Archives 2007

All in all the weekend had a nice flow to it.  On Saturday morning I took apart the pressure switch on the well so I could try to try to remove the cracked reducing fitting.  Once I took the switch off and put a pliers to the nut, it just broke apart more, evidently it is glued in place instead of threaded.  So now the job got a bit uglier.  I was going to have to cut out the entire fitting, put a new T in place and attach the valve to it. 

So I went to Lowe’s first since I struck out at a Home Depot earlier in the week.  I walked circles around the aisles trying to come up with what I needed, a 1 inch T that reduces to a threaded 1/2 inch, a 1/2 threading fitting that reduces to 1/4, and a 1/4″ riser to attach the switch to.  I stared at those shelves forever but could not find all the stuff.

Dejected I decided to go to the nearby Home Depot.  This was the main store in our area, bigger than the one I was at earlier.  Again I walked and walked and could not find the stuff.  Finally, as a last resort I talked to an employee and described what I needed.  He marched me right over to the adjacent aisle.  The fittings that were in place were all pvc, the parts he showed me were brass fittings.  For some reason I had it in my head that I couldn’t mix the two but when I asked him about it he said it was no problem.  So I had the three parts I needed, finally.

Installation of everything went pretty well although it was a bit hairy.  Since the T was going in between two pipes already attached to something else there was little room for error.  I had to quickly swab glue on both sides of the T and shove it together.  I wasn’t able to turn the fitting a 1/4 turn like they recommend with pvc fittings.  It was a long 2 hours waiting for the cement to cure.  I was very concerned that once I applied pressure to the joint I would see leakage.  Thank goodness the connection was dry, problem solved.

For a good chunk of Saturday we were outside doing various other chores like mowing grass, weeding, weed whacking, and spraying.  We are at the time of year when weeds seems to be the worst.  I hate weeding.  The most annoying thing of all are weeds that spring up in spots were you purposefully engineered things to eliminate them.  All around the house we have a foot and a half or so wide border of stone with weed block underneath.  I put huge sweat equity into getting this set up and the primary reason I did it was to eliminate having to weed the area.  Well despite my best efforts, weeds still manage to grow among the rocks and right now is the worst of it.  Even though there is only a tiny bit of dirt on top of the weedblock from decomposed grass and junk, it is plenty for certain weeds to live on.  Removing them is a rather large pain in the ass as you have to move the rocks out of the way so you can grab the weed at it’s base to get the root, otherwise you will just pull the top off which will grow right back in no time.  Of all the outside jobs, I hate weeding the most.  Bending over for all that time does not agree with my tall frame.

Ali went to a make up party the neighbor was having and I just relaxed and played some WoW.  After she got back we had dinner and finally got around to watching World Trade Center, which I downloaded months ago.  I remember when I heard about this movie coming out in theaters it seemed like it was too soon.  5 years wasn’t long enough.  This was probably also why I was in no rush to see it at home.  It wasn’t quite what I expected.

I was interested how they would handle the story since it is such a touchy subject.  They never show the planes hitting the buildings but they use plenty of the real footage we saw after the impact.  The movie was focused solely on a small group of NYC port authority police that went into the building.  The two that wound up being left were trapped under one of the collapsed concourses.  I don’t think the movie needed to be made after seeing it.  A big chunk of the flick was nothing but a close up of Nicolas Cage’s face as he had dialogue with the other cop that was alive in the rubble.  The rest of it was about the families and their fear of what had happened to their loved ones.  The movie just offered nothing that I needed to see.  We all went through 911, we all saw first hand the tremendous human suffering that was involved with it.  After the movie I said to Ali how it is strange that in some ways, the pain and sadness of 911 feels like it just happened yesterday but in other ways it seems almost ancient history, if not fictional.  I think back about how after the tragedy the world all mourned with us, were all behind us and how our country was united unlike anything I ever saw in my lifetime before.  That time period today seems so distant as we are now despised by more people abroad than before 911 and are now mired in a never ending, unwinnable conflict that had no connection to the original 911 events.  Well at least big oil and Haiburton are happy about it.  Anyway, the movie to me was an effort that didn’t need to be made, just restating what we all already knew, C+.

On Sunday we planned to go to a matinee of Spiderman 3.  Before that I went out back to the pit and excavated some more sandy fill.  The first couple loads went into Nicki’s area.  The fill that we had dumped in her area to raise it was top soil sort of stuff.  When she digs in it she gets very dirty.  So I filled the big hole she has dug out with nice clean sand, hoping she can get her digging fix without becoming a dirtball.  The other two loads went to fill in another small area between her play area and the house that normally floods out during wet season.  Then I went inside to do a quick vacuuming job.  I didn’t want to have housework to do once we got back from the movie.

We got cleaned up and headed out.  We stopped for lunch and then went to Petco and Home Depot to look at patio door pet inserts.  These are panels you install that allow your dog to go in and out as they please through a flexible door with a magnetic catch that closes it.  We thought it would be nice for Nicki to not have to rely on us to let her in and out all the time.  Petco’s doors were expensive, $230 bucks.  Home Depot had a shitty selection of only doors sized for medium dogs, although they were about half the price.  We decided to check out Lowe’s after the movie.

As we were walking towards the theater in the parking lot we heard a big crunch off to our left.  Ali spotted it sooner than I did.  Some dumb ass woman was backing her full size SUV out of a space and turned it too hard too soon and raked the side of a minivan next to her.  This actually happened probably 200 feet away from us.  We stopped and looked as the SUV stopped, the woman got out, went over to the side, witnessed her carnage and then brought her hands up to her head in dismay.  I said something to Ali asking if she thought we should go over and make sure the woman doesn’t hit and run.  We didn’t go over, I figured that other people much closer had to see/hear it as well.  However Ali kept looking back the entire time we were standing in the ticket line to see if she saw the bad driving offender cruising out.  We talked about how incredibly pissed off we would be if that happened to our car.

The ticket line was very long, unexpectedly long for a matinee.  It was annoying because they have 8 ticket windows but only had two of them manned, contributing to the problem.  We spent 10-15 minutes in line so my annoyance meter was already on the rise.  When we got in the lobby Ali asked if I wanted her to go get seats awhile since we were close to the start time.  I told her to go while I would get us a drink.

I have an uncanny ability.  It is the ability to always pick the slowest moving of equally numbered lines.  Whether it is the toll booth on the highway, the drive up teller at the bank or in this case, the snack line at the movie theater, I will ALWAYS pick the line that takes the longest.  It’s a gift.

