Archives December 2005

It was a busy weekend. Friday after work I stopped at the local Home Depot to get materials to throw up a temporary fence around the pool area. I had a rough idea in my head of what I wanted to do, but didn’t have the fine details nailed down so I bought some extra supplies just in case. I wanted to get to bed early Friday night because I was getting up at 5am to drive up to Siesta Keys to play in a volleyball tournament. Of course I didn’t and wound up staying up till after 11.

I drug myself out of bed and hit the road. I got there in plenty of time. This tournament was run by a new group that was sponsored by Hawaiian Tropic. Supposedly the event was going to have authentic Hawaiian Tropic girls there which never panned out. The weather was on the cool side, starting in the mid 60’s and only warming up maybe a half dozen degrees from there. Randall got there an hour later than me so I spent the time just walking around, figuring I would see some familiar faces from the other tournaments we play. But no, I didn’t recognize anyone so I just walked around by myself, like a loser, waiting for my partner to arrive. They happened to be running a 5k race at the beach that day as well. It was a cool course, they ran right along the ocean shoreline.

This tournament had no BB division which is what we always play, so our choices were either A or B. I told Randall I vowed to never play B again so we opted for A. The last time I played in the A division was with Rich in the 2000 Pottstown Rumble. Playing in A, along with my abstinence from doing anything volleyball related since my last tourney in September, set my expectation levels low. There were 11 teams and we got put on a 3 team net, which was a weird format. Both the other teams on our net were good, one had a very good player that obviously could play AA or better. We lost to the team with the stud player twice and then we split with the other team. Every single game was close and overall I thought we played well with all things considered. 1-3 on our net was actually good enough to make the playoffs. However we sat for an hour or more before the playoffs. The upper 60’s temperature really accelerated the stiffening up process and both Randall and I had a hard time getting loose for the playoff game. Randall had a worse time of it than me as his back was really bugging him. We lost our playoff game without much fuss, but we could definitely could have beat the team in better circumstances.

I think of all the rule changes that have happened over the last few years in vball like the smaller court, let serves, block counts as a touch, nothing has affected our game more than rally scoring. Rally scoring makes you tentative with the serve, it makes any run of bad luck twice as bad because you lose points both on receive AND serve. The first year Randall and I played, we played mostly tourneys with the tour that still used side out scoring and we did well. This year the tour switched to rally as well and we struggled all year. Randall and I normally seem to have brief runs in the game where things don’t go well or we make dumb unforced mistakes like serving out or mishitting a ball. With sideout, the opponent just gets the ball, with rally they get the ball and the point which really makes a huge difference in the flow of a game. I really prefer the old rules.

I told Randall that if we got done early enough, I was going to try to catch the race that Ali was running in Fort Myers at 4pm. Randall asked me if I was planning to pull a Bo Jackson and run the race as well? Bo Jackson was a superb athlete back in the 80’s that played baseball for the Royals and football with the Raiders. I laughed and said, no I wasn’t going to run it. But that planted a seed. I did a quick phyical inventory of how my body felt and determined that I could probably still run a 5k. How cool would that be to play a vball tournament AND run a 5k the same day? So I called up Ali and asked her to pack my running sneakers just in case. She was surprised at my ambition to run the race instead of observe it.

Our playoff game finished up a bit before 2pm which gave me just enough time to get there, get registered and run. I was a bit tired, a bit sore and achy but now that I set the goal in front of me there was little chance I would not do it. I pulled into the parking lot about 3:30 and met up with Ali. I still had the powdery sand from Siesta Keys beautiful beach all over my arms and legs. I probably looked quite odd. The gun sounded and I was off, off into my second athletic event of the day. The race was through a beautiful park that took us winding through paths, board walks and small bridges, it was really cool. We started fast, very fast for Ali. We ran our first mile in 9:20 something, the fastest she ever ran a mile. The fast start made the middle part of the race tough for Ali but she pushed through and finished strong. We finished in 31:54, a big improvement over our first 5k we ran on Veteran’s Day which we ran in 34:20. To knock 2 minutes off your time in the span of a month is a big accomplishment. I held up ok during the race but I could feel the aches and pains from the vball gig. I was proud of my dual event completion.

Sunday morning, despite my significant aches and pains I was determined to get the temporary fence up around the lanai so I popped some Advil and got busy. We haven’t even been able to get someone to give us an estimate on a new pool cage yet, and we don’t expect to have it rebuilt for at least 6 months so I wanted to get a fence up so at least Nicki could go out there without being tied up. The process went pretty well and Ali helped me during the last half of the project which involved creating 2 doors at either side. It doesn’t look too bad and will keep the mutt safe and sound.

