Category Rants

Yesterday when I was leaving work it was raining lightly.  As I was pulling out of the lot I passed a guy riding his bike.  A quick glance revealed he was not well off, he looked haggard, dirty and generally beat down by life.  Behind his bike he was towing a child stroller however it did not contain a child.  A dog, a brown boxer, was the passenger.

Despite being towed along in the rain by an owner that looked like he would be hard pressed to afford dog food, the dog looked perfectly content, excited to get to wherever they were going, even if he had no clue where that was.

The visual touched me as I imagined that despite whatever has gone down in that guys life to bring him to that point, he still at least has the unconditional love of an animal to keep him going, even when it’s bleak and raining.

So I got a surprise call from my CC company today regarding the fraud that was committed on my card a month or so ago.  I thought the issue was dead.

The woman told me she had some additional information about the transaction that utilized my card to purchase items from Underarmour.com.  The purchase, of just less than $600 was 3 pairs of football spikes and 2 pairs of running shoes.  The ship to name sounded fake, Yusmailiana Galcez, and the address the items were shipped to was over in Homestead, just south of Miami.

However the woman then gave me the telephone number used for the transaction, it was a local 239 area code, hmmm.  So the first thing I did was call the number and ask for Yusmailiana, no one there by that name, “Ok, thank you” and I hang up.

So now I look up the phone number and find it is an address no more than 5 miles from my house, under a totally different name, the plot thickens.  So I forwarded this information to the owner of Zookies whom I spoke to before as I originally suspected one of their staff could have been involved in the fraud.

I am debating if I want to further my prosecution efforts and walk over to the sheriff’s office to file an official report.  It will probably involve more hassle than it’s worth since the charges are already wiped clean and I have a new card.  However there is that little revengeful/do the right thing,  part of me that wants to see the asshole that did this get nailed to the wall.

If the number would have been a Homestead area code I would just let it slide due to distance but the fact that the potential suspect is right in my home area makes me feel like I need to make the effort.

Friday after work I did my normal post work grocery shopping which this week included a stop at Sam’s Club. One of the things I needed was to restock on Mexican Coke.  Evidently being a Mexican Coke dealer can be pretty profitable.  On the internet I found sites selling cases such as these for upwards of $50.   Considering they cost $18.88 at Sam’s there is a nice fat profit margin out there.

On Saturday morning I drug myself out of bed at 4:30 am for the second week in a row to go do the club run.  Turn out for the run was on the light side but the run was on the faster side, averaging in the high 8’s for the nearly 7.25 mile run.

When I got back home I was feeling  pretty tired from the combination of early wake time with the energy depleted from the run.  I knew I had to get back up and moving else I would fall victim to a nap.  I had hopes of getting a lot of manicuring done in the yard since the standing water had finally evaporated.

I got the weeding done and then decided to eat lunch.  After lunch I needed to go fill the gas cans, by the time I got back the skies had turned menacing.  I got about 10 minutes of weed whacking in before the first downpour hit.  I retreated inside and played some of 400 Days, the Walking Dead sequel on the 360 until the rain stopped.

The break in the rain was only temporary but any rain that fell on me at that point was not enough to force me back inside.

So I was about 90 seconds away from finishing up the weed whacking, trimming the edge of the driveway, walking towards the road.  All of a sudden I hear the rpm’s of the motor rev way up.  I look down and confirm the spool just ran out of line, fck, great luck.  Now of course I could have simply said f it, the 15 yards of un-whacked driveway is no big deal, more than likely I am the only one on the planet that would even notice.  I could simply put the weed whacker away and reload the spool the next time I get the whacker out.

Well whether it is some sort of OCD or whatever it is that drives me to want to finish something I started, I instead chose to walk back to the shed, reload the trimmer line and walk back out front and knock down the remaining hairy edge.  The rain had crossed mowing off the to do list for me, I guess I’ll need to try to knock it out this week.

I mentioned I played 400 days, I actually finished the WD add on Saturday afternoon.  It is basically short story lines about 5 or 6 other people in the zombie apocalypse.  It was fun but not as engaging as the main game and probably a little short on content since I completed everything in a couple hours.

