Archives August 2007

Yesterday we put my theory to the test that if Nicki did one number 2 before Ali went to work, she would be able to hold the rest of the day until I got home.  Well I was wrong.  I got home to a big pile neatly tucked away in the corner of the dining room (Nicki’s preferred indoor toilet)  I couldn’t scream at her because we knew this was a possibility leaving her home for 10 hours plus.  I guess we should have kept her in the kitchen.   There actually was a secondary small pile next to the kitchen island too.  So I guess we go back to Ali’s later schedule.  Originally we hoped that our neighbors would be able to let her out on days when Ali works but that hasn’t seemed to be working out.  Ali feels like a pest asking twice a week.

Yesterday I went crazy and had my TWO functional Roombas cleaning at once!  It was cool in a nerdy, geeky way watching my two vacuuming robots have at it.  

Nothing else much to say, I will keep busy this weekend as normal.  I want to give the van a nice cleaning, tend to my cantaloupe jungle, all that jazz….

Remote assistance is a feature that has been around since Windows XP hit the scene some 5 or 6 years ago.  What it does is allow someone to request help from someone else.  They send an email with a small attachment to the person, the remote person opens it and then through the magic of remote control, the two people are connected.  I knew about the feature but never have used it, until yesterday.

My brother’s 6 year old laptop was giving him problems so he went to Best Buy and got another one.  He had the Geek Squad there pull his old files off and put them on the new laptop.  However there were two problems.  All they did was grab the files off the C drive and dump them in a  folder on the desktop called OLDHDD.  So most users aren’t going to know where to put the stuff on the new system so it appears at the same place.  The second problem was the majority of his files actually were on the D drive, which they didn’t even touch.

So as I had him on the phone, I quickly looked up the procedures for establishing a remote assistance connection.  After a few minutes I successfully was remote controlled into his Windows Vista laptop.  I was able to do most tweaks just like I was sitting there.  The only time I was handcuffed was if one of those incredibly annoying Vista “are you sure you want to do this?” dialogue boxes came up.  Todd had to click that box, I was unable to.  Anyway after a lot of screwing around we got the basic stuff working that he needs for his business.  Anyway, it’s a cool feature.

The new Roomba arrived today.  It is a nice deep maroon color.  I had Ali take it out and charge it while I was still at work so it would be ready to go when I got home.  I fired it up and let it do a quick run.  It seems quieter than my Discovery model.  It did a fine job.  I also tried out the new cleaning tool for the brushes.  It is awesome.  It makes the job of cleaning the hair off the brushes much, much easier.  Once my ebay auctions close out I will be snagging a Dirt Dog next.

So I may be attempting Roomba surgery shortly, combining two Roombas with different problems into one that is 100% functional.

I took the van to work yesterday and it performed just fine, no shakes, AC blew cold, and the brakes worked well. When I got back home last night I decided to go and touch the wheels to see how hot they were.  The passenger side rear wheel was hot!  Not as hot as it has been in the past but when I touched the driver side rear wheel it was only a little warm.  I called the garage again this morning and they owner said I should drop by and they can check it.  It’s a major pain in the ass logistically getting the van there nowadays since Ali and I don’t drive to work together anymore.  I have pretty much decided this is the end of the road with repairs with this garage.  I like the owner but the reality is every single repair I have had them do (except the replacement of the starter in the Toyota) has required multiple visit follow ups, which is extremely annoying. The joys of owning a 14 year old vehicle…. 

Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s record.  Yay.  Barry’s feat is near meaningless to me. MAYBE, just maybe, if he manned up and admit that he knowingly took steroids, regretted doing it and accepted the consequences I may feel slightly better about him.  But as things stand, to me, he is a piece of shit.  If he had any class, he would have retired a couple seasons ago so he wouldn’t tarnish the record books with his steroid and cattle growth hormone aided homerun escapades.  Loser.

