Archives May 2005

Tiger Woods and I had something in common this weekend. We each had strings of success broken. Although mine was much shorter and concerns absolutely noone but myself, it still is a parallel. For the first time since the very first tournament Randall and I played together, we missed making the playoffs. It was a disappointing volleyball day.

I got up at 4:30 in the morning for the nearly 3 hour drive to Singer Island. Originally we discussed staying at the ratty Days Inn right next to the tournament site again, since they allowed dogs. I found out they were closed for hurricane damage, whatever that meant. Well when I got there I saw a big pile of sand where the hotel once was. I would guess that the owners took the insurance money, sold the property and now it appears that a big condo tower is going to be erected there. Bummer.

Our first match was a discouraging loss. We played some guy that when he wore his oversized straw hat, looked like a middle aged woman. His partner looked like a smaller version of Andy Reid. This team played very unconventional volleyball. The womanish guy would “set” balls by putting his hands together and bouncing the ball of his hands above his head. It was very odd. He also attacked most balls by just poking at them. By poking at a ball you really had no idea where it was going and more times than not the pokes were landing right inside the boundry lines. Mini-Andy rarely used 3 hits, most of his shots were over on 1 or 2, again an unconventional method that kept us constantly guessing. It was like someone pulled them off the church picnic court. They got repeated breaks and we were unable to adjust to their unconventional style and wound up losing to them by 3 or 4 points. It was emabarrassing.

It cast a shadow on the day right out of the gate. With only 4 games in pool play, losing your first match hurts, especially when you lose it to a team you shouldn’t have. Our next two matches were against 2 younger teams that were physically gifted but seemed like indoor players first, beach players second. They would make some great plays, great hits but then follow it up with 2 mistakes. During those games I made some really good defensive digs, something I rarely do. I dug about half a dozen hard hits into playable balls on our side. We handled both of these teams pretty easily and despite our opening f up, were in position to make the playoffs if we won our last game.

Our last game was going to be our toughest. We were playing the undefeated team. The team also happened to be an old nemesis of mine (even though they probably don’t even remember me) Rich and I played them during our first ever volleyball tournament in Florida. We were playing them in the playoffs and had a big lead. There was a play where we thought the guy had terrible double contact (which after the fact we found it is ok in Florida beach ball) that we stopped playing for and argued loudly about. After the incident, the guys were dicks and we lost our cool and allowed them to come back and win the match. It was about as angry I can ever remember Rich being at another team. This incident has always stuck in my craw and I looked forward to finally getting some revenge after so long. They further fueled my fire when earlier in the day they spent a good 10 minutes working on the net because they thought it was too low, then they wanted to adjust the boundry lines and then finally they unilaterally proclaimed that we should play with the same ball for every match to be consistent. They said 3 of the 5 teams agreed to it. (a vote we were not told about or involved in) Oh yea, it just so happens that the ball they wanted to use was their ball, which was unusually light and was getting blown around quite a bit in the gusty beach wind. Annoying.

The match started out back and forth for about 2 thirds of it. Neither team could generate more than a point or two lead. During the breaks in action, our opponents would huddle up with some buddy of theirs and discuss strategy which was annoying. It’s not the f’in olympics, it’s bb amateuer volleyball. Well apparently the outcome of these strategy talks was to start almost exclusively serving to my partner which proved to be successful. When I don’t get served it frustrates the hell out of me, plus it forces me to try to become a precise setter, something I am not good at. We were unable to make them pay for not serving me and they pulled away for a 6 point victory. The loss sealed our fate and excluded us from the playoffs. It was a double dagger because we lost to a team that I wanted to beat badly. The early elimination meant I got to start my 3 hour drive back sooner than expected. I grumpily motored back across the state. I was extremely drowsy during the drive and decided to combat it by singing out the name and spelling of different vehicles as they went by. It was about as ridiculous a thing as you can imagine but it kept me awake.

On Saturday night we watched Episode 1 of Star Wars. Ali wanted to see the first 2 again in prep to see the new release. She has a thing about wanting to know the storyline of these multi-part movies since after time has passed, she forgets many of the details. I was dozing on and off throughout the movie. Watching what I saw of it again reminded me of how bad it was.