Saturday night Cindy had a small party at her place that was attended by mostly people from the running club I know along with a few that I didn’t.  I utilized BLP’s to help ease the social anxiety I can suffer from in those situations.  It was a fun time that went later than expected.

Sunday morning, after sleeping in much later than normal, I went and picked up the dogs.  Ali is out of town for a few days.  I sat the blue ottoman in the middle of the great room for Nicki to see.  Nicki sniffed it but didn’t have any interest in getting up on it.  The way Nicki’s brain works, if I am too forward in getting her to try the ottoman the more distrustful she will be of it.  However I did lay on it myself to show her it’s intended use.  Sadie also had no issue jumping up there and hanging out for a little bit.

Sunday was a very dreary and wet day.  It seemed like the weather conditions somehow crept into myself as well, I just didn’t feel like doing very much.  Outside of a few scattered chores I spent a lot of  time just vegging out, catching up on Tivo as well as my latest Netflix rental, Surrogates.

Surrogates was a decent rental with an interesting premise, in the future, the majority of people no longer directly interact with the world.  Instead they lay in a contraption which connects them to a cyborg version of themselves, a surrogate.  The movie has Bruce Willis in it so you know it can’t be awful, I’d give it a solid B rating, which may be a little low because I was drowsy while viewing it.

So late Saturday night the jury returned a not guilty verdict on George Zimmerman.  I am not sure if I have talked at all about his shooting of the young black kid.  To me it seems like basically Zimmerman vaulted over the line of what he should have been doing as a member of neighborhood watch, wound up getting his ass beat by the kid that he accosted unnecessarily and decided the gun he was carrying was the way to even the playing field.

From the bits and pieces I heard about the trial, I wasn’t shocked he was found not guilty.  It seems that if the jurors were going to follow the instructions they were given by the court and make a decision solely on the evidence, this was going to be the outcome.

From a moral standpoint, Zimmerman absolutely was to blame for Martin’s death.  He started the conflict with his police officer wannabe mentality and ended it when he pulled the trigger on a kid that didn’t deserve to die.  However with our court system, if the evidence isn’t there to convict someone under the law, you aren’t supposed to be convicted, regardless of the moral circumstances involved.

Although Zimmerman is a “free” man, I don’t expect the rest of his life to be anything anyone would envy.  I imagine he will basically take on the life of someone in a witness protection program.  I doubt he can ever be assured that the next corner he turns won’t be his last, when a Trevon Martin sympathizer decides to invoke their own personal justice on him.

Yesterday I was very happy that the Supreme Court ruled against the Defense of Marriage Act from a federal level, making the concept of equal marital rights being offered to all gay individuals one step closer to reality.  This doesn’t green light gay marriage nationwide however.  Our wonderfully hated governor already made a point of reiterating that Florida’s 2008 legislation defining marriage as being only between a man and a woman will continue to be in effect, regardless of the Supreme Court ruling.

On Facebook I mentioned my support for the ruling and how I hoped someday the discrimination against gays will look similar to other things in US history like allowing women to vote and abolishing slavery.  My point was throughout history, civilization has evolved.  Many things that people would not lift an eyebrow about 100 years ago seem beyond comprehension today.  Evolution is a good thing.

To me, allowing gay people the same marital rights/benefits as everyone else seems like a total no brainer.  Who exactly does it harm if two people of the same gender decide to marry each other?  I have yet to hear any logical argument against it that makes any sense.  The only argument that is thrown against gay marriage is based on religion, normally that the bible explicitly is against marriage being anything but a man/woman union.

My personal opinions on religion aside, I would instead like to point out the inconsistency of using the bible as the foundation of this belief.  If the you are going to say that what is in the bible is what should be the law of the land in 2013, then I think it is reasonable that ALL things in the bible should be followed as well.

Take a look at these 13 things that are also directives out of the bible, I am pretty certain that anyone reading this has broken many of these tenants, many times.  My point is selectively using the bible as justification for a stance where convenient is hypocritical.  You can’t have your cake and eat it too. More scary bible directives can be found here.

