Went fast, wild win
Weekends always go fast but this one seemed to go faster than most. The weather in our area is really weird. We went from getting dumped on daily with rain to nothing, just like that. We literally have had zero rain for over 3 weeks. The good news is the grass growth is nill so we didn’t have to mow, the bad news is I had to pull out the hose and water the landscape and fill the pool. It’s way too early to be watering already.
On Saturday afternoon we took the party van out to Lehigh Acres to put for sale by owner signs on both of our lots. I hadn’t driven the van in quite awhile, a month at least and I hadn’t driven it over 5 miles since we got back from PA in June. In true van tradition, it exhibited problems on the way. The first thing that happened was a strong front end vibration that would suddenly appear and then go away depending on the speed we were going. It was strong enough that I pulled over to make sure I didn’t have a flat tire, nope all the tires look fine. The other issue was violent shaking when applying the brakes at anything firmer than a baby’s touch. It was one of the things that I paid 1600 plus to have fixed. The van got us out there but it was very annoying.
We had overhead pictures of our lots and even with them it took some thorough examination to make sure we were putting the signs in front of the correct lots. We decided to just put our phone number on the signs with no price, it gives you more flexibility as a seller. There were A LOT of lots for sale and seeing them all certainly didn’t make us hopeful of having anything happen quickly.
The one lot we own on Genoa Ave is a nice lot that is basically clear and has an orange grove behind it so you would not have to worry about anything coming in behind you. However the location is not exactly close to modern conveniences. The Bell Blvd lot is in a much better location, only a minute or two from the supermarket and auto part store, but the lot itself is much more grown over and less visually appealing. Man it would be an awesome surprise to get those sold before the end of 2006, although I have no disillusions about the probability of it happening.
While we were in Lehigh Acres we stopped for gas and were shocked at the price of it. At $2.34 a gallon it was a full 30 cents a gallon LESS than what we are paying in Collier County. Through a combination of expensive county gas taxes and just plain greed, people in Collier pay the highest price for gas in the state. It’s f’in annoying.
On the way back we made a detour and swung by the location where they are building Ave Maria, the first new catholic university in 40 years. It is literally out in the middle of nothing. It was quite odd seeing these huge, impressive structures rising out of the middle of nature. We couldn’t get real close but we saw enough. I just wonder how the area is going to handle having an additional 10,000 or so people plopped out in the sticks.
Saturday night we watched a flick called Iraq for Sale. It’s all about the big business of war. It was really eye opening. It was all about how all of these private corporations are so deeply involved in the war effort. Their bottomline is all about the United States being actively involved in wars. Their leadership is chockful of former government officials that use their influence to gain these multi-billion dollar contracts on a no bid basis. They explained how employees from these corporations are deeply involved in every facet of the war over there. They were involved in Abu Gahrib, the majority of the “interrogators” are employed by these corporations as well as many of the security personnel. The “linguists” that are used to interpret over there are almost exclusively privately employed by these corporations.
The hideous abuses of our tax money by these companies was infuriating. They went into detail about how Haliburton has what is deemed a “Cost Plus” contract which basically meant the more money they burned through, the more they get paid. They told story after story of how if something broke down like a truck getting a flat tire, instead of fixing it, they burn the entire truck up and replace it with a new one. They provided top of the line Ford Expeditions for all the Haliburton managers over there. Each one was on a 2000 a month three year LEASE. So each one cost the taxpayer 72000 dollars and at the end of the three years they didnt own them. Haliburton charges the US government 100 dollars for each load of laundry that they do. The examples were endless, it was just heinous abuse of our tax dollars. Viewing the film made it crystal clear that there is a huge, dirty element that yearns for the US to be in war, it benefits them tremendously. The one CEO made 42 million dollars personally in one year (2004) The worst part is the people that run these companies have deep ties to the government officials and clearly pull strings as they see fit. If you need any more convincing about how f’d up the entire Iraq situation is, take a peek at this flick. It is disgusting.
Sunday morning Ali and I took Nicki out on her walk. It wasn’t much fun. As we walked by one house, we spotted a dog standing loose 50 or 60 feet off the street. We hoped he would stay put so we kept walking but as we looked back we saw he was prancing down the street after us, great. So we stop and he comes over to Nicki, he seemed very friendly towards her. He looked young, less than a year old. We hung out a bit with the pooch and then walked back, hoping he would wander back into his yard or we would see someone outside looking for their dog since we had no idea which house he actually came from. He had a collar but no tags, almost a sure sign that he was owned by Mexicans. He was friendly but at the same time when I tried to pet him he jumped away from my hand, a sign that he is probably used to hands smacking the shit out of him.
So we meandered around, looking at houses, hoping to see someone. Finally we saw a woman outside. We took a few steps up her driveway and I yelled up “Is this your dog?” She yelled back NO. I asked if she knew where he was from, and she said she didn’t know. We were getting frustrated. The dog was very interested in sniffing Nicki’s privates and Nicki was getting annoyed with it, so was Ali. Ali said we should just take him back to our place and call domestic animals. I said that there is no way I would be ok with trying to get him back to our house unleashed. Once we got back onto 47th Ave, there is far too much traffic to be strolling around there with a jumpy young dog.
I said we need to ask around some more. So we walked up the next driveway. It was a nice big house, I told Ali I highly doubted the dog was from there but we went up anyway and knocked on the door. A woman answered the door with a surprised look. Before we could even get out the entire “Is this your dog ?” sentence, she blurted out it wasn’t her dog but she knows who’s it is. It was from the house next door. She said the dog gets loose all the time and it drives her dog crazy. You could tell she held her next door neighbors in low regard. We thanked her an walked over to the next yard.