Sunday I had a big list of things I wanted to do even though after driving 6 hours and playing in a depressing vball tournament the day before made me feel less than motivated to accomplish much. Before the chores started, Ali and I took our little more than 4 mile walk to E’s store. It was summer hot and humid on Sunday, making the walk more than a little bit of a challenge. By the time we got back I was feeling it. Then my day started, in no particular order this is what I did from 1pm to 5pm. Went to the neighbors to install memory in her pc, took apart the water cleaning equipment to see why the clock was resetting (found dead small frogs on the circuit board), refilled the fish pond, set up the water tractor to water the front and side lawns, washed the truck and the car, cleaned the bird cages, cleaned up the laundry room, and finally installed the second of the 1 dollar ceiling fan set in our bedroom I got at that flea market months ago. It was a whirlwind.

During the trip over to the neighbors I found out that their house was sold. They got full asking price which floored me. Their sale sets the bar even higher on our property. We are now sitting on top of a staggering amount of equity. (staggering for me at least) Of course to buy anything else in our area requires you to sink that equity right back into another property to afford it, so it is a bit of a catch 22. Anyway, it is sad that they will be moving. They are great neighbors and have been our pet support plan in many cases. It is a shame to lose them but at the same time, financially it really was a necessary move for them.

Last night we stayed up late to watch the Survivor finale. I was happy that Tom won. He busted his ass and performed incredibly well in the challenges. Considering he is over 40 makes it all the more impressive. I would rank him right up there with Colby and Rupert as one of the best all time contestants. The woman he was going up against in the final was a lazy snake who did nothing but ride coat tails the entire game. The final immunity challenge was nothing short of incredible, with Tom and the dutch boy kid hanging up on a buoy with a small disk for their feet for just short of 12 hours, the longest time any challenge has ever gone. Tom just has an iron will. The final vote was a landslide 6-1 win for Tom. He deserved it.

I actually had a successful aerial photography sortie yesterday. I haven’t had a plane in the air forever. The flight was almost a dreadful failure. On the launch toss the plane veered hard left and was heading for the pool cage and trees near by. I quickly pulled up and right and clipped the tree, just barely avoiding a nasty crash. Once I was up in the air it was a juggling act. The plane wanted to constantly pull left, I was wearing flip flops, trying to make sure I didn’t step in fire ants, I was covered in gnats since I forgot to spray down with OFF and then I was trying to flip the switch to fire off the camera in air. Since the plane was so squirrely it was very hard to have much control of what I was shooting, so I just kept firing off pics, figuring I would get some decent ones by luck. I got some decent pics, just none of our house. 🙂 I’ll post the pics soon. I need to tweak the controls to make in air flight a bit more stable.

Last night on Survivor that skinny, dutch boy haircut looking kid, Ian won a new Corvette Convertible as a prize. I hate him and hope he loses.

This weekend I am playing volleyball at Singer Island on the east coast. Last year this tournament was hot as hades and it is looking like it may be again this year. Last year we drove over the night before and stayed which made it much easier. The dog friendly hotel we stayed at is closed because of hurricane damage so I am just going myself this time. It is going to require me getting up disgustingly early and driving around 2 and a half hours. Sometimes I ask myself, why do I do this to myself? Oh well, in the endi, t should be fun. My new more relaxed attitude while playing has been working so far. This weekend is the Rehoboth shore tournament that I attended for so many years. I’ll be thinking of it as I am playing.

I got the tv bracket set up out on the lanai and have the TV in place. I can’t wait to have some down time to give it a try.

Not many gym stories lately as all has been calm. The gym is clean, cool and a bit boring. Today I was happy to see one of my old buddies from Powerhouse come strolling in. He was one of the few people I could talk to on a regular basis. He had said he was going to join the new gym awhile ago but he never did, so I sort of wrote it off. He told me he finally had it with the old place. The last straw was the only water fountain in the place being broken for a month with no repairs in sight. Of course the owner was happy to SELL you kiddie sized bottled water. That place sucks.

I was doing stretching at the end of my workout, something I normally do religiously before I am going to play volleyball that weekend. I figure if I have an extra 1/2 inch range of motion, that could be the difference between ripping something or not. On the other side of the partition some younger woman is on her cell phone, no more than 4 feet from me so I can hear everything she is saying. I assume she is talking to her boyfriend or significant other and he asked her where she was. “I’m at the mall” she said, for some reason unknown to me. I guess the sounds of weight plates being slapped around didn’t sound very convincing as she repeated it 2 more times and then made an excuse to get off the phone. Why would you need to hide the fact you were at a gym? Weird.

