Archives 2005

I was sent the latest CD from my nearly 40, ex-volleyball teammate of mine that also has been in bands for most of his adult life (well all of it I guess) After 20 years he is still trying to hit it big. Receiving his latest works inspired me to try my hand at writing a short song/prose.

Daylight breaks, the rush begins
The first cars on the road always win
Just five minutes late on departure is all it takes
To turn my commute from decent, into treading water, in a lake

The sun, the fun, it’s all outside the window
Yet my day to day seems the same
Wasn’t adult life supposed to be full of excitement
Instead of being chock full of the mundane?

Look for my new cd coming out soon……

I know it happened a few days ago but the Gary Sheffield incident really annoys me. To me, the video clearly depicts the fan trying to go for the ball initially and then realizing Sheffield was charging in like a bull, hurriedly pulled his arm out of there. Sheffield assumes the fan is trying to punch him and goes after the fan, twice. Even if the fan was trying something shady there is no excuse for Sheffield to do that. Take your millions of dollars, your roids and at least be a professional. Maybe he had some roid rage going on.

This pope election stuff really strikes me as comedic. I’m sure it is because of my non-religious upbringing along with the ridiculous over exposed media coverage of just about any newsworthy event. Yesterday at the gym I was on a cardio machine and notice the news channel had a small picture box in the corner of a chimney. What the hell is that? After a little squinting I figured out it was the chimney of the vatican. The camera was glued to the chimney to catch the first glimpse of white or black smoke, heheh so silly. Black smoke, oh no, no new pope today!

Then today, again cameras locked on the chimney. White smoke! No, wait a minute (as I am reading the teletype) Hmm is it white or gray, against the tile roof it looks gray but against the sky it looks white! What drama! Wait the bells are ringing! NEW POPE NEW POPE NEW POPE! Thousands of people packed shoulder to shoulder going mad like a rock concert crowd. It all made me laugh.

I finally got a chance to take pics of Nicki’s area with the sod and the pygmy palm in it. The page also has some pictures of when we went to the zoo with my in-laws.

When we went to our friends house on Friday we took Nicki with. They used to babysit her when she was smaller. They have a cat named Crash. In the past, Nicki was always curious about Crash and would chase him around a bit. Well since they were last together, Crash must have lost any fear of dogs. At first, Nicki was the aggressor. However that quickly changed, by the end of the night, the cat was chasing our dog around and she would cower under tables trying to find shelter. Ugh, how embarrassing. I told Ali she had babied the dog so much that she now fears cats. Time to buy Nicki a spiked collar.

On Friday after work we headed to our friends house for dinner. After we ate they brought out dominos. They said they would teach us how to play as the only thing I ever used dominos for was to build things that I would knock down shortly afterward. The game is simple enough but has some suprising strategy involved. I sucked at the game. Everyone else would immediately start planning out their “run”, matching like pieces. I just didn’t feel like doing that and instead made my decisions only when my turn came around. The object is to have the LEAST amount of points. Ali, with her analytical mind stomped everyone and I had a record setting poor performance, scoring more than double the points of the 3rd place player. I really sucked.

On Saturday and Sunday I spent the majority of the days helping my neighbor erect a 30′ by 40′ steel building. It looks like an airplane hangar. It is made of corrugated steel panels held together by bolts and nuts, lots and lots of them. The panels are put together to make arches and then each arch is hoisted into place and then bolted to the other panels. It was windy most of the weekend, causing problems, especially early on. When only 1 or 2 arches were up, they swayed in the wind in a manner that made me skeptical of this buildings capability to withstand 140 mph winds as advertised. However after we got a few more panels up the structure stiffened up and felt quite solid. He had a total of 8 or 9 people helping and we needed all of them. To attach the bolts was a two person operation. One on the inside of the building holding the nut while the other was outside tightening. My duties were outside the building mostly, turning in bolt after bolt.

