Archives 2006

Well this past weekend I upgraded 3 servers at work from Windows 2000 Server to Windows Server 2003 R2.  After the upgrade I did some quick testing and all of the applications came up and apparently worked.  Well it turned out that one component of one of our major applications broke.  I spent a day and a half trying to resolve the problem but yesterday we decided to revert back.  There is no uninstall for Windows 2003.  I tried restoring my Windows 2000 backup on top of Windows 2003.  When I rebooted it hung immediately saying it was missing files. Great….  So I installed Windows 2000 to another directory and then did another tape restore.  The system booted this time but after entering my login credentials I was presented with a blank desktop.  After some searching on various knowledge bases I found a way to bring up the system properties and rejoin the domain, however I still had a blank desktop on reboot.  So I did one more restore, just restoring the Windows directory, the Documents and Setting directory and the registry. That did the trick.  After 6 hours of installs, endless reboots and watching tape restore progress bars, the day was saved.  This server will be staying Windows 2000 until it is retired. I didn’t get home last night until 8:45.

Youtube.com is an addictive site.  You could spend 24 hours a day pouring through the content.  My videos have been up there for a month or so.  So far the most popular video is this one of the battery releasing from my rc plane in flight. It has been viewed 1,048 times so far.  The least popular is the paranoid video I made of Keener with only 8 views. I guess it isn’t funny unless you know him.

We had another nice downpour last night, I think it was from the outer bands of Alberto, we got over 1.25 inches of rain.  I really dig having my outdoor weather station in operation.

My return to Powerhouse Gym hasn’t been all that bad.  Yea it’s dark, it’s warm, it isn’t clean and it’s unorganized but I knew that coming back.  I bring my own water and go to the bathroom at work before heading there so that makes it bearable.  It’s a shame, if the owner spent half an hour a day cleaning it up and maybe a couple grand in some basic repairs it would be 100% better.  He runs that gym on a shoestring budget yet he drives a new H2 Hummer….

In my electric bill this month I saw a pamphlet for this thing. It is a modification that fits under your electric meter that allows you to plug your generator right into your homes electrical system.  Then you control electricity throughout the house by just flipping breakers on and off.  It is a GREAT thing.  If money wan’t so tight right now I would drop the 650 for it in a snap.  No more running extension cords everywhere and things like hot water, well pump, lights, the microwave all become realities through careful manipulation of the breaker box.  We will get it sometime before hurricane season is over hopefully. It can’t hurt home resale either.

Last night Ali picked up yet another stray dog at our house.  This one was a cute female beagle that we had seen wandering the neighborhood for 3 or 4 days.  It had a collar but no tags whatsoever.  I’m pretty sure it was from a mexican family.  So as Ali came to pick me up from work she took the beagle to domestic animals so it could either be reclaimed by it’s owners or adopted back out.  I think it will be better served by the latter.  Ali asked if I wanted to see the dog before she dropped it off and I declined, knowing that Ali was subtley working the “maybe we have room for two dogs” angle.  Of course if I saw it, I would feel pity for it and get attached making it painful to drop her off.  I went through that once and it sucked.  Ali took some pics of the dog which I will try to post at some time.  There are so many loose dogs in our area, it’s a shame people don’t care enough to make sure they are restrained or at least tagged so they can be returned if found. 

Tropical storm Alberto has been dumping a couple inches of rain on us over the past 2 days.  It’s nice to see that the hurricane season wasted no time in hitting us.  I hope it isn’t another year like last, it could be brutal.

The weekend was pretty busy.  Friday night I was up till 1am trying to do some remote work on the servers at work and then went into the office for half a day on Saturday.  After that I went home and was outside for 4 hours or so doing various chores I thought up while I was working on the servers Friday night. 

