Archives September 2007

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Last night I watched The Bionic Woman.  Growing up I was a HUGE Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman fan.  I used to think how amazing it would be to have bionic limbs.  It was another way to become a super hero, what I always aspired to be, just like most little kids.  Well, welcome to the 2007 version of Bionic Woman.  I liked the premiere.  I thought the groundwork that was laid will make for an interesting series.  This Bionic Woman has more of a hard edge, more of a bad ass attitude which plays out better in today’s day and age.  If you like super hero stuff at all, I would recommend the show.

The contract on Ali’s Treo 650 with Verizon ran out this month and I have been looking around for deals to replace it.  I was surprised when viewing the “deals” Verizon offered to renew, they just weren’t good.  They basically knocked 100 bucks off the phone price.  The 650 uses the Palm OS which is simple to use and has tons of applications available for it.  However the main thing Ali needs to do is sync her email, calendar and contacts with our home email which I run with Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2003.  The Palm OS is buggy at best when doing this.  So for her new phone I was looking into one of the newer Treo’s that run Windows Mobile OS which is has much more seamless integration into and Exchange/Outlook environment.

I stumbled across a deal on ATT/Cingular’s site on a refurbished Treo 750.  I could step into that for only 99 bucks.  It runs Windows Mobile 5 and supposedly a free upgrade to Windows Mobile 6 is being released any week now.    It also supports the higher speed 3g network which will result in much better wireless browsing speeds.  The monthly charges were inline with what we are paying now through Verizon.  After checking briefly with Ali whom didn’t really care what she got as long as it worked better.  I started the purchase process.  Shortly after I started, I stopped when I saw the little box to enter a promotional code.  My online buying experience has taught me that promotional codes are often quite easy to find and are normally quite a good deal.  Hell a simple code saved me 100 dollars and got me free shipping on my Scooba.  So I opened a new browser window, did a quick search for “att promotional codes” and within seconds found a code that knocked an additional 50 bucks off the price!!  Sweet!  So if I bought this phone brand new, with no plan it would cost upwards of 500-600 bucks.  Getting a refurbished model with the code I paid 50 bucks for it.  I mentally patted myself on the back for that one.  It should show up on our doorstep Monday, I’ll have a full review next week.

Irobot, the company that makes the Roomba and Scooba robots that I love so much has recently announced two new robots to add to their line called the Looj and the Connectr.  In my opinion, they missed the boat with both of these.  The Looj is a gutter cleaning robot.  It basically will creep back and forth along a straight section of gutter (no it doesn’t do turns) and flip stuff out of it.  To me, gutter cleaning, unlike floor sweeping/cleaning isn’t done nearly often enough to justify using a robot to do so.  Plus you still have to get the ladder out, throw it in there and move to various straight sections of gutter, not a massive time savings either.  I think this thing will sell very poorly.

 The Connectr looks like a Roomba with a webcam attached to it.  They are pitching it as a home surveillance/ virtual visiting robot.  At first glance it seems cool.  The unit will allow you to wirelessly monitor or communicate over the internet via this bastardized Roomba, kind of nifty, until you start seeing the numbers.  They are talking about $500 dollars for this doodad but that isn’t all.  It will only work through Irobot’s proprietery VPN which you get free access to for the first year.  Although they haven’t announced it, it is assumed that after that they would charge you a fee to use this network. Nice try, thanks for playing.  It seems that every company is all about dipping into your pocket on a monthly basis after the sale somehow.  If the unit was a couple hundred dollars less and I was able to tie into my own home WLAN with no strings attached it might be a viable purchase.  Being able to drive the robot over to Nicki or Tuki at home while I was at work and being able to talk to and see them would be kind of cool.  But I’m not going to pay a monthly fee to do so.

I think they really shit the bed with these two offerings.  I would much rather see them crank out robots that wash carpets or mow grass.    