My neighbor envisioned the job being done in a day. There were 20 arches that had to go up. However by 5 o’clock Saturday only 11 were up. That was as far as he went. I felt bad for him because he rented all this crap for the job and I knew how I was about projects. I would want to get it DONE. So even though most of his help that he had for Saturday was unavailable for Sunday, I told him I would come over again on Sunday to help. On Sunday we only had 4 people total so it was impossible to hoist the arches into place in one peice so he attempted to build the arch piece by piece which was extremely time consuming and frustrating. He conceded that it was going to get done this weekend. So we used the time to put all the remaining pieces together on the ground so when he did have enough help we could go back to lifting entire arches into place.

My neigbors son had his dog there on Saturday, a loveable female pit bull named “Vicious”, no lie. The weather, besides the wind was tolerable. being in the upper 70’s for most of the day. All my time on top of the steel, reflective building microwaved my face. I looked like I fell asleep at the beach for 8 hours. My fingers were raw from handling endless pieces of small hardware for 2 days. However it felt good to lend a hand, to bust your ass for no other reason than you know you would appreciate it if someone did the same for you. My neigbors 72 year old dad was there both days. He has a pace maker and a stint that was put in within the past year and he was out there busting ass as hard as anyone. It was something else. When I asked my neighbor about him he just said “He loves to work” I can only hope I am able to do the same if I make it to see my 72nd year. if I would be unable to work in some capacity to help make myself feel useful, my desire to stick around this planet would be next to nil.

Not much to report. Didn’t go to sleep until 1:30 am. Of course I was playing WoW. Ironically I am not horribly tired right now. I am in the middle of chugging my extra large coffee so that could be masking the exhaustion.

This weekend I volunteered to help my neighbor put up a huge bolt together storage building. This is the same guy that gave us the old fencing to do Nicki’s area so it is the least I can do to thank him.

Next weekend I am tentatively scheduled to launch my 05 volleyball campaign. It should be interesting. My feet haven’t left terra firma since December. I “practiced” for the tourney the other night by hitting a flat volleyball against the garage 20 times to see if it hurt or not. I’m sure things will be ugly and I am crossing my fingers that my body holds up. I know my vball career is quickly approaching it’s twilight. I can hardly do my normal gym routine without hurting myself nowadays. I can only imagine what new aches and pains will await me from a full day of doubles volleyball.

For the first time in my taxpaying life, I had to pay in to the system this year. Not a buck or two either, almost 900 bucks. Over the past few years we normally have been consistently receiving refunds between 1 and 2k. The big turnaround this year of course is because of something I did.

My 401k from my days at GE had just been sitting out there since I left the company. It didn’t have a huge amount of money in it. This past year I decided to cash it out to use to pay off some long term debt and some other things. When I withdrew the money I took an immediate up front 20% tax hit. I foolishly thought this was the extent of my tax burden. When our accountant returned the bad news he told me that there was another 10% tax penalty that I had to pay and the withdrawl got thrown on top of our taxable income, knocking us into a higher tax bracket, further increasing the pain. If I had it to do over again I would still cash it out but I would have made provisions for the tax consequences up front. At my job I have a 401k-like program as well as getting a pension so I felt pretty secure with liquidating the funds. Live and learn.

Things should start getting back to normal. Our company left this morning. Last night we went out for one last dinner at my favorite place, Carraba’s. As always the food was good. The waitress was a bit on the cold side, something that is very rare at Carraba’s. She had an eastern european accent. She got a little bitchy after my brother-in-law told her he no longer needed the beer that he had ordered 10-15 minutes ago. We were halfway through the meal by that time and it was happy hour so they gave you 2 for 1. Pounding 2 beers at that point would make for questionable driving ability. But after that little incident settled down we had a nice rest of the meal. Of course the kids took center stage. The 2 year old was playing musical chairs throughout, never happy to stay in one spot for very long.

