Category Relationships

Last night as I was getting ready to take a shower for some reason my mind drifted towards recollection.  I paused and looked at the bedroom, recalling what the room looked like for the last 11 years versus how it looks now.  (sparse)

I realized how surprising it is that I have not done more of this since Ali and I split.  You have to figure out of the two of us I have had a potentially more difficult path to navigate when it comes day to day existence.  The reason being is every day I am surrounded by the visual reminders of what we built together for more than a decade.  I could easily look in any corner of the house and think about some sort of related back story. The same situation occurs outside where years and years of our sweat equity is on display.

In an instant I can recall the anticipation/excitement from various past projects, the struggle associated with their completion and the pride in the final outcome.  Of course I can also quickly feel the sorrow that in a way, much of it now feels hollow, since these things came from the efforts of two people working as a team.  The dissolution of that team changes the way I look at all of those things.

Of course having the dogs not under the roof has been rather brutal as well but it would only be worse for Ali so that is just a weight I have to bear.

On my computer at home I have set up a rotating desktop of imagery.  Almost all of my images are from the various road trips Ali, the dogs and I have taken over the past 6 or 7 years.  As many fond memories as I have of those experiences, each time a new image flips up it has the potential to deliver a little pinch of sorrow.

All of these things make me sad, but they don’t make me regret the split, as we both hope that decision leads to us both being happier in the long run.

As I said in the beginning of this post, as miserable as this all sounds, for the most part I have been able to successfully steer my mind away from dwelling on these things.  If that was not the case I would probably be pushing to sell the house and rid myself of all of these visual reminders of what was.  For whatever reason, last night, I just lost control of the steering wheel for a bit.

There have been a number of changes obviously in my life over the last several months since Ali and I separated.  One of those changes was kind of unexpected.

If you have read my blog over the years, you know that despite my age I have continued to enjoy gaming albeit the vast majority of that gaming has been via the MMORPG, World of Warcraft.  The game used to consume a LOT of my spare time.

I kind of figured that I would be doing more gaming once I was home alone since I wasn’t cutting into time spent with anyone else but me, ,myself and I.  When Diablo 3 came out in April I played a decent amount of it but that has sort of fizzled for me as well.  I literally haven’t touched WoW in at least 2 months, probably closer to 3, the longest period of time I have ever gone without playing the game.

So when I analyze this change I come up with a few answers.

My attitude towards most stuff in general has shifted since the split.  I am now very interested in doing things I have not done before.  I almost feel like if I am not pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone I am missing the boat of life.  WoW is definitely part of my comfort zone that I sunk into over the last 7 years, a virtual existence that allowed me to insulate from real world problems.

Plus in general I just have more to do now with half the amount of hands on deck to handle the myriad of responsibilities associated with the house.  Most nights by the time I am ready to settle down I just don’t feel like playing, in many cases I would rather just catch up on some Tivo programs or watch some of the new tv content now available to me via my HboGo hookup. (last night up until 12:30 watching episodes of 24)

Hell maybe I am finally outgrowing gaming, something I never thought could happen.  My console gaming systems are basically never used for gaming.  My Xbox 360’s are internet video hubs almost exclusively.

Does this mean I am done with WoW for good?  I don’t know,  but I can pretty much guarantee the weeks where I spent upwards of 30 hours in it’s virtual world are ancient history. That’s a good thing no matter how you look at it.

Originally I had ideas of trying to run with the group on Saturday morning but my legs still felt like shit from my leg work on Wednesday.  Plus I was tired, still catching up on the sleep deficit from my late Thursday night Prometheus showing. Instead on Saturday morning I picked up the dogs early and brought them back to the house, Ali was going into to work. I had stuff to do around the house so I figured the dogs would rather hang out with me while I was doing stuff than be at home alone.

I finally got around to creating a new to do list, something I have wanted to do for quite awhile.  For years I had a list pinned to the fridge of both short term and long term projects, Ali hated it.  However for me, it serves an important purpose.  I find having these items in front of me day and in and day out makes me much more likely to complete them sooner rather than later.  Having a “hey I should do this” item pop into your head and then just hope you remember to do it later does not have a high success rate.

This time I split the list into three categories, home improvement projects, home repair/maintenance, and automotive related items.  I am looking forward to starting to cross off some of those items.  I really need to knock some of those painting projects off the list.  Painting indoors is the perfect Florida summer project.  Anything involving being in the AC is an ideal summer project here.

I had another visit from the German Shep over the weekend.  Again she was cute as could be.  Well once again I walked her back over to her place which once again had the front gate wide open.  I walked her all the way up to the front door of the tiny house and rang the doorbell.

First the woman, whom I think doesn’t speak much english came to the door followed shortly by whom I assume is the husband, flanked by several of their multiple children.  I told them their dog, whom I confirmed is named Nina, was over at my place again.  I asked them if they wanted me to close the gate as I left.  He said no, he will put her in the garage, lovely.

So evidently Nina is either thrown outside or locked up in the garage, poor dog.  Later in the weekend I saw her walking in front of one of my windows, looking for her new friend (me).  By the time I got outside she had gone back to her side of the street.

After I got done with my house chores I took aim at flushing the coolant on the SSR, something I should have done shortly after I bought the truck.  There is a good chance the original coolant was still in the SSR and if that was the case, it is two years past the maximum recommend change interval of 5 years.

I followed the general procedure I found on SSRFanatics, draining the system and then flushing it with distilled water multiple times.  It took awhile to go through the fill, let engine run for awhile and drain cycles but it certainly wasn’t difficult.

I decided to document the process to add to my growing library of automotive maintenance videos, some of my more popular YouTube videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcEmach_hVw

During the afternoon I saw a number that caller id’d to Orlando.  Normally if I don’t know the number the caller will get a big fat serving of voice mail.  However for some reason I decided to pick it up.  On the other line was some young guy from the Festiva group.  I recognized the name, that was the company that took over ownership of our timeshare, another one of our poor investments,  several months ago.