Well after waiting in the ticket line, waiting in this line was more annoying.  It wasn’t that long as they had a bunch of people on the counter.  Each line was maybe 4 or 5 deep, I took the line that had a woman and 4 kids with her.  My thinking was that these five would all order at once, removing the majority of the line in one swipe.  It didn’t work out.

The people in front of the fivesome were slow or the kid that looked like he was 12 behind the counter was slow.  Several times I looked longingly at the other lines around me, realizing that most of the people that I started out equal with were already at the counter ordering food.  I had that moment we all get where you weigh the prospects of jumping to the back of a faster moving line instead of waiting in your tortuously slow one.  I decided to stay put, relying on my original hope that the 5 in front of me would order and leave very quickly.  Boy was I wrong.

This woman looked like she was in her 40’s.  The kids around her all looked to be 10 or younger.  Finally they got to the counter and the ordeal began.  Perhaps it is just me, but I felt it was reasonable for people to have a basic idea of what they were going to order during the 10 minutes they are waiting in line.  This concept was foreign to the group in front of me.  First off, the two boys ordered separately, even though the mother was paying.  I guess it was an exercise in them being “big boys” who can order their own food.  However they didn’t know what they wanted.  “Um, I’ll take this, no that, oh can I also have this, oh and also that…”  Finally the boys finished and moved 3 feet to the left so mom could now order with a little girl and little boy.  She was even worse.  Again, no one knew what the F they wanted and when mom ordered she would say one thing at a time, the kid would get it, come to the register to ring it up and then mom would say “and I want this” and then “oh and that…”   By this time I was in disbelief.  The woman had to feel the searing daggers shooting out of my eyes burning into the back of her incredibly oblivious skull.   Finally, after what seemed an eternity at the counter, this incredibly annoying woman and her pack of little indecisive minions were gone.  I ordered my drink and Reese’s peanut butter cup and was off the counter in 30 seconds.

It took me so long at the snack stand that I walked in after the previews started.  I told Ali how I was delayed but didn’t get into the details.   Oh well it was behind me, I was ready to enjoy the movie.  Right before the movie started a group of maybe 6 or 7 young boys scurried in front of us and then sat in the row behind us.  Immediately the chatter begun.  I knew this could be an issue but I hoped they would settle down once the movie started.  Ok well let me just deal with the movie first.

In a nutshell, it didn’t live up to the hype for me.  Sure the action scenes were great, the special effects are top notch and there were many memorable moments during the film.  However, for me, there was just too many things going on.  Harry hates Spidey, likes him, hates him again, Sandman comes around and is tied into Spiderman’s life, Spiderman becomes what you think is Venom and then another dude becomes Venom,  Mary Jane ‘s up and down professional career to go along with her hot and cold relationship with Spiderman.  It was just too much.  It was kind of a jack of all trades but master of none situation. The movie didn’t focus on anything long enough to develop it.  There also were some really dumb parts to it that didn’t seem like they fit in like when Peter Parker becomes John Travolta junior strutting down the street.  Eh it just didn’t work that well for me.  I’d give it a B+ and sadly I think I enjoyed the other two movies more.

During the movie, there was another side show developing.  These kids behind us were just annoying.  They were talking, laughing at each other, throwing shit and spitting spitballs.  I tolerated it for about the first half of the movie, hoping they would settle down.  Ali thought that one of the parents of the kids was a few rows down sitting by himself.  She was more annoyed than me at the kids and after she did one of her patented “turn around and look menacingly” moves I turned around and said in a polite but stern voice “Hey guys, can you please keep it down?”.  They said sorry.  They turned it down a notch but still were annoyingly loud. 

A little later, a woman and two children come walking up the steps.  Ali and both looked and wondered what the hell she was doing.  Why would you be walking into a movie that is already half over?  They happened to walk down our aisle and I almost died when I saw it was who else but the f’ing annoying woman that was in front of me in the food line!  How appropriate.  As they shuffled in front of us, we were looking at them in disbelief.  The woman mumbled something about the kids decided they wanted to see Spider man…  Unreal.  Not only could the kids not decide on food choices, they also could not decide on a movie.  I imagined the conversation this woman had with her little darlings.  “You don’t like this movie honey? Ok let’s walk around the theater and you point to one you want to walk into, ok?  Whatever you want….”  Even though I know nothing about this woman, I have extreme dislike for her at this point. 

So the movie ends, the lights come up and Ali is annoyed.  She was so annoyed at the kids behind us that she wasn’t even thinking about the movie.  She starts with another one of her common moves, talking loudly about people around us that are annoying her without talking to them directly.  Ali was ranting about how ridiculous it was that a parent was there and yet the kids were allowed to be rude and loud.   I told Ali that we didn’t know if the guy was a parent but she said she saw one of the kids behind us go down to the guy.  As we funneled out the exit we wound up behind stupid snack line lady with her little flip flopping kiddies.  Ali was still ranting loudly saying something about “… I guess it is normal for kid’s today….”  The woman said “well you obviously don’t have kids…”  As we got out into the hallway Ali said “if I had kids they certainly wouldn’t be bratty ones…”  The annoying woman was heading for a different exit and stopped and said “Excuse me??!! My children were not the ones misbehaving…”  I gave the woman a look of disdain and Ali just ignored the comment as we walked away.  In that moment, even though I thought this woman was a dipshit, I felt like a jerk as well.  I felt like Ali and I were Todd and Margot from Christmas Vacation, the yuppie couple that looked down upon Chevy Chase’s wacky family. It wasn’t a feeling I liked.

As we walked out I tried to temper Ali’s anger.  I pointed out that if you stick 7 or 8 young boys together in a  theater unsupervised, they are going to act like that.  Ali’s point was that she was sure a parent was there.  I said he may have been but the woman that we had words with was not the mother of all of them (although I think two of the boys were the ones with her)  I dunno, I just had the feeling like afterwards I was the asshole.  Although I am not quite sure  how to handle the situation better.  Should I bite my lip and let the kids carry on however they see fit.  Should I threaten them into silence?  I don’t know, it was a no win situation.  Just another reason to watch more movies at home I suppose.

After the movie we went to Lowe’s and were pleased to see they had panels for large dogs, in white (to match our patio door) and they cost 90 bucks less than the Petco model.  We paid for it and after some manipulation, were able to barely fit the box into the Camry through the fold down seat.  Once we got home we immediately jumped into installation.  It was pretty straight forward although we had to do some ad libbing along the way to accommodate the alarm system that is installed on the sliders.