This weekend will be busy with working house chores around visiting with my sis as well as me driving out to the middle of nowhere Sunday morning very early to help with a 20k race.

I was typing in a URL to my site yesterday and fat fingered it.  I was very surprised to see a page load that looked like an Adware site.  Here is what you see.  I was like WTF??  So I email support and reported it, worried that there was something awry, that somehow internet crooks had hijacked my site.  Well after a lengthy delay, I got a response back from “Yaroslav Udovenko” saying that  “We’ve created new error pages for all our customers to make their sites look more professional” Haha.  No they set it up so error pages on customer sites load adware that generates additional revenue.  I do have the option to change my error pages so they don’t display that junk.  I will be doing that later today.

Well after not seeing my sister for around a year, I will be seeing her for the third time in a month or so.  She is flying in with my bro-in-law, my niece and my bro-in-laws parents.  They are staying at a timeshare in Fort Myers his parents arranged through, gulp, RCI.  They aren’t going to be here that long, they arrive late tonight and fly out Tuesday so I expect we will see them a couple times over the weekend.  I can’t quite remember if Torrin has ever been in our house before.  It will be cool to have everyone in our neck of the woods.

I now have my sights on yet another robot to add to my electronic cleaning crew , the Bissel SpotBot.  I read someone singing it’s praises on a Roomba enthusiast site I frequent often.  It is an automatic spot cleaner.  Supposedly this thing does a fantastic job, even on set stains. Animal excrement cleaning is a nearly daily job in our house and sometimes despite our best efforts it isn’t very successful  depending on the organic compound we are trying to clean. (shit versus vomit versus bile versus …)  You basically set this thing on top of the spot and let it scrub, spray and vacuum the hell out of it.  I don’t think it will be very hard to talk Ali into this one. It could ALMOST make it fun if Nicki shits on the floor.

I heard about Facebook awhile ago.  When I did I went on, set up an account, poked around a bit and then forgot about it.  Well Jeremy, my vball buddy got me to go back there and dig around some more.  To me it’s like a sophisticated version of Myspace.  Facebook has an open API that allows anyone to create Facebook “applications” which can do an endless amount of things.  It is quite cool.  I was surprised to find that quite a few of my friends were on there already.  I even found my brother Pat.  If you want to see my Facebook persona, you can see it here. Nothing too thrilling although my blog entries get imported there and installed a few applications such as one that displays my WoW characters (chicks will dig that!) as well as one that allows you to pick football games and compete against other users.  If you have a sec, check it out.  Punch in someone’s name, you may be surprised to find them on there.

So I sat down to watch Dancing with the Stars with Alison.  They are already overdoing it, splitting the men and women apart in two different shows, plus a result show.  I’m not watching 3 shows a week. The cast has a bunch of no names on it.  So anyway I sat through the entire women’s show.  Here are my observations.

Again they have allowed people in that should not be allowed in.  The Chubby Cheetah Girl and the Spice Girl both have done plenty of dancing, just not ballroom.  When they allow people like this in the show it invalidates the competition in my mind.

Marie Osmond is a mess.  You can tell she is uncomfortable with her physical appearance and she tries to cover it up with constant joking.  Man I used to think she was mega-hot back in the Donnie and Marie days. 

Jane Seymour is ten years older than Marie but is holding up much better in my opinion.

Josie Moran is an uncoordinated weakling.

Jenny Garth is holding up incredibly well considering she pumped out three kids.  Have to admire that.

The mens show was on last night.  I told Ali she could watch that one, I didn’t care enough to watch it.  I saw two of the men perform at the end, Mark Cuban and Wayne Newton.  Cuban was ok, better than I expected, throw in the fact that he had a hip replaced 7 weeks ago and it was quite the achievement.  Wayne was horrible, embarrassingly bad.  What was more embarrassing were the judges kissing his ass, acting like it wasn’t bad.  It looked like an old guy getting danced around the dining room at a nursing home by the activities coordinator.