I forgot the guys name but boy was he a talker, he immediately started rambling, I only interjected a sentence or two, for the better part of 10 minutes he did all the talking.  This was the crux of what he said.

As part of their grand take over plan, Festiva is offering to convert current owners off of their current deeded arrangement as well as the tie in to RCI, a company that I have already discussed here many times negatively.  RCI sucks plain and simple.  Well the idea of dumping RCI sounds good, keep blabbering away sales guy.

Festiva supposedly has their own exchange program that supposedly has very minimal fees compared to what RCI charges, ok that is nice as well. Who doesn’t like lower fees?  However I knew there was another shoe to drop, and drop it did, a big muddy work boot no less.

Switching over to the Festiva plan would be easy, easy as long as you were willing to drop ANOTHER $5500. When I heard that I may have literally said “what the fck” under my breath.  What a joke.  The joke got better.

The guy tells me that approximately 70% of the current owners have opted to switch over to Festiva (I am sure that is an OMGWTF lie), meaning that there is a much smaller collection of deeded owners remaining to spread those lovely maintenance fees across. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if my yearly maintenance fees double.  Ok, well now I was pissed.

I told blabber mouth that this is how it appears to me.  Festiva came in, sends out a letter that their new ownership is a great thing, they were already doing some repairs/improvements to the property and it didn’t talk of any other signficant changes for owners as far as costs were concerned.

The reality is they are using a Mitt-like Bain Capital approach to the timeshare.  Come in, gut the principals that the current owners bought under and give them one $5500 option to get out, else face higher maintenance fees, directly caused by their actions.  It was utter bullshit.

So when fast talker took a breath I stopped him.  I told him this was the bottom line.  If anything he is proposing involves me laying out another large sum of money to chase the other large sums of money we already flushed down the toilet with this timeshare he can forget it.  I told him I am now separated and there was not a chance in hell that I would be taking his offer.

I told him that if the maintenance fee armageddon he was referring to comes to pass I would simply dump the timeshare and walk away from it.  In my financial situation turning my back on the thousands of dollars we threw at this pig is a better option than dropping another $5500 to put lipstick on it.  F that.

Despite leaving absolutely no doubt that I was not going to do anything this guy continued trying to pitch me it’s merits.  He was determined, I’ll give him that.  For whatever reason I didn’t just hang up on him. Despite his annoying persistence, pitching something that is intended to do nothing but screw me over, he seemed like a nice guy.  Finally I convinced him I was not interested.  I thanked him for the info. Regardless of how I feel about it, it was important for me to know it was coming so I can act accordingly.

I let Ali know about it as well since her name is on the deed.  She is going to call RCI and see what they say about it.

So Ali texted me late in the afternoon she was leaving work.  I asked her if she wanted to grab dinner at Sweet Tomatoes after I dropped the dogs off, a place neither of us has patronized since we separated.  It’s a weird dynamic I find myself in with Ali, I know that I I need to put more effort into establishing a new social circle yet I find myself doing most stuff with her.

I guess part of the reason for that is our split was so amicable.  In marriages that split with a screaming, frying pan throwing, you f’d who hell storm, you typically won’t see the estranged spouses having much contact at all.  We have always been and continue to be good friends.

Anyway dinner at Sweet T’s was good, there wasn’t a big crowd like we saw during season.  Of course we ate later than the old people normally chow down, I don’t think we got there until after 6.

We made Father Day plans for her to bring the dogs out so we could do a swamp walk, something else that I hadn’t done in awhile.

Sunday morning I drug myself out of bed to do a block (bike/run/swim).  Ali talked about maybe joining me for the swimming portion but she decided to stay home.  It was a tough session.  After biking more than 12 miles, running 4 and swimming a mile I was pooped to say the least.

After the swim I drove over to Ali’s.  She had a Father’s Day card for me from the animals which was cute.  I had the SSR so she loaded the dogs up in the Camry and followed me out to the house where we ate lunch before heading over to the swamp.

We knew it was going to be very hot for the dogs so we packed a lot of water and planned to cut the walk short.

The swamp is actually not very swampy at all, it was almost totally dried up.  15 foot deep basins that used to be filled to the brim with water now had nothing in them at all, it was pretty weird.

The dogs were obviously laboring in the heat.  We stopped much more than we normally would, both so they could drink and just lay in the shade.  It was funny watching the dogs veer side to side in the path, making sure to hit every shady spot they could.

We saw a couple gators nestled in the muddy shallow puddles that remained in a few spots.  We did manage to have one new swamp wildlife sighting, a doe and her baby fawn right out on the path behind us.  It was cute.

The dogs were quite glad to get back into the van, the Florida heat and sun is very tough when you are black and furry.

When we got back to the house I jumped in the pool so I could splash Sadie a bit to help cool her down.  You could tell how tired she was.  Instead of her normal sprint around the pool perimeter it was a just basically a fast walk.

As I was drying off I said to Ali how ice cream, specifically a milkshake, would taste good.  She mentioned how she still had a Cold Stone gift card with a partial balance on it as well as a coupon.  Ok , so it was decided, now we were going for ice cream.

I followed her to her place in the SSR to drop off the dogs.  We then headed over to Cold Stone or at least where Cold Stone used to be.  We discovered that location had closed so we went to another that was a couple miles away.

I requested an extra thin chocolate shake, something that can be hard to come by.  I hate when places basically dump soft serve in a cup and call that a milkshake.  I want to be able to drink it with a straw, not use a spoon.  They did a good job of meeting my request. The shake was quite good.

As we were sitting outside enjoying our respective treats, somehow the subject came up about online dating, specifically Ali asked me if I would consider doing it.  Well I was surprised she would wonder if I would consider it based on my tendency to favor electronic communication over all other types.  I told her that I actually had Match.com account already although it is the free variety where you basically can browse and have very restricted communication with other site members.

She seemed pretty surprised by that.  I told her that so far it seems like a weird scene, telling her that it seems I am of most interest to older women, an age range that typically is not going to interest me much.  I guess it was weird to even be discussing that at all with Ali, it just seemed to be part of the conversation.