Every morning at work I refill my Dunkin Donuts coffee mug at the goverment complex Subway/DD location. The manager there has always cut me a bit of a break, only charging me a buck for the refill instead of the $1.23 it should cost. We always were friendly and it was just a nice little perk. When I went to pay for it yesterday, I had my dollar out and ready and she says $1.23 with a slightly annoyed look on her face. I mumbled something about inflation and surprisingly pulled out another buck. I am unsure why she decided to raise the price for me. For some reason it bothers me a bit although in reality in means little more than an extra $1.15 a week. However in practice, it normally winds up costing me and extra 5 bucks cause the change from the transaction gets thrown into a drawer so my wallet gets substantially lighter than one would initially believe. It would be too uncomfortable and odd to ask her why she decided to raise my price. Perhaps I offended her somehow, maybe someone else said something to her about my preferrential treatment. Today I even threw the 77 cents change into the tip cup. Maybe that was the issue, the even dollar transactions meant no tip. After I did it, I felt stupid for caring if the dunkin donuts woman was pissed at me.

I think Happy Days is my favorite sitcom of all time. I absolutley loved that show like no other. We have had the 30 year Happy Days reunion show on Tivo for months. We just never made the time to watch it. However we finally started watching it. Of course all the cast, except Scott Baio and suprisingly, Marion Ross have really had the years do a number on them. It is amazing that it has been 30 years since the show first aired. I am enjoying the reunion show in spite of the discomfort from seeing old versions of Richie, Ralph, Potsie and the Fonz.

This weeks contender was incredible. The oldest guy in the tournament, who is an emotional basketcase lost in a shocking knockout. He was ultra-aggressive and was winning the fight easily. He was in the last round and all he had to do was stay out of trouble and he would win. Instead he continued charging in like a bull and got tagged right on the chin and dropped. He staggered to his feet but then was too far on to queer street to defend himself and lost. I felt bad for the guy, his little girl was crying, he was a wreck and his last shot at success as a fighter had passed him by. 4 fighters are left, if you haven’t given it a view, do so.

I’ve actually scaled back my WoW playing somewhat. After 4 months of very late nights, hurting wrist and bloodshot eyes I decided I needed to try to keep things in balance a bit. I may play late one or two nights a week but not 5. I know Ali appreciates having me go to bed at the same time as her once in awhile instead of me creeping in around midnight or later, trying to not make noise to wake her. My strength at the gym has gone down substantially in the last 4 months even though my attendance schedule has been the same. I have to contribute part of that to the toll lack of sleep has on your body.

The third season of the Apprentice is winding down. It’s numbers are down but we still watch it regularly. I have to say, the 2 finalists this time around are by far the weakest candidates to date. I can not envision either one being able to successfully run any aspect of a Trump business. However with 2 women finalists, we are guaranteed to get our first female Apprentice to date. I think Trump has one more season inked, I don’t know it will run after that. It’s just getting a bit old. Plus some of the production is annoying. The blatant voice overs used in various segments annoy me.

Buttons has been making slow but steady improvement. She has been eating albeit very small amounts. Her energy level is better and her face doesn’t look like she just got whacked by a 2×4 anymore.

The weekend was calm. We did some housecleaning Saturday. I went the extra mile and pulled out the carpet cleaner and mopped down the ceramic tile. I should do that more often. On Mother’s day we did some minor outside projects, took a 4 mike walk and then took my mom out to dinner for mother’s day at a cool outside bar/restaurant called the Chiki Hut. It’s an older rustic place that is associated with an older hotel on the same property. Evidently developers have bought the property and are going to tear down the charming hut and 3 story hotel and replace it with 2 massive towers of condos. Progress is wonderful.

I got a wall mount TV bracket to mount a small TV outside on the lanai. The idea of floating in the pool or sitting outside dining while catching something on the tube is appealing to me. Like our own little Chiki hut….

I picked up the cat yesterday from the vet. I got a list of to do’s, 2 types of medicine and different insulin and needles. The total was a little shy of 5 bills. Buttons looked marginally better to me but not great. The vet said she has smelled her food and acts interested but she hadn’t seen her eat solid food yet. I expressed my concern to the vet about the situation, my thoughts about spending lots of money on the cat when she is 12 or 13 years old, diabetic and so on. Buttons has a blue medical bandage around her leg because the catheter is still in, in case she needs to be hooked up to an IV again. I left there frustrated with cat in tow.