We got the door installed and then went about trying to train Nicki to go through.  Like anything she hasn’t done before, she was scared of it.  Ali and I were on opposite sides encouraging her.  We taped the flap up and she went through it.  We praised her loudly and gave her treats.  Then we tried progressing to her going through with the flap down.  That didn’t go so well.  She wouldn’t go through on her own.  If we lifted the flap part way she would go but she wouldn’t initiate the act herself.  Plus the noise the flap makes as the magnet locks it back into place was scary to her.  We worked with her for awhile but couldn’t get past her going through without us assisting in some manner.  Hopefully she works through it.  We are thinking about having the neighbor’s dog Zoe over to demonstrate for Nicki since she already has a dog door of her own that she zips through constantly.

The rest of the night was low key.  We both stayed up too late and are both tired this morning.  Long entry….

The latest 300 workout report can be found here.  My knees still suck.  The highlight of the session was doing 19 pull ups to start it off.  One away from the big 20.

 If you think the sidebar in Vista is pretty cool but you want to stick with Windows XP. check this out http://www.desktopsidebar.com/  I am running it at work, it is pretty damn slick.  It is especially slick at work since I installed a second monitor.  I really am digging the two monitor set up.  I like it so much that I may implement it at home too.

My Friday almost got off to a miserable start.  It was pitch dark as I walked out to the kitchen and then flicked on the big overhead light.  As I glanced back, I saw a big ass hairball and the accompanying throw up in the middle of the small area I walked through to get to the kitchen.  I was just lucky to have cleanly stepped over it.  So I grabbed the clean up gear and scrubbed away.  I thought my janitor duty was done but of course I was wrong.  Cat barf never travels alone.  So as I walked around the right side of the island I spotted another nice half dollar size pile. Then to top it off, as I was reaching down cleaning this spot, off to the right maybe 18 inches is one of Button’s patented skid marks.  I was so f’ing annoyed.  A cat will never, ever be under my roof again once these two vacate the planet.

As I was laying in bed last night, trying to fall asleep after watching yet another good episode of Ultimate Fighter I was hearing things.  This isn’t something new, I just never mentioned it before.  In our bedroom we have an air cleaner running that provides white noise that makes it easier for me to fall asleep.  However even with that running, I sometimes hear weird things as I am trying to fall asleep.  Sometimes it sounds like music, sometimes it sounds like muffled speech. If we have the dishwasher running that normally adds to the ambient noise.  Eventually the noise, whatever it is, fades into the background and I fall asleep.

As I was lying there, listening to the weirdness, it made me think about growing up and things I thought I may see or hear.  Our house and property was downright scary at times for me.  Our house in Gouglersville was an OLD farmhouse, I think it was built in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s.  It also had various out buildings including a huge old barn, workshop, garage and a genuine outhouse.  Being that old, there were plenty of places for scary things to hide.  Here are the most notable ones I can remember.

The barn was a scary place for me, especially the lower level.  The lower level had horse stalls in it and a connected dark room that was filled with various junk.  It was the area that the push mower was stored as well as our bikes so I had to go in there on a regular basis.  If I just had to grab my bike and it was decently sunny out, it wasn’t bad.  I would snag my bike and be out of there.  However if I had to get something from deeper inside the barn and it was late in the day or God forbid, I had to go in there with a flashlight, it was borderline terrifying for me.  I can clearly recall the fear of going around in there, totally expecting to see a ghost, a voice or a pair of glowing eyes looking back at me.  I just had the feeling I was being watched. It freaked me out. Upstairs it wasn’t quite as scary unless I ventured into the back of the barn that had two small storage areas that looked like they would be a very cozy hiding spot for a serial killer or demon.

The basement of the house had a low ceiling, was dimly lit and had a musty smell that I for some reason enjoyed and remember very clearly.  Down there was the big oil heater.  It was also where the washing machine was located.  I can’t tell you how many times I would be down there and feel like there was something waiting behind the heater, stalking me.  When I would go down there I would normally try to do whatever I had to do and get out of there without looking around.  The basement was only dimly lit by the light on a switch.  To light up the rest you had to pull the chain on a couple light fixtures.  I always feared that as I turned on one of these lights a bloody, gruesome thing would be illuminated before me.

The final scary thing was actually the weirdest one as it was actually created by my uncle and put in place by my mom.  My brother and I slept in the renovated attic.  The stairway down was right in the middle and at the bottom of it was a high shelf that went across.  My uncle is an artist and one of his projects was this weird sculpture.  It was a big furry head with a face that was set in about 3 inches and was facing to the right so you only saw part of the face.  I hated this thing.  It creeped me out big time.  I remember thinking this thing was looking at me, moving it’s eyes and all sorts of other freaky shit.  Just like the basement, I resorted to just not looking at it as I walked down the stairs although at times it felt like the head was watching my every move.  Now and then I would shoot a glance at it.  I never caught it actually moving.  In retrospect I don’t know why I never asked my mom to move it.  It really scared the shit out of me.

When my dad and step mom moved back to Gouglersville, they pretty much gutted the place and renovated everything top to bottom.  In doing so they removed much of the scary factor.

This weekend I plan on getting out to see Spiderman 3.  I have various chores already written down and ready to go.  The most important one is fixing the fitting that the new pressure well switch is attached to.  The pvc part has a small crack that is leaking badly.  We have started getting some pretty regular afternoon rain, I may be able to cut back on the sprinkler schedule.

I got my entry form for this year’s Pottstown Rumble.  I sadly tossed it into recycling. 

They had a sports injury seminar here yesterday which I attended.  It was run by an orthopedist that seemed to be real good.  If my knee issues don’t subside I think I may get a second opinion from him.  The guy that I have been going to is very good but I don’t really like how my last set of visits went with him.  I saw him initially and then after that every visit was handed off to his associate and they never really seemed to address the left knee problem other than saying that it “should” heal.

Melinda got voted off last night on American Idol.  I predicted it to Ali a few minutes prior.  She is a great singer but does not have the look that appeals to the masses.  Blake and Jordin don’t have that problem.

 Ali got sick during the tail end of our trip this weekend and is feeling pretty shitty.

Here are pictures of a few things around our house as well as pictures of the old well pump switch I replaced (which I since have discovered is leaking at the pvc fitting).

Here are the pictures from this weekend.  As always, either mousing over a thumbnail, or clicking the thumbnail will reveal any description.

Well the trip to Orlando / Kennedy Space Center was here and gone in the blink of an eye.  In retrospect we should have probably allocated another day or two up there. It was too fast.

On Saturday I was a busy bee knocking out my long list of mostly short chores to prepare for us being gone for 3 days.  I cleaned, swept, washed and picked up for a good portion of the afternoon.  Ali had a luncheon/Pampered Chef thing going on and then went into work for a few hours afterward. 