I will watch the show a bit but I really don’t care about it.  Ali finds it compelling and extremely entertaining.  I can understand why she enjoys it so much because of her interest in dance.

Last night Ali said I was being grumpy because I indicated something she said made no sense to me.  Ali was saying how she wouldn’t be able to get to one of the aerobic classes at the gym because it fell right in the middle of Nicki’s poop schedule.  She said that Nicki liked to poop around 8am and 10:45 am.  Ali was afraid that if she wasn’t home at those exact times, Nicki would crap on the rug.  I told Alison it was silly to not go to the gym because of the dog.  If she is that worried that Nicki can’t hold it then into the kitchen she goes. It isn’t that hard to handle.  Of course anytime I suggest that a thought process Ali has is flawed, I am the asshole.

While I am on the subject of the dog.  I was thinking last night as I was preparing her supper how it is funny that much more work goes into the dog’s supper preparation than ours.  This is what I/we do every night to prepare Nicki’s meal.

Into a big stainless steel bowl we dump a cup of dry food. Then we carry the dry food and a basket in the pantry that contains all of the add-ins.  Then I retrieve a can of wet cat food and a can of Nicki’s wet dog food.  This isn’t just any dog food, this is Merrick dog food.  This dog food is better than what many humans eat.  Ali pays two dollars a can for it (although she could get it cheaper elsewhere) and Nicki never has the same thing on consecutive nights.  There are literally over a dozen varieties.  So the wet dog food is dumped into the bowl.  Then we hit the basket.  I cut a Benadryl in half and throw it in, that is to help alleviate some of her itchiness problems. Then whole flaxseeds are added.  These are to help with emptying anal sacs, yes anal sacs.  Then I put in a couple spoonfuls of some stuff that is supposed to be good for the joints and finally I add a couple dollop’s of plain yogurt to help settle her digestive system.  This concoction is then mixed up with a fork and then I get out a spatula to push it on to her dinner plate (not a bowl).  The spatula is used to make sure all of the flaxseeds get scraped out of the bowl.  Once the plate is presented to Nicki on her raised dining table that I made, I take over the wet cat food and mash a couple forkfuls into her food.  She views it as a condiment.

If you would have told me before we adopted a dog that I would be willingly going through all this bullshit to feed it I would have told you that you were insane.  Look who is the insane one now.

Well I firmly stepped into my commitment for the Spartan Halloween contest by ordering my costume today.  The costume is only one part of the prep.  Starting next week I plan to begin my all October long ritual of not shaving.  I also plan to make a significant reduction in my carb intake to lean out as much possible as well as pick up the intensity on my non-300 workout days.  I need to get the abs showing as much as possible since I’m not going to develop tree trunk arms in 30 days. Yes I know, there is no real point in all of this, no real payoff except whatever self satisfaction I derive from it.  Sometimes that is enough.

The new season of Heroes kicked off last night.  I am glad to report it is still totally cool.  There were a couple surprises like the apparent death of Geore Takaei’s character as well as Peter’s brother, whom flew him up into the sky before Peter exploded, still being alive.  Everyone assumed he bit the big one.  I was very thankful that Nissan laid out big bucks so there were “limited commercial interruptions”  Last year that was my biggest gripe, there were too many commercial breaks, at least 7 per show.  Last night there were 3.  I look forward to seeing how this season’s plot unravels, already there are a boatload of new questions that need answers.

I put the Dirt Dog to a good test last night, letting it loose in the garage.  It ran just fine, no issues whatsoever. I am thrilled.

I woke up late this morning, I forgot to set my alarm back from dentist appointment time to normal time. I hate being late.

The 300 today was brutal.  I discovered that my run yesterday had left my legs just feeling tired all over.  My upper and lower back also were still sore from Friday’s workout.  I found my watch so I timed it but it wasn’t very meaningful.  Twice during the routine I stopped to give my buddy a spot on the bench and another time I had to take extra time to set up equipment in the middle of the routine all of which I just let the timer keep running.  It was a struggle just to reach the finish line.