So on the way back to Ali’s place we made one more stop at the grocery store so she could grab supplies to make the dog’s veggie meal supplement.

It was a fun Father’s Day albeit in a new set of circumstances.

Last night I finally finished watching The Immortals which took me a total of 3 sleepy nights to complete.  The reason I had it my Netflix queue was because it was from the same guys that produced 300, one of my favorite movies ever.

Well these guys had let me down before with that awful super hero themed flick that had the guy with a massive blue penis.  I was hoping that was a fluke and Immortals would be their redemption.  Well it wasn’t, instead it’s strike two.

The movie tried so hard to be epic.  It leaned hard on 300 style cinematography with many, many slow-mo, blood spewing, skull exploding fight scenes.  I just didn’t get into it, at all.  It was a chore to get to the end of it.  Mickey Rourke was the head bad guy.  His random and totally pointless acts of violence got so ridiculous I was laughing out loud eventually.

I don’t know if you could make a film that felt any more unoriginal than Immortals.  Don’t bother, C-.

So I was back and forth if I wanted to get up to do the club run Saturday morning.  My legs and rear end were still both quite sore from my leg work on Wednesday at the gym.  Well my exercise guilt won out and I drug myself out of bed to go to the run.

There was a big crowd at the club run this week, possibly the biggest I have seen to date.  Ali, Christy and Michelle were there as well.  I once again paired up with Matt and despite my legs feeling shitty, he drug me along to what I believe was my best time for the 7 mile route which surprised me.

I asked Ali if she minded if I picked up the dogs on the way home so they could spend the day out at the house, she said it was fine.  I had a productive day at home getting everything I wanted done, done.  For most of my time outside the dogs hung out there with me, laying in various shady spots.  It felt damn close to summertime hot out there.

After I got done I jumped in the pool and gave Sadie her first splashy splash session in a long time, she loved it of course.

I also gave the Tacoma a bath for the first in many months.  The truck does not get cleaned very often anymore since the exterior finish is a mess at this point from a decade plus in the Florida elements.  Even so, it did look a little better when I was finished.

I went an extra step and finally got around to using the headlight renewal stuff I bought months back.  The headlights on the Tacoma had that dull glaze that is so common.  After about 15 minutes of work I had both headlights looking significantly better.

On the way to drop the dogs off we made a pit stop at Pet Supermarket to get them some food.  In addition I couldn’t help myself, I had to buy the stuffed tick dog toy I walked by.  Ali laughed when I showed it to her.

When I dropped the dogs off it was right around 5:30. Ali said she bought the stuff to make some pesto pasta thing, so  she asked if I wanted to stick around for dinner.  I didn’t have anything planned for my Saturday night beside some Diablo 3 sessions so I said sure.  Ali said it was the first “dinner” she has actually prepared since living there. It was quite good.

After eating dinner I didn’t stick around too long.  I have been conscious of how much time Ali and I have been spending together thus far since we split up and although it is still quite comfortable for me to just hang out with her I don’t think it helps either of us do much moving forward.  So even though I would have been fine to hang around and watch some stuff on her DVR and hang with the dogs, I headed home.

Sunday morning I once again had another exercise session, this time doing a biking/swimming brick.  My average bike pace was a 1/2 mile faster than the week prior.   I increased the distance of my swimming from 1200 to 1600 meters.  I was happy with both of those results.

Once again I took the SSR and once again I was happy I did.

After I finished my swimming I hung out at the water park for a little bit, reading one of my magazines.  I peppered in people watching as well.

When I got home I was feeling really sleepy.  After I got done paying the bills I succumbed and laid down for a 2 hour + nap.

Sunday evening I made a lackluster attempt at the normal mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge. I then threw in my current Netflix dvd rental, I Am Number Four.  I don’t recall what triggered me to put this in my queue but I had no big expectations for the flick.

Well it turned out to be something I really liked, hell I’d give it a solid A.  It has several elements that appeal to me, aliens, super hero powers, good looking women and a revenge storyline.  Rent it, you won’t be sorry.

As I am sure you have heard, Howard Stern, whom I have been a big fan of for over 20 years, and the only reason I endure shitty Sirius/XM radio,has joined America’s Got Talent as a new judge this season.

When the show first came out a few years ago I checked it out since it was getting big ratings.  I didn’t get it, I found the show INCREDIBLY annoying and overproduced.  After watching three or four episodes I never went back.

Well since Howard is now a judge I thought it had to be better, surely by now they got smart and made the show less annoying.  I set the show up for a season pass on my Tivo.  Well I barely made it through the two episodes so far, it is just awful, let me see if I can explain why.

The way they piece the show together is dreadful.  They do so many cut away shots between the judges, the host, the act and the audience you hardly ever get to just watch an act and make your own assessment.  Most of the acts they only show some brief highlights wedged in between the endless cut aways.  They have so many music beds playing on top of the judge comments and even the acts themselves that they could open up a hotel with them. They will also apply a video filter to certain aspects of the show to give it an epic, movie look which seems totally out of place.

I hoped that having Howard on the show would help negate all of this but his commentary was  butchered up and fragmented by the idiots in the editing room.  I found that he added very little to my enjoyment of the show.  I will suffer through a couple more episodes but I have a feeling even with Stern on, AGT it will be short lived in my season pass list.  I have too many potential good things to watch to waste my time watching that piece of shit.

It feels like it is produced for the absolutely dumbest segment of the American tv audience.

This past weekend has probably been my roughest emotionally since Ali moved out.  Why this would occur 6 weeks after her move out date is beyond me. I just felt sad, like I was mourning everything that had become routine and familiar over the past 15 years.    It seemed like everything I saw as I walked around the house triggered a “that was when Ali and I did this or that” response.  I just couldn’t get my mind out of that mode.

I know that wallowing in sorrow doesn’t do any good.  I just need to keep trying to reach outward and forward instead of retracting inward.   Isolating myself would be a very easy course of action after all.