Late in the day I decided to watch Transporter 2.  I saw Transporter 1 and enjoyed it for the most part.  The original was very good except for the few times in the movie where it stepped so far away from the reality that it was ridiculous.  To me, the character in the movie is good enough that it doesn’t need the unbelievable scenes, just kick ass and it would be fine.  The hero in Transporter is an ex-military guy.  His thing is he never kills people with guns, he always uses his hands or something he gets his hands on.

Well transporter 2 was very much like 1, an entertaining movie with a few scenes that were so crazy you just had to laugh.  Let me describe them.  The Transporter is racing through the city, trying to get away from the cops.  The scene is great with action galore.  Then for some reason he decides to “escape” by going up into a parking garage.  In the car is a little boy he is sworn to protect and a female villain that has a gun to his head.  he gets to the top of the parking garage, followed by a swarm of police cars.  Not so smart eh?  Wrong!  the Transporter had this planned all along.  He points his indestructible Audi at a wall, plows through it and sails through the air into another building that just happens to be under construction next door.  He manages to calculate his speed and angle of entry just perfectly enough that the Audi slides through an area of the building that has no exterior walls yet.  The car slides to a stop, inches from falling out the other side.  The next moment he is back out on the street with the car with no explanation of how you got a car down from the 10th story of a building.

The next scene the Transporter once again is in dire straights.  The bad guy has planted a bomb on the bottom of his car which is stuck there with a magnet.  Transporter sees the bomb but is forced at gunpoint to get in the car and drive away.  The bad guy wants to get good and clear before blowing up our buddy.  So in the few seconds in between, the transporter rips out of the hangar and somehow spots a ramp.  Above the ramp is a construction crane.  He hits the ramp in such a way that the car does a 360.  At exactly 180 degrees into it, the bottom of the car scrapes the arm of the crane, scraping the explosive device off just split seconds before it is blown by the villain.  The car completes the 360 and lands in one piece, no worse for wear. Hahaha.

The final comedy scene occurs when the Transporter finds himself circled by no less than 10 guys, all armed with axes, swords and other blunt weapons.  All the Transporter has to defend himself with is a fire hose.  He manages to turn a fire hose into the deadliest weapon ever and knocks out an entire football team of bad guys with ease.  It was so damn funny. 

The movie moves along quickly which is a good thing, winding up in less than an 1:25.  It was entertaining, even with the periods of lunacy thrown in.  B-

We told Mom we would pick her up on Sunday morning between 9 and 10.  We said goodbye to a dejected, moping dog and got to Mom’s a little after 9:30.  Ali had made the suggestion on Saturday that on the way up we stop at outlets that are way up on 75, shortly before it intersects with 4.  We have driven by these many times but never stopped.  When Ali originally suggested it, I laughed it off.  However I told her on Sunday that if she wanted to stop, it was fine, it is Mother’s Day after all.  So we left it up to Mom and she is never one to turn down shopping so we stopped about halfway into our journey at the outlets.

The drive so far was fine.  The Camry is very comfortable to drive in.  I spent time on Saturday getting it nice and clean for the trip both inside and out.  Well that was a waste of time.  We are in prime love bug season.  Love bugs are these decent size black bugs that are EVERYWHERE this time of year.  They seem to especially like migrating in front of the front ends of cars speeding down the highway.  The front end of the Camry looked like it took a direct hit from a huge bug bomb, it was nasty.

These outlets reminded me of the Miromar outlets which are close to home, just a slightly less fancy, older version.  I am not a shopper, I can’t tell you the last time I walked stores and bought myself clothes.  However, I was determined to be a good sport.  Again, it was Mother’s day and Ali and my mom like this stuff so I was ok with participating.  Mom scored some shoes early on, Ali looked at a lot of stuff but hadn’t bought anything.  Then a weird thing happened, I actually bought stuff for me.  I got two pairs of shoes to replace the cheap, Payless shoes I have been wearing since I moved to Florida six years ago.  Who knew you could wring so much use out of shoes that cost less then 20 bucks? Then I got some shirts as well and then topped it off by getting yet another Eagles hat, a cool one with elastic headband and embroidered logo.  I definitely could use some new footwear and duds, it’s just weird that I actually got them.  The ironic part was here I was shopping up a storm and Ali bought nothing.  As we left she went into the one store and bought a blouse she liked so it wasn’t a total washout.  We piled back in the bug mobile and hit the highway again.  

We made good time for the trip, probably averaging between 70 and 80mph.  We had the GPS set up which constantly amazed mom with it’s ability to accurately guide us time and time again.  Our stop at the outlets took up enough time so we arrived at the timeshare about 20 minutes before the official  4 pm check in time.  We checked in and headed to our 2 bedroom unit.

Mom was impressed with the timeshare.  She may not have been quite as impressed if we went with our original plan which was to get the 1 bedroom unit with pull out queen bed.  We planned to sleep in the queen while my mom would get the real bed which surely would have lead to conflict.  But we decided at the last minute to pay extra money for a two bedroom unit, which worked out much better.  The unit had a nice view of the lake, was spacious and clean.  I took the luggage cart down and loaded all of our junk on it and brought it back up to the room.  As I looked at the bug coated front end of the car again I just shook my head.

Shortly after getting the bags inside and situated mom was starting to get hungry so we were right back out the door.  We went to Downtown Disney.  I had the idea of going to the Rainforest Cafe, a chain that has an inside that looks like a jungle, complete with fish tanks, wild animals and thunderstorms every 20 minutes.  The restaurant was on the far side of downtown Disney so I had plenty of time to people watch and there was plenty to see.  Visiting Disney parks does a few things to me.  First, as I have mentioned numerous times before, it makes me feel small and insignificant when I see endless waves of humanity everywhere your eye looks.  It’s moments like this that reassure my feeling that the world is just bursting at the seems with the parasites we know as human beings.  Second, at Disney I am in a very small minority.  I am one of the very few that does not have a mountain of flesh spilling over their belt line for all the world to see.  The massive display of human gluttony was on parade everywhere you looked.  Fat ass after fat ass waddled slowly around the stores and restaurants.

Even though we were there early, shortly after 5, we still had an hour wait until we would be seated.  I stood guard listening for our name to be called while mom and Ali walked around looking at the shops in the near by vicinity.  They came back and we waited the rest of the time sitting on a nearby brick wall where I could continue my scientific study of the state of human beings.  Finally our names are called and we get seated.

Even though the place is a visual and audible bonanza, I realized once we sat down it may have not been the best choice for a mother’s day dinner.  It was so loud at times that you could hardly hear what was being said across the table.  The one bonus was our table was right next to one of the fish tanks which provided me a large amount of entertainment throughout the meal, watching the tropical fish mull about.