My numbed mouth resulted in me spitting water all over my shirt shortly after I walked in the door.  I had to look like an idiot.

The weekend was ok.  A shadow was over my mood for most of it, I checked the sky at night and saw the moon was almost full again.  I already knew it had to be.  When these feelings arrive it makes me feel totally discontent with almost every aspect of my life.  It’s wonderful.

So anyway, on Saturday I put the Dirt Dog to work cleaning the pool deck like I always do.  I decided I would also brush down the sides of the pool while the DD was doing it’s business.  I was a bit concerned about splashing some water onto the pool deck and the DD interacting with it but I vowed to be careful and keep the splashing to a minimum.

So away I went scrubbing away.  The constant drone of the Dirt Dog brushing was nice background noise.  I got to the far side of the pool when I heard a noise that was not pleasant or expected, KERPLUNK!  I instantly looked over and saw a horrible sight, my Dirt Dog sinking towards the bottom of the pool! I instantly drop the brush and sprint over to the other side, you would think a baby fell in the pool.

So I quickly grab the pool skimmer and try to save my drowning robot although I figured the thing was dead the second it hit the water.  It took me several tries until I got it balanced on the skimmer.  I sort of figured when I got it to the top it would be dead as a doornail with smoke coming out of it.  I had it balanced on the skimmer with the wheels and brushes facing up.  I couldn’t believe it when I saw the brushes still turning, they were throwing water like a little paddleboat.  Quickly I brought it out to dry land and hit the power button to turn it off.  The button did not work, the only way I could stop the brushes was to flip it upside down and remove the battery.

I was pissed.  As I shook the robot out and watched water stream out of it I tried to figure out why it went in the pool.  I have had it out there every week since I got it without incident, however I never did it at the same time as cleaning the pool.  There have been a few close calls where the front wheel has slipped over the edge but the robot always has immediately halted keeping it safe and dry.

This is my CSI-like analysis.  The spot where the robot went in was right by the strainer basket.  I had emptied the strainer basket beforehand which always splashes a generous amount of water on the ground.  I think what happened was the robot went over the wet area, the front wheel went over and when it tried to stop the wet wheels on the wet concrete slipped enough to let it plummet into the murky depths.

So throughout the weekend I let the unit dry out if for no other reason than I wanted it to be dry before I tried to get it covered under warranty from Irobot.  I didn’t plan to fess up to the Dirt Dog taking a swim, rather just describe the symptoms of it.  Every time I picked both the robot and the battery up it seemed more water would drip out of it, it was a lost cause.

So today I brought the unit to work with me so I would have it handy when I called in to try to get it replaced.  For the hell of it I snapped the battery in and hit the clean button.  I couldn’t believe it, the Dirt Dog LIVES.  It scurried about like nothing was wrong, like it didn’t drown only a couple days earlier.  Wow that is amazing.  I guess it dried out without any fatal damage occurring, wow.  I plan to reenlist it by the pool, however there will be no water anywhere on the deck while it is working from now on.

On Saturday night we went over to our neighbors to hang out.  We always have fun there but I came back feeling grumpy. The reason? Too tired and too much food.  From the second we got there we were besieged with food.  I wind up eating much more than I am comfortable with and as a result leave feeling pissed at myself.  I’d much rather just pound alcohol, then you are too drunk to care.

On Sunday morning I did something I haven’t done in eons, went running outside.  For the past month or two, Ali’s running schedule has evaporated into nothing.  She suggested that she go to the track near us and give it a go.  She didn’t realize that I planned to give it a go as well.  We only did a mile at 10 minute pace, I could have done more but did not want to push it during my first venture back into the activity in months and months.  It didn’t go too badly.  I had some twinges in my right knee but that is normal, it always feels a little f’d up.  It’s the left knee that concerns me, if that one starts to hurt then I am f’d.  At least after a mile, it held up ok.  I may test it some more as time goes on.  Mixing running in and trying to not have it affect doing 300’s twice a week will require some careful planning.  So far the only appreciable after effect I have is stiffness up the front of my calves from my big feet flopping on the macadam. 

