Archives May 2003

My mom reported that she only saw one of our fish in the pond still. The baby alligator had to go, I couldn’t have it taking out my beloved fish. So armed with a flexible rake I worked on getting it out. It was a tag team effort between my mom and I. I would drag the bottom, trying to get him to come to the top. My mom would spot him and then I would try to nudge him out of the pond. We got him out once only to have him scoot back in. On the second attempt, we got him out and into the open. My mom got in front of him with the rake to distract him. I came up from behind with my first baseman’s glove and a fish net. I got the net over his head and pinned him down with the baseball glove. After some squirming and adjusting, we got him into the cat carrier. I took him out to a wild area and set him loose in a canal. He seemed happy….

Where to begin? A holiday weekend full of stuff. On Friday we got home and had a message on the machine from the dealership we bought our Nissan from. The sales guy said that Nissan was running some promotions that might be able to move us out of our 01 Sentra into an 03. I really had not considered upgrading at this point and I was just getting ready to drop about 500 bucks on some new tires and brake work for the Sentra. So we figured why not give it a shot? On Saturday on the way up we got rear ended at a stop light. Not hard, but enough to leave the mexican woman’s license plate bracket impression on the bumper. It matched another impression I already had on the bumper from another mexican rear ending me a year or so back. Just another reason to trade it. We were able to work out a deal where we moved to an 03, with no out of pocket money whatsoever and payments very close to what we pay now. Of course there is a catch, we financed it an additional year longer than the current loan we had. It is a trade off, but for the next 3 years or so we will be covered as far as car issues go and then after that I can bite the bullet and spend the money to get out of it if I want to or just ride it out till the end. Here is a pic of it.

The physical labor for the weekend was pretty mild in comparison to what we have tackled recently. We mowed grass, that’s it.

Yesterday, I was showing my mom some of the blooming plants in our little fish pond next to our house. I walked away and she was still checking them out. She called me back, with urgency. She pointed and said “What is that??!!!” It was a baby alligator! Somehow it found it’s way into our little pond. We called animal control but they said they have to be 4 feet to come and get them! So I guess I will be doing some gator removal tonight. Here are some pics of it.

We had a little Memorial Day get together at our house on Monday. We invited a couple we are friends with and our next door neighbors. Instead of a traditional Memorial Day cookout, my mom wanted to do a big sit down dinner. It was almost Easter-like. It was non-traditional but veerrry. good. Ate like a pig.

I filled in the gaps of the weekend flying my rc planes, playing with the xbox and watching some of our huge collection of Tivo’d television shows.

I watched the last part of the 3rd Indiana Jones movie and got to see another one of my favorite moments. It’s when they are in the room with all the golden cups and they have to pick the correct one. The bad guy chooses a lavish one, takes a big drink and then turns into a pile of dust in a few seconds. Afterwards, the knight guarding the room, simply says “He chose……… poorly.” Dunno I just like that moment. 🙂

I forgot to mention last week that the woman that consulted us on the Invisalign braces told us how they “Computerly digitize the teeth…” Hahahahaha

Short week. Good.

I recently got a game for my Xbox, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It is a LIVE enabled game, meaning it can be played over the interent. Last night, I played with my buddy up north as well as up to 6 other people. I played for 2 and a half hours. It was a blast. We pretty much suck but it was a good time regardless. I got blown up, sniped, lit on fire and peirced with hundreds of bullets and enjoyed every minute of it. 🙂

I have no definitive plans for the 3 day weekend. I have to do the basic house maintenance routine. I’d like to get some plane flying time in and geek out on the xbox.

Yesterday Ali and I went to an orthodontist for a consultation. I have been conscious of my crooked teeth my entire life. It has shaped my personality to a degree and affects the way I act around people. As a kid, I remember sitting in bed and pushing on my teeth, trying to move them. I was scared of getting braces as a kid because the doctor I saw prescribed a radical “treatment” plan that included pulling 6 teeth, headgear and 3 years of braces. So I didn’t get them as a youth. A couple times as an adult, I have investigated getting them fixed but didn’t because of costs and/or inconvenience. Well this orthodontist said that Ali and I were both good candidates to use Invisalign braces, the clear plastic “braces” that you put on like a mouth piece. No teeth pulled and an estimated treatment duration of 18 months. WOW, sounds great! The doc said someone would be in to go over the costs and mentioned they could give us a “deal” since we both want to get it done. The lady comes in and gives us the sales pitch, it almost felt like we were buying a car. Ironically, when she finally got around to the costs involved, we could buy a car for what they charge for this treatment. I tried to mask my surprise from the cost. We told her we had to try to come up with a gameplan on how we would do this financially. We want to get it done and we can finacially do it. I just have to decide how I want to handle it. As expensive as it is, it is really worth it to me to not be embarrassed by my teeth. Ali’s mouth problems aren’t as visible as mine are but she really wants to get it done as well. Ideally, if we split it up and did one first and then one later it would be much easier to swallow. Otherwise, we are going to have to sacrifice some other things we may want to do in the next 18 months. Ali says she is fine with doing that, but I know how that goes. It will be something to think about this weekend.

Well Ruben won. I think Clay had the better performance Tuesday night, but they were close enough that you could flip a coin. Neither of them fit the image of what you think of when it comes down to Idol status. It will be interesting to see how their music is received. Clay reminds me of a Barry Manilow type of singer. He would make great Christmas Albums. I can’t imagine Ruben singing anything up tempo or “pop”.

3 day weekend coooommmming up.