It seems that thus far, there is an interesting cast of characters assembling for the Spartan Halloween challenge. We are up to 7 participants.  I found that the simple act of entering this “contest” was all that I needed to light a little fire under me.  My competitive nature will drive me to push myself even harder at the gym and push me to be more disciplined with my diet.  Let’s see where I can go with it. I already am making plans to not shave for at least the month of October. 🙂

Some of the links off the site lead to other contestant blog sites which had some interesting quotes.  Here is one that caught my attention:

World-Class Fitness in 100 words:

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports. From Crossfit.com

And here is another one I liked:

The problem is not solved if you send an email. The problem is not solved if you leave a voicemail. The problem is not solved if someone tells you they will handle it. The problem is not solved if you tick it off your list. The problem is not solved if you get it off your desk. The problem is not solved even if you eliminate every symptom. The problem is only solved when the problem is solved. And it is still your responsibility — despite emails, voicemails, promises and list-ticking — until it is done. Get it? From Scott’s blog http://thinkfit.blogspot.com/

And finally, this:

If the day’s workout prescribes hard work (as opposed to recovery or “conversational” intensity) and you can read a magazine, or talk, or take a sip of your favorite sports drink, or recognize it’s your phone that’s ringing, or if you’re not feeling dizzy, then you are not working hard. Avoiding hard work isn’t wrong but it should not be confused with embracing effort, mouth wide open and giving it a bit of tongue …(from www.gymjones.com)

A nice blog entry with only a few CTRL-V’s – nice

I drove the party van to work today.  I want to drive it at least once a week leading up to the trip to make sure the issues are squashed. So far, so good.

$1132!  Yep another 4 figure van repair bill!  I expected it to be high, not quite this high but oh well.  The garage went ahead and put in an aftermarket stabilizer kit for the front end.  It was something he mentioned to me early in the procesess as a possibility but I never agreed to it.  I wasn’t in the mood to argue, if the stabilizer helps the situation I am more than willing to lay out the extra bucks.  The 1100 bucks also bought me new rear brake shoes and wheel cylinders, two new emergency brake cables, two bushings for the front end and two new tires.  At least for the drive from the garage back to work, the van seemed to act just fine.  Now I just need to give it a thorough cleaning to prep for the trip.

Evidently there is a huge demand on ebay for broken Oakley Eye Jackets.  I listed the three pair on there for 10 bucks each and they were gone within a couple hours!  Nothing like taking a 95% depreciation hit on your investment.

Shhh, keep it quiet but my shoulder actually feels a little better today….

Man last night was not very restful sleep.  I feel asleep early, before 10 I think.  I got out of bed at like 1:30 to pee.  I am finding I am developing old man pee syndrome.  If I drink anything within an hour or two of going to bed I wake up in the middle of the night to drain the tank.  I guess it is good that at least I wake up to go instead of pissing myself, the next stage of old age.  Then I was awakened during the night when Nicki did one of her weird howling fits in her sleep.  You would swear we have a coyote in the room, it is so bizarre.  The rest of the night I was asleep but I was dreaming for what seemed to be non-stop.  Dream after dream ripped through my head yet I don’t remember any clear details about any of them.  Dragging myself out of bed this morning was not fun at all.

Last night after work I actually made an effort to be productive instead of my normal routine of tending to the dog, eating supper and then me spending the rest of the evening either in front of the computer playing WoW or in front of the tv watching reality programming.  First I went out and watered the big planters in front of the house.  One of the marigolds was already looking wilted so it was good that I decided to water.  Then I decided to investigate a mower problem that Ali had brought up several times since I changed the blades.

Ali said that it wasn’t cutting well.  She said in certain spots it looked like it was ripping the grass instead of cutting it and how there is a line of uncut grass that emerges from the back of the mower.  A week or so ago she had asked me if it was possible that there was something wrong with brand new blades I put on.  I scoffed at the notion and told her no, knowing that I installed them properly.  However after this weekends mowing session, Ali again reiterated that she thought something was wrong.  I considered that maybe one of the securing bolts was loose or something.  So last night I decided to remove the deck and check things out.

I drop the deck, pull it out and flip it over.  As I look at the blades I notice that the paint is worn off the back of the blades but the front cutting surface is unscathed which meant that once again, I had the blades on backwards.  It’s amazing it cut at all since the back of the blade is rounded off.  I guess it just clubbed the grass to death.  I was pissed off.  I installed the blades as I have other cub cadet blades, with the part number stamping facing down towards the ground.  Well evidently since these blades weren’t exactly the right ones for our model of mower, that rule did not apply.  If I put a little thought into the process and realized the direction the blades spin, (clockwise) I would have seen that they were oriented incorrectly.  What a dumb ass.   So I reversed the blades, reinstalled the deck and then took the tractor out for a prolonged test mow.  It worked MUCH better.

