Archives February 2006

On Saturday we had another 5k in Labelle. Labelle is in the middle of the state. Driving to it was a visual transformation from the perfectly landscaped, lush tropical vegatation and cookie cutter condo filled area of Naples to what looked like rural Pennsylania. You hardly would know you were in Florida except for an occasional cabbage palm here and there. There are no gated communities in Labelle. The run was part of the annual Swamp Cabbage festival, yes Swamp Cabbage Festival. The starting point of the race was right by the “Labelle Marina” which to us looked more like an old boat graveyard. It was filled with boats covered in green organic matter. Ironically, a lot of these ancient looking things had For Sale signs on them. They only had 2 port o potties for 300 racers so instead of waiting in a 25 person line I just took a leak out of view.

The race itself was tough. Even though the temps were on the cool side in the 60’s, it was very humid. The start of the race had a gradual hill and then you were running into a headwind for a good distance. Even though Ali kept a strong pace through this early section, she spent a lot of energy and it slowed us down a bit later. The first half of the run was down what almost seemed to be a road to nowhere with nothing on either side but dense wild vegetation. Early on I saw a familiar old guy ahead of us, he is really old, probably closer to 80 than 70. We beat him in the race last week. I really wanted to step on the gas and pass him but Ali was really struggling so we didn’t make up any ground.

The last part of the race was on the parade route which by now had filled with swamp cabbage supporters whom cheered on the race participants. There was a small raised drawbridge we had to cross towards the end. We finished strong but for the first time did not beat our prior race time, finishing in 28:22 (28:05 last week). Ali had hopes of finishing in the top 3 this time. Based on last year’s entries, she had a legitimate shot to do it. Unfortunately the race had many more entries this year and Ali wound up 5th in her age group still a great finish. More impressive, out of over 80 plus female entries, Ali finished 17th.

After the race we walked by the various swamp cabbage festivities. I never knew there were so many swamp cabbage items. I read the parade drew 30,000 people. Labelle was a very unique place to have a race, somehow sheltered from the crushing wave of people flocking to the state. I’ll definitely run it next year.

Someone at work recommended the movie, The Man. They told me it was hilarious, so much so that her ribs hurt from laughing. So I downloaded the movie and watched it this weekend. What the hell, I must have seen the unfunny version. The movie was a C- at best. I laughed hard exactly twice at 2 flatulence scenes. Otherwise it was just dumb, thankfully it was short as well, not even an hour and a half. I will never understand why Samuel Jackson is cast in all of these movies…he isn’t that good.

The Olympics wrapped up last night and I caught some of the closing ceremonies. Even though I only caught sparse bits of it, I still was sad to see it close. Contrary to what Bryant Gumble thinks, the winter olympics are interesting if for no other reason than they are only held every 4 years. It is interesting to see athletes that dedicate their lives to sports that otherwise never see the light of day on tv. I was glad that Bode Miller wiffed on medals, he is the poster child for the cocky, ignorant American. I imagined how many of these athletes must have felt as the games closed. They spent the last 4 years or more anticipating this great event and now it’s over. I can understand some of the stories of post olympic depression for athletes. It has to be tough.

The party van left us stranded yesterday. We took it to my mom’s to drop off her taxes. Mom wasn’t even home, we just wanted to get out of the house for a bit. So we dropped off the paperwork and Ali hopped in the driver’s seat. I wanted her to drive home to get more practice driving the van since she will be taking it to Orlando in April. I was going to chill in the back and watch TV. She turns the key and CLICK. The same click I battled with a few weeks ago. She tries several times, click, click, click. I tell her I would do it, she must be doing something wrong, CLICK. Son of a bitch. Since I replaced the lock cylinder it has been working 100%, I was sure I fixed it. So I go inside and grab some of the sparse tools of my mom’s and popped and reinstalled the lock cylinder a dozen times, I messed with the battery connections, I crawled underneath and looked around. I f’d around with the thing for at least an hour, each turn of the key adding on to my mounting frustration.I just couldn’t believe the problem was back. I am the sort that normally has a good mind for troubleshooting. If plan A fails, then there is plan B, then plan C etc… Well I was out of letters. Ali called my mom at work and she ran home quick so we could drop her back off at work, drive home, pickup the truck and drive back to mom’s work to give her the car back. On the way back we swung by the dead van again and I tried to hook jumper cables up just for the hell of it. That did nothing either. So the van is still there in my mom’s driveway. On the way home we swung by the auto parts store and I ordered the other ignition switch component I was going to order when this first happened, hoping it will be the answer. Unfortunately I probably won’t be able to get back to my mom’s till Saturday to try it out. If this effort fails then I will more than likely need to get the van towed somewhere to have it looked at. If this part doesn’t fix it, the next thing I would suspect is the starter motor itself which is beyond the scope of what I would tackle myself. I was so damn frustrated during the drive home. What was supposed to be a quick hour and a half trip turned out to be an all afternoon frustration filled event, the joys of used vehicle ownership.

