali cautiously agreed. Nicki had a good time running free except for a couple incidents, the funniest of them was while she was standing in a small area of water looking around. One of the dogs was hyper and came running towards her and she didnt see it. It broadsided her and knocked her into the water, it looked funny as hell and of course she yelped and came running to us for aid. By the time we left she was a sandy, wet exhausted mess. We’ll take her back to the beach again.

On Saturday we had a Pennsylvania like weather shift, it went from the lower 80’s on friday to being in the 50’s for most of the day on Saturday. It was also super windy so it felt even cooler. Brrrrrrr. On Saturday we did some home chores and I mowed the grass in the back for the last time this year. I think it was the first time I mowed grass and didn’t sweat one drop. We spent the rest of the day relaxing. I watched a good part of Matrix 2 again in an attempt to clarify Matrix 3. (It didn’t help much) We also watched The Core. A middle of the pack movie that I would not wanted to have paid to watch in the theater.

Sunday the only real “work” I did was put up xmas lights on the palm trees out front. They look nice, I’ll try to get a pic of them up. The rest of the day was primarily football watching, including ANOTHER big Eagles win. 7 in a row. Of course I was wearing my jersey. 🙂 It is the first time they have won 7 in a row since 1980. I remember that streak in 80. I love the fox pregame show (as I mentioned before) however I think this will be the last season of Jillian Barberie doing the weather spot. She is hitting the wall. She just is looking bad and when your primary job is to just look good that doesn’t bode well. When she first started a few years back she was smoking hot. It’s weird, it’s hard to explicitly identify what is going bad but it’s just bad.

Ali spent a lot of time putting together an Amazon order to take a chunk out of our Xmas shopping. Almost 400 bucks later we still have a ways to go. 🙁

A good 4 days, the best 4 day stint I’ve had in awhile.

I put in almost a mile and 3/4 on the treadmill over lunch. Since I stopped running several years ago I still have done aerobic exercise on a regular basis, stuff like the stationary bike, cross trainer, steppers and recumbant bikes. Although those get your heart rate up it is nowhere near the same as running. On the treadmill you have to get through that point of discomfort where you just want to slow down or stop. When you are done running you feel spent, spent in a complete way that other machines can’t duplicate. The only other aerobic machine I ever found that hammered me like running does is the versaclimber. You know that thing Dolph was using in Rocky IV? 10 minutes on that thing seemed like an hour if you pushed yourself. By the end of next week I’m hoping to be able to put in a 2 mile run without passing out.

I heard on the radio some group is threatening to sue any manufacturer that continues to use the Master / Slave designation that is used in the computer industry to indentify hard drives in a multiple drive configuration. They don’t like the idea that it could be perceived as racist in origin. COME ON! How f’in ridiculous and petty can you possibly be? My Green Bay goodwill has all but evaporated already. Morons.

I am a sucker for Van Damme movies. I have seen most of them multiple times but that doesn’t stop me from stopping the dial whenever I see one. Last night I stumble across Kickboxer. One of the best ones and arguably the best shape Van Damme was in for any of his movies. I came in right before the final fight scene with the Tung Po. The fists in broken glass, Tung Po calling his shots and the Van Damme coming back and destroying him once his brother was out of danger. Classic. I never tire of it. 🙂

My wife asked me last night who would win between the big 4. The big 4 of course being Van Damme, Arnold, Steven Seagal and Sylvester Stallone. I said in a movie, I think Arnold would win, in real life Seagal would win since he was the only real martial artist. However of the 4, Seagal is my least favorite.

I have seen the American Idol Christmas special advertised for a few weeks now. This means it was probably shot in October. It was on tv last night. First off it is absolutely ridiculous to me to have Christmas shows on before Thanksgiving. Makes no sense. Regardless we decided to tune in. It was dumb. It looked like good ole Rueben was sucking on a green lollipop before the show because his toungue had huge green spot on it, very funny. I just wasn’t into it. Halfway through I told Ali that this was dumb. She agreed and we flipped over to watching another hilarious I Love the 80’s episode on the Tivo.