When we got home we put some food out for her which she licked but didn’t seem to really eat it. She still seemed out of it with very low energy, an unsteady stride and just looking off in her face. I sort of distanced myself from her. As Buttons was sitting on the floor with her head down, looking too weak to hold it up, Ali went over and sat with her and petted her. Buds still would purr. Ali said that she wanted to give Buds a shot at getting better and if that didn’t work, she wanted her to at least come home to what she was familiar and comfortbale with instead of dying at a vet, surrounded by noisy animals and people that don’t have a decade+ history with her. Well what she said hit home and made me forget about the money, the hassle and the aggravation. The cat doesn’t want to be sick. Then later we were watching tv and Ali picked up Buds and laid her in her lap. She was too weak to get up there herself. She looked so pathetic, like a ragdoll, yet she was content to just be there.

I think Ali has conceded as well that we are done with throwing more medical dollars at the problem. We will do what we can to get her to eat and nurse her back to health but we aren’t going to have the cat version of Terry Schiavo. However my heart is softer than it was 24 hours ago and if I think about it too much it starts to get to me.

Anyone that has seen my cam page knows I have a collection of hot wheels stacked up on display in my office. Well they aren’t there now, they are at home. Why? Because I went out and bought me some hot wheels track! Yea a 37 year old guy just won 2 ebay auctions for track so he can race hot wheels.

When I was young, hot wheels were the coolest. The cars looked great and even though they were all made in similar ways, there were distinct differences in which cars were faster. I would string the orange track side by side, starting on a piece of furniture and run side by side elimination races for endless hours. Sometimes I would put a dixie cup on either finish line to make it easier to distinguish who won the close races. From hot wheels I moved on to AFX electric slot cars but in retrospect hot wheels offered more bang for the buck. They were cheaper, more durable and the track configurations could be almost endless.

As I was at wal-mart at lunch picking up some mother’s day stuff, I made my way over to the toy section looking at the hot wheels and accessories. There are some cool closed tracks with spinner wheel propulsion that I think I will picking up soon if my initial dip back into the hobby is as fun as I hope. Nothing like revisiting a hobby, 30 years later….

We shot 4 or 5 minutes of video. Some from feeding the tarpon, the rest from the dwarf size dog beach. It is absolutely thrilling.

The diabetic cat has been at the vet since Tuesday. Yesterday she called Ali and said the bill so far was up to 350 bucks, she thinks the cat has some sort of infection and needs antibiotics, needs a different type of insulin, hasn’t eaten any solid food yet, just IV fluids but the cat is looking better. Great. When Ali relayed the info to me I of course cringed at the bill so far, then I expressed my concern at spending all this money on a cat who is in a consistent degradating pattern health-wise. I said that if the cat can’t eat solid food and not constantly throw it up, there is no point in taking it home. I suggested that just putting her down may make the most sense. Ali did not agree with my idea and instead wanted to see if the antibiotic works and go from there. I was not very happy with that course of action. I forsee dropping hundreds of dollars only to wind up doing the inevitable anyway. However I am not going to put the cat to sleep without Ali’s backing so I am just going with her plan. All I know is that since the cat hasn’t been in the house the last few days it has been a relief. That alone should be enough to tell ya that it is time for the cat to move on. Since we got Nicki the cats have basically become persona non-grata anyway. We both have spoke of being anxious for the time we become a non-feline family.

Well if I am able to accurately relay the events that went down during the 4 day vacation to Key West, it should be one of my more entertaining blog entries ever.

We left around 9:30 am Thursday morning, we figured somewhere between 5-6 hours for the 270 mile trip. As Ali has reminded me multiple times, we hadn’t been on a “vacation” that didn’t involve family issues or playing volleyball more than a handful of times during our marriage. Ali planned this trip and it was a “family” vacation, meaning we were bringing our black, furry child along as well. We were staying in a dog friendly place and Ali had her dog book in hand that mapped out all the dog friendly food establishments along the way. Nicki is good in the car, spending most of her time either sitting quietly or with her head out the window. We stopped for lunch at a place called Hog Heaven near Islamorada. Dogs were allowed in the outdoor seating area. It was a great place, on the water with a cool dock and it’s own little beach. Right by the dock was a 3 foot long barracuda that hung out waiting for food scraps. I never saw a barracuda before, it was a mean looking fish. The water had an interesting bright bluish green color to it. We had a nice lunch and then walked out to the beach for a few minutes and snapped a few pictures.