I got some heavy duty pool shock stuff that I applied on Saturday.  It worked great, the pool is nice and clear now.  How long it stays that way with the daily dumping of debris into it is questionable.  Speaking of the pool, Friday morning I scooped the little snake out once again.  Then on Saturday he was in there again.  Finally I had enough.  I didn’t want to see the snake wind up dead in the pool skimmer because once he gets in he was too small to get out.  So I scooped him up with the handheld pool skimmer and carried him 1000 feet or so all the way to the main canal that is behind our property.  I sort of felt sad as I placed him in the water by the bank of the canal.  He slid into a crevice and I walked back, hoping he would move on to a non-pool home.

In other pool related news, I once again called the pool contractor.  The last time I talked to him he told me work could begin on my cage as early as late last week.  No work has been done.  So I called today.  I got more talk of delays and more stories about the inability to get experienced help.  I told him we were getting very frustrated with all the delays.  He apologized but he said he was doing the best he could with the resources he has.  If the guy hadn’t been sitting on a nearly 5k check of ours since January I probably would have dumped him by now.  I told him how we would be gone for a week starting the 21st.  He couldn’t guarantee they would be done by then.  I don’t want work going on when we aren’t there.  He told me that it definitely would be started the Monday after we get back.  I’m holding him to that deadline, firmly.

Ali stopped at the library on Saturday and picked up 3 dvd’s.  I had no desire to see any of them, Wag the Dog, Catch me if you Can, and Being Gilbert Grape.  I asked her later what made her pick these movies and she said it was just because we hadn’t seen them before.  Well I was trying to be the good husband and offered to watch whichever one she wanted Saturday night.  Ali complains that 99% of the movies we see, I pick and they are normally all action/sci-fi stuff.  Ironically she did not want to pick which of the 3 we watched either so I picked Wag the Dog.  I saw it had Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman in it so it should be ok. What a borefest.  It was a take off on the Clinton / Monica Lewinsky scandal.  I think during the 90 minutes I smiled once and dozed off at least 10 times.  This is why I pick the movies. 🙂

Sunday morning I saw that the rain from Alberto was starting to get close so I got Ali up to hit the track to get her run in before we got wet.  We even had time after the run to do a high speed grass cutting buzz.  Then the rain started and continued for most of the day.  If you look at my weather magnet you’ll see we’ve had about a half inch of rain the past 24 hours.

The people that bought the house to the left of ours (but still live in Michigan) had been down since last Wednesday but I hadn’t done much more than a quick HI and quick yelling conversations from across the property line.  I felt a bit bad about it but all week we were getting home late and then Saturday Ali and I both worked.  I just didn’t have the energy to go over there and socialize.  Well Sunday I finally walked over there and talked to them a bit.  The guy asked me if I could help him move a heavy computer desk that was left by our old neighbors.  As we moved parts of it away from the wall it revealed a tiny snake just like the one that has been living in my pool.  It was still alive.  The appearance of a live snake freaked them both out.  At first I was trying to grab him with my bare hands.  The snake coiled and was trying to bite me with his tiny mouth.  Even though I know he couldn’t hurt really hurt me,  I was hesitant to let him try.  My neighbor had a pair of work gloves which I put on.  I pinned the snake between my hands and carried him over to the trench on our property.  I have a feeling if the snake was discovered without me present he would have been killed in short order.  The computer desk was big and heavy.  As we lifted the top part off we had to set it down to readjust the grip.  The way I was positioned I had no easy way to set it down.  It wound up sliding down the front of my shin, scraping off a nice thick layer of skin.  It started oozing blood but I reassured them that I would be ok and we should just get the stuff moved. We pushed, pulled, slid, lifted and grunted the pieces over into the other room.  It was tough.  I made some small talk for a little while and then excused myself to go attend to my wound.  I told them we would see them before they leave Tuesday evening.  I’m not sure if we will or not.  Until they actually move here they are kind of just the people that own the house that live in Michigan.

Ali helped bandage my wound like the good caretaker that she is.  We finsihed up the chores I had left and then we sat down to watch a good movie, Lord of the Rings, Return of the King.  I had gotten it for xmas but it was never opened. It was 3 hours and 10 minutes of great cinema.  Watching it reminded me of how closely World of Warcraft is tied to LOTR.  In the game there are many similarities.  It has 6 races you can choose to be including humans, night elves, orcs, dwarfs, gnomes (hobbits) and undead, all races from LOTR.  The time period is the same and the overall feel of the game makes you think the creators of the game are huge LOTR fans.