I really miss the dogs.

My buddy at work asked me if I could help him do some furniture rearranging.  I headed over to his place after work last night.  He has a beautiful two story home in a very nice community. He has a sectional sofa both downstairs and upstairs.  He wanted to flip flop their location.

The first part of the job was to bring the upstairs unit downstairs.  The pieces of this unit weren’t heavy but one piece that incorporated a chaise lounge was very long.  We wound up putting a couple scratches in his wall which I felt bad about.

I realized that if we would have gone down the steps with the upholstered side towards the outer wall we could have avoided the collateral damage. For the subsequent pieces we used that strategy and it went much better.

My buddy who is in good overall shape was sucking wind and sweating quite a bit from the furniture moving.  He seemed somewhat surprised that I wasn’t breathing hard in the least and my t-shirt was dry.  I reminded him that I have run half marathons.

After moving the stuff we went over to South Street where he bought pizza for my efforts which wasn’t necessary but appreciated.  We hung out and talked for a bit before both heading out to our respective home bases.

So the headlines yesterday were filled with the news that Obama has officially endorsed gay marriage.  I have many thoughts on this, the most important of which is “good”.

Wow, Obama has really done an about face in the past few months in his willingness to get dirty.  Some of my harshest criticism of him was his not grabbing the horns of the mandate he was given when he first took office.  For me he was far too mindful of the kicking and screaming Republicans that were whining about his every move.  I would have much preferred if he basically said , “Listen Mother f’rs, you idiots are the reason the country is teetering on the edge of utter collapse.  I will do whatever the f I feel is best to get us out of this 8 year mess dumb ass George Jr created.”

Instead he tried to play a balancing act that resulted in a lot of compromise that contradicted the edicts he delivered during the campaign.  But let’s deal with exactly what yesterdays headline means.

Hate Obama or love Obama, unless you have nothing but air between your ears, you can’t deny this announcement took a very large set of balls.  By announcing you support gay marriage you instantly alienate the religious zealots that think they have the right to impose their beliefs about marriage onto others.  Of course Obama had little to no shot of getting these people’s votes anyway since many of them will still have you believe he is a socialist Muslim.

He is the first sitting president to ever publicly endorse gay marriage, up until this point the most previous presidents were willing to admit to is a support for civil unions, since that is a way to dip your toe into the issue without getting all wet.  His endorsement in that regard is a big deal.

However in the context of what is actually wrong with this country, for an opinion on gay marriage to be thrown about as an actual campaign issue is pretty disappointing.  I mean to me, it has always been a no brainer.  If two men or two women want to get married, great, who cares?  If being married leads to happiness in their lives why would I want to try to derail that?  It is utter lunacy.

Personally I have a feeling that years from now we will look back on the whole gay marriage debate in a similar way as we now look at allowing women to vote or segregation. Today those things seem so archaic, so ignorant, yet at that time there was a huge resistance to allowing those freedoms.  Hopefully once again history will prove more rational minds can take a hold on this issue as the years pass.

I heard certain people criticize the announcement since in the past Obama did not endorse gay marriage, calling him a dreaded, “flip flopper”.  I always lol at people that view changing your mind as a bad thing.  If the end result is a more progressive, advanced and evolved society then I don’t really care the road traveled to arrive at that decision.

It’s hard to say if this will hurt or help Obama in the big re-election picture.  It puts Mitt in perhaps a role he really would not rather play as the anti-gay candidate.

I have been feeling a bit down in the dumps this week.  To be expected of course but still not pleasant.  I have some maca root on the way.

Ali had an event to go to after work last night.  She was going to roll the dice with the dogs, hoping they could hold it a couple extra hours.  I told her I would just stop by after work and let them out.

Of course the girls were very surprised and happy to see me.  I immediately leashed them up and took them outside.  I got to experience some of the fun Ali does each day when each dog took turns taking dumps.

Trying to hold two extend a leashes and pick up piles of dog shit requires some coordination.  Thankfully the girls seem to be starting to understand that when one of them dumps that is a sign that the other can’t go walking away until the clean up process completes.

When we got back I figured I might as well make their supper as well instead of making them wait a few more hours for it.  Both of them ate, Sadie doing so only once I sat down next to her food stand to “protect” her.  Yes she has some sort of dog dinner eating anxiety.

After they were finished I opened up the door to the porch and hung out there with them for a little while since I know they enjoy it.  Ali is thinking about the possibility of putting a different door there so the dogs could go out onto the patio themselves.  I am not sure if she would be allowed to do that or not since it would change the exterior appearance of her unit in a way that would stand out.

I told the dogs I would see them soon and headed out.

When we first announced our separation there was a lot of communication from both our friends and family offering up their support and well wishes.  When I was talking to Ali last weekend we commented that basically after that initial surge there has been a black hole of communication.

I told her that we really shouldn’t be surprised, it is no different than we would have acted if we heard someone split up.  You offer your support but you don’t call up every day to see how that person is doing.  Hell, it would get downright annoying after awhile.

Plus the simple fact is people are busy with their own lives.  Very few have such an empty plate that they can spend a lot of time focusing on the personal issues of others.

One thing that has been a bit weird was several times both Ali and I have heard different people inferring she was the initiator of the split.  Neither of us are quite sure where that got started or if it is just an assumption since I am such a monumental pain in the ass.

So after my crazy road trip to Plant City on Thursday I designated Friday as chore day.  I wanted to get everything around the house done so my weekend was void of must do’s.

It really is amazing how much different cleaning is with one less person and two less dogs in the house.  The amount of scuzz that I pull out of the carpet is dramatically less and I didn’t even need to run the Scooba, the tile areas were totally fine.

It was also the first time I used my new mini-Dyson to vacuum the entire house.  It did just fine although there were a couple draw backs.  The smaller vacuum head means a lot more passes to cover the rug.  Also it’s smaller size translates into a shorter power cord, meaning I have to do more unplugging and plugging than I used to.  Neither thing is a big deal, just different.