So today was part two of my dentist work, they had to attend to three teeth on the right side.  I was apprehensive of this visit since the doc said she would have to numb me.  Well whatever the stuff was, it worked.  I didn’t feel any pain although the sensation of power tools in my mouth was enough to make me clench my leg several times.  The worst part has been the after effect of the numbing,  Ali told me how she couldn’t drink afterwards.  I told her it wasn’t that bad.  Well when I tried to eat my lunch I wound up spitting milk on myself 4 or 5 times.  I just had no control over it.  It felt really weird.

Speaking of weird, it felt like all night I had one long dream.  I don’t remember any details except that it basically involved a huge amount of people all trying to deceive the others, it just went on and on.  I’m not sure if I was participating in the deception or just observing it.

Who can predict the NFL?  Who would have thought the Eagles offense that looked so anemic for the first two weeks would explode for 56 points??  Man that was something to see.  I just wish I knew which team was the “real” Eagles. God those uniforms were hideous.  I think those were the ugliest uniforms I ever saw, NFL, XFL, USFL, bar none, just horrific looking.  Maybe the Lions D played so poorly because they kept breaking out in laughter when they looked across the line of scrimmage.

The gym is always a good source for blog material whether it is me complaining about another 300 workout, bitching about the rundown condition of the place or just commenting on the people there.  Today I am 2 for 3.

Before I left for the gym I couldn’t find my Timex I have been using to time the workout.  Once I got started I was very glad I didn’t bring it.  My ass was dragging.  I dropped off 10 reps or so, the most significant of which was a -9 on the floor wipers.  Yesterday at the gym I did hard abs and as a result they were sore before I even got started.  By the time I got to 35 I felt like I could tear something so I stopped. 

I was getting both annoyed and amused by a black guy that was back in my little room.  He is in good shape and from what I have heard from other people at the gym he used to be a pseudo serious body builder type.  I don’t quite understand how though.  His intensity level seems to be shit.  He lallygags around the gym doing much more resting than exercising.  He was sitting on the one ab machine observing me busting my ass for most of my routine.  I found it annoying.

However I had to smile when after I was done with my workout and was cleaning up my equipment, the guy was on the roman chair doing leg lifts.  The funny part was he had the bottom of his shirt in his mouth so he could watch his abs while he was doing the exercise.  It just looked ridiculously vain. 

When we got back we did a Big Brother marathon to catch up since we didn’t see it the entire time we were away.  Wow I can’t believe they gave the money to Dick.  It was impressive that both Dick and his daughter made it to the finals, they played the game extremely well.  However it’s hard to imagine Dick getting the money considering he verbally assaulted pretty much everyone on the jury at one time or the other on top of being the most obnoxious player I ever saw on the show.  Well I guess it taught a valuable lesson.  To get very far you have to be an asshole.

Now the onslaught of reality tv hits, our Tivos will be working overtime.  Off the top of my head, these are the shows starting up that at least one of us will be watching , Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, Biggest Loser, Heroes, ER, Ultimate Fighter, and Desperate Housewives.  Throw Eagles games and World Series of Poker broadcasts and it amounts to a ton of boob tube time.  One of the benefits of watching this stuff via Tivo is you cut approximately a third of the time off each show by being able to almost instantly bypass commercials.

Every night after work my house becomes a Roomba zoo.  After I unpack my stuff I normally let the three Roombas loose to chow down on the animal hair that is everywhere in our house.  It looks quite funny to see them all in action.

Sometimes Nicki gets caught in the middle.

Anyway having three of them going helps since they are cleaning a rather large area.  It amazes me how much hair, fuzz and dust they pull out of the carpet considering they are being run 4 or 5 times a week.