Last night my neighbor called me to ask if I was having phone problems.  Evidently there were a number of lightning hits in our neighborhood yesterday and they lost their phone and a number of other electronic items were messed up.  I was worried my house which is teeming with electronic items would sustain heavy losses.

Unlike my neighbor, I no longer have a hard line phone connected to my house, a common pathway for lightning to get into your place.  As far as I can tell, all of my stuff was unscathed besides having to set the time on a couple digital clocks.

Both my neighbor and I escaped the bad storm much better than a construction worker that was working on a house on our very same street.  He was struck by lightning while getting down from a scaffolding.  It took him out.

Having someone die in such close proximity to the house from the lightning that is so common place in Florida was a bit of a wake up call.  I have had many sessions of working around the house outdoors when storms were on top of me.  In a weird way I always have thought that going down in a flash of white light would not be all that bad of a way to go.

I keep forgetting to talk about the article I read the other day,  how the AMA now is officially classifying obesity as a “disease”.  You know, like it’s something you catch like the flu or a common cold, beyond your control.  Here are a few quotes from the article that made me see red and my thoughts about each…

Identifying obesity as a disease may also help in reducing the stigma often associated with being overweight, said Joe Nadglowski, president and CEO of the Obesity Action Coalition.

Reduce the stigma?  More like provide an excuse or a victim mentality.  “I’m obese, I have a disease that needs to be treated by the medical community”.  This to me is utterly ridiculous.  What is the point of providing obese America with yet another crutch to rest their sizable rear ends upon to support the lack of personal responsibility? This flows right into the next quote…

“Obesity has been considered for a long time to be a failure of personal responsibility — a simple problem of eating too much and exercising too little,” he said. “But it’s a complex disease… we’re hoping attitudes will change.”

Complex disease = complex cures that cost huge amounts of money to fix “professionally” instead of people just looking in the mirror and be honest with themselves.  Labeling obesity as an official disease is a cash cow for anyone in the medical/pharmaceutical community.  NEW FLASH – for the overwhelming majority of obese individuals the problem IS simply a failure of personal responsibility!

Nadglowski thinks the AMA’s support is also an important step in helping people gain access to obesity treatment. Most forms of insurance do not cover obesity alone. For instance, an obese patient cannot hire a nutritionist or a trainer and have it covered by his or her plan simply to lose weight”.

So the key to fighting the disease of obesity is having others pay for nutritionists or trainers to “fix” the obese population??  Again, simply moronic from my point of view.

To me this declaration is all about money as most things seem to be nowadays.  Declaring fat people as diseased adds another large chunk (no pun intended) to the pool of humanity that can get treatment under insurance.  Of course eventually this comes back to the rest of the population as higher insurance premiums and medical costs.

How will you feel when Fat Sally down the street just got put on permanent medical disability because she can’t stop stuffing pizza down her throat?  Disabled via pizza, what a world we live in…

Rewarding bad behavior only encourages more bad behavior.

Last night was the monthly running club meeting.  Afterward we continued the post meeting South Street tradition where I enjoyed beer, pizza, laughs and karaoke.  I was surprised that a number of the karaoke singers were really good and none of them were downright awful.

For a long, long time I was off the texting bandwagon.  I read the stories about teens sending thousands of text messages each and every month and looked at it as pure lunacy.  I also was vocal about idiots that have their face buried in their phone texting while driving.  I remember when I used to get bent out of shape about people simply talking on their cell while driving.  Hell now when I see someone simply talking on the phone they come off as responsible drivers.

For a long time I had a limited texting plan on my smart phone, capped at 200 messages a month and I never ever came close to that cap.  Texting just never appealed to me much, email or IM were my preferred virtual forms of communication.

So anyway, my separation exposed me to the world of texting.  In my dating experiences I quickly found that most women wanted you to text them, many times preferring that over any other form of communication.   I added unlimited texting to my phone plan to accommodate this new reality, who wants overage charges after all?