Since I mowed on Tuesday I was totally done with everything by early afternoon.  I sat down and decided to peruse my newly connected HBOGO service on my 360 (courtesy of my buddies’ Comcast credentials)  I saw “Game Change” pop up, the movie about the 2008 presidential campaign and specifically that idiot, Sarah Palin.

Julianne Moore did a FANTASTIC job of portraying Palin.  Not only did she look like her she sounded almost identical.  Woody Harrelson was great as McCain’s campaign manager and Ed Harris made a pretty believable John McCain as well.

The movie did a great job of just portraying how overmatched Palin was being thrust into the role of potential VP.  Her overall lack of knowledge was comical as was the campaign’s staff realization that they were dealing someone that had no business being there.

I knew very early on that Sarah was a joke so this film did nothing but to reaffirm that existing opinion.  However if you are one of those people that still think Palin is the political answer to ANYTHING besides cancelled reality tv shows, please take two hours out of your life and watch the movie to free yourself of that silly belief. It gets an A.

I was unsure if I wanted to drag myself out of bed to do the club run on Saturday morning.  I was still feeling sleep deprived from the way my week went, especially Thursday when my day started at 4am and didn’t end until after midnight.

Well I set the alarm anyway and drug myself out of bed, cursing myself all the while.  I arrived at the start point of the run with 15 minutes to spare.  When I saw Christy and Michelle show up I figured since I was feeling like my batteries were half full, I would just run with Ali and them.  There was one problem, Ali wasn’t there. Ali came speeding into the parking lot just as the group had started walking out on to the main road.

So we started running at the rear of the pack.  I ran with the girls for a little bit but their pace was just a little too slow for me so I slowly pulled ahead.  I forgot my GPS so I had no idea what sort of pace I was actually running.  At the halfway point I met back up with Matt and ran back with him so I am sure overall I had a negative split.

After I finished I hung out waiting for the girls to get back.  I had asked Ali the night before if she had any interest in going to a game for the arena football team.  After her run she said she would go.  At first she sounded like she wasn’t all that interested in going but when I asked again she said it was a better option than sitting home.  I told her how the tickets were only $7 and we could park for free at the outlet mall next door.  It would be cheap entertainment.

My main task of the day Saturday was to thoroughly clean the SSR.  The inside and outside of it was a mess from the drive to Plant City.

I spent a good two hours thoroughly cleaning the truck.  One of the areas that required extra elbow grease were right behind the passenger side wheel wells where there was rubber residue from the retread I inadvertently drove over. One spot I was able to get off with just soapy water, the other spot required follow up with Goo Gone.

After the clean up I laid down for a much needed 90 minute nap so I wouldn’t be completely dead for the football game.

I headed over to Ali’s early.  I told her I would spring for the pizza and we could catch up on the latest Biggest Loser.  While I was there we took the girls for a long walk around the lake in Ali’s community.  As we walked it started to rain progressively harder but neither of us really cared.

I also brought my clippers with so Ali could repair my self inflicted haircut.  I tried to give myself and straightline across the rear of my head while using a mirror.  Instead I succeeded in giving myself a ridiculous looking jagged edge.

We left probably earlier than we needed to.  By the time we parked at the outlets and walked across to the arena it was 6:30, a full hour before the game was scheduled to start.  We just bought two 7 dollar tickets at the box office, knowing the place would not be very full based on our past arena football experience.

You see Alison and I had season tickets for the first two seasons of the first arena football team in our area, the Florida Firecats, who folded a few years back.  After two seasons of indoor football we sort of knew what to expect.

The new team is called the Florida Tarpons.  They evidently are pretty damn good as so far they are undefeated.

The first thing we did was grab a beer.  I was surprised that Ali ordered a Bud Light as well, she has never been much of a beer drinker at all.  We then walked the around the concourse a bit just to see if there were any significant changes to Germain Arena since we were there last.

We then found our $7 seats which were at the very top row.  Even being up top, the place is small enough that it isn’t a big deal.  Plus I was positive we would be able to easily move down as the game progressed.

I did find myself annoyed that a bunch of people sat down right next to and in front of us.  It seemed ridiculous that they would need to seat people shoulder to shoulder when there were so many empty seats.

So we just hung out in the seats and watched the Tarpons warm up.   Later on the opposing team, the Mississippi Hounddogs came out.  My eyes were immediately drawn in like lasers to number 60. He was not just fat he was SUPER fat.

This dude was so fat that the biggest jersey they had did not fit him.  He had to wear a supersized shirt underneath his jersey to cover his humungous stomach.

Both Ali and I were amazed the guy was even on the field.  The impact on his joints if he tried to run had to be tremendous.  I also pitied any ball carrier that found himself underneath this guy.

It turned out number 60 only played sparingly during the game.  I think we may have seen him in 4 or 5 series tops.  He made zero tackles but he did sort of run around a bit. Ali felt bad when the PA system played the Fat Albert “Hey, hey, hey…” a few times when big boy was on the field.

Well the Tarpons didn’t waste much time showing why they were undefeated, jumping out to a quick lead.  I found it interesting that in arena football you score a point if your kicker can boot the ball through the narrow uprights on a kick off, something the Tarpon kicker did two or three times.  I don’t recall that rule in the other league.

As planned we steadily improved our seat position during the game.  After half time we tried to really get greedy, moving down into the padded seats that include cupholders.  Well unfortunately the old lady seat attendant walked over and asked we had tickets for that section.  I told her we did, just a few rows up.  She said we had to move.

It sort of pissed me off.  Yea I understand we paid for $7 seats and were probably sitting in seats that cost $20 or more but really, who cares?  If these seats are not sold, it isn’t like I am costing the team money by sitting in an unsold seat.

To me, with a new franchise that is trying to build a following, they should tell the seat nazi’s to chill out.  If I am sitting in somebody else’s seat, sure tell me to move.  But in my eyes, moving to an unsold seat is a no harm, no foul situation.  If anything it makes me more likely to attend another game if I know I can improve my seat position with out getting hassled.