Damn, this is some funny shit.

When I was younger I used to play a lot of chess. I would enjoy playing my brother and dad. I also had a little portable chess game where I could play against the computer. From my recollection, I was pretty good and won more than I lost. Well I don’t think I am very good anymore. I installed a pocket chess game on my Palm Zire. After a dozen straight losses, most of which were embarrassingly quick, I determined that I now suck at chess. I’ll keep at it. It’s good exercise for the mind, I need it.

Being in the IT biz, I am naturally very cautious with stuff I get in email. A few months back I got emails from scammers pretending to be EBAY asking for me to update my info. The source email address looked fishy and I reported it to ebay. It turned out to be a scam. Today I got an even more believeable one from Paypal (supposedly) It again asked for me to verify my account information. If I followed the link it took me to a site that looked exactly like paypal. However there were two tip offs, first the URL was an IP address, second the site was not a secure site. If I was half tempted to do this, I can only imagine how many inexperienced users might fall for this scam. Sneaky bastards, I hope they get nailed to the wall.

My mom’s puter had Windows ME on it. It ran like CRAP. Constantly thrashing on the hard drive even though it has 128 meg of ram. Last night I loaded XP on it. What a difference, it runs 100% better. Windows ME SUCKS!

I feel a bit better today, less negative. The past 2 nights I have taken one tylenol PM. It helps settle my mind. Physically I still am feeling beat up. I keep trying to do bicep curls at the gym and no matter how light I go, the next few days afterward my wrists feel like hell. I was walking towards the house yesterday, doing nothing special and got a stabbing pain inside my knee. Just out of the blue. Crazy.

The summer wet season seems to have arrived here in SW Florida. We are starting to get our daily brief downpours.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention, we had a scorpion in the middle of our bathroom floor yesterday. That’s a new (and painful) addition to the list of critters we have seen out here. I’ve also had a couple run ins with pygmy rattlesnakes in the last month or so! (poisonous)

This weekend was like many others, I had a bunch of outdoor stuff to do. The 90/90 (heat/humidity) weather trend has not broken yet. The thermometer at our place hit 96.8 on Saturday. My physical labor this weekend included mowing, weed whacking, spreading mulch, digging out a landscape border, weeding, and applying waterproofing to all of exterior landscape timbers. Way too much considering the weather conditions. I don’t know what drives me with this stuff but for whatever reason, when I know I have these jobs sitting ahead of me I feel compelled to get them done and out of the way. It causes conflict with Ali because she doesn’t share this same drive.

I was pretty much in a bad mood most of the weekend. Real bad. I think it is a compiliation of many issues. I’m not really sure how to snap out of it. My patience right now is razor thin. I just have no tolerance for BS. Hopefully I can snap out of it. Not sure what it will take. On Saturday night I could not fall asleep even though I was tired as hell. My mind was just bouncing from one depressing thought to another. Most of it tied into the passing of time, recollections, regrets, all sorts of things that drive you crazy if you dwell on them. I also am feeling “old” lately. My wrists, knees and back all have been bothering me to different degrees. This morning I tweaked my wrist opening up a package of lunchmeat. Pathetic.

The past few months have been very expensive. We have spent a lot of money and the result of it has me a bit stressed as well. Most of it has been home improvement based but regardless, it has been draining our financial resources. Instead of building up savings we are either standing still or losing ground slowly. I handle the finances in our household and the way we spend money is a frequent topic of arguments between Ali and I.

Quickly proofreading this, I realize it is 100% negative. Oh well, I guess it depicted my weekend accurately. Oh wait there was one highlight, I closed myself up in our bedroom for 3 hours and played with my Xbox online. That was fun.

Happy Monday.

Ali and I went to see Xmen 2 last night. I was disappointed. It wasn’t terrible but I thought it would be better. Great effects, some horrible acting and a storyline that didn’t make much sense and wasn’t very interesting. It was one of those movies where I checked my watch more than once which is normally a sure fire indicator that the film is less than stellar. We heard some people mumbling about how the new Matrix movie sucked as they exited. Oh no! Tell me it isn’t true! I REALLY have been looking forward to Matrix Reloaded and I’ll be majorly bummed if I come away from that one shaking my head.

As I was at the gym today they had on the foxnews channel. They were televising a “chase” in LA. For 20 minutes I watched a toyota pickup driving normally in traffic. They kept flashing up that the driver was suicidal and could possibly be carrying a weapon. However, all this guy did was drive at the speed limit, signal before turning and acted about as normal as a driver could. Finally, Fox got the word that the cops called off the chase and that they knew where he lived and would simply pick him up later. Begrudgingly, they had to abandon the story. It brought back to me some of the stuff I saw in Bowling for Columbine. Specifically, how the media thirsts for stories with possible tragedy, they need to make it sound as scary and threatening as possible. It made me laugh inside to see this attempt by Fox News to further scare the American public fizzle out.

In the shopping center where my gym is, they are renovating a big department store. As a result, the parking lot and street right in front of it are temporarily corded off and traffic has to swing out around it into the lot. I am heading out of the center, the store is on my right so of course I am towards the right just as you would be in a normal situation. I soon notice a vehicle coming straight towards me, slowly. I see the hands on top of the wheel move left, then right then left again. I see the top of a head with curly purple/white hair. I stop and look at this woman in disbelief. She stops. I angrily point to my left, indicating that was where she was supposed to be driving. It must have made sense because she moved to the left and waved as she passed me by. I guess she was grateful that I pointed her in the direction to go. Happens here EVERY day.