When I planted my cantaloupes they were very small as you can see below.

Ok now fast forward to 5 weeks or so later.  This is how the garden looks now.

Cantaloupe grow like crazy.  The lima bean, honeydew and watermelon plants are doing well too.  I am hoping to have a bountiful harvest.

Today I plan to return to my 300 workout after a full 3 week hiatus.  I am a bit nervous about it.  I am hoping I haven’t lost much number wise. 

This weekend will be as  busy as I want it to be.  The list of required chores isn’t very long, just the standard mowing, weed whacking, spraying the garden, cleaning the pool and sweeping inside stuff.  However there are a number of things floating around in my head that I need to get done sooner or later.  Plus we really need to do our September monthly cleaning project, the computer room/office.  For the past few months we have been blowing off the monthly cleaning project so I want to get back in the swing of it.

I have been a big ebay fan from the very beginning.  It is amazing what they have up there, you name it, they probably have it.  I also have sold quite a few things on ebay over the years. At first the fees for doing so were quite reasonable, however over the years they have been slowly increasing the chunk they take out of your sale. They almost have become RCI-like with the way they are constantly reaching into your pocket.  It is annoying.

Ebay dings you three separate times for a transaction.  You pay an up front fee to list an item which varies in cost depending on the starting price of the item and what features you want on the ad like bold print, pictures or special placement in the listings.  You pay this fee regardless of if your item sells or not.  Then when you sell the item, Ebay takes another chunk, based on what the final selling price is.  Finally when you go to collect payment from the buyer via Paypal (which ebay also owns) they take ANOTHER chunk of the sale, again based on the selling price.  It is basically double dipping the customer.  I recently bought some discounted Irobot Scoobas and resold them on ebay.  The 50 or 60 dollar profit I figured to make on each one was basically cut in half by the time I got done handing out money to ebay.  It pisses me off.  I think they have become overly greedy.  I may need to check out some of the auction site alternatives. 

I forgot yesterday to mention the health report for the party van after it’s 5000 mile trip. During the trip we only had very minor issues.  The one front turn signal assembly came loose a bit, it looks like the backing it screws in to is broken.  I thought that I blew the fuse for the cigarette lighter by plugging too much stuff into it late in the trip.  I stopped and got fuses and a needle nose pliers but was dumbfounded when I couldn’t find any blown fuses.  I f’d with it for awhile with no luck.  Then I tried grabbing the actual lighter outlet and turning it to take it out and look at it.  Well I could turn it but it wasn’t coming out.  Somehow, turning it fixed it! There must be a flaky connection in there.  It worked for the rest of the trip.

  The stereo system is pretty shot. The speakers are old and brittle, if a song comes on with heavy bass you can hear the speakers flopping and buzzing.  You can’t used the fader or balance either.  The driver side windshield wiper broke, the frame snapped apart.  I snapped it back together several times but eventually it disconnected totally.  I stopped at a gas station in Texas and bought a cheap one to get us through the trip.  Other than these minor issues, the van was ok.  Yea on occasion I could feel the transmission slipping on launch but that has been going on for as long as we have had it.  All in all the van gets an A for getting us there and back safely.  Apparently whatever the garage did to address the vibration problems worked.

One of the reasons I wanted to get back a bit early was I figured I would have a ton of things to do around the house to get things back in order.  There was a lot to do, however after about a day and a half of busting ass it was pretty much done.

Saturday morning I went to an aerobics class with Ali.  She had a free pass.  This wasn’t a leg warmers, short shorts, Jane Fonda type class.  It is called Group Power.  The entire class is done with weights.  Of course there is loud music and stuff but the point of the class is to build strength.  Since I hadn’t done a real work out in a couple weeks I figured this would be a good way to get back into it.  How hard can it be if I can do 300’s?  Hahaha.