So I discovered I am a pretty good texter, since it is just another form of written communication which I am far better at than the verbal variety.  Without realizing it I started getting sucked into the texting vortex.  All of a sudden going long periods of time without sending a few words to someone else via the computer in my pocket felt odd.  You start to text people pointless status updates about what you are doing for no good reason at all.

If I was able to talk to the 1995 version of myself and try to explain why I am sending all of these tiny thoughts back and forth between various people all day long, the 95 me would tell the 2013 me to snap out of it.   After all, for the first three decades of my life, connections to others were limited to face to face conversation or picking up a phone wired to the POTS. (plain old telephone system)

When the cell phone craze hit I remember feeling much the same way, that it was stupid that so many people felt the need to talk on the phone so often.  99% of all conversations could wait until you get out from behind a wheel.  Yet as time progressed this practice of always being reachable via a portable phone became as commonplace as breathing.

Well texting has followed the same general course although it is even more dangerous when practiced while driving a car.  Despite the danger, texting/interacting with your smart phone while driving is rampant.  Simply look around you while driving on any moderately busy road.  I can guarantee you that you will see a number of people looking down at a screen instead of at the road. It’s crazy.

Of course I am a hypocrite, I have found myself interacting with my Iphone while driving, especially since getting the 5 with the voice to text translation.  Even with that feature, I still am required to glance down at the phone more than I should be.  I shouldn’t do it at all.

Texting for whatever reason takes on an addictive nature.  We become Pavlov’s dog, responding to the little noise or vibration, indicating some person has sent us some short form of communication.  It becomes a reflex reaction to grab your phone, even when no noise is heard, just to make sure you didn’t miss anything.

I am using this blog post as motivation to discontinue this practice as much as possible personally.  If I am driving, the phone can wait.  I have hands free Bluetooth to address phone calls but if something is life or death, dont send me a text about it.

End the madness.

Friday before leaving for Orlando I replaced the front struts on the Tacoma.  I was successful, however I am still unsure if my tires are balanced properly.  If you want to know all the details of the job, watch this.

The drive up to Orlando went smoothly.  The SSR gobbles up highway miles pretty easily.  However somewhere around the 3 hour mark my body starts to get a bit uncomfortable in the R.  It may look and sound awesome but nothing compares to the party van when it comes to driving comfort for long periods of time.

Cindy and I pulled into the hotel late afternoon and decided to spend Friday evening at Universal City Walk.  When we pulled up to parking toll booth it was about 5:50.  I saw the $15 parking fee and thought it was awful steep to just go walk around.  The attendant told us that if we were Florida residents and we came back 10 minutes later at 6PM the parking is free.  Ok, awesome.  I went to a gas station, filled the truck, and came back 10 minutes and paid nothing after flashing my drivers license, an easy 15 dollar savings.

We had dinner at Bubba Gump, the restaurant chain based on Forrest Gump.  I had a great meal and got obliterated on two blue versions of a Long Island Ice Tea, I think Bubba’s version is called Electric Tea.  Thank goodness I had a long time to let the haze clear.

The main reason City Walk was chosen was to see Man of Steel. We thought it would be cool to catch the film opening weekend at the huge cineplex  on site.  The Imax showing was sold out but I had no problem getting tickets for the normal 3D version.

The theater was quite large with two levels.  The theater Man of Steel was in was quite full by Coconut Point standards but we still had no issue finding a decent seat.  The one thing that was immediately noticeable was the room was cold, really cold.

The move was directed by the same guy that directed 300, Zack Snyder.  I have seen other movies he directed post 300 and to be honest, was disappointed.  I didn’t know what to expect this time around.

For the most part Man of Steel was pretty good.  On Facebook I had seen others describe it as “awesome” and “epic”, I didn’t quite agree.  My Facebook comment on the film was “Man of Steel was like being brought to orgasm so many times it gets to the point of annoying..”  Some were confused by this analogy but basically it meant even a good thing like huge action and fighting in a film can get to be stupid when that is all that there is.  The last third of the film was basically like one big WWE wrestling match.