The Tarpons set a new standard for ugly mascots. Timmy the Tarpon was just fugly, no two ways about it.

The cheerleaders for the team, “The Reel Girls” were surprisingly good.  They did a number of dance routines that seemed solid.

The Tarpons absolutely smashed the Hound Dogs, winning by a final score of 58-26.  Ali and I ducked out with a little less than 10 minutes to go in the game to beat the traffic.   Ali and I both had a good time overall, the game delivered pretty solid bang for the buck.  I would go again.

I told Ali I had ideas of doing a bike/swim combo Sunday morning however the rainy forecast put it in doubt.  I told her I would let her know in the morning if I was going to do it or not.

Well Sunday mornings weather radar looked bad, rain was definitely coming so we scrapped the plans.  Instead I asked Ali if she wanted me to grab the dogs on my coffee run to take them to the house.  Ali wanted to clean her place thoroughly and having the dogs out of the apartment would make it easier.  She took me up on my offer.

So after picking up the girls we headed back to the house.  I let them immediately out into the back yard.  I can tell they really appreciate being able to roam around leash free now although during our walk at Ali’s place they also seemed quite happy strolling around the lake too.

My main Sunday project was to finally install the new spark plugs and spark plug wires I have had sitting on my workbench for the Tacoma for over a month.  I was sort of putting it off since the truck had been running ok although I know at 138,000 miles and 13 years old, the plugs HAD to be changed.

So I decided Sunday was finally the day.  I moved the SSR over and pulled the front end of the Tacoma into the garage to work on it.  It had been raining off and on for most of the day.

Getting access to the plugs on the passenger side was not bad, I basically just had to remove the hose that runs from the air box to the throttle body.  I was glad I invested in a magnetic spark plug socket.  The plugs sit deep in tubes, the socket was able to grab hold of them easily once I loosened them up.  The tool was equally useful in putting the new plugs in to prevent them from dropping down the hole and damaging the electrodes.

Getting access to the plugs on the driver side was a bit more challenging. I had to remove a few brackets and move some wires.  I was also very fortunate to have bought a swivel extension bar set a couple months go.  If I didn’t have it I am not sure if I could have done the plug by the firewall.

The plug wires were a new experience for me.  The last time I did plugs and wires on a vehicle was probably my 69 Firebird back in the early 90’s.  Back then you had one wire per cylinder. Well with the Tacoma, despite there being 6 cylinders/spark plugs, you only have three wires.

There is no distributor, instead each wire connects to a coil on the other side of the engine.  That coil controls the spark for two plugs.  I almost miswired two of the plugs but luckily realized my error before firing it back up.  I was quite happy that when I turned the key the engine fired right up an ran normally.

When I pulled the old plugs it was confirmed the job was way overdue.  The center electrode on the plugs was worn away from millions of ignition cycles over the years.  I am doing a new mileage test to see if the new plugs and their better spark translates into better mpg.

Later, I hung outside with the dogs several times, walking around the yard and watching them play.

I also watched all Game of Thrones episodes, I am now current except for the latest episode.  I really like the show. Sadie and Nicki slept in the bedroom with me while I watched the shows.

I asked Ali if she wanted to come out to pick up the dogs instead of me dropping them off.  She hadn’t been back to the house since she moved out in early April.  I told her I had some pasta in the freezer I could make.  She accepted the offer.

So when Ali arrived I had already started working on making a salad for dinner, something that used to exclusively be Ali’s duty.  I actually did 100% of the meal prep, it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

Ali watched the latest Celeb Apprentice with me while sitting on my new, used, furniture for the first time.  She said the sofa’s were pretty nice and overall she said I did a nice job of arranging things in the house to make up for what was taken out.

When it came time for Ali to leave she was upset which upset me.  It’s hard for her to be leaving like another house guest.  It was hard for me too.

Over the course of the weekend we talked about if us seeing/interacting with each other as much as we have been since we separated is a good thing in the big picture.  If we continue to act like a married couple that simply has two different addresses it probably isn’t the best thing long term. However this is a hard time for both of us and I think we both find comfort in each other’s company.

It’s early yet, we still have a lot of sifting through the trees till clear daylight is ahead.

Saturday morning I drug my sleepy ass out of bed at 4:30 am to do the club run.  The weather radar wasn’t all that favorable, it looked like if it wasn’t raining in Naples now, it would be later.  I didn’t really care, rain helps keep me cooled off. Ali and Christy were supposed to be there as well.  Neither of them showed.

I was a bit bummed because originally I had ideas of running with them at a slower pace, something more favorable with the sleep deprived state my body was in.  Well instead I wound up running again with Matt.  We did run a slower pace than last week, exactly one second per mile slower according to my GPS. 🙂  Oh well in the big picture going harder is always the preferred choice for me, even if I don’t realize it sometimes.  It did rain lightly for part of the run but it never let loose.

On the way back to the house I stopped at Ali’s and grabbed the dogs.  I figured they could hang out while I worked on stuff.  It also gave Ali a break as she had plans to dig into her remaining unboxing duties in earnest.  The dogs were quite surprised to see me and as excited as ever.

So the girls and I headed home to continue on my chores.  I got a head start on Friday night, cleaning Tuki’s cage and cleaning the bathrooms. During the bathroom cleaning process I almost got into a fight with the toilet paper holder.

I was down on my knees completing the glamorous job of cleaning the toilet.  I was reaching down along the right side of the bowl.  As I reached I also dropped my head down to get a better vantage point.  As I did I smashed my head into the corner of the toilet paper holder.  I instantly went into Hulk Smash mode.

I had my fist clenched and was mere moments away from uppercutting the holder off the wall.  Thankfully I took a couple breaths and unclenched my fist before any damage was done.  I was also quite lucky that the corner of the holder was rounded off and not sharp.  I would have been bleeding like a pig.

Well the rainy skies on Saturday took care of one potential chore item, mowing the grass.  I figure I will try to knock that out after work some night this week.

