Archives September 2006

Well today was chest day and my shoulders were frickin killing me.  Sometime during the workout I decided I am gonna stop once again with the supplementation.  During my 2 month phase I put on some muscle mass but nothing that is extremely noticeable.  Trying to do set after heavy set of exercises is just breaking me down instead of building me up.  I think I was more satisfied when I weighed between 185 and 190 and could run AND play volleyball without severe physical repercussions.  Now I am 195 to 200 and things hurt all the time.  My knees are both coming around.  I am hoping that if I drop a few pounds it may facilitate my getting back into running and/or volleyball.  We’ll see.  I plan on packing my running shoes all week with the hope of doing a one mile test run at the gym after work one day this week.

Today there was a woman at the gym that wore an outfit that was hard to not stop and stare at and not in a good way.  She is an older woman, if I were to guess, in her 50’s.  She wasn’t a big fatty but she was pretty soft all over.  She was wearing full length leotard pants with a matching sports bra top with her belly spilling out all over in between.  The outfit was white with a hideous floral print.  I was trying to think of what to compare it to but failed to be able to do so.  It just looked like hell.  Oh yea she had a headband on as well.   I guess it may have been in style when Jane Fonda exercise videos were all the rage? Hey if you need to shave some pounds, good for you for going to the gym and working towards it.  But until you get there, keep it covered.

Normally I go in more or less chronological order when I describe my weekend events.  Well not this time.  Let’s talk about the f’in Eagles game.  Week 1’s game against the Texans made the Eagles look good, real good and I even mentioned that it had to be measured appropriately since the Texans were the worst team in the league last year.  So I really had no idea what to expect when the Giants came to the Vet.

Well for 3 + quarters, it was awesome.  The Eagles dominated the Giants, their defense didn’t give Manning time to breath, sacking him 8 times.  They stuffed the run and other than the Giants opening drive for a TD the Birds D shut them down.  On the flip side, the offense was clicking as well, mixing in run and pass in almost a perfect balance.  They also ran a lot of hurry up offense that kept the Giants defense off balance and tired.  What a great game plan, what great execution, what a great way to perform in the home opener!  Maybe the Eagles actually are for real this year?? Then the 4th quarter happened.

They entered the quarter up 24 to 7 a huge, three score lead.  Even if the Eagles didn’t score again, all they had to do was make a few first downs, come up with a defensive stop or two and the game is wrapped up.  Well then it all started to unravel.  The Giants got a cheap TD when a fumble by them which should have been recovered by Michael Overrated Lewis, instead wound up getting booted around until it wound up being fallen on in the end zone by the Giants.  Even now I don’t quite get it, I thought you couldn’t advance a fumble?  Well evidently I don’t know the rules because the TD stood. 

Ok well still, the quarter was about halfway gone, the Eagles just need to take control and drive the ball with their offense like they did all game.   Well instead they adopt a new offensive strategy, run the ball into the huge pile and gain nothing.  On one of the runs, Westbrook, whose priority should have been to protect the ball first and foremost, decides to launch himself into a pile of Giants and has the ball knocked out.  A stupid, stupid play that puts the Giants deep in Eagles territory.  All of a sudden it is the Giants that can’t be stopped.  Eli Manning looks like Johnny Unitas as he completes pass after pass in front of an Eagles defense that all of a sudden decides to play soft instead of agressive.  And of course the Giants score another TD in short order.

The Eagles get the ball only up 3 but still, all they have to do is put a drive together to kill the clock.  Instead another weak 3 and out and punt.  The Giants immediately start driving again but then the Birds make a play and Trotter intercepts the ball and puts the Eagles in great field position at midfield!  Whew that was a close one, now all they have to do is make a couple first downs and the game is done.  Instead after making a first down and then executing some poorly thought out plays, they once again punt, giving the Giants the ball back with less than a minute to go. Ok it’s time for the D to stand up.

They fall down.  The continue to play soft, keep everything in front of you defense, allowing the Giants to drive into borderline field goal range in a matter of seconds. Then Trent Cole makes it easy for the Giants by drawing a 15 yard personal foul for KICKING another player.  What a f’in dumb ass, I mean come on….     They drive into comfortable field goal range and tie the game with 5 seconds to go.  I was besides myself with disbelief, screaming at the TV on several occasions.