Our waiter identified himself as Jorge’ even though his name tag read “Jawad”  I would have asked him why their was a discrepancy but didn’t care enough to pursue it.  He was nice enough.  He took our order, brought our drinks and then we just hung out waiting for the food.  A lot of the time was spent just looking and listening to all the stuff going on.  It certainly was far from a relaxing atmosphere, it was more frantic than anything. 

Our food showed up and we dug in.  Mom got some sort of fish thing that she said was quite good.  It was good enough that she cut off a piece and plopped it on my plate to try.  I tried the first piece and it was good enough. It was breaded in something that was tasty. I snagged what was left.  As I looked at it, it looked like it was a tail but for some reason, that visual did not stop me from putting it in my mouth.  Within a split second I realized that tails of fish, even if they are breaded, are not meant to be eaten.  My mouth was full of tiny fish bones.  Now I had a dilemma.  I have a mouth full of bones but I don’t want to be a redneck and spit the entire thing out on the plate.  Instead I am trying the best I can to weed through the mess in my mouth and pull out the bones without making much of a scene.  I am sure I looked ridiculous.  It was a mess.  I bet I was pulling bones from my mouth for 5 minutes.  My mom apologized but it wasn’t her fault, it was mine for ignoring what my eyes told me.  Finally I got most of it out of my mouth but I am sure I swallowed a few.  After that, I was quite happy to just stick to my pasta dish.

Other than the bone incident, everyone enjoyed their food enough although it certainly wasn’t spectacular.  On top of it being very loud in the restaurant, it was very cold as well.  It felt good to get back outside into the warm evening air.  We didn’t really see much more of DD except what we walked by, we found our car and headed home.  On the way out I decided to stop at the gas station on Disney property.  For whatever reason, it was the cheapest gas I had seen by far, more than 20 cents a gallon cheaper than back home.  I filled up and then had the brilliant idea to run it through the car wash to blast all the damn bugs off the car.  I paid my extra 7 bucks, went through the wash and then pulled off to the side to verify that the bugs had been vanquished, I was annoyed to see they had not.  The splatter from them had been cleaned off but the lions share of their carcasses were still glued to the front end.  I walked over to the pumps and grabbed some paper towels and scraped off what I could.  Damn bugs.

On the way back we stopped at Publix to pick up a few things.  Even though it was Sunday evening, what I would assume is not a busy time, the place was SWAMPED.  I waited in a line 10 deep to pay for our few items, sheesh.  While we were paying for our stuff, Ali was getting very annoyed with the child of some hispanic family behind us.  The parents were oblivious as the child was picking up candy and throwing it on the floor and then running up behind an unmanned register and pressing every button and throwing every switch he could reach.  Ali made several loud comments which either the parents ignored or didn’t understand, great parents. 

By the time we got back it was shortly before 9.  Mom and Ali were tired, Ali especially.  After she watched Desperate Housewives, she collapsed into bed, dead to the world.  We had a busy day planned the next day so I fell asleep relatively early as well.

I woke up without Nicki encouraging me to do so at 5:30 am but then was able to go back to sleep until about 7:15, a late morning for me.  We talked about leaving around 9.  I had some time to kill so after I ate my pop tarts I decided to go out to the fitness trail and do a mini 300’ish workout.  Before I went out my mom and I spotted a huge hawk that was hanging out on the pull up bars for a long time.

The fitness trail was a simple path that was covered mostly in red mulch.  It looked like it hadn’t been weeded in quite awhile.  Stationed around it were fitness stations although there were no instructions on what exactly was supposed  to be done at each station.  There were conventional pull up bars and a bench looking thing but after that it was up to your imagination.  So I walked a lap around the track as  a warm up and then hit the pull ups, I only knocked out 13 as a result of doing it so early in the morning and doing it on a very high bar that allowed my body to swing back and forth as I was pulling which used up extra energy to control.  Then I went to the bench thing and did 25 step ups with each leg.  These still did not feel good on my left knee.  Then I walked down to what looked like a balance beam and dropped down and did 50 push ups on it.  Then I walked some more and came to a weird looking station that had 4 small platforms at different heights.  I got up on the first one and then went up and down the set 8 times.  It wasn’t physically tiring but worked your balance to the max.  Then I reversed direction and went back to the bench, this time to do ab raises similar to the wipers I do in the gym.  Doing this on a piece of wood did not feel good at all. I had to go slower than normal to minimize the abuse my back would take.  After that I went to a station that had two low sets of bars and did lateral step overs.  Then one more set of pull ups and a set of push ups, this time on the low bars, and I was done.  The intensity didn’t match one of my gym workouts but it was tough enough that I felt worked.  Ali originally talked about running the trail but got up too late.

So I quickly showered and we left the timeshare a little later than I planned, maybe 9:20.  The drive over to the space center went smoothly although the clouds looked increasingly foreboding as we got closer.  The forecast called for a 40% chance of showers.  The parking lot wasn’t very full which was a good thing in my eyes.  We walked in after turning in our vouchers for tickets and then had to go through airport type screening.  We went through metal detectors and then had to go to another security guard that made you turn on your cellphone and hit a key.  She also had me turn on my digital camera and show her a real time image on it.  I managed to clear security.

We had a map of the facility, there was a lot to do.  The first thing I wanted to do however was grab a cup of coffee.  As we walked over towards the snack stand outside, a woman that we just passed from there screamed.  We spun around to see her muffin thing on the ground.  One of the crows swooped in and tried to steal the food right out of her hand.  Evidently the birds in the area are very brazen according to the clerk behind the counter.

I got my small little cup of coffee and internally gasped a bit at the $2.25 price tag.  It was a good indication of how food prices were there as I would find out later.  At first I had the idea to walk around the area first and then take the bus tour to the other areas later.  Mom had the idea to do the buses first before it gets too crowded which was a good idea.

So we followed a crowd of people that lead us to the bus loading area.  It had started raining lightly shortly after we arrived, yea.  The buses were very nice, they were “kneeling” buses.  They have the ability to drop their front end down when loading and unloading people to make it easier for them.  The first leg of our trip took us to an observation area that was all about the space shuttle.  After we arrived we watched a short film about the shuttle and then got to see various exhibits about it.  Then we walked outside and climbed an observation deck that was 4 stories high.  In the middle of it was a shuttle engine which was impressive as hell to look at.  From the deck you could see the various launching pads as well as the big building where they put the shuttle together with the fuel tank and booster rockets.  The rain was now coming down pretty hard and made the visibility pretty bad unfortunately.  This area was right next to the river rock filled “road” that the crawler uses to take the shuttle out to the launching pad.  We were a bit bummed out to find out that the next day they were planning to roll the shuttle out to the launch pad (where it sits for 30 days prior to launch) that would have been really cool to see.