I was warned first by Ali and again by the instructor that you want to err on the light side when deciding how much weight to use.  I had no idea what to expect so I grabbed lots of plates, way too many in retrospect.  Then the worse case scenario happened.  There were only two other males in the class and one of them plopped himself right in front of me.  The instructor knew the guys name so I assume he is a regular.  Well while I had 2 medium size plates on each side and 2 smaller size plates on each side, this guy had one of the BIG plates on each side along with a small plate.  It looked like he had more weight than I did, although after the class I thought about it and I think my poundage actually added up to more.

Well I paid and paid dearly for my ego.  Class started and my barbell felt adequately light, for the first 10 reps or so. However this class wasn’t like a normal gym workout.  You are doing dozens of reps with little to no rest in between.  I knew very early on I was in trouble.  The instructor did legs first and by the time we were done my quadriceps felt like rubber.  The instructor herself was a little tiny woman but a powerhouse.  On some exercises she was doing the same weight I was and smiling and laughing the entire time, it was maddening.

We moved from body part to body part.  Quite often I would find myself out of sync with what the instructor was doing.  I wasn’t familiar with the verbal clues she was giving to indicate the next movement.  The exercises were tough as hell.  It wasn’t like you do your 10-12 reps with a normal full range of motion, take a break and then repeat. No instead you were doing fast reps, then slow reps, then half reps, slow down fast up, fast down slow up. It was so difficult, partially because I had on too much weight to throw around that many times. 

As class went on my ego no longer mattered, I just needed to survive.  I pulled off plates as we went to smaller body parts like triceps and biceps.  I glanced around and saw a few women with the same weight I had as things went on.  I was a sweaty, disgusting mess.  My body felt like it was coated in cooking oil.  By the time we got done with biceps I could literally not do another rep, I had to stop several times.

I was so relieved when the abs/stretching part finally came.  Although the ab exercises were putting pressure right on the spot I bruised falling on the boat.  I had to lean on one ass cheek or the other to do them.  As I stretched my muscles were shaking.  Of course I was doing my best to not indicate just how hard my ass had been kicked.  Ali was glad I went, she said she thought that maybe I didn’t think the classes she was doing were all that hard.  I knew they were hard, I didn’t know quite how hard though.

I was so sore afterwards that I haven’t even dreamed of trying another 300 workout.  Up until yesterday I was unable to straighten my arms without significant pain.  It gave me an appreciation of an aerobics class.  There is a definite benefit to having someone else set your pace for a workout.  It allows you to be pushed much harder than you would normally push yourself, it’s just human nature.  When I was doing my normal routine at the gym yesterday I almost felt like I was loafing in comparison.  I think it will help me intensify and concentrate my gym routine.

Last night we dropped off the party van at the dealership so it could have it’s recall work performed.  Ali was scared of it catching fire during the trip and put the fire extinguisher we keep in the kitchen in one of the back seat pockets for the trip.

I have a new company to hate, Travelocity.  We booked our flights for the Vegas trip through them.  Before we left to go out west, Ali got an email from them saying that the airline changed the return flight.  The time it was changed to would not work out with our hotel arrangements.  The email said that if the new times did not work to contact Travelocity.

So after we got back Ali called Travelocity and got on the phone with a woman named “Angel”.  Oddly enough, Angel had a heavy Indian accent that made it very difficult to understand.  Ali explained the background to the woman and was presented with two flight options neither of which worked.  One had us leaving late at night on Thursday which would cut a full day off our trip, the other one was a red eye that left super late on Friday, another terrible option.

I was sitting there listening to the conversation take place getting mad myself.  The rep was giving Ali the impression that those two flights were our ONLY options.  I told Ali that was bullshit.  Ali was frustrated, stood up, gave me the phone and told me to deal with it.  I get on with Angel and tell her that was not acceptable, that we paid for a flight at a certain time and now that it was changed, I expected Travelocity to find something to accommodate us.  Angel then put me on hold.  During that time Ali came back and took the phone back.  When Angel came back on she magically had found another flight that we could take, more in the middle of the day. Ok, fine.  However there was an issue.