 Overtime comes and after both teams have to punt, the Giants get the ball back and drive down the field and once again they are in long field goal range.  On a 3rd and long the Eagles went for broke and blitzed hard.  Manning throws a fluttering rainbow towards the endzone.  Once again Burress is matched up one on one with a CB a half foot shorter than him.  He shrugs him off like he is a child and snags the ball for the game winning TD.  My disgust was beyond words.

I have had a lot of hard Eagle losses over the years, losing all those Championship games and then the Super Bowl was tough for sure, but there is something about blowing a big lead that stings in a different, very lasting way.  Even today I am still bent out of shape about it.  It was an enbarrassment for the team and the fans.  The Eagles folded like a lawn chair when the pressure was on and there just is nothing worse in an Eagles fan book.  They took the win for granted and got soft.  I am so pissed off.  I would fill the Eagles message board with venom if it wasn’t so bogged down already with others already venting, it was soooooooooo bad.  All I can hope is they use this as a wake up call, as a reminider that when they have a lead, they need to pour it on, they need to grind the opponents face into the dirt until the game is over. They did exactly that against the Texans.  It was just a pathetic, embarrassing, unexcusable collapse.

Ok rewind to Friday.  Friday I was weak.  Normally I am pretty disciplined and motivated in most areas of my personality.  Friday I just felt wishy washy.  It first surfaced when I went to the gym on Friday.  I felt very unmotivated to be there.  I did my exercises but my intensity was absent.  I felt like I was going through the motions.  My gains in strength since beginning supplementation again have slid to a stop.  It feels like I am up against the limits of what my body wants to do.  My shoulders seem to be permanently sore and each time I throw heavy weight on the bench they get a little worse. 

After work I had several errands to run.  The first stop was WalMart to get parts for my prototype.  All the way over I was f’ing with the satellite radio, the shitty antenna connector was once again giving me fits, refusing to lock in place properly, frustrating the hell out of me.  I slammed it into the cradle time and again but kept getting the “No Antenna Detected” message on the display.  My last effort to jam it in bitched up the antenna connector and I had enough.  Even though I knew we didn’t need to spend the money, I grabbed a new receiver in Wal-Mart as well, an Exact Replay unit.  It took me a long time to get out of there, longer than expected.  I came back out to my truck and activated and hooked up the new unit on the spot.

I also had to stop at Sam’s and the grocery store on the way home.  I didn’t pull into the driveway until after 7:30.  I reluctantly told Ali of my satellite radio purchase.  It was only 70 bucks but still, zero bucks would have been better than 70.  I was just frustrated and sick of screwing with it.  The new radio has no piece of shit connectors to screw with.

First thing Saturday morning I dug deep into Half Life 2, I could tell I was getting close to the end so I wanted to push through.  The game has been great althogh not more than a little stressful.  The graphics are so good you really feel like you could reach through the monitor and touch things.  I heard the ending was lame, which it was, but getting to it was fun.  Towards the end your gravity gun gets mutated from a weapon that can pick up inanimate objects only into something that can pick up ANYTHING, including enemy bad guys.  It was quite fun snagging guys and then launching them into other bad guys, knocking them out.   Even when guys were dead, I would pick up their corpses and throw them around some more, just because it was fun. Like I said the ending was bad, it gave you no satisfaction.  You don’t get the girl, you don’t get accolades from the masses for saving mankind, you just get set up for the next release.  They really did f that up. It’s still a great game though.

I put together my prototype Saturday.  The secrecy is a mute point since it didn’t work well and there are other similar things out there.  My idea is a temporary block for a pool drain.  Pool vacuum cleaners have an annoying habit of getting stuck on the pool drain, staying there until you come out and pull it off.  It is a pain in the ass to be constantly monitoring the pool cleaner to see if it is stuck again.  My invention consists of a microwave plate cover with a 5 pound plate weight glued to the top.  I envisioned this contraption with big eyeloops attached that would allow the device to be placed and removed as needed on top of the pool drain.  The unit was supposed to block the pool cleaner from getting stuck on the drain.