Well I have been off creatine for more than 5 weeks and still have managed to maintain a decent strength level.  I one-repped 265 today at the gym over lunch.  If I used a spotter I may have been able to squeeze out 270.  I just hate using spotters though because if they even touch the bar it negates the validity of the lift in my mind.  Only Ali (and Rich) know the drill, even if it looks like my head is going to pop off, even if one arm is lagging behind the other, don’t touch the weights unless I ask for help, otherwise I have matters under control…

My web site migration is almost complete.  It’s been going pretty well.  I really have the flexibility to do all sorts of hosting now with unlimited drive space and 500 gb of transfer bandwidth.  I have contacted support several times and have gotten replies back very quickly. 

The party van has been quite the pain in the ass.  After laying out 1600 bucks for repair of the AC, steering box and all 4 brakes on Wednesday, as I drove it back to work I noticed that the air just didn’t feel all that cold.  Granted it was in the lower 90’s but still it just wasn’t right.  I called back the garage and they told me to bring it back and they would look at it.  Yesterday they worked on the AC some more and called me late in the day saying it was ready.  So I got dropped off and drove off.  The AC felt colder, great, but then I noticed that the steering felt squirrely.  It felt like it wanted to veer around almost like a wheel was loose.  I immediately turned it around and told the owner about what I felt.  I felt bad because it was after 5 (they close then) but the owner was happy to help me.  He drove it and could feel it a little bit.  The van has 3 tires of one make and one of another.  The mismatched tires were on the back but when they put the van back together they put the mismatched tires in the front.  So they jacked it up in the driveway and did a Nascar style tire swap.  I drove it around and still felt some of the same problem but it was a bit better.  The owner double and triple checked everthing, explaining to me exactly what was done.  Eventually I told him I would drive it and see how it goes.  I apologized for keeping them late but he said it was no problem, it’s his job.  It’s rare to find such an attitude in Naples.  I’ll stick with this guy for sure.  The drive back to work was ok, I can deal with the steering and the air was decently cold.  The party van has been a major league money sink, if it doesn’t calm down with vacuuming cash from my wallet it may wind up finding itself in another driveway.     

My knees have been very weird recently.  Wednesday morning every step I took sent sharp shooting pain up my leg and I was limping badly.  Then at the gym during lunch I did a mild leg workout doing leg extensions, leg curls and calf raises.  Sometime during the afternoon the pain subsided and all day yesterday I didn’t feel a thing.  There must be something loose floating around in there and if it lodges in the wrong spot it’s pain city.  Hopefully it either dissolves or finds a new home.

 The snake has reappeared in our pool a couple more times.  Most recently I pulled him out at 6am this morning.  It’s crazy, he just loves our pool.

The weekend was supposed to be a vball tourney weekend but I scrapped it in order to let my knee have a chance to be in decent shape for the Pottstown Rumble in a couple weeks.  So instead I am coming into work tomorrow to upgrade some servers and then will be doing general housework crap the rest of the weekend, nothing exciting.

Before taking the party van up north I wanted to get some issues taken care of,  namely the brakes and the AC.  The brakes shook the van violently when they were stepped on hard and pulled strongly to the right.  The AC which was converted over to R-134 coolant last month still was not cooling well.  Well yesterday I got the call back from the garage with the diagnosis.  The brakes all the way around were a mess and two components of the AC were leaking and needed to be replaced.  Plus he said the reason the pull to the right was so hard was there is an inch of play in the steering box and it should be replaced as well.  The estimate for all this work, $1500…..  My sticker shock was impossible to mask but the guy went through the break down and he was using aftermarket parts as opposed to motorcraft stuff which would have jacked the price much higher.  I bit hard and told him to do it.  We are locked in with taking it to PA and it needs to be safe to get us there.  The joy of used vehicle ownership. Great timing too, the 17k pool cage bill will be hitting soon.