I woke up in such a shitty mood this morning. ….

On Wednesday after work Ali and I hit another distance personal best, covering 5.25 miles, less than a mile off a 10k. It was tough and afterward I ate everything in sight. I feel tired in a totally different kind of way when we do the distance training runs. Tomorrow we have another 5k race in LaBelle.

I just love the latest mess W has gotten himself into with the UAE group buying US ports. It is great to see a bi-partisan lynch mob coming after him. Even if the takeover is 100% completely legit, Bush should have realized how this would appear to the US public. His staunch support of the move just further cements his role as one of the most ignorant presidents of all time. Freedom, terror, 911, 911, God Bless America. Kudos.

I was ok with who got axed last night on AI except for the one good looking chick. She wasn’t a fantastic singer but she was better than some and not nearly annoying as that girl from New York (Brenna?) with minimal talent and maximum attitude. I can’t wait till she is gone.

I finally got the Tivo to record some hot Winter Olympic curling action. For a sport that in reality is as captivating as emptying the dishwasher, I watch it with great interest. The furious sweeping, the hilarious release approach of the stone is all very fun for me to watch. If you stop laughing long enough you realize that the precision these guys exhibit really is pretty amazing.

Our tax refund has grown even larger thanks to tax breaks for hurricane victims. We are getting back enough now to really help soften the blow once the new pool cage goes up.

Someone told me that the parade is the largest night time parade in the USA, damn…

Not that many people know or even care since they aren’t watching the olympics, but the stunt the female USA snowboarder pulled was classic. In the finals for her event there were 4 racers, 2 of them wiped out and the only other one left was waaaaay behind. As the USA chick was nearing the finish line, she glanced back and saw her huge lead and decided it would be a good time to showboat and pull a “method” (stunt) over one of the last hills. You guessed it, she wiped out and lost what was a sure gold medal. To make matters worse after the race she denied she was showboating. Dumb ass. She’ll be beating herself up about that for the rest of her life.

The big event of the weekend was our 5k at the Festival of Light. The race was HUGE with almost 1300 entries. The start line was a mess, for the first minute or so you are shoulder to shoulder, putzing along, trying to not trip or run into someone. We ran the parade route that was lined with people waiting for the parade. Their cheers were really motivating, pushing us to our fastest first mile ever, below 9 minutes. The fast pace wore Ali out but she pushed on, there was a bit of a mid-race fade but she picked up towards the end. I got a laugh at the turnaround from an old guy that was helping work the race. He was wearing a “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt. As we came to the final straightway I saw the clock at 27 and change. I said something to Ali to try to get her to accelerate so we could get a sub 28 time, she yelled at me that she was pushing already so I shut up. We crossed at 28:15 official time but according to the GPS our real time was 28:05. Ali once again dropped her time by more than 30 seconds, a fantastic effort. After the run they had food and beer as well as the awards, however the awards drug out forever. Ali had outside hopes of getting an award. We checked the results and she finished 14th out of 51 in her age group, a great finish. If we can knock another minute and a half off her time she will be right in the pack of women that could medal in any race. You can see all the results from the race here. When we left we caught glimpses of the parade, it looked like SW Florida’s version of the Macy’s parade, the street was lined 6 or 7 deep everywhere. We were too pooped to consider sticking around to watch it all.

The frost we had last Tuesday morning really made a mess of our landscape. I only hope the damaged plants rebound. I walked around and took pictures of the mess.

The 3 day weekend was otherwise enjoyable. Ali had a PC show on Sunday and Nicki and I went on some errands. Ali is less uptight about me leaving Nicki in the car when I take the party van. I went to my moms to redo my mailbox repair I did a couple weeks ago and picked up some odds and ends for various projects. I hooked up one of those small sets of rabbit ears to the TV in the van so we can get FOX, NBC and ABC clearly now, instead of just ABC. I had both water tractors going for a good portion of the weekend, hoping extensive watering would somehow undo the frost damage, it still looks shitty. On Sunday our old neighbors stopped by, they were in the area and wanted to see their old house. It was good to see them.