I wanted to drill a few holes into the top of the plate cover to allow air to escape.  When I took the wood boring bit to the top, instead of drilling cleanly, it ripped a hole in the top and cracked it badly. The top was intact but looked like shit.  Oh well it is only a prototype, it doesn’t have to be pretty. So I took it into the hobby room and slapped some super glue on the 5 pound weight and let it set up.  On Sunday I went to test it.

I hopped in the end of the pool and grabbed my mutation.  The second it hit the water, the glue let loose and it came apart.  Hmm design flaw, well no problem I just want to test the functionality.  So I slap on some goggles and dive down and place the plate cover over the drain and dive a second time to place the 5 pound weight on top of it.  It took awhile for the vacuum to encounter the now covered drain but when it did the results were not good.  The vaccum still tried to go over the cover and wound up getting stranded at an angle stuck on it. Ugh.  Between the assembly problems, the fact that things are out there that do the same function and my failed test results, it’s put a serious damper on my enthusiasm.  However I do realize that with some design changes, namely a higher microwave plate cover, it would work.  The 5 pound weight was adequate to keep the vacuum from pushing the cover around.  I am not sure what my next move will be with it.  The more I look into the invention creation, patent obtaining processes it seems like a large pain in the ass.  An ideal situation would be me selling the concept to someone that could turn my prototype into reality and run with it.  Then they just give me a lot of money.  It’s not that simple. 🙁

Well anyway, Saturday continued with us knocking out the grass mowing and then we went to Home Depot.  I had been building a list of things I needed from Home Depot for a few weeks.  Ali just snagged a 50 dollar gift card for HD from doing mypoints.com surfing so it was a good time to go get it.  I snagged a bunch of little things to address several needs around the house.  When we got home, while Ali caught some zzz’s, I went whirlwind style around the house and performed most of the maintenance that the items required.  The only thing that was left for Sunday was caulking the pool cage.

The pool cage guys did a decent job of installing the cage but for some reason the did not caulk the part of the frame in contact with the cement pad.  There were several spots where the gap was as big as a quarter inch which was allowing all sorts of bugs and small frogs/toads to enter into the lanai area.  So on Sunday morning,armed with 2 tubes of caulk, I gooped up pretty much the entire outside perimeter of the cage, hopefully it will dramatically reduce the amount of critters we are seeing inside the cage.

On Saturday night we watched RV, sort of a 2006 version of National Lampoon Vacation.  Man it was funny.  I laughed as hard as I have at a movie in a looooong time.  I had no idea it would be that good.  Robin Williams did a great job.  It is a definite must rent/buy flick. (of course I did neither) It gets an A, loved it.

Ok well that’s it, damn what a long entry, sorry.

Last night as I followed Ali around on my bike, I had my Treo with and snapped quite a few pics along the way, just for the hell of it.  Ali’s route takes her all over the place.  The picture quality is less than spectacular, but good enough to get the point across. Take a look at the pics here. Ali had to stop the run short because her knee was hurting.  I’m worried that she is starting to go down the same knee trouble filled road I have been travelling for the last 8 or 9 years.  She iced it up for quite awhile last night.

I did some more digging around yesterday in regards to the invention I have in my head.  I was somewhat disappointed to find 3 devices out there (on ebay of all places) that perform the same function my idea does.  However the difference is the devices I saw were designed to be installed and left installed permanently, where as my device would be put in place as needed and then easily removedso it doesn’t permanently alter anything and there is no installation.  Plus the things I saw cost 60 to 70 bucks,  I envision my thing being a 20 dollar item.  I dunno, seeing those items took some of the wind out of my sails but I am going to still build my prototype.

The weekend is low key.