Down here it is a little tough to get your mind around the idea that it is the holiday season. The warm sunny weather makes it very hard to shift into a holiday mode. Not that I’m complaining but it is one of the minor trade offs you make living in the sub-tropics. The idea of seasons becomes very distorted. Up north when I worked for Entre/Ameridata/GE this was a very special time of year. For the last 2 months of the year I would take off every Monday. 3 day weekends till the end of the year. Also the day before Thanksgiving we would normally slide out at 12 and then participate in a company touch football game. It was always a blast and I always came out of it with some sort of injury. One year a pulled groin, one year a concussion from gettin spiked in the head, it was always fun.. Some of my favorite memories of working there came from the Thanksgiving football game. Who can forget the moment “heartpunch Kliney” earned his nickname by punching would be tacklers in the heart to momentarily stun them? Or when Paul Hulmes almost got into a fight with one of Tim’s friends over excessive rough play? Or one of my all time favorites, when Emmett dances around loud mouth Monty making him look like a complete boob. Thanksgiving was definitely one of the things that was a lot more fun in PA. Down here the day before Thanksgiving means we get to wear jeans, woohoo.

A plus of my job is we get the day after Thanksgiving off as a paid holiday. Our 4 day weekend has no major plans. I feel an urge to attack tiling one of the bathrooms but I am going to resist filling my holiday weekend with hard work. Instead we will do some casual house work, may take my mom downtown to see it decorated for the holidays, possibly take Nicki to the dog beach to run around and a generous dose of doing whatever I damn feel like doing. I may try to do some Christmas shopping, I have done absolutely zero to this point. Have a nice holiday.

When I lived up north, I had a goal of being able to run a 10k(6 somethin miles) race. I was up to being able to run 5 and a half miles. However, the knee injuries I had prevented me from hitting that goal. My knee has felt good for awhile now since I scaled my volleyball playing back to next to nothing and have been taking my flaxseed oil for at least a year now. The other day the idea popped back into my head about doing it. I’m not getting any younger. So last night at the gym I decided to hop on the treadmill. I walked a quarter mile, stretched a bit and cranked the speed up to 7. I sweated and huffed through a mile and a quarter, slowed it down and walked a half mile to cool down for a total of 2 miles. Ugh, I have a long way to go. The good news is my knee felt fine but the muscles in my calfs and hips are sore from using them in a way that is foreign now. I’ll keep at it and see how it goes. It bugs me when I set goals that I don’t hit so hopefully I can check this one off in the next few months. At this point being able to run for an hour straight seems like a very daunting task.

As I get older I notice differences in my face, the skin thins out, the lines you only saw when you made faces seem to now leave permanent remnants across your countenance. In a ridiculous attempt to help the situation, when I shave I apply the shaving cream to areas of my face that have no hair, like around and under my eyes. It looks like I have a shaving cream mud mask on. Silly huh? My thinking is shaving cream has moisturizers and shit in it so it can’t hurt right? It’s only going to get worse…….

Friday night while my wife was at some art show that her hair dresser was in, I decided to flip through the pay per view stuff on the satellite. I found that Phone Booth was on. Cool little flick! It was pretty amazing how someone being stuck in a phonebooth could make a good movie but it really was good. An interesting study in human nature. Thumbs up.

We also caught ELF in the theaters this weekend. It wasn’t as funny as I had heard but still it was a cute holiday film, just not a side splitting funny movie.

The weekend itself was rather lowkey. I had half of my to do list done before Ali rolled out of bed on Saturday. We took my mom to look at a place that is for rent. It is owned by my buddy Mike’s brother-in-law. It is in Naples Park which is 5 minutes from my Mom’s job and about 5 minutes from the beach, a great location. It is an older duplex, nothing fancy but cute. It has nice mature landscaping, it is cute inside and a perfect size for mom. On the downside it needs some TLC on the outside. The neighbor is paid to mow the grass and keep it looking decent but it appears that he only quickly mows the front and ignores the back. Anyway, I think it could be a nice fit for her, hopefully it works out.