During the afternoon, Ali mentioned that the plants we have above the kitchen cabinets needed to be watered. The way she normally does this is to pull each plant down and water it thoroughly over the sink. I told her that I watered the plants in a much faster way a couple weeks ago by just filling up a big cup with water and using my long arms to water it right in place. Ali said that I shouldn’t do that because the water could overfill the catch tray under the pot. I assured her that what I did worked fine the last time, which it did, and I would take care of it. So I dump one big cup in, refill and dump a second big cup in the first pot. I refill and move down the line and start watering the others. Then I hear a noise, I look and see drops of dirty water falling onto the counter. I glance up and see the spill tray is filled to the top. ARGH! First I grap a few paper towels and try to wipe up the water, hoping it would only be a few drops but soon I realized that it was not slowing down, instead it was running down faster. I had to call Ali to go grab a towel. She came out half laughing, half cursing that her warnings proved to be accurate. We scrambled to move the shit on the counter out of the way. It was a big mess. I explained to Ali that I probably only used 1 cup of water last time, instead of two, explaining the flood we were cleaning up. She didn’t want to hear it and instructed me to NEVER try to half ass water the plants again. 🙂

I watched the Eagles game. It had some positive aspects to it. Ryan Moats is going to be a quality player. Reggie Brown was a great draft pick. However, even though the game stayed close the entire time, and the Eagles even forced overtime, I never really thought they were going to win it. I have no faith in Mike McMahon and he once again cost the game when he scrambled and didn’t sense the pressure, fumbling the ball deep in Eagles territory, setting up the game winning field goal for the Giants. I wonder if Mike has ever completed more than 50% of his passes in his games as a starter in the NFL. If he has, I am sure you don’t need to count past 2. He is just way too inaccurate. To be fair, the Eagles offensive line was porous. It seemed they had no clue when it came to protecting the QB. Jon Runyan was mowed down by Strahan over and over again. In the big picture, I know at this point it is better for the Eagles to lose than to win. It still is tough to swallow to see them lose game after game to teams you know they would handle rather easily if they had the same team they opened the season with.

WoW is a huge, complex game. When you first start playing it seems overwhelming, the game is literally a world upon itself. Entering that world is almost like living someplace new, you have to learn how to get places, how things work, the places you want to see and the places you want to avoid. Now since I am almost a 1 year veteran of the game, I have a pretty good handle on things, but even now there are new people constantly coming into the game that are just trying to learn the ropes. These people are easily identified in the game, they are the ones asking questions that are considered “noob” in the general chat. Depending on my mood, sometimes I will post sarcastic silly answers to their questions. For example, someone said “Where do I find the panthers?” My reply, “In Pantherville of course, right across from Tigertown…” Other times I will simply ignore the newbies as I have other pressing matters of my own to attend to. Then sometimes I get inspired to help one of them, as I remember how much of a pain in the ass it was when I was learning. Last night was one of those times, I took a 17 year old noob through a quest to get his level 30 warrior weapon. I did this quest myself months ago and knew it was very long and tough. I signed on my high level character and ripped him through the entire thing in about an hour and a half. He was very grateful for my assistance and asked if there was anything he could do to repay me. I simply said “Enjoy the game…” as I fired off my hearthstone and disappeared.

Keener found this awesome WOW blog site.

This weekend I am playing in a vball tournament. I haven’t touched a ball since September. Ali is running a 5k solo that same day, very cool.

I didn’t think things could look much bleaker for the Eagles but yesterday the news comes down that Westbrook has a Lis Franc sprain in his foot which can be a horrible thing to rehab from, requiring up to a year in certain situations. I remember Duce Staley had one of those and it screwed him up for a loooong time. I can’t believe how badly things have gone for the team in the span of a year, it’s unreal.

This morning as I turned onto a side street during my commute to work I did a double take as I saw a mini-van to the side of the road with it’s hidden police lights flashing. The van evidently is the latest weapon in the massive Collier County police force arsenal. The van had someone pulled over. The van looked like it would be driven by a stereotypical soccer mom, complete with the magnetic pink ribbon on the back, very sneaky.

To say the Eagles game was bad would be a gross under statement. It was pathetic, embarassing and just plain ridiculous. It was about as lopsided as it can get. With all the injuries and the TO fiasco I was already ok with the team going downhill but I didn’t expect it to drive off the side of a 1000 foot cliff. That is exactly what they did last night. For this first time in a long time, I am ready for the season to end early. Here is my little mini-rant on the Eagles message board.

One of the games I have running on my chipped xbox is Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. This game is FANTASTIC. In this game you control Hulk. You basically destroy everything. It is one of best console games I ever played. You beat up buildings, you pick up cars and throw them at helicopters. You can pick up a truck, rip it in half and use the remnants as automobile boxing gloves. I can’t explain how much of a stress reliver it is to run around in Hulk’s skin, wrecking everything in sight for no other reason than you just can. If you are a video game freak and don’t at least rent this game, you are doing yourself a disservice.