One of the other things I did last night was take another picture for my Spartan bio.  The silly one of me with a ribbon in my hair wasn’t nearly mean and “spartan” enough.  So thanks to the miracles of digital camera timers I was able to take a new picture of myself last night, looking insane with anger.  When I showed Ali and she was visually disturbed by it, saying it was “ugly and scary” I knew I hit the mark.  In an effort to protect people from this scary image, I won’t post it online, instead you have to click this link if you want to see just how insane I can make myself look.  You have been warned.

Yesterday Ali and I got into a little mini-argument regarding Nicki being left home and how it is affecting Ali’s work schedule.  Ali is afraid to leave Nicki home alone until she does two number 2’s.  I have told Ali that I think Nicki would be fine if she only does one number 2, that I think she can hold it until I get home.  We don’t know for sure because we have never tried it.  The point of the discussion was that Ali wasn’t getting to work until noon and in turn staying there until 7 or 8 at night.  One of my goals of Ali working a light schedule was not for me to be a bachelor 3 or 4 nights a week.  Between her working late, ballet one night and some times a group aerobic evening class, I could not see Ali before 8pm until Friday night.  I told Ali I was willing to risk one dog dump inside the house in order to see if Nicki is able to go a bit longer between bathroom runs so Ali can get out of the house a bit earlier.  So we will see what happens.  Ali said she likes being able to start her day slow like that.  I’m sure we will come to some compromise.

I got a voicemail on the way home last night from the garage saying the van was done but he wanted to fill me in on the details, whatever that means, I’m sure it isn’t good.  We haven’t talked money at all yet except for the cost of the tires.  I’m braced for yet another big bill.

22 is the amount of pull ups I knocked out today.  Only 3 from my goal of 25.  I hit 50 box jumps, leaving only floor wipers as the only 50 rep goal exercise I have yet to hit.  I skipped push ups and floor wipers.  I actually did the clean and presses but I dropped the weight from 35 pounds down to 25 pounds.  I kept my elbow close to my body and was able to get through the left arm set with little issue.

I am officially in the Spartan Halloween contest.  I am at a bit of disadvantage as I have been doing the program for 3 months and have already shaved about 15 pounds off my frame so if I use a current day picture as my “before” shot there won’t be any huge change.  So I threw up a picture from a few years ago.  I may have Ali help me take some wacky shots to put up there.  I can make some incredibly mean, scary faces if I need to. 🙂

Wow, it was melt your shoes hot this weekend.  It certainly wasn’t a great weekend to have a ton of outside things to tackle like I did.  The thermometer at our place got as high as 97 degrees and that was with humidity levels that were very high. 

The “list” this weekend was a double column version, meaning I would be quite the busy bee.  I pulled all the weeds from the garden and then filled it with cantaloupe plants.  I need to take a picture of it soon so you can compare it to 3 weeks from now when the garden will be a jungle of cantaloupe.  I had gotten a replacement plant for the rusty dog planter we have on the lanai.  The ornamental grass I had in there just wasn’t doing well.  Instead I picked up a no frills cactus.  No leaves, minimal watering, a perfect plant for that spot.  I went on a pruning rampage as well.  I pruned back the trees in the orchard, the topiaries, the hibiscus bush and gave the two ornamental grass in the pots in front of the house a huge haircut. 

On Saturday I also changed the oil on my truck.  It was during the oil change where I got my most painful reminder of the weekend about how f’d up my shoulder is.  Without thinking, I tried to lower myself down on to the creepy crawly with my left arm.  Instantly pain radiated throughout the arm and shoulder and instead of lowering myself onto it, I sort of just flopped down.  I never realized just how many movements your shoulder is involved in.  Pushing movements are near impossible with any force, lifting the arm, even with minimal weight is uncomfortable.  I find myself tucking my elbow in tight to my body involuntarily when I raise the arm.  