I keep forgetting to mention this guy I see biking around several times a week.  He rides a cruiser style bike with high handlebars so he sits very upright.  I’m guessing he is in his 30’s.  He has very short hair and as a result you can see the area on top is starting to thin already.  I see him tooling around here and there, over lunch, after work, at various places near the government center.  He is always wearing similar outfits, long khaki style shorts and a large, oversized, button down shirt that hangs out that normally has a loud print.  He’s a skinny guy so it sort of hangs off him.  The funny part, to me at least is whenever I see him, without fail, he has a cancer stick either in his mouth or in his hand.  It just looks funny seeing a guy biking with a cigarette in his mouth.  Maybe it is the irony of it, doing a psuedo healthy thing like riding a bike while partaking in one of the unhealthiest activities you can do, smoking.  I often wonder what his vocation is. 

Yesterday I had something happen to me that rarely happens in SW Florida, a positive experience with a service company!!  I left work early as I was told a tech would be at my house between 2 and 4.  Over the last 6 years here I have had been told someone would be out between time X and Y and much more often than not they arrived well after that window, if they arrived at all.  Well the house was a toasty 87 degrees when I got home so I hoped this time would be different.

You can imagine my surprise when I got a call at 3 o’clock from their main office saying a tech was on their way.  Oh my God, a call to say they were going to arrive on time??? This is unheard of!!  The guy pulled up to the driveway about 3:30.  His name was Chris and I could immediately tell he was not typical of the service industry I have been exposed to so far in Florida. He was polite and english was his first language.  Instead of acting bothered by my explanation of the problem, he actually listened and used the info to start the troubleshooting.

From my description of the problem he was pretty sure that my coils were frozen over, which they were, solid.  So while he let the ice melt, he did some maintenance by attaching his shop vac to the drip outlet for the unit outside.    I told him that I occasionally put some bleach into the system by the air handler as I was told to do.  However once he had the unit apart I realized that what I was doing did absolutely nothing.  Through some shoddy installation, the air handler unit had a slight backwards tilt, away from the drain in the front, so any bleach I was sticking in was just sitting there.  I need to add the bleach to the outside drip pipe.

So to assist in the ice melting I turned on the fan blower to suck more of the warm outside air in.  The tech got out his blow torch and melted the rest, it probably took a half hour to get it all out. Now he had to figure out why it froze up.  He said that the main reasons for a unit to freeze up was either low freon or a dirty, clogged air filter.  I told him that we changed the air filter religiously every 3 months so I doubted that would be the issue.  He check the freon levels and they were fine, hmmm.

He inspected our air filter and said it didn’t look clogged.  He put the cover back on and we fired it up.  I went inside and felt the vents and told him it was still blowing very weakly and I still heard the chugging noise.  The tech was baffled.  He said we obviously have an air obstruction somewhere.  So he hopped up into the attic and inspected the duct from the air return to see if it was collapsed in any way, nope looks fine.  Then he decided to open the unit back up and take a look underneath.  At first glance he saw nothing, however when he hit it with a flashlight he saw the problem, the portion of the duct that comes down the wall and then turns up and under the air handler was FILLED with water.  He hypothesized that poor drainage had caused water to slowly drip into the duct down below, filling it over time to the point where it now choked off air flow.  He used his shop vac to pull out 35 to 40 gallons of water!  He put it all back together, I fired it up and viola, back to normal!

I was relieved that no parts had to be replaced and he said that our unit apears to be in good shape otherwise.  He did spend 2 and a half hours there which set us back a couple hundred bucks, but that is much less than I was fearing it would cost.  I really appreciated his good natured, professional demeanor during the call and writing the check didn’t bother me at all.  It makes such a difference when someone actually makes the effort to treat a customer as they would want to be treated.  

Since I observed the entire process, I learned a lot about my AC system and there was nothing that he did, short of measuring the freon pressure, that I couldn’t have done myself.  So if I run into issues in the future at least I have a game plan to diagnose it a bit.  I need to make sure I keep that drain as clear as possible.

Our one neighbor sent me a link to this clip of a commentary Keith Olbermann gave on the 9/11 five year anniversary and how an event that unified the country in a way that hadn’t been seen in decades has mutated into something that now polarizes and breaks down our country.  He RIPS the Bush administration in a way so powerful, so well thought out and so well communicated it is just compelling to view.  If you have a spare nine minutes, take it and watch this. I have no idea how anyone can still be supporting Bush, unless they are greedy bastards that are concerned with nothing more than what is inside their white picket fence.