At lunch I had to stop at the vet to get the special food our diabetic cat eats. At the vet they had a crate with a bunch of kittens in it. They were very cute as the played in the cage, hopped around and climbed the sides of the crate like a monkey. Then I remembered how our cats were once little cute things and how they have mutated to their present state. Spook is now a big fat ass with chronic, disgusting dandruff and does very little but sleep and spit up hairballs. Buttons is even more of a mess. She once was very heavy but her diabetes has thinned her out to the point where she feels light as a feather. Another by product of the disease is chronic gum disease that results in her teeth literally rotting in her mouth, emitting odors that make you think she is coming at you ass first. This weekend I noticed that one of her front fangs is now sticking out perpendicular, evidently it fell over. Most of the time Buttons has a look on her face like she got whacked by a 2×4. Surely a result of the multiple seizures she has endured. However she plods on, still able to carry on her basic cat duties. As cute as those kittens were, nothing will be able to convince me to get another one after my recent experiences with the latter stages of feline existence. 3 of our 5 pets could drop dead tomorrow and I would not grieve for more than a few minutes.

The weekend flew by. On Saturday, Ali was hosting a Pampered Chef thing at our house. While she was cooking Saturday morning I was a whirlwind cleaning machine, getting the house ship-shape since some of the guests would be people I work with. I didn’t want them to think I lived in a pigpen. The plan originally was once the people showed up, I would hole up in the bedroom with Nicki to keep her from making a loud barking, growling scene. However after a few minutes of carrying on, Nicki settled down so I hung out with all the women and drank beer and ate the food Ali made. It was cool.

Later Saturday after the party I told Ali we should have next to nothing to do on Sunday and should be able to have a laid back day. Well Sunday morning I got the bug to go get the christmas tree. We planned to do it next weekend but then I realized that doing so would first, be the day after Ali had a race and I had a volleyball tournament and second, it would only give us a tree for 2 weeks prior to the event, too short of a time period. So after we did our run, we headed out to get 2 trees, one for us and one for my mom. We decided to hit Lowe’s this year for the tree instead of Home Dept. Last year there was a mix up at HD that almost resulted in our tree leaving on the roof of someone else’s vehicle. However, Lowe’s was worse. Evidently they had been swamped with people because the tree selection was very small. Plus Lowe’s only had trees outside, no accessories and no register in the tent, meaning you had to go inside and wait in long lines to buy the tree. I was also annoyed to find that they had no tree stands for sale except 2 or 3 of those old style ones from the 60’s. We picked a nice little spruce for my mom and then I picked up another one that was pretty fat and looked cool at first. However when I picked it up I noticed the top of it was broken off and had a spot with a bit of a hole, I was bout to drop it back to the ground but Ali said she liked it. It instantly stuck with her as the Charlie Brown christmas tree that noone else would take so she wanted to take it home. Ok whatever, but it looks more like a bush. The person they had manning the tent had as much Christmas spirit as a terrorist, using short 1 or 2 word responses to any questions asked, ho, ho, ho. Then we had to go into the madness of Home Depot after all to get a stand. I bought the exact same model stand that I threw out the year before, I figured I just had a defective model. It is the swivel-straight type of stand. We stopped at my mom’s and put her tree in her stand and watered it for her to decorate when she got home from work.

I had to cut a bunch of the lower branches from our Christmas bush to get it to fit in the stand. After trimming the branches, it was still tooo fat so I had to get out the chainsaw and hack off some diameter of the trunk. Cutting all the those branches, further shortened the appearance of the tree, making it even more bush-like. We loaded the tree up with lights and ornaments, the tree topping star which normally sits high above the tree, instead was nestled among other branches so it would stay in place. Our tree definitely won’t be on the cover of any magazines but it’s our tree all the same and at least it didn’t wind up going to the island of misfit Christmas trees. You can see pictures of the tree/bush, our outside Xmas lights and the new furniture we got last month here. I realized that the stand I threw out last year actually probably worked just fine. After reading the directions for the new one I purchased, I found out you had to pull out the little lever to swivel the tree. Last year I cursed as I would press and press on the button but it wouldn’t swivel. Dumb me.