This house fit my picture of the poor dog’s owner to a T. It was a small little house, with shit strewn all over the place. We saw the dog’s accomodations. They had a big steel cable attached between two trees and attached to the cable was a chain that slid back and forth along the cable. At the far end was a shabby loking doghouse and a piece of plywood out on the ground as a bed. Ali was disgusted already and then she saw an upside bowl on the ground which evidently was the dog’s water source. She wanted us to just leave with the dog and call Domestic Animals. She said these people didn’t deserve a dog. I was torn. After a pause I said I didn’t feel right about taking the dog if we knew who he belonged to so I walked up to the door with the intention of alerting the people about their dog.
I was at the door, had my fist made, inches from knocking at the door and I stopped. I looked around as I saw the empty six pack of coronas on the front porch, the flip flops propped on the outside window sill and the seed spreader sitting in the middle of the yard along with the other junk. I didn’t knock. I said to myself, this house is filled with mexicans that either aren’t going to understand me or will understand me and will beat the shit out of the dog for getting loose once we leave. I turned around and walked back down to Ali.
Once again she said she wanted to just take the dog with. The entire time the dog is bouncing around, happy as can be. We came up with a more workable plan. We would hook the dog back up and got the home address to call into domestic animals. Having a dog tied up without water is illegal. I flipped over the water bowl and filled it with the water we brought for Nicki, the poor guy drank the entire thing in a matter of seconds, he was dying of thirst. Eventually I was able to snag his collar and hook him up. Once he realized I wasn’t going to hurt him he allowed me to pet him. We felt terrible as we walked up the street after memorizing the number. As we looked back, the dog was repeatedly running toward us, only to have his attempts snapped back by the chain. He obviously wasn’t used to people treating him well. We felt very angry and depressed as we walked back towards the house, and then…
As we are back on 47th, we are close to our house and Ali spots a pekinese in the driveway of a house on our left. She sees a big fat mexican woman sitting on a fold up chair by the garage and watches as the dog comes prancing out across the road to interact with Nicki. This dog didn’t even have a collar. The big fat mexican woman didn’t even make a move to stop the dog and in fact was talking on a cell phone the entire time, she could care less. Well Ali was furious, especially considering what just happened a few minutes ago.
I was out in the street with Nicki and the dog, traffic was coming so I pulled Nicki far off the street so the little dog would follow. Ali went marching up fattie’s driveway. Fattie’s hispanic next door neighbors were outside as well, holding their dog in place by it’s choke collar. Ali angrily says something to fattie about her dog and how she needs to be collared and restrained. The woman doesn’t understand english (or at least acts that way) so the neighbor translates. Ali repeats that she can not just let her dog run loose and how it was out in the street. The neighbor translates this to the woman who has her cell phone on her hear the entire time. By this time I had come across the road with Nicki to lead the little dog back to safety. The lard ass comes over and picks up the dog and holds it awkwardly under her blubbery arm. The translator said fatty basically said “you can’t tell me what to do” Ali shot back that that it’s against the law to not control your dog and she would be happy to call it in. The translator woman seemed sympathetic towards Ali and as she translated the last part, the disgusting woman waddled off inside the garage. Ali took note of her address as well as once we again we headed back down the street towards our house.
This woman was the poster child for why certain people just should not own animals. She was a big, fat, ignorant slob with a little baby in a stroller and evidently another bundle of joy in the oven. These are the type of people we don’t need reproducing. I talked to Ali about some of the benefits of moving to a place where we don’t need to be shoulder to shoulder with this sort of bullshit. Montana or Idaho should be safe.
When we got back, Ali backed up her statement and called in the abuses. Who knows if anything will be done. Sadly it is a very common thing for mexicans to tie out their dogs and treat them like shit. It’s what their culture is used to. I am sure the authorities get a ton of these type of calls.
Wow this is long already but I have to get into the best part of the weekend, the Eagles win. It was a roller coaster of emotions. There are two really bad moments that I need to get out of the way. What the F was LJ Smith doing when he made the lamest tackle attempt ever when he couldn’t tackle the lineman that scooped up the fumble. It looked like he actually pushed him ahead instead of trying to tackle him, it was just horrible. I was screaming my ass off at the tv. Luckily he atoned for it with the huge pass play during the Eagles next possession. The other incredible f up was at the end of the game when the Eagles had the Cowboys dead to rights at 4th and 18. Somehow with 8 players back in coverage they allow Terry Glenn to get behind them and Michael Lewis commits a stupid pass interference penalty. At that moment I had nightmares of the Giants game repeating itself. Luckily Drew Bledsoe threw the game ending interception to save the day for the Eagles.
The game was great, The Eagles applied pressure to Bledsoe throughout. TO was basically a non-factor. Fox took every possible opportunity it had to zoom in on TO to catch his little sideline rants. It was funny to see him bitching at his coaches once again. If the Cowboys are not winning consistently TO will decay that team as well, I can only hope.
The Eagles offense has been very strong. Donovan is having a big season. I would still like to see him run a bit more to make defenses think about his legs more but hey, they are 4-1. They can’t run the ball all that well but with their passing game, it hasn’t hurt them all that much. At the end of the Cowboys game when Bledsoe threw the pick, I went crazy. I jumped up and was screaming at the TV “F you Bledsoe, you suck!” “F you TO!” “F YOU Parcells!” It was just “F, F, F” I was delirious with excitement. It was a great win, the best win since the 2004 championship game. After the game I got a surprise celebratory call from Rich, he shares my Eagles dedication.
I had a good week on the fantasy football front. Even though this week a lot of my regular starters had BYE’s, my patchwork lineup that included 2 guys I just picked up off free agency, took down a team that was previously undefeated. I have them beat already and have Jamal Lewis and Derrick Mason still to play tonight. I sit at 2-3, not great but far better than the 0-6 start I had last year.