On the way home from work last night Ali and I had one of our regular dialogues about how she hates her job and how she wishes she could quit.  Normally these conversations have no resolution because she knows that unless we could eliminate the mortgage payment, we can’t swing her being home all the time.  Well last night I threw out there “Well you know if we sold our house and moved into a condo/townhouse/villa thing we could probably make it happen sooner rather than later” 

For awhile I have been really uptight about the negative aspects of our current living situation.  The house has felt like more of a burden than blessing in the last couple years.  The costs associated with living in a single family house, on nearly 3 acres of land, roughly 25 miles from work have increased dramatically over the last 2 or 3 years. Let’s list the ways.

The doubling of gas prices in the last couple years has taken a nice chunk out of our budget.  Even with us carpooling in a subcompact car most days, Ali figured out that so far this year we have spent over $2500 in gasoline alone.  Living closer would mean less gas expense.

The cost of insurance and taxes has increased incredibly in recent years due to the rash of hurricanes and the skyrocketing property value in the area.

The dollars spent on house related maintanance is staggering, I don’t even want to add it up.  Between the pool and all the things necessary to maintain/repair our house and large parcel of land we drop a TON of dough.  Throw on top of that all the TIME involved in chasing after the regular chores that have to be done with such a layout, it multiplies the problem.

We have no sidewalks, and very little in terms of retail located around us.  Pretty no much what we want to do, we need to allocate at least an hour to an hour and a half just in travel time for the round trip.

That is just the short list.  Of course there are things about our house that we love.  When I am not busy with chores, it is a great place to just hang out, it’s comfortable for us.  Our house has a lot of room and the remote surroundings lend itself to peace and quiet (most of the time)  We have great neighbors and it would be painful to leave them behind.  And of course if we moved somewhere else you never know what you will be moving next to which is always a crapshoot.  I think the biggest thing that has kept me planted there is we just have put some much sweat equity into it both inside and out.  We watched it being built from the ground up, for us to abandon it is a very difficult thing for me to think about.

Ali and I talked about how life changing it would be to live relatively close to things, have very little maintenance and dramitically lower cost of living.  It would be a big change, so much more free time.  But would I miss looking out my back windows and seeing the pool and huge chunk of land that is our little piece of the planet?  Unfortunately I doubt I would know the degree of my remorse until after I would make the move.  I may be relieved and thrilled by the removal of that financial and time burden or maybe not.  I don’t know.

  I did spend some time looking on realtor sites last night at various options.  It’s amazing how much more I could get if I am willing to move into Lee county.  For the same money that would get me about 1500 sq ft of living space in Collier, I could snag something with 2200 sq feet of space in Lee, that’s a huge difference.

Ironically after we had our conversation on the ride home last night, we were greeted with another home maintenace issue, our AC was flaking out.  The fan sounded like it was chugging, like it was changing speeds like it was getting ready to fail.  The problem was causing the air filter to bounce up and down in the intake vent making a hell of a racket so I removed it.  I looked outside and saw the hose I had connectted to the drip outlet was pretty gunked up so I pulled that off, thinking maybe that was the issue.  I poured bleach into the drain pipe as well to dissolve any algae or other living organism that could be in the pipe.

The air coming out of the vents was cold, it just came out at a much reduced rate.  Since it was night time it kept the house cool enough.  I spent a lot of time trying to find additional contact info for the company that installed the unit.  The number I had was out of service and all attempts to find an updated number lead to dead ends. Maybe they went out of business, great.

This morning when I got up I went out to the garage to listen to the unit, it was running but now the flow out of the vents was little more than trickle, I think the blower totally died. So once I got to work I bit the bullet and called someone whom is going to come out this afternoon to look at it.  For whatever reason, whenever I have someone coming out to do work for me I assume they are trying to rip me off and overcharge me somehow.  Because they basically have you pinned bwteen a rock and a hard place they have no problems sticking it to you.  I can hardly wait to see the final bill on this.  The merry go round of house related cash expenditures never seems to end. 