After we got home we watched some TV and played with the kids. Throughout the 3 days, my niece desperately wanted to interact with Nicki, but her loud, aggressive attempts spooked Nicki out and she would do nothing but growl and hide. Last night she tried some more and got the same result. I gave my niece a hug goodbye as I wouldn’t see them this morning since I would be off to work before they got up. She is a cute little girl and enjoys her time with “Uncle Shawn”

My recent efforts to shave off extra pounds, combined with my cut back lifting sessions to allow things to heal has cut back my strength dramatically in a short period of time. I benched yesterday and was awestruck at how little I could do. It was like I hadn’t lifted in 6 months. I am unsure if I am happier being lighter, leaner and weaker or bigger, heavier and stronger. My mental makeup doesn’t handle not being able to do once I what could from a performance level very well. I am hoping the majority of it is from my little hiatus. Even though I never speak to the majority of other guys at the gym, there is a silent, never ending competition going on. If Joe Schmoe who looks to be about your size is pushing 225 eight times than you sure as hell don’t want to be huffing and puffing on rep 2. Is it pointless and stupid? Yea but so are lots of other things in life.

I was in an area, minding my own business when I got attacked by 3 horde players. Of course it made me mad so I went back for more. I had no chance of course but I wanted to annoy them. So I would send in my demon to attack them and then run. I would cast fear on them, trying to make them run into dinosaurs that would attack them. However most of my attempts to annoy eventually resulted in my death.

Later I spotted one of the three musketeers go off on his own. I wanted revenge so I chased him which he ignored for awhile. He was 4 levels higher than me so he figured it wasn’t worth engaging me. But eventually he got tired of me being on his heels and he turned to fight. By the time he got to me I had laid 3 DOT (damage over time) spells on him. Then once he started beating on me I cast fear on him so he ran away. As he was running about wildly under the effect of my fear spell, I hit him repeatedly with other long range attacks. He came running back in and hammered on me some more before I got another fear spell off. I was down to maybe 15% health so it was do or die.

He got tired of my demon nailing him with fireballs so he took a second to kill him. That gave me just enough time to get off one more shot as he approached me. Just as he was about to strike me with what probably would have been a fatal blow, he dropped at my feet. It was funny as hell and sweet, sweet revenge for his ganking behavior.

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law arrived around noon on Saturday along with my 2 year and 6 month old neices. I hadn’t seen them in 6 months or so. The first thing that struck me was the amount of stuff that accompanied them. I remember wondering how they got all this on the plane with them. Suitcases, bags, stroller, toys, it was all jammed into the back of the Volvo station wagon they rented.

My 2 year old neice had been talking about how excited she was to see Nicki again. The last time she was down she was only 1 so she was much less threatening to Nicki. Now that Lauryn has the ability to PURSUE, Nicki wanted nothing to do with her. She would retreat and growl whenever my neice would approach her. The huge mountain of supplies they brought with landed mostly on the kitchen counter and reproduced from there. Having 2 children in the house produces a dramatic and instantaneous change in the environment.

After the initial excitement died down we started talking about dinner ideas. We decided to go to the new Cheesecake Factory that opened up in the past few months. It was a saturday at 6:30 in the evening so we knew it would be a substantial wait. When we arrived we saw lots of people mulling around outside, confirming we would have time to kill. When we gave our names they said it would a 65 to 85 minute wait. Woah. They had so many people waiting that they said we should come back in 15 minutes to pick up the buzzer, they had none. We came up with a plan to make it easier. We sent the women with the kids over to the mall while my brother-in-law and I would drink at the bar, works for me. Our bartender looked like she was 16. We drank and watched the Masters at the bar for maybe 45 minutes. I had just finished my second 22 ounce beer when the buzzer went off. Ah damn, the women weren’t back yet. So I hurriedly called them on my cell phone to get them back. Luckily they were already on their way. Even though the restaurant was full, it had a very large seating capacity so they were able to keep the bodies moving. The idea of under promising and over delivering on wait times is a good thing. I really liked the place, the food was great and the cheesecake for desert was even better. Of course after eating like that I felt like a glutton. Throughout the dinner we of course had 95% of our attention directed towards the kids. Either entertaining the 2 year old or picking stuff off the floor the 6 month old would throw repeatedly. By the time we finished up and got home it was close to 10. I was very tired. A half day of kids was enough to drain me.