I really can only give the movie a B+, sorry Zack.  At least it was better than Watchmen.  It didn’t help that my extremities had frostbite by the end of it.

Saturday morning we were up early to head to Seaworld.  The plan was to leave the SSR in the parking lot and instead take advantage of one of the free hotel perks, a free shuttle ride to the park.  Unfortunately we missed the 7:30 shuttle by 4 or 5 minutes with the next one not departing for more than a half hour.  F it, we’ll walk.  After all the map legend said the park is only .4 miles away. Well the way we wound up walking worked out to be more like 1.4 miles but hey, it’s exercise.

So there was another bonus for guests of certain hotels, you were able to get into the park a full hour before the general public.  They gave you a special card that you flashed at the gate that gave you the early access.  We were clued in by the hotel staff that a good use of that early time would be to get on Antarctica, a brand new ride that typically has wait times of one to two hours.  It was one ride that you could not use the Quick Queue card on. (more on this awesome card later)

Antarctica’s premise is it takes you through the southern most part of the world from the viewpoint of a penguin.  Well let me just use one word to describe the ride, lame.  You site in a circular thing and get spun around a few times while looking at a few video screens.  It’s a total letdown.  I could not imagine waiting two hours and be rewarded with that epic fail.  The only cool part of the Antarctic experience is once you get off the ride and get to see real life penguins in a frigid 32 degree habitat.  The penguins were awesome but you are so damn cold that you won’t enjoy them for as long as you would like to.

We rode all of the (adult)rides there and saw most of the show attractions on Saturday.  I enjoyed seeing the various animal exhibits up close like the dolphins, birds and other ocean dwelling species.

The most torturous ride was the Manta, a roller coaster that you ride in the same body orientation as a manta ray, belly parallel to the ground.  The ride instantly transported me to nauseous town when it went into an outside loop, meaning my body was facing the outside of the loop, not allowing me a view of where I was going.  For whatever reason that made me feel really sick.  I survived the ride without projectile vomiting but with little desire to jump on again anytime soon.

The Atlantis flume ride was fun because it had two big splash downs instead of just one.  The sky tower was just as it sounds, a big rotating tower that gave you a 360 birds eye view of the park.  Kraken was another bust you up roller coaster that at least allowed you to sit upright.  It snapped my neck around a good bit.

One thing that made all of the rides better was yet another awesome benefit of staying at a park associated hotel, a complimentary Quick Queue card.  This card allows you to bypass the regular lines at all of the rides (except Antarctica) If you buy the unlimited Quick Queue card at the main gate it costs you something like an extra $30.  However the hotel threw in a one use per ride version for free, which was perfect since hitting a ride once is typically enough for me at this advanced age.

The card was simply awesome.  We would see a line snaking back and forth for miles however it was no concern for us.  We would simply follow the Quick Queue signs that lead right to a different way to get in.  The attendants were quite good about making sure they jumped to help us right away.  If I were to estimate, I have no doubt that over the two days we spent at the park the QQ cards saved us at least 4-5 hours of waiting in line.  I don’t know I would do a park without them now and if you are smart you stay at a hotel that throws them in for free.

The attendants were supposed to punch out or mark your card for whatever rides you used it on.  Some did but most didn’t.  Hell some didn’t even ask to see the QQ card, we just told them we had it.

I am sure the people that were broiling in the sun forever in line absolutely hated us as they saw us suddenly appear and hop on the ride they have been waiting 45 minutes for,  30 seconds later.  I would hate us too if the situation was reversed.  I felt like a pure bred Republican, I have to admit.

Of course there was no avoiding the negative things that annoy yet amuse me at amusement parks, people, endless waves and waves of people.  Now mind you, I didn’t get annoyed by all of them, maybe only 80%.

If amusement parks are a microcosm of society then let me tell you, society is fat, really, really fat.  I saw countless big uns lumbering through out the park, looking miserable while trying to carry their bodyweight in the stifling heat and humidity.

