Archives 2006

Randall and I were supposed to play volleyball in Fort Myers Saturday. The forecast for the day was not good, a high of 64 and windy. Wind and beach volleyball are never a good combination. It was very chilly. When we got to the beach I was glad I had sweatpants on. It was so chilly that Randall and I went to a local K-mart so he could pick up a pair of sweats. When we got back we saw a huge pack of people gathered around the tournament people. They were postponing the event due to wind. WTF, cancelled due to wind, that is a first. In retrospect it was a good idea, when I walked down to the beach it was a steady 25 mph plus, the sand was whipping me in the face, it would have been miserable. They were moving the event to Sunday, which I could not play because of the 5k. The tournament officials would not give full refunds to teams that could not play Sunday, instead theyonly would refund 20 of the 50 buck entry fee which was total bullshit. Their explanation was they already spent money in securing the event, buying prizes etc… so they could not refund all the money. Well that was ridiculous and enough to make me not want to play one of their events again.

The event was right near where the casino boat launched so I had the bright idea that maybe Randall and I could hop on the boat and spend the day gambling. I called,but was disappointed to hear they cancelled the boat today because of the wind. It was windy enough that when you looked out on the gulf you could swear you were looking at the Atlantic, on a stormy day. So we packed up and just went back to my place where Randall gave Ali and I some Texas Hold Em lessons. He deals cards part time and knows the game inside out. It’s funny how the game itself is simple but there are so many subtleties to it.

Sunday was race day, in a way I was glad I didn’t play vball Saturday because it meant I would be fresher for the run. The forecast was for it to be cold again, upper 40’s cold in the morning. Ali hates the cold and hates running in it even more. We bundled up and headed up to Cape Coral. Once we got out into the brisk air, Ali was pissed she forgot to wear gloves. Both of our hands were numb. We did our best to stay warm, jogging, stretching and moving constantly. Finally the race started. To make things worse, there was some wind on the course, making it feel even colder. We purposely started at the back so we could pass people. Ali’s pace was strong through the entire race. She was struggling with the conditions but she kept her pace steady and fast. We passed a bunch of people early on. With the GPS watch Ali could closely monitor our pace and I think it helped her. We finished the race officially in 28:45, according to the gps watch we actually did it in 28:30 something. Either way, Ali knocked more than another full minute off her time from the race on New Years day. We hoped her time was good enough to place her but she got 7th in her age group. Surprisingly, if she was in the 25-29 age group, she would have gotten 2nd. You never know how many people will show in your age range. It was a great performance by Ali, even with the nasty weather conditions.

On Monday there were supposed to be 2 things happening, our noisy, about ready to fall apart, pool pump was supposed to be replaced and our hurricane damaged water equipment was supposed to be replaced with a new upgraded system. My experience with the service industry since I moved to Florida has been overwhelmingly negative. Far more often than not, businesses over promise and under deliver here. Monday was a pleasant exception. By 11:30 am, both the pool pump and water equipment had been replaced! It was done early, correctly and efficiently. Damn that was cool. Now we can no longer hear the pool pump in our bedroom and the new water cleaning equipment is much lower maintenance, does a better job of cleaning the water and provides better water pressure inside the house. I’ll take some pics of the stuff sometime.

The water cleaner installer had a good line. Evidently he has had some back problems recently. My neighbor was over who just had shoulder surgery and they were comparing old age, body breaks down stories. The installer said , referring to how things go downhill quickly at a certain point “After 50, every year is like a dog year..”

We watched European Gigolo over the weekend, not as good as the first one, but tolerable. I played some more of the games that are on my Xbox, Gun, and Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks. Gun is a FPS that I could totally get wrapped up in, it’s a bit different because it is a western type format but very cool. Mortal Kombat is simply awesome. The graphics are unreal and the violence you impart on the enemies is as graphic and brutal as you can imagine, damn is it fun. I need to take a break from WoW once in awhile to come up for air. I hardly realize there are other games out there.

I feel bad for the Colts, I really do, I was pulling for them to win but there was no way they deserved to be in that game in the end. The referee’s made some HORRIBLE calls against the Steelers, the most ridiculous being the int that was clearly an int but was then for some reason ruled an incomplete after review. I almost fell over dead when Bettis fumbled when the game was in hand. I had a feeling Vanderjagt would choke, he is still getting paid back for the moronic comments he made in the offseason a couple years ago.

This weekend will be another athletic doubleheader. On Saturday I am playing in a volleyball tourney in Fort Myers and then early Sunday, Ali and I are running another 5k in Cape Coral. Luckily I have off Monday to recuperate.

Yesterday Ali did a quick run on her own. She ran a mile and a half at an 8:40 something pace, extremely fast for her, much faster than she ever did before. She is really self motivated to improve her running. For some reason it has brought out the athlete in her, it’s great.