We went on a mini spending spree at Sam’s club. We got a NEC LCD monitor for Ali and a no contract pay as you go cell phone for Ali as well as some other goodies. The LCD was to complete the plan of making the new server serve double duty as Ali’s workstation. As a side result I know have a slimline Sony laptop that I will keep “just in case”. The cell phone replaces Ali’s old phone that harldy kept a charge and didn’t work half of the time. Ali didn’t bother to keep it on most of the time so it served us no good if I wanted to reach her. This new phone allows us to just pay for what we need, no contract and is a new phone that works. Ali doesnt call out much so it is a great fit for us and will save us a few bucks each month.

The Eagles had another strong showing. Again my Eagles garb wearing good luck charm has continued. The only concern is the defense has been giving up tons of yards, especially on the ground. I figure that will catch up to them sooner or later.

I got some more Call of Duty time in. Like I said before, it is super realistic, if you want to get a taste of what is is like to be a WW II soldier, give it a try. A very good game.

A quick 3 day week followed by a 4 day holiday weekend, perfect. Instead of laboring through intensive Thanksgiving preparations we are going to treat my mom to a turkey day dinner out (like we did last year) It was quite enjoyable not having to work so hard for a 15 minute meal. My memories of Thanksgiving are very traditional, we went to my grandparents, watched football, had dinner with grandma’s “fancy” gold plated utensils and my grandpa would say quick grace. I don’t remember specifics about the prayer except the last line always was “without you lord we’re nothin…” I haven’t had grace at Thanksgiving since he died.

I have made quite a few holiday flash animations over the years. This year I did one for Keener’s fantasy football league. Check it out if you like, be warned there are some dirty words in there. 🙂

Last night Rupert got kicked off of Survivor. That was really a bummer because he was probably the best contestant that Survivor has EVER had. I can understand why people wanted him off because he was a shoo-in to win if he lasted much longer, still it bums me out and makes the rest of the show much less interesting for me.

Nothin spectacular on the weekend schedule. Housework, football, maybe catch a movie, ho hum.

Thanks to Joe for trying to explain the Matrix to me. I dunno if I buy all of his explanations but it was more than I got. Maybe I do need to watch number 2 a second time. Read his explanations here.

This is cool. You can watch flights take off and land at airports! Zoom out to the 80 mile view and be amazed at what is in the sky!

Nothing overly interesting things to report just some funny stuff. Last night I wanted to rush home so I could get a chance to fly my Cessna with the navigation lights at dusk. Actually it is Mike’s Cessna, he gave it to me before he moved to Colorado. It is a painstakingly hand built model. Way beyond what my patience would allow me to build. Anyway, daylight is fading fast. I get home and have to let the dog out, she stayed home all day. She is very excited to see me, I take her out to go to the bathroom. She is so excited that she crouches like she is going to crap, and then remembers she only has to pee so she switches to a squat, she pees and then kicks dirt back on it like she took a crap. Funny dog.

It’s really dim out now but I am determined to fly with the lights on the plane. I get it up in the air, it looks COOL! I’m sure I freaked out some people driving home, wondering what the hell the lights in the sky were. But after a few minutes I was under severe attack from mosquitos. I tried to walk around the yard to keep them off me but it did little good. You can’t swat mosquitos and fly planes at same time. I had to bring it in for a fast landing and ran back inside for shelter. Hate mosquitos.

I finished Max Payne 2 Monday night. A good game, the level where you are protecting the guy in the cartoon suit is on of my favorite parts, very funny. I started a new game, Call of Duty. It is another World War 2 first person shooter. It is very immersive. After my first couple missions I had to bag out cause I was all stressed up. Felt like dudes were shooting me for real. Looks like a fun game though, I’ll work through it.

Last night I was back in the bedroom and I hear my mom yell SHAWN COME HERE! She is outside her bathroom pointing. There is an adult, full sized tree frog sitting on her toilet seat! What the hell? I netted him up and returned him to the wild. I am having a hard time determing how he got there. Did he navigate the septic system, run in through an open door, come in through a vent? I have no idea. More wonders of living in the fringe of the Everglades.

This morning I took Nicki out for her morning bathroom trip. She did a number 1, normally she will do a number 2 a little later. We went back inside. As I was sitting down at the puter with my bowl of cereal, Nicki is in there with me looking distraught and looking like she was looking for a place to dump! Woah! I drop everything, run to the back door, she runs with me, we go outside and she lets loose. Crisis averted!!!! Joys of dog ownership. 🙂