I have been steadily been moving stuff across to the new provider.  I originally had ideas of trying to move the message boards across intact.  However when I went to go look at the old boards I saw they all had been hijacked and the home pages were replaced with a message from the offending group. So I just said f it and I am starting fresh with the message boards on the new site. It’s just easier.  There are so many things to move across…

Well I am up and running in my new space.  I am still moving stuff across, it is a long process.  The home page comes up, the blog works, email is live and I even got my web cam page back up.  However the image quality on the web cam page is not as good as before.  The old webcam I had would lock up my new MP system at work so I picked up a cheap logitech unit.  Cheap = inferior image quality.  Oh well, at least you can see what is going on.

This weekend was pretty busy from an entertainment standpoint by my standards.  On Saturday morning we knocked out the big chore for the weekend, mowing the grass.  It’s amazing how quickly the grass has recovered after 3 or 4 nice rainfalls.  What was a brown crunchy mess has now turned green again.  Last weekend I changed the oil in the tractor and cleaned it up.  I told Ali jokingly to keep it clean.  As I was weed whacking I heard a big pop and spun to see a huge cloud of blue smoke in front of the tractor, like a big fart.  I told Ali to shut it down.  I checked the oil level, it was a bit high but seemed ok.  We started it back up and it sounded fine.  However the blue fart happened several more times.  Soon it came to me that it was occuring whenever the tractor was at an angle on a hill.  Evidently when I changed the oil I must have added a little too much and that excess oil was getting into the combustion chamber when the engine was tilted.  Oh well it will burn off.

On Saturday night we planned to go to the Florida Firecats, the local arena football team.  The first two years the team was in existence we had season tickets.  Year one we went to every game, supporting the team religiously.  Our seats were in the endzone and were obstructed by the bottom bar of the frame that holds the nets.  In season two the luster faded.  We moved to better seats but enjoyed each game less and less.  The skill level overall was low, there were tons of penalties, there were very few big hits and it just fell short of capturing even a small feel of the NFL.  About halfway through the season we started leaving before games were over and then we started giving some of our tickets away just because we would rather stay home and relax than go there to drop 30 bucks on 4 dollars worth of food.  We didn’t renew our tickets for season 3 and haven’t been back to a game in 2 or 3 years.

Well we decided to go.  I was excited when Ali presented me with a buy one ticket get one free coupon out of the local entertainment book.  So we head up and pay our 5 bucks to park.  We immediately notice that the lot is not very full at all.  Evidently the near sellout crowds are no longer attending Firecat games.  We walk up to the ticket window and tell the lady we want two tickets.  She says “$17.50, $25 or $30” pointing to a stadium diagram with the different seat locations and accompanying prices.  With the small crowd I figured I would be able to get the cheap seats and move down to the good ones later in the game.  So I tell the lady I wanted the cheap tickets and give her the coupon.  She immediately gets an aggravated look on her face and says “You can’t use that here”  “Why not” I surprisingly replied.  “That can only be used at the Firecats box office during the day”  “It doesn’t say anything about that on the coupon” I angrily replied.   She acknowledged that it wasn’t clear on the coupon but there was nothing she could do.  So I slapped down the CC and paid double what I anticipated paying.  A bad start to the night.

We found our seats and then went out to get some food.  We saw no major changes to the place since we had been there last.  Ali and I got a piece of pizza and drink, 14 bucks.  We sat down and ate it while we watched the Firecats warm up.  The were playing some hip hop, bass busting stuff way too loud.  It made it hard to even hear the person next to you talk.  Looking around, the seats were nearly empty, maybe a 6th full.  Soon we went down for food run number two.  We got two soft pretzels for 5 bucks.  Then I got a 20 ounce soda to pour into my 32 ounce cup I got with the pizza.  They put so much ice in the cup that a 20 ounce soda was way too much fluid, ripoff.  Later on I got myself a 3 dollar hotdog.  I wasn’t hungry but forced it down anyway.  I felt like a pig.