I have had left shoulder issues since my late teens when I severely screwed it up pitching.  I never had surgery on it but went through some physical therapy for it that did nothing to help it.  In fact it was the shoulder problem that ended my aspirations to be a pro baseball player.  Over the years it has been off and on problematic.  When I took up volleyball around 23 or 24 it would flare up, especially after heavy usage like a tournament.  It would be very sore afterward but within a few days the pain would subside.  Well I am more than a week out and there has been virtually no improvement.  I am going to give it another full week and if I am in the same boat I may make an appointment to see someone.  It can’t be totally torn or I wouldn’t be able to lift the arm at all, something is f’d up pretty well though.

On Saturday night Ali went to a musical at the dinner theater in Fort Myers.  I was invited as well but politely declined.  I have gone to shows before, however this one held no interest to me and when Ali said it was a musical that was 100% singing, that sealed the deal.  I appreciated the offer but I told Ali it would equate to me inviting the neighbors to a tractor pull, it just wouldn’t be fun. (when Ali got back she said I would have hated it)  So while Ali was away I kept busy.

First I spent the time to take pictures of various items I wanted to get rid of on ebay and then listing them.  The process took awhile but it felt good to finally get them up there.  I am trying to raise funds so I can get a Dirt Dog to be paired up with my Roomba Pet that should arrive this week.  After I got done listing the items I just f’d around playing WoW for a little while.  Because I was so dehydrated from sweating out buckets during the day, I felt ravenous.  Even though I knew I was actually just thirsty, the brain tricks you into thinking you are hungry as well.  So although I had a burger for dinner, I went back to the kitchen two or three times afterward for supplementary nourishment, none of it very healthy.  It is as close to binge eating as I get.

Even though my Saturday was quite busy, I still had more to do Sunday, namely weed whacking and sweeping the inside of the house.  I got started on the weed whacking before Ali got back from spinning class.  I was out there for a good hour and a half.  It took a long time since I didn’t get a chance to weed whack last week.  We are in the part of the year where we could legitimately cut the grass twice a week, it grows that fast.

After I got done whacking and Ali got done on the lawn tractor mowing we got cleaned up via a dip in the pool and headed out to the newest mega-store to open in our area, Super Target.  In general I don’t like these massive stores that try to be all things to all people.  They are so damn big and have so many people mulling around in them, it just never has equated to a pleasurable shopping experience for me.  Yet, I wanted to check it out.  On the plus side, it is the closest big store to open up around us, a scant 12 miles away.  As expected, it was quite full.  Somehow Target has an upscale image compared to Wal-mart.  I prefer it.  The place was massive but I was less shocked due to being in the Super Wal-Mart right down the road.  Ali and I walked around for a bit and scored the few items we had targeted plus a few extra items like 58 bottles of water for 10 bucks and a small watermelon plant that I would be hard pressed to find room for in the garden.  The experience was exceptionally vanilla.  The store was fine, no fireworks.

The plans I had to watch several movies over the weekend never materialized.  I only got to watch one of the movies and it wasn’t until Sunday evening that we did it, we watched the Simpsons.  Although I think the Simpsons tv show is very, very funny.  It never moved me to become a regular viewer, I have not seen all that many episodes.  The movie was basically a long version of the TV show and that isn’t a bad thing.  It was very funny and had us both laughing through out.  If you like the Simpson’s you will like the movie.  I’d give it a B+, it doesn’t get an A just because it is an extension of the TV show.

Yesterday on perezhilton.com they posted a link to this INCREDIBLE fall a skater took at the X-games.  He lost control and literally fell 40 feet on to the flat part of the ramp.  He landed on his ass.  How the kid isn’t dead or paralyzed is beyond me.  He walked away from it, eventually. Here it is, you won’t believe it.     

10 or 12 years or so ago I invested in my first pair of Oakley sunglasses. Oakley was as cool as cool could be when it came to sunglasses.  I got them under the veil of a requirement for volleyball play, to protect the eyes.  I loved the way they looked even if I didn’t love the pricey 100 dollar price tag.  Well after wearing them for not all that long, I noticed something curious, one of the arms broke, right in the middle.  Ah bummer, I guess I am just unlucky.  I buy another pair and even wind up buying a pair for Ali.  Imagine my surprise when both of these pairs also have broken arms after several months!  I was quite pissed.