Then you had the clueless people that would walk 25 feet while staring straight down and then act surprised when they collide with someone/thing. The rude people that think you will care less if they jump in front of you in whatever particular line you are waiting in at the moment deserve a titty twister or two.

I really had urges to inflict blunt trauma on the people that use motorized scooters for no other affliction but pure laziness or as an attempt to work the system, since scooter dwellers get preferential treatment park wide.   I would see a woman drive up close to the restroom, get up, walk in without any visible signs of difficulty besides being a fat ass, and then return again to their scooter to go score their next benefit as a “disabled” person.  Argh.  Sure some people legitimately need the use of a motorized set of wheels however I would feel comfortable wagering most that I saw suffered most from a lack of motivation.

Bad parenting was evident everywhere from the obese 6 year olds to the kids that had their faces buried in an Iphone game during an entire animal show while dad allowed it to go on without objection.  You are surrounded by the wonders of the world and you let your kid play Angry Birds instead?  Idiot.

Yes I could have just plopped myself down in a shady spot and done people commentary all day but then I would be no better than the Angry Birds father.  I actually appreciated everything the park had to offer me and wanted to experience it.

Mid afternoon the weather turned nasty, letting loose with heavy rain and lightning.  We took that as our cue to call it a day.  Unfortunately with no rain gear or umbrella we wound up trying to run away unsuccessfully from the rain drops.  By the time we reached the bus shelter we looked like we had been swimming with Shamu ourselves.

Saturday night we returned to City Walk, this time being sure to arrive after the 6PM witching hour.  After a good meal at a place called the Latin Quarter that had a very odd looking man playing live guitar, we walked around a bit.  I came up with a spur of the moment idea to see if we could get into the 9PM Blue Man group show.  We scored one of the last remaining pairs of tickets and score an incredible discount by simply showing we were Florida residents.  Flashing our DL cards saved between $50-$60.

Despite getting in last minute we had really good seats in the 5th row, right behind the splash zone where they hand out plastic ponchos.  I had seen BMG in Vegas and was a bit underwhelmed, I was hoping they would redeem themselves this time around.

They did, somewhat.  The show was entertaining with some repeat of what I saw previously.  There was a very funny segment where they pulled a very old lady out of the audience for a prolonged bit on the stage.  By the end of it she was practically crying and wanted to get the hell off the stage.  It was a bit awkward yet funny as hell.

The show was almost a full 2 hours of non-stop percussion, bright colors and laughs.  I enjoyed it, just again, not as much as hoped I could.  Cindy is a big BMG fan so she loved it.

So on Sunday we headed back into the park to hit somethings we missed on day one.  For some reason, most of the animal related shows/areas are closed until 10am so we had to reshuffle our agenda.  We wound up spending a good amount of time at the seal feeding area. I found the seals to be awesome and cute.  The cutest thing I saw the entire weekend were two seals snuggled up next to each other sunning themselves on a rock.

So we eventually got to knock out the other attractions like the Wild Arctic ride, the seal show, Shark Encounter and a few other items including one more ride down the log flume.  In total we saw something like half a dozen animal shows and I liked each and every one.  They were all very well produced.

We had lunch at the Shark Grill restaurant, an awesome place where you enjoy high end food while seated next to the HUGE shark aquarium.  It was one of the coolest restaurants I ever ate at and the meal I had was equally good, a great way to wrap up our Seaworld experience.

We wound up rolling out about 2:30 and after fueling up with some Dunkin Donuts coffee headed home.

It had been quite a few years since I had visited any Orlando theme park and my first time ever visiting Seaworld.  My experience makes me want to try to get back there more regularly when it is a little bit cooler with Quick Queue passes in hand….

You can see all of my pictures from the trip here…

I spent a good portion of today changing my rear shocks on the Tacoma.  See the associated videos below.

So I walk into the gym today and notice that some of Retro Fitness stickers and signage had been taken down and replaced with stuff that said “Royal Fitness”, WTF?  Evidently overnight the gym had morphed, no longer being a Retro Fitness franchise even though every piece of equipment has the logo slapped all over it.