Finally the game got ready to start.  It started about 20 minutes late due to an unknown “technical difficulty” that they announced but didn’t give specifics about.  The national anthem was sung by a girl named somethin Cruz from Tampa.  She butchered the words 3 or 4 times and I saw she actually was holding a paper with the words on it. It wasn’t this bad but it was bad. I have no patience for that shit.  If you are going to sing the national anthem, learn the words, it’s that simple.  During the song I was bitching to Ali about it but she shushed me as she thought it was rude to talk during the anthem.  I grumbled to Ali more about it and was appalled that you would carry the words out there with you.  Ali thought it was less of a big deal than I did.

The game started and it was pretty much as I remembered.  Arena football at this level has very little continuity of players.  The roster turns over almost 100% each year.  I think there were 2 names we remembered from our season ticket days.  There was lots of passing, lots of penalties and lots of empty seats.  Very quickly the novelty of the game wore off.  We stayed to see the halftime entertainment which consisted of a humourously bad routine by the Fire Kittens, the team cheerleaders and the obligatory throw a ball throw a window, kick a field goal from far away stunts that noone ever wins.  Then we left, both satisfied with the time we put in.  I doubt we will be back for another 2 years.

Sunday morning Ali asked me to get her out of bed early to run.  The heat has been oppressive and we were hoping an earlier start would result in more comfortable running conditions.  When I got up at 7 it was a comfortable 77 outside.  When we left at 8:30 it had jumped to 83.  It still felt hot at the track.  When the sun came out from behind the clouds it broiled you.  Since I am sidelined from running (and pretty much anything else athletic) I came up with the idea of us taking Nicki with.  As Ali walked to warm up, I followed with Nicki.  Nicki was very excited and is not used to excessive exercise.  She raced back and forth across the track, trying to sniff everything she could.  However you could tell she was getting overheated fast.  Once Ali started to run, Nicki wanted to still follow.  It was a distraction to Ali as she was worried about the pooch.  So eventually I took Nicki over to the shade and had her drink.  Everytime Ali would round a corner and come into view Nicki would perk up and cry.  There was another soccer game setting up to be played.  A woman setting up the flags told me that dogs aren’t supposed to be on county property and how she was at a game the other day where a cop made a family with a dog there leave.  I told her that when we arrived there was a cop parked right above the track and he said nothing and that if a cop said something to me I would deal with it.  I’m not sure if she was trying to be helpful or a pain in the ass.  Ali finished up, exhausted from running in the hot humid conditions.  Even though Nicki was in the shade for the last half of the run she was still panting like mad.  When we got home she flopped on the tile floor, obviously spent.

On Saturday when I was skimming the pool of the endless garbage that falls in it with no pool cage, I was startled to see one piece of debris that was moving.  It wasn’t debris, it was a small snake.  It was pencil thin and maybe a foot and a half long tops.  It had some banding that I hadn’t seen before.  It looked totally at home in the water, having no difficulty keeping afloat.  I took the skimmer and scooped him up.  He sat there calmly as I took him down to our little mini-pond and placed him in there, figuring he would enjoy that habitat much more than a pool.  A few hours later I come back outside, he is back in the pool.  I called Ali out to see that he had returned.  I was really surprised.  So once again I scoop him out.  This time I carry him back to the fill bit at the rear of our property, a good 350 feet from the house.  There was no water in the pit but lots of low vegetation he could hide in.  He slithered away and I wished him well.  Sunday morning I am once again skimming and once again I am scared by movement in my peripheral vision.  The damn snake is back!  How in the world he navigated his way back to the pool from the back of the property is beyond me but there he was, swimming away.  I took him down to the fishpond again, this time he didn’t reappear in the pool.  Maybe he took the hint.

Friday afternoon we finally saw DaVinci Code at a matinee.  It was good, not great.  If someone had not read the book they would be doing a lot of head scratching.  Of course a movie can not go into the detail a book does but that lack of detail made the movie far less captivating than the book.  There were maybe a half dozen things they changed in the movie from the book but all in all they got the gist of the story.  Like I said it wasn’t bad but if I hadn’t read the book my interpretation would have been more negative.  I would love to see a cinematic version of Angels and Demons, it would have to be a 4 hour movie though.