Today at the gym there were 2 or 3 guys that were wearing knit beanies, the type you wear in the winter time up north. Now I know I have seen pictures of serious bodybuilder types in muscle mags wearing these. I have never been able to comprehend the benefit. I could understand if it was 20 degrees outside and you wanted to try to warm up quickly. But hell, it’s 78 degrees outside, what’s with the beanie? I can only assume these individuals think it somehow enhances their appearance in the gym, maybe making them seem more hard core or intense. The one guy went as far as having his sunglasses on his head with the arms poked through the beanie. Silly.

We are now in the absolute worst time as far as “seasonal visitors” (snowbirds) goes. Traffic is a mess, even more so than normal and it is filled with blue hairs that are in the bottom percentile of driving ability. It is maddening driving the streets. I find myself more or less cursing at one individual after another, without even thinking about it. I would like to be able to calm down a bit. Why can’t these f’rs realize that some people on the road actually have places they have to be on a schedule…

The Stern Show has been great since he moved to Sirius this week. It’s brought tears of laughter to my eyes more than once.

My personal army of WoW characters is getting rather large. Here is the list of my current characters along with my thoughts on each. Those of you that could care less about WoW, move along. Fellow WoW addicts, read on.

My original and highest ranking character is Fragu. He is a a level 60 (highest level in the game currently) warrior. A warrior’s role in the game is to be in the front of most battles, taking damage and keeping the attention of enemies so other party members can attack without being attacked. Being my first character, I have a fond place in my heart for him, however I really don’t enjoy playing with him that much. Of all my characters, I have the hardest time playing well with him. In PvP (player vs player) fighting I usually lose badly. Part of this is because my armor is very poor in comparison to most so I can be hammered rather easily by other players sporting an arsenal from running endless high end instances. Fragu spends most of his time logged off, only being called upong to run lower level characters through instances from time to time.

Duf was my second character, he is a level 56 warlock. For my 2nd character I wanted to pick something as opposite from a warrior as possible. A warlock specializes in DOT spells (damage over time) He also has the ability to control a demon which acts like a hunters pet. The warlock has a huge array of spells, curses and abilities to choose from, almost too much. I can PvP much better with the warlock than the warrior because the warlocks spells have range that allows me more time to execute my attack. But like Fragu, he has seen little light of day recently.

Fatherduf is a level 50 priest. More specifically he is a shadow priest. A priest, although seemingly an innocent sounding class, can actaully be one of the deadliest because of their strong shadow magic and healing abilities. I like Fatherduf and being a priest automatically ensures lots of people needing you to run instances since you always need a healer. I am not bad PvPing with him, but again my lack of lighting quick button mashing ability holds me back from being great with him.

Darkduf is a 46 rogue. I made him in response to getting ganked endlessly by horde rogues while leveling my other characters. Rogues have the ability to be invisible to the enemy until they attack plus they have a bunch of stun moves that basically freezes his enemy in place, unable to respond till two thirds of his health is gone. I made DD because I wanted to inflict the same torment on the horde as they have done to me. I enjoy playing him probably the most of all my characters because most battles are on my terms. I sneak up on someone in a compromising situation and just wipe them out. If someone tries to jump me, I have a number of methods to escape their attack and simply /lol them. I spend a lot of time with him just roaming areas where horde reside, picking them off at will. I love the paranoia I can create in the enemy. Once they know a rogue is around they are constantly looking for him, knowing he is lurking. Rogues do big damage but also have light armor, so if my ambush fails, a good player can counter and take me down. I PvP with Darkduf better than any other character.

Finally I have my 24 druid, Rombler who is actually the account of a buddy at work who gave up on WoW. A druid is a jack of all trades. He can cast ranged magic, he can heal, he can turn into a bear form which emulates a warrior, turn into a cat that attacks like a rogue or even turn into a cheetah that allows him to run much faster than normal. The catch is while he can do all these things, he can’t do any single thing as well as a class that specializes in it. That being said, I really am enjoying playing with him. There is no getting bored with play style with a druid since he can do so many things. At higher levels, most druids are expected to specialize in healing and do little more than that. I will buck the trend and develop Rombler to be a solo powerhouse.

My WoW collection of characters is quite large, larger than I would have ever expected. Having multiple characters gives you the ability to cross-support each other by having different characters have different professions that support each other. There are 3 or 4 classes I do not have and if I went through those, I could start all over on the horde side and learn that side of things. However I have vowed never to play on the horde side out of principal. My point is if you explore all of the possibilites available to you within the game, it truly offers near endless variety.

Get the game.

Ali has set an ambitious goal for us to be able to run a half marathon by next year. As part of the plan to do this, we have been trying to get in 1 or 2 runs in during the week in addition to our weekend runs. So what this means is a few days a week I do weight work at the gym over lunch and then run a half hour after work. So far it has been working out ok although the fear of having something breakdown from such a schedule is always in a corner of my mind. I have NEVER run more than 5 and a half miles in my life and that was with 2 good knees.