We grabbed a big soft pretzel and split it between us before we moved to the next leg of the bus trip.  As we sat there, once again the evil birds were only feet away, ready to pounce.  The one crow actually flew over and plopped himself on our table briefly before mom shooed him away.

The next stop was the Apollo / Saturn center which was all about the Apollo missions and Saturn rockets that took man to the moon.  Of the three stops on the tour, this was my favorite.

After another brief video upon arrival, we moved into a big room.  It was the original control room for the Apollo missions.  They turned it into a huge interactive presentation with three big video screens and all of the equipment apparently still in working order.  They simulate the countdown and launch of the Saturn rocket.  All of the equipment in the room realistically counting down perfectly timed with the video and sound that filled the room.  It was awesome. When the rocket took off the sound vibrated the ceiling above us.  It really felt like you were standing there back in the 60’s when it all happened.

After that we exited out into the main hallway where you are smacked in the face with something so visually impressive you can’t help but gasp. They have a full size Saturn rocket suspended in the hallway horizontally.  The size of this thing is just incredible.  Trying to imagine the brute force power required to get this thing in the air is staggering.  Then when you think about how this occurred in the 60’s where technology was so primitive compared to today made it all the more impressive.  I spent lots of time just looking up, admiring how impressive this piece of man made history was.  The hall was filled with various cool info-boards and kiosks.  We went into an area where you could pilot around something similar to the rovers that are on mars.  We got close looks at the lunar module and the rover that was used to train astronauts for the ride on the moon surface.  It was all extremely interesting to me.

We decided to eat our lunch here.  A got a good case of sticker shock here, dropping almost 40 bucks for 3 standard lunch platters.    They called it the Moonrock Cafe, because they had a golf ball sized moon rock on display.  All of the buildings we had been in all day were like ice boxes.  Ali was lucky enough to have brought a sweater, I was in shorts and a t-shirt, mom had short sleeves on and was freezing.  It was here that we went into the gift shop and mom bought a long sleeve t-shirt/baseball cap combo.  She threw on the shirt with the intention of giving it to me afterwards.  It did a good job of warming her up.  I just gritted it out and ignored my cold nose and appendages.

The final stop on the tour was the space station area.  This area had some examples of the various modules that are used in the station that you could walk through.  I was surprised to see that even these modern day pieces of equipment had some very old fashioned looking switches and dials inside them, not quite as high tech as I would have imagined.  This area also had a lot of information about the original Skylab as well as Mir which was very neat to read up on.  There was a walkway that took you over to the real production facility where they are building actual modules that are going to be installed on the station.  That was cool to see. 

 The bus part of the day was done.  The bus rides were fine for us.  One leg of it wasn’t great for my mom when she was joined in her row of narrow seats by a huge blob of a woman that sort of melted over on to mom’s side.  Luckily none of the rides are long so she didn’t have to deal with it very long.

So we were back to the main complex which we hadn’t even begun to see.  There is a new exhibit that is supposed to open in a few weeks, the Space Shuttle experience, which simulates a shuttle launch.  Damn it, I would have liked to do that.  The bus tour took quite awhile.  The day was 2/3 done.  We walked up into the space shuttle they had on the grounds and looked around in it.  There was surprisingly little to see inside, the big cargo bay and the cockpit which looked extremely old fashioned.  The size of the shuttle was impressive.

After that I wanted to walk over to the Imax theater and see when the shows ran.  I never saw an Imax flick before.  Mom said because of her bad eye, she can’t see Imax stuff right(it is a double image that you use 3d glasses to see)  I felt bad that she wouldn’t be able to see it but she said she was ok with just checking stuff out while we saw it, the film was only 45 minutes.  We went to the 4 o’clock show about the Space Station.  There was another show about walking on the moon that I would have loved to see but time didn’t allow it. 

As we waited for the show to start in the theater we noticed how noone around us was speaking English.  All day long we saw tons of foreigners.  I guess thay just don’t have anything like this back home.  The lights went dim, we put on our glasses and WHAM, movies in 3D.  It was f’ing awesome.  The videography would have been impressive enough in 2D, but to see it with the added dimension was incredible.   During one scene where a camera was positioned close to a launch of a rocket, I moved my head to avoid the flying debris that was zooming towards me, it was so cool.  The flick was just great, giving a soup to nuts story about the space station.  Damn it lookes fun to be weightless.

When we got out of the movie Mom was waiting.  By the time we got out it was close to 5.  The place closed at 6.  So after a jaunt through the gift shop where I bought a very touristy space shuttle tile sample piece. (which is proudly displayed in my office) we were ready to go.  Even though we spent the majority of the day there, there was much we didn’t get to see.  Our admission also included the Astronaut Hall of Fame which we didn’t set foot inside of.  I would definitely go back and hope to sooner rather than later. I took a bunch of pictures that I will be posting later.

The drive back to Orlando went well.  We had decided ahead of time to just order pizza that night so mom and Ali could watch Dancing with the Stars.  I half watched the show, half read my magazines.  I was pretty tired from the busy day and hit the sack shortly after the show ended. 

Tuesday morning I woke a bit earlier, about 6:30 am.  I just hung out and read magazines as I ate my pop tarts.  Once Ali got out of bed and ate breakfast, we got packed up and ready to go.  I expected the clean up to take longer than it did as we had stuff strewn around.  Packing simply involved jamming all that junk into bags so within 45 minutes we were packed up and ready to go.  It felt like we just got there, probably because we basically did.  We only had one full day there.  We should have done three or four nights.

I loaded up the car, checked out with little hassle and we were back on the road headed south.  I had tunnel vision on the way home.  We didn’t stop once and got back to mom’s place in a hair more than three hours, great time.  For the trip I averaged right around 38 mpg which is good for driving as fast as I did.  We went inside at mom’s place and ate the leftover pizza from the night before as a quickie lunch.  Mom thanked us for the trip and we took off.

Of course Nicki was estatic to see us, acting like it has been years since we left.  The house seemed to still be in one piece.  Ali and I dug into unpacking, sorting and putting away, trying to return to normalcy as quick as possible.  While Ali sorted laundry, I pulled the hose and bucket out and took on the nasty job of bug removal.  I wet, soaped, scrubbed, and repeated several times until I was able to get the majority of the bug guts off the front end.  By the time I got back inside Ali had most of the stuff put away and laundry started.  She was feeling sick so she laid down to take a nap.  I finished up what I had left to do and then sat in front of the computer.