I paid for webspace on a new provider that I am using to host a website for the running club we are members of.  I am also going to use the space to hold Duf’s web.  So once again I will be beginning the tedious migration process.  Over the next couple weeks I will be trudging through it.  Blog updates will be few if any as I need to figure out how to get from point A to B with the new blog package.  Wish me luck.

They had a Town Hall meeting for people living in our area last night.  It was a meeting where they update people about all the things going on in our vicinity.  The meeting started at 7.  Ali ran after work and with traffic we didn’t get home until a few minutes before 7.  So we quickly changed, threw some food down our throats and left.  The place was packed, standing room only.  A lot of the speakers were long winded and boring but we found out some good info.  The best of which was they are building a new county park within a stone’s throw of our place.  We got updates on all of the road projects.  The good news is there is lots of widening planned, the bad news is it is going to take a long time to get done.  The county staff explained that road contractors just will not bid a job on a short timeline, they can’t get the staff to do it. 

After the meeting we talked to our neighbor who works for the county transportation department.  He gave us more info on why the projects are such a mess.  There is an asphalt shortage.  I never considered that oil is a component of asphalt.  Oil shortage = asphalt shortage.  They actually chop up and reuse the old asphalt they pull up from existing roads because of the shortage.  He also said how there is a shortage of the fill needed to create roadbeds.  The only fill they can get out of the local pit is “rough fill” that has to be feed through a strainer in order to be used.  It just sounds like it is all a huge pain in the ass. We didn’t get home until after 9.  We had to compress our normal nighttime routine into 20 minutes and then get ready for bed.

I’m now 5 days out from the volleyball tournament and my knees still feel stiff.  My good knee (left) one is stiffer than the right one at this point.  It has me a bit concerned, my left knee has never had residual problems after using it athletically in the past other than a day or two of soreness.  After standing at the town hall meeting for an extended period of time it almost felt immobile.  I’ve been off creatine for close to a month yet I am still having issues.  It’s frustrating.

My Memorial day weekend went by very quickly.  It was scorching hot here over the weekend, at one point on Sunday the thermometer outside read 99 degrees, whew.

On Saturday I had my first volleyball action of 2006.  My knee had been aching pretty much all week so I knew it would be an issue throughout the day.  I kept feeding myself a steady stream of Advil throughout the day.  It was extremely humid but luckily high clouds hid the sun for a good portion of the day.  My play throughout the day was decent in most regards, especially considering I didn’t touch a ball since late 2005 and my bum knee.  My knee made hitting a chore, I couldn’t get a decent approach so I could count the amount of above average hits on one hand.  In pool play we finished 2-1 and came off our net 2nd.  

Our first playoff opponents were weak.  They were both nice guys but neither of them were very good at any aspect of the game.  We won the game by 8 or 9 and should have won by more. Our semi-final game was against two older guys from our pool.  The came back and beat us in pool play after we had them down by 5 or 6.  The one guy could not hit at all but did this 2 hand placement shot thing that he could put almost anywhere.  The other guy could hit if he got a good set but he was 40 pounds overweight.  We had bet a beer with another team on our net that we would beat them in pool play so the loss to them was amplified.  In the playoff game we played better and handled them, winning by 4 or 5. We made it to the finals.

The finals were against another team from our net (the other net sucked) We had beat this team in our opening match handily.  However as the day progressed these guys had been gelling and steamrolled the teams they played in their first two playoff game.  The finals were a joke.  They killed us.  Randall and I both made too many unforced errors and our opponents made practically none.  We got steamrolled something like 25-12 or 13.  It was a bummer losing that badly in the finals but I focused on the fact that we got to the finals and in the semi’s we avenged our pool play loss.  Even though I had my fair share of obscenities blurt out, overall I was really mellow throughout the day.  I was just happy to be out there playing and much less concerned with if we won.  That is a big change in attitude from me during my vball prime when every win and loss was like a real time measurement of my success in life.  During some of the downtime between games I took a moment to just appreciate the fact that I was sitting on a beach in Florida playing volleyball.  It’s surprisingly easy to take it for granted.