Mike Boogie won Big Brother last night.  Of the two left he was the obvious choice.  During the Q&A session with the jury and when they made their final case for winning, he was much more well spoken, much more convincing, and much more personable than Erika.  She stumbled through her responses saying very little and what she did say was done very poorly.  She came out of the show looking like a big loser.  It really is amazing that Will and Mike rode the game to the end even though everyone knew how good they were.  Their performance is a testament to how a person with a strong, compelling personality can get really far.  They did a superb job of playing everyone else in the house.  Now we jump right into racially divided Survivor on Thursday, should be fun!

I came up with an invention the other night in my head.  I did some snooping around yesterday and could find no trace of anyone else that has made such a thing.  I am going to build my prototype this weekend and see if it works.  I seriously think this thing could have legs. Of course I can’t reveal it here because I don’t want it out there for the taking.  I’ll reveal the results of my test next week.

I forgot I wanted to comment on the format of the Fox NFL pregame show now that James Brown has flown the coop.  I have watched the Fox pre-game exclusively since they have been on.  It has always been so much better than what CBS or NBC threw out there.  The core group of JB, Terry, Howie have always had great chemistry and Jimmy Johnson makes a solid 4th.  Well I watched the entire pregame on Sunday, here are my notes.

Hmmm no more Jillian Barbarie, no big loss there.  She gave no more weather information than you would get looking out the window.  She was there as eye candy only and over the years that candy was getting increasingly sour.

No more 10 questions with TB.  Again, no big loss, I thought that segment generally sucked last year.

I was glad Frank Caliendo was kept.  I thought Jimmy Kimmel would be impossible to replace but Frank does a great job.

No more studio shows, each week the crew is going to be on site at a different game. Don’t like it.  I always enjoyed studio shows the most.  The gang is at their home field in the studio, being on the road constantly is like being the visitor every damn week.  It just takes something away from the broadcast.

The new JB.  I am confused by what they are doing.  They have Joe Buck sitting in during the pregame and then Curt Mennefee from there on out and Joe calling a game???  Dumb move.  Joe Buck is a polished broadcaster and did an ok job on Sunday but he just won’t fit in.  Sort of like the 3 stooges without Curly, it was good but not great.  Changing gears and throwing Curt in there is just confusing for the viewer and a bad move by the network.

All in all they could have done worse replacing what was such an integral part of the broadcast.  It wasn’t bad but it definitely is far off the mark from what I was used to.  Why couldn’t they just pay JB enough to stay???

I saw a commercial for the NBC pregame show.  They showed a shot of the desk where the 4 sit, Costas and someone else in the middle and then Jerome Bettis and Sterling Sharpe way off on the edges, disportionately far away from the center 2.  It’s almost like the end guys had BO or something, they hardly are in the field of view when they shoot the entire group, it just looks weird.

Here is a trick for you at the gym.  From time to time I get a sensation in my nostril that may indicate there could be some foreign object hanging out into plain view.  If this happens at the gym you certainly don’t want to call attention to it.  So here is the move:  you casually walk over to the mirror and act like you have something in your eye.  Pull down on your eyelid and act like you are looking for something when actually your eyes are focused on your nostrils, scanning for debris.  If all is clear, great, go back to what you were doing.  If there is a problem, saunter into the bathroom with your head at a slight downward angle to hide anything and take care of the problem in there.  As I have gotten older and the density and length of nosehair has increased accordingly, I have to do this drill normally at least a couple times a month.

I’ve gotten many inquries as to what tune I was singing BBCPG to.  The answer is Ironman.  It goes like this –

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BEEEEEEEEEEEEE C P G, B B B B B B B B C P G   (Repeat)

You can also substitute the words in there like this –

Biiiiiiiiig Buuuuuuuuuutt Cell Phone Girl, Big big big big big big butt cell phone girl (Repeat)

As she was walking in front of my car in the government center complex I was singing it. 🙂 