To me this is a path I have seen before at Powerhouse Gym, the old shit hole I was a member of for years.  They had a musical chair front desk staff, then they dumped the Powerhouse franchise and within a year they closed the doors and like a thief in the night pulled all of the equipment out, even though they were selling one and two year memberships right up until the time they closed.

I would not be surprised at all if the same basic scenario plays out here.  I certainly hope not.  Despite the drama and several annoying aspectsabout the gym, overall I am satisfied in what it offers me in equipment and location (close enough for lunch workouts).  If it goes under  I would need to do an overhaul of my gym options since there is no way in hell I would consider going back to the lunk alarm infested Planet Fcking Fitness.

One of the issues with living out in such a rural area is there is an abundance of “redneck” behavior that varies from annoying to outright dangerous.   One behavior that falls into the dangerous category are people hauling ass down the road on 4 wheelers.

This has been a long running problem, as captured on video by myself year and years ago.

I don’t really care that they are using the public roadway, even though it is technically illegal to do so.  I do care that they are doing somewhere around double the posted 30 mph speed limit on the things.  There are kids, animals and other traffic on the narrow two lane road, going that fast is moronic and reckless.

Well we now have a new moron that has stepped up the idiotic ante.  He speeds up and down the road on his red 4 wheeler, while holding a wheelie….  No, I am not kidding.  He isn’t just popping a wheelie for a few seconds, he is holding it for several blocks at a time.

I have seen him doing this somewhere around a half dozen separate times but last night he was really going nuts.  I saw him go back and forth in front of the house at least 10 times.  I finally had enough and sent in a “tip” to the sheriff’s office, letting them know of the behavior and when it typically occurs.  I plan to try to capture the guy’s antics on video shortly to add to my “morons on tape” video collection.

I was amazed when yesterday I received a check in the mail from the place that did my ultrasound several weeks ago.  This is an occurrence as rare as Haley’s Comet, getting money BACK from a medical service provider.  Evidently they must have billed me more up front than necessary based on the insurance reimbursement they received.  Kudos to them I suppose for sending me the difference, I would have never known otherwise.

I hear all this buzz about what happened on Game of Thrones this week.  Luckily I have not read exactly what the buzz is about.  Tonight I plan to watch the episode myself while Sadie and Nicki keeps me company.

So yesterday Tuffy was supposed to call me to let me know the cost for getting the rear wheel bearings replaced on the Tacoma.  I waited till 10am I never heard anything so I called them.  Brad answered the phone.  I reminded him he said he was going to call me.  He said he was just checking the price now (yea sure), and he would call me back.  Ok fine I gave him my office number and waited.

1:30 came and I had not heard back.  I was getting annoyed as I normally do when someone tells me they are going to do something and then do not follow through.  I call again and get the assistant manager.  He looks up my name in the computer and sees that Brad did indeed get pricing yet for whatever reason neglected to call me.

He gives me a repair price of almost $700.  I was like WTF?  The number sounded ridiculous.  He started breaking down the various parts which included doing both rear wheel bearings something that evidently is recommended.  In his numbers were no price breaks or discounts taking into account that the bearing noise was non-existent until their mechanics laid their hands on the truck, which I pointed out to him.

So I told the guy no thanks, I will look elsewhere to do it.  I hung up frustrated that I now got to add the local Tuffy to the growing list of garages that  I won’t be frequenting.

I did a search online and found a small two guy garage that has TONS of positive feedback regarding their customer service, fair pricing and knowledge.  I called them up and made an appointment for tomorrow to have the work done.  Hopefully my 10 year search for a garage I can trust can finally come to an end.

I’m not really sure what I will do at the gym today.  My knees still hurt from running and my forearms hurt from tire flipping.  I guess I could do glute squeezes.

So I forgot to mention the other day when I got home this baggie was laying on the shelf of my mailbox that is intended for newspapers.  I found out that everyone in my neighborhood had the same thing stuck on/in their box.