During the day my knee got progressively stiffer and more sore.  When I got home that night I iced it up.  On Monday even my “good” knee felt stiff so I iced both of them.  However while they feel stiff I don’t have any sharp stabbing pain and can walk more or less without a limp so I guess I will call that a win.  I would like to be able to play one more tournament down here before heading up north to play the Pottstown Rumble with Charlie in late June.  The results from Saturday are here.

Saturday night Ali and I watched the 2nd Charlie’s Angels movie that I had tivo’d earlier in the week.  It was pretty lame.  I mean of course like any man I appreciate the gratuitous T&A that was in ample supply throughout the movie but it was just so dumb.  I mean the stunts these women did made Spiderman look like a chump.  Demi Moore is in this one.  For a mid 40’s female she is incredibly well preserved.  If I had to guess her age blind I would be somewhere around 30.

Sunday was the day for me to knockout chores.  I spent 5 or 6 hours working on stuff including this month’s cleaning project, the living room.  The biggest part of cleaning the living room was organizing what has become a clutter filled mess, the media cabinet.  The media cabinet has vhs tapes, cd’s, dvd’s, xbox games, camcorder tapes, cameras, photos, photo albums and more stuffed into it.  Since it has doors, it was easy to hide the monstrosity that lurked behind them.  So we gutted it, separated stuff into keep, sell and throwout piles and then put the keep stuff back in.  It looks much better.

  Another nasty job was cleaning the bear collection Ali has over a long Ikeas shelf we installed over the one doorway.  There are literally 50+ bears on it.  As I pulled the step ladder towards them I got an eyeful of dust covered bears with a nice dab of cobwebs to boot.  It was gross.  I pulled the bears down and handed them to Ali who gave each animal a thorough vacuuming.  Once all the bears were down I swept up the dirt, dead spiders and other assorted bugs that had accumulated.  I think in the 5 years we have lived there this was the second time we actually cleaned the bears, it needs to be done more.

Sunday night we went over to our friend’s place for dinner.  She is almost 8 month’s pregnant with their first child.  We talked about the prospect of upcoming parenthood and briefly tied it into our situation.  We are asked often about procreating and when we plan to have kid(s).  It’s a question I have become adept at diverting.  I just see example after example how kids absorb every ounce of energy you possess, sucking out your sense of individuality.  Then once they get out of diapers there is maybe a 10 year period where they are cute and innocent and love you like a puppy.  Then they become teenagers and disobey you at every opportunity, challenge your authority, act stupid and generally dislike you.  Then they become adults and go their own way and call you once in awhile, mostly when they need something.  Of course not all situations are like that but I see a lot of it and based on my own personal experiences growing up, it has guided me towards that mindset regarding kids.  Of course my sister just found out she is pregnant so that makes me the only kidless holdout at this point. 

Anyway, we ate pizza, admired their 37 inch LCD HDTV (first time I saw HD in use at a home) and played Balderdash, a fun game that encourages you to be a bullshitter.  We got out of there a little later than we planned.  Ali was running a 5k at 7:30 Memorial Day morning so we had to get up early.  We got to bed a little after 11.

We crawled out of bed unwillingly to the alarm at 20 till 6.  Since I wasn’t running we decided to bring Nicki with to cheer Ali on.  Nicki had never been to a run before.  This one was held at a golf course in Fort Myers.  Nicki was hyper with all the activity around but she was generally well behaved.  Ali enjoys having me at the finish to cheer her on but I feel like a bit of a loser sitting on the sidelines not running.  One thing being a spectator does is allow me to observe all the different running styles.  Damn some of them are funny as hell.  I shouldn’t talk because I have been told that I run like a roadrunner, however some of these people just make me laugh.  I don’t know how they are able to run distance in that manner.