Angel said we were confirmed for the flight but that we needed to call back on December 15th, the day before we are supposed to leave for the trip to confirm. WTF??!!  When Ali pressed her to explain why would need to call back the day before we are supposed to leave Angel was not able to clearly explain it, she said something about because the flights are on two different airlines.  Well this certainly didn’t give us a warm fuzzy feeling but Ali was at the end of her rope and hung up after confirming we would be sent an email confirming the new flight. What a pain in the ass.  I can’t STAND when companies outsource their call centers to India.  It is f’ing ridiculous trying to get anything done on the phone with these people.

So anyway, we figured that was the end of it although the call back the day before thing was looming largely in both of our minds. Ali did get an email later confirming the reservation, FOR THE SAME, WONT WORK TIME AS BEFORE.  F’ing idiots!  Ali spent at least an hour on the phone getting this changed only to have us back at square one. Ali waited a few days before calling back, she dreaded having to deal with this again.

 After the first incident we got into a small argument.  Ali said how she hated having to deal with shit like this and I told her that 90% of the time I am the one that has to deal with conflict bullshit, the one to be the heavy, the asshole.  And to be honest I’m not that good at it.  It is almost guaranteed that if I am trying to explain a long convoluted situation I am going to butcher it by misspeaking.  Then I just get frustrated and even angrier.  I told Ali that she shouldn’t be so willing to just roll over and take what someone tells her in situations like that.  She was a bit mad at me for saying that but evidently some of it sunk in because during round 2 she was much more aggressive.

She called last night around 9.  This time she got another woman with a normal sounding name, I think she called herself “Lisa” however strangely enough, again Lisa had a heavy, heavy Indian accent. Again Alison had to explain the entire screwed up situation and again Lisa initially offered us the same two alternatives which both sucked.  This began a lengthy back and forth waste of time where Alison would press Lisa for a better resolution whether it was a different flight or just cancelling the reservation altogether.  Every time Alison would ask something she would be put on hold for several minutes.  It was almost like they were trying to wear you out.  Eventually she asked to talk to a supervisor and was told by Lisa that she was unauthorized to transfer to a supervisor, what in the hell????  This place is unreal. 

While Ali was on the phone I was Googling other people that have had similar horror stories dealing with Travelocity, they were very abundant.  This bullshit went on forever until we came to the point where the rep said she could get us on a flight that left around mid-day but she had to call the airline to confirm it.  She said it could take up to twenty minutes so she didn’t want to keep Ali on the phone, she would call her back.  Ali expressed that she felt that if she hung up she would never get a call back. Lisa assured her she would call back in 20 minutes. Ali hung up.

Well 20 minutes passed, an hour passed, more time passed.  I fell asleep after 11 and still no call had come.  I vaguely remember waking up hearing Ali on the phone.  Evidently Lisa called back at 12:30…. maybe time moves a lot slower in India.  The final resolution was the midday flight was booked however now we are booked directly through the airline instead of Travelocity.  That sounded just fine to me.  I will never utilize Travelocity again and I recommend nobody else does either.  If there are any problems with your reservations, you are in for a world of hurt.

Oh Nicki shit up in the dining room again overnight.  I was extremely pissed.  Every time I think she has cleared the hurdle and is back to being trustworthy, she shits all over it, literally.  I took her out before bed and she took a dump then, there should be no reason she is dumping during the night and if she had to go that bad she should wake me up like she used to.  I don’t know where she learned that it was ok to just go to a far corner in the house and relieve herself.

So Ali put the prize in a bag and is taking it to the vet once again to get checked to see if Nicki has another intestinal thing going on.  While we were out west she did take a couple sips out of a disgusting water trough that is used by the horses.  If nothing is found, her life is going to become much more restricted.  She will become best friends with the tile floor in the kitchen.