On Monday I had off from work, I slammed through a few household chores and then played WoW for the majority of the day. I got an email from our accountant saying we were getting a decent refund this year which is well needed to help offset the huge pool cage bill coming our way.

I have been watching some of the Winter Olympics most nights. I heard the ratings have been dismal. That is too bad, I find it interesting. I just wish they showed curling during the nighttime NBC broadcast, that sport is compelling to me for some reason.

Last night I remember waking up hearing the pleasant sound of the cat throwing up so I knew when I got up this morning I would have something to clean up. I turned the corner and saw a small streak of barf, ugh oh well no big deal. I get to th kitchen, another puddle of puke but hey it’s on the tile, not bad. As I walk back to the first spot with a wet paper towel I see more all over the table leg and the carpet around it. What the F, why in the world did the cat have to throw up there, stupid animal. Now I was getting angry. I clean up the spots and then find yet another one to the right of the kitchen island, I am fuming, yelling at the cat now. I turn on the light to the office, another pile there! You goddamn f’ing cat, I scream at her and throw the empty carboard roll from the used up paper towels at her. I am slamming things around and am in full rage mode now, feeling like I would be quite capable of twisting the cats head off at that moment. Finally I treat the 5 spots and get to start the enjoyable act of scooping cat shit. I flick on the light and see yet another pile on the little carpet mat all ground in with cat litter. By now Ali was awake from my carrying on. The cat kept trying to come into the laundry room to eat but I kept screaming at her to get out of my sight and she scurried away. I was so angry…..when I get that that mad I entertain doing things a sane person would never consider. Nicki thought I was mad at her too and she hid in the bedroom.

I get a 3 day weekend again. Damn working for the government is sweet.

I had a followup visit to the dermatologist on Tuesday. Ali noticed I had another discolored spot inside my hairline a little above where the bad spot was cut off. The doc took a shaving of it and I got a call yesterday saying it was a “mildly suspicious mole that could develop into a melonoma” and they wanted to cut it out. So now in a few weeks I go back in to have more flesh carved out of my head. I am not looking forward to it.

Last night Ali and I were running and I indicated in a breathless sentence that we should go back via Lakeshire. Ali said “what?” I quickly corrected myself and said “Lakewood, I meant Lakewood..” Lakeshire is the name of a town in World of Warcraft…

In the world of MMORPG’s there is a whole new language to learn that is filled with acronyms. Acronyms are used to minimize typing time. One of the acronyms you don’t want thrown your way is “L2P”. L2P stands for “Learn to play”, a way for someone to indicate that they think you are a player with a low skill level. Sometimes it will be even more cutting by saying “L2P noob!” A noob is short for newbie, meaning someone new to the game that knows very little. Few things will piss another player off more than throwing those few letters their way. I have received and delivered that insult many, many times.

When I got home last night I went around with a flashlight and uncovered the plants. It wasn’t pretty, we had a lot of damage. Many of the plants and trees took a hit. Hopefully they will bounce back. It was bad timing, our tomato plants are just starting to pump out tomatoes and our apple, lemon and lime trees had fruit on them as well.

We had a nice valentine’s day, I sent roses to work for Ali and per Ali’s request we picked up pizza on the way home. We followed up with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. Ali surprised me with a gift certificate to a spa. I never had a spa thing so it should be interesting.

After work I stopped at the vet to pick the ashes of Maggie. Bringing them home again stirred up the sadness from the event. Tuki is still frequently making Maggie’s noises, seemingly waiting for her to reply. We sold her cage and threw out her stuff, but the sense of loss still lingers….

We skipped running after work last night because we wanted to get home while there was still daylight to cover whatever plants we could. Ali bundled up like we were going out into the arctic. We used weedblock, empty pots and bed sheets to wrap up the delicate plants and trees. We finished up just as it was getting pitch dark. This morning the one outdoor thermometer read 37 degrees (the one on a house wall) while the weather station read 27 degrees, I guess the actual temperature was somwhere in the middle. Everything was covered by frost. Hopefully this is the end of the deep freeze, it is supposed to get to the mid 60’s today and then back into the 70’s for the forseeable future. I think I have finally been in Florida long enough that my tolerance to cold is dropping. The cold seems to sting more than I remember.

Nicki likes to flop on our bed in the morning while we get ready for work, I took a cute picture of her this morning.