Shortly after leaving the restaurant, Ali found another attraction in the book where you could feed tarpon. I never saw tarpon before so it sounded like fun to me. It was only a few miles down the road. It was an old rickety place that looked like it has been unchanged for 30 years. I grabbed my bucket of fish and went out to the dock. I was amazed at the amount of fish. Tarpon are huge fish and the docks were just teeming with them. There also was a large amount of pelicans trying to jump in on the fish action. It was cool watching the feeding frenzy. I threw the pelicans a few fish as well, although after the fact, Ali pointed out that there was a DON’T FEED THE PELICANS sign. Oops. Nicki was intrigued by the action.

The rest of the drive to Key West was fine but lengthy. We saw various things of interest like vast stretches of wilderness, crocodile crossing signs, key deer protected habitat, the 7 mile bridge and small town after town that seemed more or less unaffected by the huge building boom in the majority of Florida. Once you get on Route 1, the majority of it is one lane in each direction so you are at the mercy of the the slowest vehicle in the line of traffic for prolonged periods of time. We pulled into Key West around 4pm and promptly went on a mini-detour as we missed the turn to get to the place we were staying. The first thing you notice is all of the 2 wheeled traffic in KW. Scooters and bikes outnumber the amount of cars on the streets. The streets are congested and narrow. You need to be very, very focused on your driving as there are constant possible hazards everywhere.

When we found the place we turned onto what looked to be an alley that was more narrow than my driveway. I had no idea where we would park but then thankfully spotted a small parking area just past the entrance. I asked very few questions beforehand and didn’t know we were staying at a bed and breakfast. I was a bit taken back but then when we went inside we were greeted by a very quaint and pretty entranceway with a small pool and a permanently open door to the common dining/kitchen area.

The owner was there and directed us back to the room. The first adjective that came to mind was “small”. 18 inches inside the door was the bed. Bringing luggage in required you to lug it over the bed as there was no way to navigate on the floor. The floor was covered in a natural looking tile. The bathroom was small as well. The microwave, fridge and coffee maker were out on the small covered porch. However small, the room was clean enough and definitely quaint. I think Ali was more displeased with it than I was.

The first order was to take Nicki for a walk. Not a big deal, right? Wrong. One thing we found out in a hurry was something that was not plentiful in KW was open areas of grass where you can walk a dog. The tiny old houses are packed in shoulder to shoulder with no lawns. Nicki is used to having a 3 acre bathroom at home, the little 4 foot by 4 foot squares of grass and sand just did not work for her. Finally after a lot of walking around we found some open grass on a corner where a church resided. I felt uneasy about using holy ground as a dog toilet but it was big enough for Nicki to do her thing and it wasn’t like we weren’t going to pick up after her. The bad part was this church was close to a half mile away from the room, so every trip to walk her was lengthy.

Thursday night we went to a a semi-upscale place called Mango’s that had outdoor seating and allowed dogs. Nicki laid down like a good girl. However when Ali petted her she noticed she felt sticky. Evidently where she laid was also the spot where a drink or something was spilled recently that was a sticky mess. Her lower half was basically covered in it. For the rest of the meal we tried to keep her away from that area but weren’t very successful in doing so. During the meal we heard “We are Family” blaring from the street. We look out and see a big flat bed truck filled with gay men dressed as women dancing and carrying on. KW has a huge gay population so although I stopped and stared in amazement for a few seconds, I wasn’t all that surprised. We had a good dinner, walked up and down Duval for a bit. Having Nicki with was definitely a restriction as we couldn’t go into a store at the same time so we bascially chose to not go into any. We saw the first of many street people during that time. I guess if you are going to be homeless, you can’t pick a better spot than Key West. I had one guy flat out ask me for a buck to buy a beer. I’ve had many homeless ask for handouts over the years, but never one that admitted to using the handout to partake in the problem that likely cause his homelessness in the first place. I slapped my pockets, said I didn’t have my wallet on me (it was in a bag) and moved on.

