Category Dreams

After work on Friday I stopped at the bank, hoping to finally get the funds from the tax refund in the bank.  I had stopped at Ali’s place first thing in the morning to get her to sign off on it.  So I sent the check up the tube at the drive through teller and heard a voice coming back to me a minute later.

The teller told me that she was unable to deposit the check because it is made to me AND Ali.  Since her name is not on the checking account they are unable to deposit the check without Alison being physically present with her ID.  Damn it….  Ali was equally frustrated when I gave her the news.

Friday night I watched my latest Netflix rental, Chronicle.  I remembered very little about the plot of the movie so I quickly read the description on the dvd sleeve.  Some young guys find some sort of extra terrestrial object that gives them super powers, ok I’m in.

The movie was quite good, better than I expected.  It made me think about how I would react if somehow I managed to obtain some sort of super human ability, if I would use it for good or allow the power to corrupt me.  I would expect it to be somewhere in the middle maybe.  Anyway, I found the movie to be very good, rent it, solid A from me.

Saturday I kept myself quite busy.  We are getting back into the time of year where I can no longer ignore mowing the grass for a month at a time.  I buzzed around on the tractor after tending the garden and weeding the property.  I picked up the girls earlier so they enjoyed themselves hanging out while I toiled.

I actually went around the house with the Dyson, something I need to do less and less because of the robotic sweeping that goes down 3 times a week.   I followed up by letting the Scooba scrub the kitchen and master bathroom, again something that hasn’t gone down in close to a month.

I then targeted vehicle cleaning as the non-standard chore of the day.  I started off with the Tacoma, something that rarely gets washed anymore.

I remember early on in my ownership of the truck I used to be pretty meticulous and regular in washing it.  However 12 years in the Florida sun and a shitty repair job on the passenger side of the truck that has left it with peeling clear coat has made washing the Tacoma a rarity.

As I washed the mostly faded white paint I found myself feeling somewhat sentimental.  I thought about just how many parts of my life the truck has accompanied me through.  It has been a dependable, rock solid companion that has moved me over 120,000 miles around the planet since I bought it in 2001.

The sentimental feelings perhaps were a result of some recent ideas about eventually replacing both the truck and the van with a full size dual cab truck, thinking that would kill two birds with one stone.  I’d be able to still transport all of the raw materials needed to maintain the house but also have plenty of room to carry 2 or 3 additional people and more importantly, two dogs.  Of course to even think about that I would need to get the SSR paid off which isn’t happening anytime soon.

After washing the Tacoma I washed the SSR, the second time doing so in as many weeks.  After I washed it last week I wound up in an unanticipated downpour, negating the work.

I followed up with the party van, not washing the exterior but thoroughly vacuuming the interior to suck up the abundance of dog hair that was filling the space.  I also pulled out the comforter in the bed and threw that in the wash.  I don’t think I had swept out the van since the trip my dad’s in January.  It was long overdue.

Mixed among the chores/projects I needed to do preparation for the race I was timing on Sunday.  I had the freshly washed truck all loaded up and ready to go by 9pm.  My eyelids were closed 30 minutes later as the alarm clock was set for 4 AM.

Some race mornings I pretty much spring up out of bed, ready to tackle the challenge of making everything come together.  Sunday was not one of those days.  The alarm was not welcomed and I almost wound up falling back asleep after turning it off.  I drug myself out of bed and managed to get on site shortly after 5am.

We seemed to have less hands on deck than normal, I was buzzing around for quite awhile until I got to the point where I could settle in and help Alison do data entry.  The race actually started a couple minutes late because I had a little bug to iron out last second.

We had some issues because for some reason participation in the race this year saw a huge unanticipated swelling of numbers.  For the most part our year to year race participation has either been flat or slightly down, mostly due to an oversaturation of races in our area.

Last year the race had less than 350 entries , this year we wound up with just less than 500 people signed up.  There were only 300 shirts ordered for the race and I had only requested 500 race bibs, figuring that was more than adequate based on prior years numbers.  We actually ran out of bibs late in the registration process.

Despite a large amount of runners, timing the event went very smoothly.  I had basically no errors, something that rarely occurs.  I was driving off site by 9:30.

After getting all of the post race work done and eating lunch I felt exhausted.  I laid down for a close to two hour nap and woke up still feeling tired.  I also woke up still coughing and sniffling.  I am going on my third week of this annoying illness.

Sunday night I saw Ironman 3.  I had heard one review of the movie going in and it was very positive.  I came out of the movie agreeing with the review, overall it was a great movie with some very funny moments and one liners sprinkled amongst the kick ass action.   Unlike Spiderman, which was pretty firmly in the lame bucket by the time it hit the third sequel, Ironman 3 delivered and left me wanting more. With the ending of it however, I’m not quite sure where the story goes from here.  Solid A.  My only really negative thought was the 3D version of the film really offered me nothing extra.

I had a very odd dream last night, surely related to my thoughts about replacing the Tacoma.  I saw someone selling a used 2007 Ford pick up truck in the paper and I went to look at it.  The young guy selling it seemed like a pure breed redneck.  When I saw the truck I found it hard to believe that the truck was only 5 or 6 years old.  It had a lot of rough spots which the kid explained away as minor problems.

I knew that there was no way I should buy the truck but instead of just telling the guy no thanks I stuck around and listened to him ramble.  He told me he had a spare body for the truck that I could have, it was at at garage of a “friend” of his.  We hopped in the beat up Ford and drove over there.

The guy opens the garage and it is a cluttered mess.  The kid starts throwing stuff out of the way, creating Iron Man-like chaos as parts and objects crashed into the floor and each other.  He was trying to reach the back wall, evidently there was a secret door where the spare body was kept.  I wound up helping him throw stuff out of the way to get to the door.

Once the door was open it revealed a large sunken space, the top part surrounded by a ledge that had a ton more stuff on it.  The guy again goes on a destruction rampage, pushing the stuff off the ledge, crashing onto both the concrete floor below and the things on it, mostly other cars.  I asked him why he was making such a mess.  He replied simply “I don’t give a fck”  His reply reaffirmed my belief that I should not buy his 2007 Ford.

He pointed to a corner of the area below, saying that was the spare body he was going to give me with the truck.  It was the shell of a late 50’s Corvette.  I remember thinking how mounting a Corvette body on a 2007 Ford truck frame would be more hassle than it’s worth.  Plus where would I put the mulch?  End of dream.