Ali crossed the finish line just over 30 minutes.  About half the course was run through grass and even at 7:30 am it was humid and warm, slowing her down some.  Ali was disappointed that she once again finished 4th, just missing out on what was nice trophy.  The third place finisher ran it in about 29 minutes.  Ali’s best time in a race is around 28:30 so she is capable of getting into that area.  I feel frustrated for her.

When we got back I walked around the property and took some pictures.  I realized how there were quite a few things that went down over recent months that I didn’t document so I took some pics.  I’ll have them up later today.  The rest of the day was low key.  I played WoW for awhile then we went over to the neighbors and hung out.  While we were out on the lanai we saw a small tornado form and then dissipate not very far away.  Ali was freaked out.  They had lots of food and then I showed them how to play Texas Hold Em.  It was a marathon game that we played to completion and I came out on top.  Ali was getting pissed at me because I was bluffing people out of big money.  I told her that is how the game was played but for some reason she found this annoying and said I was being cocky.  Whatever.  By the time we left, it was after 7 so we had to wrap up our remaining things to do and then go to bed.  Weekend over.  It went fast.

I added a few pics to the Nicki page.  This one is one of my favs.

The American Idol finale was entertaining.  I was glad Taylor won, out of the two he was the one that deserved it.  Katherine was almost like a she-bot, she looked great but had nothing that made her unique from all the other female performers on the scene today.  Taylor has a unique style and personality that made him popular.

  There were many strange moments throughout the show.  Some of the pairings with current artists made no sense.  Mary J Blige looked like a freak and totally drowned out Elliot.  Her stupid gyrations were much more distracting than entertaining.  Toni Braxton butchered her performance with Taylor. When was the last time anyone even cared about Toni Braxton? She was acting like she was still super hot, but she isn’t.  I love Meatloaf but his performance with Katherine was horrid.  He looked like a bum in a suit. Ali thought Dionne Warwick looked great, I didn’t.  She sang well enough though.

  The funniest moment of the night was when the dorky Clay Aiken wannabe kid came out and they had him sing and then surprised him by bringing Clay Aiken out in the middle of the song.  The kid was so surprised.  Then he continued with an impromptu duo with Clay even though they turned off the dorky kids microphone.  Eventually Ryan told him to sit down but he kept singing along.  It was hilarious.  Clay’s new hairstyle is disturbing.  Every time I see him I can’t help thinking about the interview I heard on the Stern Show with a guy that swears Clay picked him up off the internet and had some very rough gay sex with him.  He just seems very phony to me now.

It was interesting seeing Prince trot out there.  Even though he is well into his 40’s he looked ok besides the bufont hairstyle.  His performance was good although I would have rather saw him perform one of his old hits.  It was interesting how he strutted off the stage immediately after his performance, ignoring Ryan Seacrest.

Of course the best moment of the night was when an astute camera man caught David Hasselhoff tearing up as Taylor was announced as the winner.  Damn he must be pissed, good luck living that down. Funny, funny shit.   

I went to Planet Fitness last night with Ali since I was doing back and abs and could still do that with the equipment they have left.  There were a lot of pissed off people there.  I talked to a guy about the gym BS for a good 10 to 15 minutes before I even got started.  They were playing ridiculous music.  It was easy listening mixed with golden oldies.  I had a hard time focusing to do anything.  I found myself laughing in the middle of most sets when I heard one silly song after another come on.  I was doing back rows to “Dancing in the Moonlight”.  One of the “lunks” who still has his membership at PF but also joined Powerhouse told me a funny story.  He went to Planet Fitness earlier in the week but wore a Powerhoue Gym shirt there as a big FU.  Well as he was on the cardio machine the gym owner asked him to come to his office after he was done.  The guy went in and was told he wasn’t allowed to wear a Powerhouse shirt there, it was disrespectful.  This guy also like to wear a bandana under a baseball cap when he works out. He was told that was no longer allowed as well tank tops and big gallon jugs of water on the gym floor, all forbidden.  I am surprised the owner didn’t get his neck snapped as the guy he was chastising is as strong as an ox.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  I said how it sounded like he was being scolded in Junior High by the principal.  That place will be out of business within a year, guaranteed. Dumb f’rs.