One of the first things I did was try out this website that I read about in one of magazines.

http://www.novelconcepts.co.uk/FlashElementTD/ It is a flash version of a Warcraft 3 mod that I played for a long time, tower defense.  If you never tried it before it may seem a bit odd at first.  If you have played TD before you will feel right at home.  It is highly addictive.

Then I dug into WoW for a few hours while Ali dozed.  After she woke up we had three hours of Survivor on Tivo to catch up on.  The show featured one the biggest piece of shit people I ever saw on reality TV, “Dreamz”.  I already ranted about Dreamz in a prior entry.  He made a deal to give Yauman immunity if he won it during the final four round in exchange for Yauman giving him a 60,000 dollar truck he won.  Dreamz agreed, swearing to God and on his children.  Last week Dreamz tried to slither out of his bargain by getting Yau kicked out before the final four round which didn’t work.

  In the next round, Yauman won the immunity so he was safe once again, so they were down to the final four round, the round in which Dreamz swore to uphold his bargain.  It was one of those torture challenges.  They had to hold on to a trapeze looking thing with their hands on a platform that Jeff Probst increased the angle of every 5 minutes.  Oh and for fun, they have water running on them the entire time as well.   It was a very hard challenge that came down to Yauman and Dreamz.  Yauman lost his grip and Dreamz won, setting him up to honor his word and give immunity to Yau.  Before tribal council they showed multiple scenes where Dreamz bragged about how he was going to do the right thing and give it to Yau because he is a man of his word, blah blah blah.  So they get to tribal council.

Of course Jeff makes a big deal about the decision, probing Dreamz repeatedly about it.  Dreamz isn’t the most educated young man and did a lot of talking in non-sensical circles, abusing the english language constantly.  Finally they get to the moment where Jeff asks Dreamz if he is going to give up immunity.  After a long dramatic pause he says he is going to keep the immunity idol.  I immediately burst out with a long string of insults at the tv.  I was disgusted with this f’ing guy.  He is given a 60,000 dollar truck in exhange for something and he backstabs the guy he made the arrangement with not once, not twice, but three times…  What a piece of shit he is.  After he made the decision he had tears in his eyes and acted all sad about what he did as Yauman got voted off even though by far he played the best game.  He made the fatal mistake of trusting this punk with his word.

After the vote, back at camp, Dreamz switched gears and was bragging about what he did, saying he planned it along, which he obviously didn’t.  The guy is a chronic liar and has the ability to make himself believe the lies.  Two of the three people left had no business being there, Dreamz and the black chick who was so under the radar I don’t even remember her f’in name.  She did nothing to deserve to be there.  The other guy left, Earl, was Yau’s ally all the way through but in the end, backstabbed him and wrote his name down, so I wasn’t happy with him either.

The final tribal council was a joke.  Earl was going to obviously win since the other two so didn’t deserve to win.  Dreamz was ripped apart during that final tribal council, trying to explain himself in an illiterate manner that only further dug his grave deeper.  At the live show it was revealed that Earl not only won, but got ALL of the votes, something that never happened before, a testament to how lame the other two were.

Once again at the live show, Jeff tried to pin Dreamz down on his decision process which was a waste of time.  All Dreamz would do is smile and talk in more circles.  What a fine role model he made for young black males.  He is top of the heap as far as reality show assholes go, he is A number 1.  Dreamz the ignorant, illiterate, lying, backstabbing, piece of shit king.  F him.  I hope his Ford F-350 gets stripped down to bare metal in the ‘hood…..

Oh, I got an email from Wired magazine.  They want to publish my rebuttal to their hybrid review.  I wasn’t all that surprised, I thought it was a strong letter.  Look for it in the next issue or two.

This is the first time I have gotten two 300 workouts in during the same week for a while.  I was so damn tired it wasn’t funny.  I was dripping with sweat and panting.  I didn’t even bother trying to do box jumps but instead substituted 25 step ups with each leg.  Even those didn’t feel good on the knee but at least I could do them.  I also threw in the extra 20 pushups so my total for the day was a lofty 233 reps.  However the number is misleading.  If I was doing that number using only the exercises I am supposed to be using it would be impressive. With the bastardized version I am running currently, it is good but not great.  I am up to 35 reps with the deadlift.  It is getting to the point that my grip starts to fail as I get into the 30+ territory.  Same thing with the wipers, by the time I get over 20, my wrists and hands are burning.  The sense of relief after that last set of pull ups is completed is hard for me to duplicate anywhere else in my life.  You are so physically beat down, yet feel good in an exhausted, sweaty way at the same time. 

We have been watching Survivor again this year.  The season hasn’t been bad, however last night was one of the best Survivor episodes ever all thanks to a crafty little Asian guy named Yauman.  Yauman is tiny, I’d be surprised if he weighed 125 soaking wet.  He has been surprisingly good in the game.  Although he is not strong, he has some skills.  He has done well in challenges that involve hand eye coordination.  He also is very smart and has been playing the game skillfully the entire time, but last night took the cake.

This year they once again had hidden immunity idols that could be found and used to save your neck at tribal council.  Yauman was able to find one of them using the clues provided.  They are down to only 6 players.  Last night’s reward challenge was a big one, they were playing for a Ford F-350 Super Duty truck, a $40,000 to $50,000 vehicle for sure.  The last part of the challenge involved throwing axes at a target and cutting ropes and once again, Yauman won with a carefully placed throw.  Ali and I laughed at the idea of a tiny Asian guy behind the wheel of a massive full size truck.  But almost immediately after winning Yauman stops everything and says “I’d like to make a deal….”

One of the other people left, a young black guy named “Dreams” let everyone know how he doesn’t own a car and how winning this would be incredible.  Yauman made an offer to Dreams.  He would give him this massive truck if Dreams agreed to give Yauman immunity if Dreams wins the immunity challenge in the final four round. (two rounds away)  Without pausing, Dreams immediately agreed.  Yauman had no assurance that Dreams would honor this agreement, he was trusting his word.  So Yauman gave away his prize but he had one more power since he won the challenge, he could pick who got sent off to Exile Island (solitary confinement).  Yauman pulls another shocker and says he wants to send himself there!

Now Yauman was doing this all for strategy.  Having Dreams commit to giving him immunity would essentially be eliminating Dreams from the game in the final four round.  Going to Exile Island allowed Yauman to get another clue regarding the location of ANOTHER immunity idol that was hidden somewhere.  He went to exile, read the clue, and sure enough was able to have his ally in the game, Earl,  find the other idol.