I tended the garden, weeded, put out some bird seed (a $3.50 bag) for the first time in weeks and repaired the section of pool cage screen that was ripping out.

I then turned my attention to the Tacoma, completing my zero dollar oil change.  I had $30 in Autozone gift cards that were a throw in when I bought the IAC valve online so that covered the oil change materials cost.

I had talked to Ali about coming over to her place later in the day on Saturday to help her with some more items, I got over there in the party van with the dogs sometime after 3.

When I came up the steps I immediately knew Ali had made some significant progress by the large collection of flattened boxes piled up.  The main living area looked to be almost empty of boxes at this point.  One of my first chores was to collect all of the cardboard and throw it in the back of the van to deposit in the recycling bins.  Ali helped me do it.

We had talked about running out to a few spots for stuff Ali needed.  I had brought part of my robotic cleaning crew along, the Scooba, to work on the large amounts of tile that covers Ali’s kitchen and main living space.    The floor felt very dirty from the moving process.

I set the Scooba up and let it run while we headed out to run errands.

The first stop was right up the street at Staples and then Target where Ali returned one item and picked up a couple more.  We then headed a few doors down to a place called World Market.  I have never been in the store before.  It is an odd combination of things that include furniture, accessories, food, beer, and clothing.

Well Ali saw some furniture there that was really nice but not horribly expensive. One was a stand that would be much better suited for her TV and A/V equipment than her hope chest.  She also liked a matching shelf that would be a good fit for the top of her steps.  We had the Camry so we decided if she still liked the stuff we could drive back in the van and get it.

We headed to Lowes where she grabbed a few other items and used a coupon that was sent to her as part of a move in pack.  She decided she definitely wanted to get the furniture so we dropped the Camry off at her place and headed back out in the van.

The two boxes fit in the folded down bed of the van but not completely, the back doors didn’t close.  Since we were only going about a half mile down the road we used Ali as a supplemental door restraint.  She laid on top of the boxes and held the doors in place.  It looked funny but worked well.

Now I have a lot of experience with put together furniture, it typically looks ok but obviously the quality is not up to par with conventional furniture.  Well this stuff from World Market was way different than something you would get in a Sauder box.

There are only a few parts to assemble, most of the furniture is already intact.  You are basically just attaching the legs with a number of allen bolts.  The new stuff looks GREAT.  I would challenge anyone to walk in Ali’s place and guess the stuff came in a box.  It looks that good.

The Scooba had done an amazing job of cleaning up Ali’s tile, the floor felt noticeably cleaner on our bare feet.  When I dumped the waste water out of the robot it was almost chocolate milk dark.  I have a feeling the Scooba will be making some regular road trips.

I also brought over the Dyson Animal vacuum cleaner.  Ali asked if she could borrow it.  The vacuum we bought her is good for step cleaning but it doesn’t have nearly the brute sucking power of the Dyson.   This was confirmed when Ali ran the Dyson in just her bedroom, closet and office and pulled up a ton of gunk.

I told Ali she could just keep the Dyson, saving her the expense of buying one herself.  I had located a used Dyson on Craigslist that I plan to pick up tonight.

We also made time to partake in a Tivo/Biggest Loser session, the first time we did such a thing out of the confines of the four walls of the house.  Doing it at Ali’s place felt a bit weird but it was enjoyable none the less.

During the time I spent at Ali’s place I discovered three ticks on the floor.  The tick problem has not subsided.  Ali took the dogs to the vet last week to get a thorough once over.  While she was there she got some good news and bad news.  The ticks are not deer ticks, the type that typically carry Lyme disease.  However the dogs had a total of 7 or 8 ticks on them, including two more on Nicki that were filled with blood.

The vet put flea collars on both dogs as a backup to the monthly Advantix that is already applied.  The collar and Advantix is supposed to repel/kill the tick if it actually chomps down on the dog however it does nothing to keep the ticks from getting on them in the first place.

Even with this double layer of protection, I pulled another full tick off Nicki later in the weekend.  Ali obviously is still freaked out about the ticks and again said something to the community staff about it.  They said they would talk to the grounds maintenance although they again claim they haven’t heard any serious complaints from other dog owners which seems unbelievable.   I have never heard of a tick that exclusively adheres to black female lab mixes.

So I left Ali’s place with plans to come back the next day to attend to a few items I didn’t get to handle yet.

Sunday morning I finally got to extend my sleep session, staying in bed till an unheard of 7:45 am.  It felt good to not be jarred out of sleep by the alarm for once.

I had a few items to attend to to finish up my duties around the house. My plan for the rest of the day was to head back to Ali’s to finish up and then drive up to Fort Myers to pick up my used Dyson, I originally made arrangements to meet the guy between 4 and 5PM.

I got over to Ali’s place later in the morning and got back to work.  I hung a 4 foot shelf in her small utility/laundry room, giving her a much needed storage option in the small area.

I was going to hang a few of her bigger items on the wall but Ali halted the process when she saw my anchor kit included silver screws.  Having silver screws against the black metal of the wall pieces would drive Ali crazy.  I told her we could pick up some black drywall screws to solve the problem.

So, we made plans to again head out on the road to score some additional items.  The first stop this time was Pier 1 where Ali was juts sort of cruising to see if anything caught her fancy, nothing really did.

We then headed across the street to the recently opened Trader Joe’s, a place I have heard a lot about but have not checked out as of yet due to the huge crowds.  Well evidently 1PM on a Sunday is not a good time to shop there either.  I hypothesized that it was the post church crowd, the place was just clogged with old farts.

I just wanted to take a quick look.  I heard from my mom and a couple other people that Trader Joe’s has a wide selection of healthy frozen meals for one that are not stuffed with chemicals and preservatives yet are reasonably priced.  I confirmed this was true although I didn’t pick any up.  I figure I will grab a handful some other time when it is less crowded and when I don’t have additional stops to make.

We then went back to Lowes, Ali had more coupons to use up.  We grabbed Ali a new detachable shower head, a small stand/table for her master bathroom, a towel bar for the guest bathroom and the black drywall screws.