I have packed my lunch and taken it to work for 15 years or more, starting way back to when I was driving truck for Goodwill. It’s funny how my lunch has transformed over the years. When I was younger I gave absoultely zero thought to what I shoved in my mouth. At Goodwill I would normally have a mid-morning snack of chocolate milk and tastycake blueberry pie, probably a 600-700 calorie snack. Then I would have my lunch on top of it. My lunch at that time had some variety with the sandwich portion of it, normally being some sort of lunch meat. The rest of the lunch included yogurt, milk and maybe a half a dozen double stuff oreos. Later the sandwich portion of the lunch became standardized as PBJ with TONS of jelly and very little peanut butter.

I started to clean up my lunch slowly over the years. I swapped out the half dozen double stuff’s for a half dozen of the low fat oreos. Then I cut down from 6 oreos to 4. That lunch configuration was standard for a long time. However in the last few years it mutated further. I cut the jelly out of the PBJ, realizing the jelly was nothing but empty calories, I loaded up on the PB (more protein). I went from big pieces of italian white bread to wheat bread, then to low carb wheat bread (smaller slices) The oreos were phased out and are now replaced by a zone bar with 16 grams of protein. The most recent change swapped out the yogurt for those cottage cheese/fruit combos that offer more protein and half the sugar of yogurt. The only thing that has remained constant in the lunch is about a pint of skim milk. Instead of chocolate milk and tastycakes, I have a cup of coffee in the morning and a protein shake in the afternoon. It was tough to give up the junk food staples that I enjoyed, however now I find I enjoy the healthier choices nearly as much.

To Ali’s dismay, I excitedly tuned the satellite radio to hear Howard’s first day. It was great to hear him again after 9 or 10 months of listening to the local “talent”. Howard sounds the same, Artie was going overboard with all the swearing and everyone else sounded the same with an occasional shit or f dropped in there. I cringed as Artie carried on, feeling Ali’s disdain weighing on my back like a 50 pound weight. Oh well, if it gets crazy I can flip over to music for a bit. I actually brought my wireless headphones into work so I could listen without offending others if need be. However right now I am listening to him over the speakers, hopefully low enough that it doesn’t carry out into the hallway. It feels good to hear Howard.

It got real cold (for Florida) this weekend. When I got up Saturday morning the thermometer read 42 degrees, when I got up Sunday morning it was 38! It was actually cold enough that there was frost on the ground. Thankfully Ali went around on Friday and covered up sensitive plants to protect them. It was an odd feeling walking Nicki with the frozen grass crackling under my flip flops. In a weird way it was nice, if for only a few hours to feel a semblance of winter. By mid day it was close to 70.

We got a bunch of restaurant giftcards for Christmas and decided to use one Saturday night. We were hesitant to do so because we are now in the heart of snowbird season but invited my mom to come along and chanced it. Well it was as bas as we imagined. We went to PF Changs and were not happy to get a quote of 90-100 minutes wait. We put our names in anyway and I said I would go down the parking lot to see if the wait was any better at Romano’s, only slightly better, a 1:15 wait. So we decided to stay put at PF Changs, I confidently said that they always over estimate the wait time. Haha. Well an hour forty five and 60 bucks in alcohol later, we finally got seated. Never again will I go to a restaurant during prime eating hours, during season, that was ridiculous.

I played a lot of WoW this weekend, a whole lot. I have been working some different characters which has sucked me into playing much more in the past month or so.

A nasty cold front is blowing through today for the weekend. Keep an eye out on the weather at the Duffey homestead, the temp could drop into the 30’s!

Yesterday in the mail I got an envelope from the pool cage company that came out to give an estimate. I was anxiously awaiting to see the number so I could have an idea of how heavy the hit will be. Woah… the estimate came in at just over 17 grand. That is more than the total estimate I got from Allstate for ALL the damage which included replacing the water equipment, pool cover and temporary fencing costs. If I went ahead with the repairs right now, going with that estimate and not pursuing any further reimbursment, my out of pocket would approach 10k. So I contacted the insurance company for a supplemental claim and I can only hope that FEMA comes through with a few bucks.

After work Ali and I did a training run. Ali has been reading a book on women’s running and in it it recommends doing training runs 2-3 times a week of a half hour or so. So we ran around Ali’s work for a half hour. Ali kept a very strong pace, just a hair slower than what she ran at our last race. Her pace is now good enough that I have to work much more to keep stride. I’m really proud of her progress.

Last night I was up way late playing WoW, close to midnight. I started a new character on a different server to play with Charlie, since he jumped over there with some co-workers of his. Needless to say I was a bit tired this morning. I did all my morning chores and then poured myself a bowl of shredded wheat. I sat down in front of my computer to read my overnight email and realized that I put a fork in my cereal bowl….