Big Butt Cell Phone Girl or as she will be known from here on out, BBCPG had made some strides at the gym recently.  In late July I documented how she sleepwalked through her gym time and spent most of it doing nothing more than speaking on her cell phone while doing a cardio machine at kindergarten difficulty level. She was on her cell phone less and there were 1 or 2 days where I didn’t see her on her phone once (although she always keeps it by her side)  I even had seen her do some weighted exercise machines to mix up her routine.  Well today she fell off the wagon.  She had the phone glued to her ear as she walked in the door, as she walked out of the lockerroom, the entire time she was casually sauntering on the treadmill and still when she walked back into the lockerroom.  Unreal.  Before I hear the “don’t you have anything better to do than watch other people at the gym” comments, let me interject that most gyms, including this one have their walls completely covered in mirrors.  When you are in between sets there is precious little else to do than look around.  I wonder if BBCPG says on her phone calls “Yea, I go to the gym everyday but just am not seeing any results…”  Hmm I wonder why.  I was singing “BBCPG…” to myself, it is kind of catchy…

Last Friday I saw two examples of one of the things that is on the top 10 of all time annoying things for me.  People parking in the handicap spot that have no apparent phycial handicap except being lazy son of a bitches.  Two times I saw people pop out of their cars after hanging their tag on the mirror and head for our office front door.  One of these people saw I was looking at them in disbelief and immediately slowed thier pace and made a blatant attempt to seem more impaired than they were 2 seconds ago.  It is freakin pathetic.  I love the ones that have a tag for no other reason than they are f’in fat asses that are so heavy they can’t walk.  It’s ironic that they probably got that way largely in part for avoiding lengthy walks in the first place. Let’s reward their laziness and further encourage it!  Disgusting. 

911 snuck up on me.  Yesterday I looked at a calendar and saw it was the 10th and realized today was 911.  Wow I can’t believe it’s been 5 years already.  If you asked me then what I thought the end result of 911 was going to be my answers would have been quite different than today.  I would have told you that Osama Bin Laden would have been dead or captured within the first 6 months. I would have never imagined that we would have set foot in Iraq and certainly not involved in a conflict that has what seems to be an infinite timeline at this point.  To be honest I would have told you that there would have been another major attack by this time so the fact that there hasn’t has to lend itself to at least one thing the Bush administration can take credit for.  I certainly would have never predicted 3 dollar a gallon gas.

The biggest thing I remember about 911 was the sense of one that everyone felt.  For the first time in my life it felt like I actually shared something with everyone that lives here.  It was like we all took a collective punch to the gut and we all helped each other get through it.  It was a a very sad but inspiring period of time.  Unfortunately that feeling lasted at most a few months.  The actions our government took in the name of 911 turned us into the bully of the planet in the opinion of our neighbors, mired us in the 21st century version of Vietnam and wound up turning all that emotion we felt against the enemy back upon our own leaders as it became apparent that they used the situation to carry out political and special interest agendas.  

Putting all the post 911 bullshit aside, I’ll never forget that moment when I was watching tv, seeing the one building burning with a hole in it, thinking what a horrible accident for a plane to hit a building then seeing another plane, live, smash into the other building.  The realization that it was no accident was like a hammer.  That split second is one I will carry forever. They are replaying the Stern Show broadcast from 911 today, it is haunting.

This was opening weekend of the NFL and I had it set in my mind to enjoy it.  On Saturday Ali and I did most of the housework by early afternoon Saturday.  Then we went to a 4 o’clock showing of Invincible, the movie about the Philly guy that made the team out of an open tryout.  The movie was great, probably enhanced by me being an Eagles fan.  The idea of a down and out guy actually making a pro-sports team is every weekend warriors dream, including mine.  My intense childhood desire to be a pro athlete really made this movie emotional for me.  It’s just a feel good type of movie.  My only criticism was they used a little too much slow mo footage in the flick, it was everywhere.  It gets an A-.

After the movie we went out to dinner at a new place, the Roman Oven.  It was a pleasant surprise.  Even though we hit it at at 6pm on a Saturday night it wasn’t terrribly full and we sat right down.  We were greeted by a personable old man that was the host and we sat down and immediately took notice of the nice surroundings, filled with earthy colors and intricate tile everywhere.  They made all their own pasta which is pretty unheard of nowadays.  I ordered the basic test for an italian restaurant, spaghetti and meatballs.  It was quite good as was Ali’s meal.  Our waitress was very nice as well, we really had no complaints.  35 bucks covered the bill and we were out of there.