Our first night of sleep was less than solid. The queen sized bed seemed tiny in comparison to our king at home. It was very squishy and resulted in us waking up at regular intervals to reposition ourselves due to being uncomfortable. I woke up early, without a clock or prodding from Nicki. I went out and partaked in the generous breakfast offerings. Even though our room accomodations were less than ideal, it was almost negated in my mind by the quiet, beautiful setting as I ate my breakfast on the porch, next to the tiny pool, in front of the 2 cockatiels that were making happy sounds.

KW has a large outdoor cat population as well, several called the B&B home. Evidently Nicki’s episode with our friends cat has now made her more or less afraid of ALL cats. (except ours) The one cat looked a lot like our friend’s and caused Nicki the most fear. We literally had to shield her from it and she would scurry by with her tail between her legs. It was unreal. Her fear was so great at that point that when I took her to walk that evening we walked by two lion statues that she ran from, no exagerration.

On Friday we sorta had a lax day, no specific agenda. One of the things we wanted to do was go to the dog beach. We followed the directions in the book and did a bit of a doubletake when we saw the “beach”. It was an empty postage stamp size of sand and dried seaweed, wedged between 2 pieces of private property. We didn’t stay very long. Instead we decided to walk down to the southern point marker. Ironically this isn’t the actual southern most point in the US, the actual spot is on navy property but I guess this is the next best thing. The area is full of tourists. People take turns posing in pictures and then manning other people’s cameras to take pictures for them. We then decided to just hop in the car and drive around a bit to explore. When you get a mile or so out you hit “new” Key West which looks like most any coastline area complete with strip malls. We grabbed a couple sandwiches and went to a dog friendly park to eat them. The park had more street people hanging out. I took a picture of a weird old car that didn’t appear to move over the 3 day span that we saw it. During my time in the keys I took various pictures of things that struck me as odd, like the ping pong table in the yard, the wall with 2 legs on it, the car with a shower curtain back window and the unforgettable truck tailgate.

On Friday evening we went to a place called Awful Arthur’s. In contrast to last night’s upscale dining, AA’s was several picnic benches on sand under a canopy. It had loud party music and the bar was right next to us. We were a bit hesitant upon arrival but the patrons that were there seemed to be enjoying themselves so we decided to stay. The bartender seemed to be drunk of his ass. Our waitress seemed to have thrown back a few as well. They had 2 for one beers and my mode of transportation was by foot so I decided to throw back a few. After a few I found that I was enjoying the “restaurant” much more. The food was surprisingly good. Late in the meal I had to use the bathroom. I came back and found a rather large guy sitting at our table across from Ali. Ok here we go, I thought. This is going to be interesting. I sat down and greeted the man. Evidently he loved dogs and came over to see Nicki. Immediately I could tell this guy was blasted drunk. He was talking very slow and deliberately to avoid slurring. I was mellow myself from having a few drinks so I engaged him in conversation while Ali shot me look after look. Shortly it came out that this guy has been arrested many times but never for a felony. He relayed a story about how he was arrested by Collier County police last new year’s eve for public drunkeness. He claimed he wasn’t drunk as he had only drank a quart of beer. The officer was a young kid. Evidently the guy argued with the officer and resisted arrest. Somehow he wound up running and then was tazered. He said the tazering wasn’t that bad. Both of our eyes got wider as he continued. He said the resisting arrest was a felony charge but he was lucky and got it down to a misdemeanor. He continued to ramble about things. He hates Bush, believes in God……. Thankfully he had to hit the bathroom. As he got up and stumbled inside, we asked for the check. As he came out we told him we were ready to head out. He said his drunken goodbyes and thanked us for listening to him. We felt relieived to escape the situation. The scary thing is there were a bunch of people like that wandering KW.

On Saturday we had a fuller day planned. We first went to the KW aquarium. It is a small little place but had some interesting indoor and outdoor exhibits. One of the most interesting were the indoor, knee high open tanks that housed sting rays and sharks. Nicki was particularly interested in the sting ray tank because they kept hopping up, trying to get out of the tank. During the walk thru, Nicki had her first experience with more than 2 or 3 stairs. She never had to climb or descend a staircase before so it was funny to see her navigate it. Even with going as slow as we could and taking the time to see everything, it only took us barely an hour to get through the aquarium.