On Sunday we decided to go to the local zoo. I hadn’t been there in many years for whatever reason. We got there early, hoping to avoid crowds, which we did. It was really nice. The zoo here is unique in it’s setting. The trees and plants are as interesting as the animals. It is really a cool place to spend a day. As we walked around I pocketed seeds that dropped off various trees in hopes of planting them and someday having my own bit of paradise in my own yard. We saw the gambit of animals from alligators to tigers. We helped feed the kangaroos and watched them feed the gators. We spent around 4 hours there, a perfect amount of time. The kids had some grumpy spells thrown in there. but nothing too severe.

When we got back we were all kinda pooped. The kids were asleep. So I relaxed out in the pool and we decided to eat leftovers at home. The evening was spent entertaining the kids while the TV was on. I snuck away for a bit and played some WoW to relax. Tonight we are doing another dinner and they fly out tomorrow morning.

Everytime I am around people with young kids it makes me imagine transposing myself into their shoes and thinking about how I would handle such things. It seems a bit overwhelming, a lot of sacrificing of one’s self occurs and the minimum 18 year commitment is more than a little daunting. However there are aspects of it that are appealing. The bond between a child and their parents is unique and something that can’t be accomplished in any other way. But do I need to contribute to a world population that is already out of control? Do I need to bring a kid into a world that is as rotten as this one is? The answer is a resounding “I don’t know”

Yesterday I flipped on the radio at home while I was making our lunches for work and I heard music. Hmm that’s odd, it’s after 6am, where is Stern? The music continued and I dismissed it as a glitch. We hop in the car, flip on Krock, music, no Stern. WTF? Oh well I flipped on the satellite radio and listened to music (even though I really don’t like doing that in the morning) I get to work, flip on the radio, music, no Stern and then I hear a station annoucement. It basically said the contract with the Stern show expired Wednesday and Howard decided to not renew. What the hell??????? I was pissed. First I was pissed that they knew this was coming and did not say anything and just let us run into the wall. Second I knew this was BS and it was the station that decided to not renew because Stern is going to Sirius.

I heard the announcement come on time and again, each time I got increasingly annoyed at the prospect of being Sternless for 8 months. Eventually I responded as you would expect, the emails started flying. First I sent one to the on air jock, asking him why he was lying about Stern’s absence and chastised him for reading such a phony sounding response from management. Then I took aim at the program director. Again I challenged him to defend the move and told him that instead of enjoying strong ratings for the next 8 months he instead caused me to boycott his station forever.

Evidently I made enough impression to get a response. The PD told me that the station did want to renew Stern for the last 8 months, however Stern was not interested. The reason he was not interested was because the station owners also own the Miami station that has butchered and censored Stern’s show endlessly. So as retaliation, Stern told our local station, owned by the same group to go to hell.

Well I felt bad for coming down so hard on them and apologized for doing so but I was still really bummed about it. This morning on my drive in I am channel changing like mad, trying to find something to fill the void, the NFL channel, Fox News, or music channels all left me empty. Damn this is gonna suck.

My brother and sister in-law arrive tomorrow for a quick hitting visit. I fired up the pool heater and expect to have a busy but fun weekend with them.

Todays World of Warcraft term:

gank

– To attack an opposing player when there is little to no chance that you will lose. For example, attacking a player when he is engaged with a monster and is already at a low health level.

– To attack a player that is a much lower level than yourself, posing no challenge to your ability while causing undo grief to the target player.

– to be a cheap ass loser