Saturday night Ali and I did some work on the web site for the 6k run she is organizing.  It’s nothing fancy but I like it. Check it out. 

Sunday morning we did our 3rd week of Nicki walks.  She really seems to look forward to them already.  The walk got off on a bad start.  Shortly after we started, we noticed behind us an actual live armadillo walking on the road.  We never have seen a live one, just dead ones on the road.  They are basically nocturnal animals.  Well anyway he was just sort of wandering around on the road with no apparent destination.  As we looked back, a fire engine with sirens blaring turned onto our road.  As it came screaming up the road the armadillo kept farting around, oblivious to the oncoming danger.  Ali was freaking, saying the truck was going to run over the poor thing.  As she looked away, I watched as the engine approached, never slowing or diverting it’s path.  The armadillo froze and the truck straddled the animal (without slowing), I watched in horror as the frozen animal decided to come to life and move just as the truck was going over it.  Ali gasped “Did he kill it?” as we stared at the firetruck as it flew by with disgust on our faces.  I said yep, as all I saw was the motionless figure on the road behind.  I figured out why I see so many dead armadillos, they don’t get out of the way very well.

Well the whole incident put a very dark cloud on the walk.  Ali was outraged the firemen made no effort to avoid the animal.  She talked of letters to the editor about it.  She was in a bad mood for pretty much the entire trip.  Nicki on the other hand was having a great time, prancing along she was sniffing from side to side repeatedly.  Ali’s mood was made worse by Nicki’s refusal to drink during the walk.  She was panting heavily with her tongue hanging out wildly but absolutely had no interest in drinking.  So since she wouldn’t drink the water we dumped some of it on her.  I took a pic of her during the walk.

It seems each time we do the walk I see new things.  One of the things that made me laugh was this mailbox.  If you look quickly you may not notice what is so funny.  It is installed backwards.  Hey mailboxes don’t come with installation directions, maybe they should. 🙂

On the way back Ali was dreading walking by the dead armadillo.  So you can imagine our amazement when we turned back onto our street and saw nothing on the road.  As we got to the spot there was no blood, no signs of massacre.  The armadillo lived!  It must have balled up and just missed the tire of the truck.  You could feel the weight lifted off of Ali’s mood. 

Sunday afternoon was all about watching football.  The Eagles had a strong start to the season after a bit of a shaky start.  When they allowed the Texans to march down the field and score a TD on their first possession I was like “Oh shit”  However in the 2nd quarter they started to roll and cruised to a 24-10 win.  I was impressed that at the end of the game they totally controlled things, holding the ball for a long time to run out the clock as opposed to the normal 3 and out and then play sloppy prevent defense and give up cheap points. Granted it was the Texans, the worst team in the league last year but regardless the Birds looked good.

Next I watched a good chunk of the Cowboy/Jaguars game.  I was hoping to see TO hurt himself.  Instead he had a strong game and scored a TD.  The good news is the Cowboys lost.  My fantasy team started strong and then faded.  I am down 81-80 with no players left to play and my opponents kicker plays tonight so I am toast, disappointing.  Carson Palmer and Rueben Droughns let me down, scoring a shitty 5 points between them.

DirecTV has a great new feature this year.  You are able to program in your starting fantasy team roster and then when any of them do anything that generates fantasy points a little alert pops up at the bottom of the screen, no matter what game you are watching.  What an awesome little piece of tech! I love the Sunday Ticket.

I played no WoW this weekend at all, instead devoting my time to Half Life 2, probably too much time.  In WoW the only time your adrenalin gets going normally is during an impromptu PvP encounter when you are up against a horde player one on one.  In HL2 it is like that all the time and then some.  You are constantly on guard as you round each corner, never knowing what is going to pop out and try to take you down.  I can feel my blood pressure elevate as I play.  By Sunday, my eyes were both bloodshot and hurt.  Not from staying up late but from the constant darting eye movements that the game requires.  They still hurt today.  It’s a great game though, really, really good.