After walking around a bit we went down to the KW lighthouse. It is old and was renovated 20 years ago for public access after being closed for years. It was cool to go up into it, 87 iron steps lead to the top where you get a very scenic but windy view of the island. Even though you are caged in, looking over the edge was a bit daunting. Originally we thought we could coax Nicki up the steps but they were too narrow and steep for her to attempt, so Ali and I went up individually. Here is a pic from the top, looking down on Ali and Nicki.

Again for lunch we grabbed sandwiches and ate at the park. At the park and throughout our time at KW we took time to snag various seeds from the different trees in the hopes of recreating some of the beauty on our property. We have had some limited success growing stuff from seed so we loaded up on any sort of tree or bush that caught our eye.

Saturday afternoon we were tired, me especially so. We went back to the room and Ali read while I took a nap ( a near miracle) I really gave little thought to the idea that we were heading back home the following morning, something I used to dwell on incessantly when I went on vacation. That evening we decided to go up to Mallory Square for the sunset celebration. Everyone gathers to watch the sun go down and they have all sorts of vendors, food stands and entertainment acts. We wandered around and found a place to eat on the boat docks. They told us it would be a 15-30 minute wait. No problem, at least they take dogs. 30 seconds later, the buzzer goes off. What the hell, tables ready. I have heard of under promising but damn…

After dinner we walked around a bit and actually missed the sunset. We didn’t really care cause we can see awesome sunsets here anyday we want. I sat with Nicki for awhile outside a gift shop while Ali looked for stuff. She sat there like a good girl with me. Ali took a cute picture. (except for my shaggy mane) We then went to the square and caught the tail end of the festivities. It was still quite crowded and a bit difficult to manage with a dog. Still, we saw some fun stuff and had a good time. We headed back for our last night in the room.

Nicki and I embarked on our last, late night potty run. Everytime we went to this church yard I felt guilty. If there were people around, I would act like I was just casually walking by and pulled Nicki along. If the coast was clear, I would covertly jump onto the grass with her and try to enthusiastically encourage her do her thing so we could get the hell out of there. Of course she didn’t cooperate and the neverending distractions made every bathroom break a pain in the ass. Well the last nighttime potty run was the most memorable. As we turned onto the street where the church was, there was a black guy on a bike wearing a reflective vest. A car passed him and evidently it was a bit too close because he went off. “Can’t you read or write?” he yells “Share the road! You dumb mother f’r!” He was quite angry. I smirked and continued on. Next, I come across a puddle on the sidewalk. Since it was dark, I couldn’t tell what it was until I got on top of it. It was a big vomit omlette. I pull Nicki away and keep walking, making a note to come back on the other side of the street. We get to the grass area and Nicki is farting around as usual. I am getting quite frustrated cause she won’t take a shit. As I am getting angry I hear a sound across the street. I look up and there is a bike on it’s side in some brush and a man lying on his back with his leg propped up on a bush. I immediately assumed this guy was shit faced and crashed his bike. I wasn’t overly concerned and decided I would go check on him AFTER Nicki does her business. Well a good 5-10 minutes goes by and he is still laying there. Finally Nicki goes and as I am walking towards the corner, the guy struggles to his feet, climbs on his bike and wobbles across the street towards me. He looks very unsteady and the bike is making various noises from the impact. I simply ask him. “Are you ok?” His simple answer of “Yea” was an obvious lie. He was a middle aged white guy with a baseball hat on. I watch him swerve down the street away from me, as I wonder if I should do more to intervene. I decided that this was probably a very common thing here and decided to go back to the room. He was off the main road so worst case he would just crash into another bush or parked car.

More to come….son of a bitch I had the rest done and then lost it in some internet f up.

Oh well see if I can recant it again.