Again this year, my Christmas spirit is not up to par. I didn’t even feel like putting the train under the tree. Maybe I will reconsider and get it out later but I just wasn’t feeling it on Sunday. Ali and I usually do our Christmas lists on Amazon and people just buy off of that. However this year it has been a bit of a downer. Amazon has a ton of other businesses that sell under their site. Many of these things on our list are actually products these vendors sell instead of Amazon. When Amazon sends you something that is a gift, it is in generic box so you can’t tell what is inside, keeping the gift surprise intact. However these other vendors do not do this so we are getting boxes that have the product identified and we wind up knowing exactly what we are getting. I like the surprise element of the holiday so having that mostly sucked out is disappointing. We plan to wrap the stuff anyway and act like we didn’t know we were getting.

Tonight would be the night we would be going to dance class. However we are not going this month per my desires. I have to admit I feel a bit guilty about missing it but I don’t think it is because of a desire to dance as much as the feeling I am disappointing Ali and the dance teacher. I remind myself that I commited to a month and I did what I said I would do. I told Ali we can do more after the holidays, which we will, but I just don’t want it to be an every week of every month sort of thing. I still practice the steps we learned with Ali.

I am still angry that ESPN classic stopped showing the Jack LaLanne show. I wrote to them to complain. My evenings feel a whole less motivating now.

After starting 0-6 in my FF league I have roared back to win 5 of 6 and this week’s game could actually get me into the playoffs which was a pipe dream weeks ago. However I am not in a good spot. My team is up 8 points but my opponent has Matt Hasselback yet to play. I can only pray the Eagles beat the hell out of him tonight. Eli Manning basically f’d it up for me. He has consistently been good for 15-25 points for most of the season, yesterday he put up stinkin ZERO points, what terrible timing.

Don’t ask me where this came from. Ali and I were out driving and for some reason we decided to go to a hotel room to find Fran Tarkenton. We knocked on the door and are surprised to see Joe Gibbs answer the door. Coach Gibbs said Fran was in the shower getting ready. Joe sat back down and continued reading the sports section of the paper. There was some awkward silence but then I told coach that I was a hardcore Eagle fan but I still respected him as a coach and thought he did a great job. He thanked me for the compliment tersely and went back to reading the paper. Ali then started to engage him in conversation and he was more friendly with her at first. Then for some reason Ali started to try to sell him some sort of pills for his arthritis. I could tell Gibbs was getting annoyed by the look on his face and he took out a bottle of pills, shook them and said “these pills work fine for me..” Right around then, Fran came out in a sport coat, button down shirt and what appeared to be one of those polyester scarfs that were popular in the 70’s. Fran was nicer than Coach Gibbs and we talked to him a bit. I found myself talking more about his days on That’s Incredible rather than his football days. Fran said he had to get going and we said goodbye. Joe gave us a strained farewell greeting as he gave us the clear feeling he was annoyed by our presence.

End of dream.

On Monday on my last day off, I got inspired to put one of my planes up in the air. I hadn’t flown in a long time. It was windy and my initial launch attempt went bad. I threw it up and before I could get on the controls and correct it, the plane cut hard left, went through the bottle brush tree and hit the ground, snapping the propellor in the process. I was disappointed that it looked like my flying was over before it began.

I took the damaged plane inside and just for the hell of it, looked to see if I had any spare propellors. I was surprised to find one and I installed it on the plane and went back outside to try it again. This time I went farther out into the back yard and I gave it a little less throttle. I got it up in the air, but it was real squirelly in the air and shortly after I got it up, the radio receiver came unstuck from the plane and was dangling underneath it. If a cable unplugged it would be the end of the plane, so I carefully brought it in and landed it. I reattached the receiver and threw it back up. The plane still was all over the place. I brought it back down and noticed something. The connector that attaches to the aileron was hanging on by a thread. Holy S. If that would have let loose in the air the plane would have corkscrewed into the ground. I took the plane inside and reattached it with 2 little screws. The following flight was much more stable. It was still windy but I flew into the wind and used it to get the plane to a high elevation and then throttle back and just cruise. It was fun, a fun that I have pretty much forgotten about. I need to fly more.

My buddy at work is the one that opened me up to the xbox hacking stuff. I knew of it before but after reading that doing so required you to solder components to the board, I steered clear since my soldering skills are weak. I had a Sega Dreamcast that I used to run hacked stuff on. It was great, I had a library of several dozen games. Well after my buddy successfully “chipped” his xbox, and he told me of the wonders of copying and running games straight from the internal hdd, I was game for it. I bought the stuff and gave it to him to install. What I got back was a machine that has increased in leaps and bounds in it’s capabilities. I can copy games, run them from the hard drive, ftp to and from the xbox, run a media center application and still run conventional games as well. I literally have enough games to keep me occupied for endless days of video gaming madness.

I have turned commenting back on to see if the flood of blog spam has subsided. Feel free to post your feelings on future entries.

Just got my hacked xbox back. It is a nirvana for console gaming. Now I just need to pull myself away from WoW to play with it a bit.