A while back Ali made up a cleanup schedule. It basically listed one area of the house that we would thoroughly clean each month. It was a way to keep things in order. However we have not really paid attention to it. This past weekend I told her I wanted to start sticking to it. February was garage month. I haven’t thoroughly cleaned the garage since we moved in. We pulled every thing out of it, swept it out, sucked out the spider webs, threw out shit we didn’t need, organized and put everything back. It was probably the biggest of all the cleanup jobs we would have. The entire process took about 3 and a half hours. Doing so enabled me to rediscover things I forgot I had, we had a shit load of junk in there. It looks 100% better and after rearranging the shelves and the fridge we have much more room.

Because of the cold, (Ali hates running in cold), we haven’t run since our 5 miler last Thursday. This Saturday we have our first race in over a month. It is another 5k but this one is big. It is run right before a huge parade along the parade route. The parade typically draws between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators, so the race will be lined with parade viewers cheering us on. I heard from others that it is one of the best 5k’s around to run in. I can’t wait.

It has been cold here for the better part of a week. In general this winter has been colder than any I recall since moving here. It has been getting down into the lower 40’s at night but tonight they are saying it could dip all the way into the 20’s!!!!!!!!!!! That is unbelievably cold for Naples Florida. Yesterday almost felt like a Pennsylvania winter day, it was gray and cold all day. Of course it could be worse, PA got over a foot and a half of snow on Sunday.

The county fair ended yesterday. We didn’t go once. We didn’t go for two reasons, we had a bad taste in our mouths from spending over 20 bucks just to get in the door last year for all of 45 minutes of time spent there and second, it has been cold all week. I could see the fair out our front window. They had a couple rides that looked interesting to me but I guess it will have to wait till next year.

My mood has been dark again. I asked Ali this morning if it was full moon again and of course it is. It is nasty, I feel like just crawling into a hole. Nothing feels right.

I caught a little of the Winter Olympics, I wish I saw the opening ceremonies, I saw some clips of it that looked pretty spectacular.

I downloaded Pumping Iron which we watched this weekend. It is a film from 1975 about Arnold’s Mr Olympia years. It was more entertaining than I expected. Seeing the world of bodybuilding up close along with seeing the mid 70’s style and fashion trends made for 90 minutes of good entertainment. Some of the things Arnold said during the movie made me understand where his political aspirations came from. One of the most shocking things he revealed was when his dad died he did not attend his funeral, he did not want to be distracted from his training for an upcoming event.

Last night we hit another running milestone, hitting the 5 mile mark. It was the farthest Ali ever ran and the 2nd farthest I ever did. We did it at a decent pace as well, covering the distance in 48 minutes and change. I was really wiped afterward. Even after eating a big supper and drinking a big glass of water, I stepped on the scale and weighed 4 pounds less than the day before. I was so tired that I dozed off for the last third of survivor. Running distance really gives you a sense of accomplishment, a sense of mental toughness but on the flipside it really wipes you out like little other exercise can do. If we can do 5 miles we could do a 10k (6.2 miles). We will give that a go soon.

Today at the gym I benched 325, well not really but sort of, kind of. I was doing lockouts which are basically taking the barbell off the hooks to the extended position and then back down to the hooks. The theory is doing lockouts at a heavy weight (much more than you could do a normal benchpress) conditions your body to doing heavier weight. I was able to move 325 exactly 1 time. In total I doubt if I moved the weight much more than 6 inches but at least it moved. It felt like if I tried to move the weight down towards my chest it would cut me in half. How these guys do 500-600 lb bench presses is mind blowing.

The blog recently passed 14,000 hits. In comparison to big sites, 14000 is nothing but for me it is a big number.

Anyone see the commercial moveon.org is running that morphs a pic of Nixon into Bush? Even I think it is a bit over the top but hey anything that will wake people up can’t be a bad thing.

Yesterday we took the party van to work. Ali and Nicki slept in the back while I drove. It was kinda cool.

I sometimes watch Trading Spouses, a wife swap sort of show. Normally it is just fun watching the train wreck. This week there was a guy that was basically a jerk, he wanted everything his way, he ignored 2 of his 3 kids and seemed like a real asshole. Despite the efforts of the stand in mom to make him see the errors in his ways, he totally resisted and dismissed it all. Then just when we were ready to write the guy off as a total loser whom will never change or get it, he breaks down and admits he is doing things all wrong and if he doesn’t change he will wind up having kids that will hate him. It was a stunning reversal that totally changed his image to the viewer. It’s amazing how a little honesty and self reflection can be a powerful thing.

No more football, (the Pro Bowl doesn’t count), a bit of a bummer but it opens up my weekends to do a few other things.