On Sunday morning I woke up early, anxious to get home. I went out to the kitchen area and was pouring my first coffee. Just as I finished, a man came running out of the one unit yelling “Fuego, fuego!” (fire in spanish) At first I kinda dismissed it. Then another guy runs out yelling FIRE! and pulls the fire alarm. The piercing alarm sounded throughout all the buildings. The panic was real. The only employee there was a spanish girl who spoke little english. I asked her about a fire extinguisher. She said yes but didn’t know where it was and she ran off. I looked around frantically and found one mounted on a post no more than 4 feet from where I was. I pull it off the hook and as I am running toward the door I break the tie wrap and pull the pin. I had no idea if the fire was big or small but I was ready to blast the hell out of it no matter what. I got in the door and it was filled with smoke. I asked the guy where it was and he said it was the ceiling fan. I saw no flames but I shot it with the extinguisher a few times just in case, coating the room in powder. Evidently the motor shorted out and caught on fire. The power switch had been turned off which effictively ended the threat. However the smoke was very thick and after performing my duties I quickly exited, coughing from the smoke. The siren continued to wail, awaking everyone. They all wanted to know if there was an actual fire and when they found out there was, they were more than a little freaked out. Old wooden construction like that would go up like a match stick. IT probably took about 15 minutes for the fire department to arrive. Shortly afterward the paramedics showed up as well. Everyone was fine, just a little frazzled. I told Ali of my attempt at firefighting. Needless to say, we were more than ready to get out of there after that. A wacky end to our stay.

The drive back sucked, at least the first half of it did. Most of the way up route 1 was stop and go. We thought there was an accident. Nope just lots of people pulling boats, going slow. Finally we hit an area where you could pass. I hit the gas and shoot by some cars that were annoying me. As I am cruising along, relieving some frustration, I notice some movement out of the corner of my eye. Then in the bottom left corner of the windshield I see a face. Within moments we have a full sized adult rat holding on for dear life on the windshield. Ali and I were speechless. I didn’t want the rat to fly off into traffic and become instant roadkill so I decelerated quickly and pulled off onto the grassy bumpy road bed. As I did the rat went to the passenger side and hopped off. We were a good hour and a half to two hours out of Key West. It had to have been there the entire time. Unreal. After we stopped for lunch, I popped the hood to make sure we had no other unwanted passengers along.

We pulled into home around 3:30. I helped Ali unpack inside and then I was outside, on the tractor , knocking down the grass, it looked like shit. As I was on the tractor I had one of those moments when you think about the weirdness of being in Key West playing firefighter a few hours ago to mowing the grass just like any other day. It always gives me pause.

A few numbers from the trip:

Over under on the amount of homeless we saw – 20
Gas mileage for the trip – 32mpg (with AC on entire time)
Number of tolls we had to pay for the total trip – 10
Most expensive price for unleaded regular gas – $2.49 (on key west)
Least expensive price for unleaded regular gas – $2.12 (one of the northern keys)

All of the pictures from the trip can be seen here.

On Tuesday night, before we left, Buttons had that low blood sugar seizure but seemed to recover somewhat before we left. The neighbors said they didn’t see any vomit while we were gone which is amazing. However shortly after we got home Buttons greeted us with more vomit. Then at 5am in the morning I am awakened by the sound of her vomiting at the foot of our bed. Furious, I shoot out of bed, grab her and throw her out into the living room onto the sofa. I am wishing death on the cat as I am trying to clean up 4 piles of puke in the dark at 5am. I didn’t bother going back to sleep. Once daylight struck, the cat didn’t look good. She didn’t want to eat, still threw up (even though it was only water) and looked odd in the face. She was very weak and worsened throughout the day. By the time Ali got home I didn’t know how long Buds had. We agreed we would give it the night and if she made it we would take her to the vet. Part of me is more than ready for her to pass on. Dealing with her diabetes for nearly 4 years has been tough on the cat and us and it’s been getting progressively worse. So I closed the bedroom door with the the knowledge that in the morning I could be coming out to a deceased cat.

Morning came and I cautiously opened the door. Buttons was laying on the kitchen floor, still alive but still looking like death. So we crated her up and Ali took her to the vet today. I am not looking for any heroic actions to prolong the cats life. If there is something simple that can be done to help her, fine but we are at the point when we are ready for it to be over with. It makes me very sad to make decisions about ending an animals life but I figure it has to happen sooner or later. She is staying at the vet overnight and we will have more news tomorrow.

After seeing the pictures of myself in key west and having a hard time distinguishing between the street people and myself due to my shaggy, unkept appearance, I begged Ali to cut my hair last night. I didn’t go extreme buzz like I used to but it still was like shearing a sheep. So much hair. My 8 month experiment has concluded.

I got my second character in WoW to level 40. It was something I was working towards for a couple weeks and now that I hit it I am going to cut back on my playing time. It has been extreme by any standard and all the hours at the computer probably have something to do with the chronically aching right wrist and shoulder I have been dealing with for a few months. Plus the lack of sleep does not do a body good.