Once we got back I dug into installing everything as well as using the drywall screws to hang items in a visually matching manner.

I had gotten a call back from the used-Dyson guy saying he was going to be stuck over in Miami later than he planned, we agreed for him to let me know when he was leaving so I could decide if I wanted to make the drive Sunday night or not.  I had asked Ali if she minded if I just hung at her place until I heard from him since it would give me a roughly 12 mile head start to Fort Myers.  She of course didn’t care.

Once all the work was done we actually had some free time.  We took the dogs for an extended walk which they seemed to really enjoy and later Ali and I went over to the main community pool to hang out.  It was the first time since moving in that Ali has gotten a chance to enjoy any of the amenities.

I hopped in the hot tub for a little bit and soaked my aching old bones.  Ali chose to just relax on the awesome padded chaise lounges and read a book.  The pool area at her place is simply awesome.

As we were out on our walk earlier Ali mentioned how it almost feels like we are still married, just a modified version of what we experienced for the last 14 years.  I agreed, the frequent visitation does make it seem at this point like this is simply Diet Marriage or Marriage Lite.

I think though the large amount of assistance that Ali needed in coordination with the moving project has had a large contribution to that.  I know that part of this process needs to eventually be less contact while maintaining the caring bonds where we have each other’s back when push comes to shove.  It’s necessary that we both continue growing outward/forward.

I have been watching Game of Thrones Season 1.  You ask how am I doing this since I do not have cable tv or a HBO subscription?  cokeandpopcorn.com  I am using the site to stream past episodes via a PC.  I extended the viewing to my bedroom last night by attaching a laptop to the tv.

I see why the show has gotten so much acclaim.

As I was paying the bills on Sunday I just happened to run a report showing my gas expense for the last month.  I almost fainted when I saw the number, $609.  Granted that period includes some of the tail end of Ali’s gas expense but still, that is an incredible amount of money to spend on gas in a month.  I will be doing whatever I can to minimize that expense going forward.  The roughly 50 mile round trip to work I put in everyday is a real killer.

So as I mentioned before, tonight after work I am heading directly to Fort Myers to score my used Dyson.  I am hoping the thing is in good working order, supposedly it is only two years old.  Our Animal is over 5 years old and still doing great.  I will put it through a suck test before handing over the cash.

I have a brief three day week, taking Thursday and Friday off for my SSR repair/upgrade adventure.  I am actually looking quite forward to it, as long as the truck makes it all the way to Plant City on it’s noisy flywheel.

Yesterday I equaled my all time best in pull up reps, scoring 22 at the gym over lunch.  If I chose to hang on the bar another 5 seconds or so I am pretty sure I could have set a new best.  I didn’t bother though because to be honest, setting a PR on an indoor bar where you can’t fully extend your legs isn’t quite legit.  (my other 22 rep performance was on my Iron Gym)

Having your legs tucked changes the movement around a bit.  I hope to chalk up and see if I can hit 23 reps at home on my outdoor bar.  The best I have ever managed outdoors is 20 reps.

I have found having your grip locked in tight is essential in a max pull up attempt.  As soon as the bar starts slipping down onto your fingers you are going to struggle.

I left work a little early yesterday to meet up at a near by bar with some other co-workers.  The former head of a department that had moved out of the area years ago was back visiting.  A few of us got together to catch up.  I only had a couple beers before I unfortunately had to head home to let the dogs out.

I was worried that I would come home to a smelly present since the dogs had been home alone for 11 hours by the time I got back.  I was quite pleased to see they both held it like troopers.

So Ali flew back last night from her work trip to Virginia.  Her plane didn’t get in until close to 10pm.

I piled the girls and their stuff in the party van to pick her up.  I saw Ali’s flight was a little ahead of schedule so I left a little early.  I wound up having maybe 15-20 minutes to kill in the cell phone parking lot.

I was sitting there with the van turned off and the windows down, checking email on my Iphone.  There was a BMW parked maybe 30-40 feet away with it’s windows down as well.  In the vehicle were two women, I think it was a mother and her daughter.

Anyway since it was quiet I could pretty much hear their entire conversation without even trying.  At one point the daughter got onto the subject of how she likes Katy Perry but is so tired of hearing her on the radio all the time.  She said it seems like every other song is Katy Perry.

Well I had to take a swing at that softball.  I instantly fire up Pandora on my Iphone, create a Katy Perry channel and turn the volume all the way up.  I saw the girl glance in my direction, although I don’t think she realized that I intentionally started playing her music.  I saw her bopping her head to the beat, probably after making a comment to her mom about how ironic it was that a Katy Perry song came on right after she talked about it.

I was smirking from my party van captain’s chair the entire time.

So Ali texted me she had her bag.  I fired up the van and picked her up.  As we pulled up to the curb both the dogs were up on the front seat with their heads out the window, excited to see their mommy.  I threw Ali’s bags in the back and off we went.

On the way home Ali told me about her trip although there weren’t that many details since she basically just worked and hung at the hotel when she wasn’t working.  I filled her in on what the dogs and I did while she was gone, including the various efforts at her new place.

As we were on I-75 Ali mentioned how it feels weird that I am picking her up at the airport but I am dropping her off at her own place.  I agreed it felt weird but just lumped it in with all of the other weird feelings we have already experienced and will surely experience more of going forward.

When we got back to her place I took her bags up for her and gave her a brief rundown again of what I did.  She liked the new tv and the shelf and laundry cart I put together for her.

When I it was time to go I got a bit choked up when I said goodbye to the dogs as I rubbed their heads.  They had a lot of fun with me and I am sure this geographic split of their “parents” makes no sense to them.  I could tell Ali was upset as well as I hugged her and told her I was glad she was home safe.

There is just no way to avoid those sad, painful moments in this process.  We can only both hope that as time passes they will decrease in frequency and intensity.

On a brighter note, I found a great replacement camera app for the Iphone, it’s called Camera+.  Spend 99 cents to see why  and thank me later.