I did some research and contacted Oakley.  I was happy to find out that I could get the glasses replaced under warranty.  So I wound up getting THREE replacement pairs of eye jackets, surely the pairs they sent me have had this problem corrected.  I was once again an Oakley fan and even went so far as to buy some of the even more expensive M-Frame glasses.  So of course, you know where this is going.  The replacement Eye Jackets also broke AT THE EXACT SAME SPOT.  Pieces of shit. I once again tried to get new pairs to replace the replacements but Oakley would not go for it.  They said the original pairs have passed the coverage point of warranty but they would be happy to sell me new pairs at a slightly reduced price from new. No thanks, jerks.

To top things off, my 150 dollar M-Frames also have broke, again the frame snapped.  I don’t know if it is planned failure so people are forced into buying new glasses or just poor engineering.  It sucks because I LOVE the lenses in the glasses, they are just awesome at blocking the sun while making what you see crystal clear.  The reason this rant came about was I just happened to pull out my 3 broken Eye Jackets that I had stuffed into a box at work.  I am trying to see if some smart company decided to make replacement arms for these problematic sunglasses.  If I could grab some arms for a few bucks, they would be good as new.  For some reason, I never have been able to bring myself to throw these glasses away.  

Even though I am in decent shape already, I may throw my name into this silly site just for fun. For SPARTA!

I gave the 300 workout a good college try today but it was disappointing.  I didn’t even try to do push ups or clean and presses.  I only got to rep 14 of the floor wipers before I had to stop because it was irritating the shoulder.  45 box jumps though and 17 pull ups on the last set although that is entirely because I wasn’t all that tired from skipping a good chunk of the normal routine.  Oh well.

 I just ordered a Roomba Pet model a few minutes ago.  I miss having nicely swept floors when I get home at night.  With my bastardized set up I currently run everything is a manual process.  I have accumulated a decent size pile of stuff that I need to get up on ebay to sell.  I would like to snag a Dirt Dog Roomba to keep the garage/pool deck cleaned up.  Evey week there is ample sand, grass clippings, dead insects, spider webs and more on the garage floor.  I hate when I walk out to the fridge in the garage in bare feet and come back in feeling like I corn dogged the soles of them.

Here I am 6 days after my volleyball tournament and my shoulder is still torched.  As a result I will be doing a gimped version of the 300 today.  Push ups and the overhead clean and presses are definitely out at this time.  Pull ups and the floor wipers could be a challenge as well.  I’ll do what I can.

I have a ton of movies to watch, Shrek 3, The Marine, Oceans 13, Fantastic Four, Simpsons, Die Hard, Hitch and more await my review.  Hopefully I will knock out a few of them this weekend.

My nighttime bedroom Tivo viewing has been a bit different this week.  Instead of watching fighting related shows like most every other night, I have been watching Texas Hold Em on tv.  As I said earlier, it is addicting.  I find that by watching people play I pick up  a decent amount of tips on how to play.  I even have hopped on to bodog.net and pokerstars.net to play a few hands. 

The latest van update has parts on order that could arrive tomorrow or could arrive in a couple days.  I am hoping by this time next week it will be back in our driveway.

The bridge collapse is a pretty scary story. I saw the video of it going down.  It is basically Ali’s worst nightmare come to life.  She is terrified of crossing bridges and heights in general.  I can’t imagine what it was like to be driving across a bridge one second and then be in free fall the next.

I have a lot of small things to knock out this weekend.  The cantaloupe seedlings have grown incredibly fast and have to get in the ground this weekend.  I have so many of them that I expect the entire garden to be nothing but a melon field for awhile.  I am armed with my Thuracide to battle those little green worms that devour anything I place in the garden eventually.

Wow in less than a month we will be on the road, heading west.  I am looking forward to the trip.  I could definitely use something to help break up “the routine”.   I plan to bring my entertainment with me.  DVD’s and Ali’s laptop connected to the internet via my Treo will keep us “plugged in” occasionally.

I don’t feel very chatty, full moon side effect.