Inside the baggie were a number of religious pamphlets.  I found the one titled “Love the Jewish People” most intriguing.  I flipped through it briefly.  The message was basically that history has shown that anyone that has gone against the Jews winds up “cursed”, so don’t go against the Jews.

I was confused because the other pamphlets seemed to be more about conventional Christianity.   I always thought that many Christians have a mild disdain for what Jewish people believe, mixing in a “Love Jewish people or be cursed” handout was a head scratcher.

Whatever the intent, I can only hope our area has not become a new focal point for some religious organization trying to spread the word.  People should be free to believe whatever they want to believe, just please don’t tell me I have to believe it as well.

Last night after work I wasn’t feeling great.  First I tried a max push up attempt, hoping to possibly hit 80 reps, instead I quit at 55.  Within minutes of my failed attempt I started feeling shitty.  My right ear was hurting a little, my eyes felt red, sore and tired and my state of mind was poor.  I thought it would make good sense to try to get my ass to bed early.  My sleep amounts recently have felt insufficient.

So instead of doing the smart thing, I sabotaged it.   After cleaning Tuki’s cage and starting two loads of laundry I sat down to eat dinner while watching my latest Netflix dvd, Bridesmaids.  Yes I am one of the few people that never saw the movie yet.  It lived up to it’s billing as a female Hangover, it was very funny and a solid A comedy, although you already knew that.

During the movie I found myself fighting the urge to treat my bad state of mind with sugar.  Visions of slamming Pop Tarts were dancing through my head even though I had no physical hunger to warrant it.  I was happy I didn’t give in to the craving, it subsided after 15 minutes or so.

So the movie finished up a little after 9, if I was going to load up on shut eye I should have headed straight back to take my shower, read a magazine and fall asleep.  Well I didn’t do it.

Instead I get the idea in my head that I want to do some more online investigation into a tire solution for the Tacoma.  First I loaded Craigslist to see if anyone else had pulled their factory Tacoma wheels/tires and were trying to dump them.   When that turned up nothing new I went back to browsing conventional sources.  I found a few tires that would work but unfortunately the 255 70/R15 size that is on the truck are not common, thus not stocked by anyone. So in order for me to get this done I am going to have to order the tires, wait and then schedule an install later.

I am already having a hard time justifying spending in excess of $600 for tires. I don’t want to pay an additional inconvenience price as well.  I want to go to a local tire store, pay $600 or less and walk out with a new set of tires that will last me 5 years an hour or so later.  It doesn’t sound like that is too much to ask but it appears to be an impossible request.

So after I wasted time doing that when I should have been sleeping I followed up wasting more time looking at dishwashers.  You may wonder why I would be looking at dishwashers?  I have not mentioned there being anything wrong with my dishwasher.  You would be correct.

My dishwasher is 100% fine yet for some reason I have become interested in replacing it with a more high tech unit.  I love my LG washer and dryer, most notably for the tech built into them.  I love the LED’s, buttons and sounds they make, admittedly not the best reason to buy a home appliance but hey, I am a geek, it’s cool.

So anyway I have this idea that having a dishwasher with a similar feature set would be something I would like since a dishwasher is something I interact with even more than the washer/dryer.  My web search revealed a few interesting models but I realized that truck tires need to be addressed before thinking about adding more tech to the kitchen.

So now that I wasted a good half hour on unnecessary web searching I had to still do more necessary things like fold laundry, make my grocery list and feed Tuki.  Even after finally taking a shower, I further retarded my arrival in bed by deciding to shave even though I really didn’t need to.  All of the screwing around meant my actually lights out time didn’t hit until 11, too late to help me tip the scales on my sleep deficit.

I think my random disconnected acts like last night are more than likely tied into the moon once again being full in the sky.  I glanced at the calendar last night when I realized how scattered my head was feeling and confirmed that we are in the sweet spot for moon madness, at least for me which is typically the few days before the moon is at it’s fullest.

So I woke up today not feeling as frazzled and not as tired as I expected.  Hopefully it holds up the rest of the day.

A holiday 3 day weekend is on tap.  Part of it will be timing a race on Memorial Day, the rest of it only has a loose framework.