So while Yauman was in exile, the remaining players, except Yau’s ally, Earl were conspiring, lead by the little shithead, Dreams.  Dreams agreed to give Yauman immunity in the final four round but did not agree to help get him to that round so he wanted to back stab Yauman.  The plan he came up with was to tell Yauman and Earl they were all voting out Stacy since she was next in line to go.  Stacy played along with the plan, acting like she was sorry to be going but was ok with it.  They hoped to snooker Yauman into believing all was fine and then give him a big kick in the ass.  For Dreams to do this after the guy just gave him this truck was as low as it goes in my book.  I would never do that.

So the act went around camp that Stacy was going to be voted out.  Earl totally fell for it and thought nothing was awry.  However at one point Yauman simply says “I have bad vibes”, relying on his intuition which has been spot on so far.  Earl told him not to worry and things were going as planned.  So tribal council comes and Jeff is doing the normal Q&A session.  He asks Stacy what she thinks will be the result of tonight’s vote.  Stupidly, she says that she thinks the vote will be split.  Instantly, Yau’s eyes open wide up.  She buried herself.

So this year, you have to present the immunity idol after the votes have been cast but before they have been read.  Jeff asks if anyone wants to use it.  After a long pause, Yau gets up and hands it over.  It’s a risky move as if people aren’t trying to vote you out, it is wasted.  But he sniffed the rats out.  The smile on his face after vote after vote with his name was read was classic.  Only he and Earl voted for Stacy, the other 4 voted for Yauman.  So Stacy was rewarded for her stupidity by getting her ticket punched off the island, and Dreams had been exposed as a little ungrateful punk.    The finale is this Sunday and I can’t wait to see how it plays out, although I will probably wait till next week to see it all since we will be in Orlando.

I don’t know how, but somehow doing shoulder and ab work at the gym yesterday managed to aggravate my left knee.  Last night with every step I could feel pain in it.  I was really annoyed and frustrated as I slapped the ice bag on it.  Long term it makes the prospect of me being able to return to regular volleyball competition rather dim and short term it f’s with my 300 workouts which pisses me off nearly as much.  I am trying to decide if I am even going to try the box jumps today and if not, what I want to substitute.  Basically the theory of the 300 workout is to get blood pumping big time to either the top or bottom part of the body and then with the next exercise go to the opposite.

I’m sure there will be lots to relay after our weekend in Orlando/Cape Canaveral.  I think I will really find it interesting.

My injury report is rather lengthy currently.  Both knees are troublesome.  I still get cracking from them now and then.  My shoulders are a mess, especially my right one.  All I have to do is put my arm at certain angles and it sends a sharp pain that deadens my entire arm briefly.  Finally, I jammed my right wrist earlier in the week doing chest work with dumbbells.   I sometimes wonder if I would take an extended break, at least a month, if these things would heal or if they would simply go dormant until I start up with gym activity again.  Of course I couldn’t not go to the gym, I would feel like a f’in slob but maybe I would go and just do stretching and cardio.  Maybe not.

With the high price of gas I wonder if anyone buys the PLUS or PREMIUM grades anymore?  I used to dump the higher grades in occasionally when the price of gas started with a 1.  It would be interesting to see how the percentages have shifted in the grade of fuel sales over the past two or three years that we have been stuffing W’s buddies pockets.

We didn’t see American Idol last night but I saw this morning that Lakisha got the boot.  I am totally fine with that.  She can now go off and sing her gospel records and join the army of chubby, black female singers out there. Good riddance.

I am going to have a busy Saturday trying to get a bunch of stuff done before our big trip.  There are like 7 or 8 things that have floated through my head that I want to get done before we leave.  I should be writing them down because trusting my memory to keep them safe is foolish at this point.  It will be fun to have mom along, even if she doesn’t think so.

I hit the top of the transportation ladder in WoW.  I got an epic flying mount for my Warlock.  To get it I had to pool all the money I had and got a 1000 gold loan from Charlie.  It is damn sweet to zoom around the zones at sonic speeds.  I got a gryphon adorned in Eagles midnight green armor.

I know I have bitched about my gym many times but here we go again.  Do weight trees need to be have instruction manuals posted by them?  Weight trees are just what they sound like.  The branches of the “tree” hold weight plates.  The arms of the tree are spaced appropriately.  The big 45 plates are supposed to go on the bottom, the 25’s and 10’s go on the middle row and the top is normally used for light 2.5 or 5 pound plates.  To use a weight tree you simply take weight from the proper row and when you are finished, put it back there. 

Well evidently the majority of the people at the gym are either too stupid or too f’ing lazy to follow this simple as dirt concept.  They just throw plates on wherever they feel like, leaving others to sort out their mess.  Say I need a 10 pound plate, but on the arm where 10 pounders are there are 5’s and 25’s jammed in front of it.  So now I have to remove all the plates that don’t belong and put them back in their proper spot if it all possible.  Sometimes the tree is such a mess that I would have to remove almost every weight to fix it.  However the most annoying and most ignorant move of all is when an asshole takes a big 45 pound plate and sticks it on the top arm.  When a genius performs this maneuver he manages to also block the middle arm as well since the top arm is not spaced to accommodate a plate of such large diameter.  I mean I just wonder what thought process goes through people’s minds.  It is so damn simple.  Grrr.  It doesn’t help that the gym is managed by the most apathetic cast of people I have ever seen.  All it would take is for them to get off their asses for 15 minutes, twice a day and go around straighten the shit out and put stuff away.  I just wish I had another alternative.

Ok bitch session number two. RCI.  RCI is the points provider that you deal with when you are using your timeshare points at different places other than your home resort.  It in a word is a ripoff.  When you sign on for a timeshare, you pay a good chunk of money up front to pay for “your” unit at your home location, several thousand dollars at least.  On top of that, you have to pay annual maintenance on the unit which runs a few hundred a year.  I really pity those who financed their timeshare as they are getting hammered every single month.  Ok, so you have those expenses up front, which are very large.  The pitch is, but your vacations for the rest of your life are paid for…. BULLSHIT!

On top of the annual maintenance you pay to the timeshare which would cover 3 or 4 nights stay at a hotel, you have to pay an annual fee to RCI, the points company of 100 bucks, another night or two in a hotel.  Then when you go to use your points somewhere else, they doink you again.  The rental costs a certain amount of points PLUS a fee for RCI to do the reservation, even though you already dropped them 100 bucks each year for the privilege of being in the fun club.  The amount you pay depends on the amounts of nights you are staying.  If you are staying 1-2 nights, 49 bucks, 3-4 nights $79 and if it is 5 or more nights $99 dollars.  Then finally there is yet another nice fee you get socked with at many resorts, a cleaning fee which is normally at least 30 dollars.  So if we want to do a quick extended weekend, we are going to pay a tidy 109 bucks for it.  Sure it is cheaper than staying at a hotel but what the hell did I drop all this money up front for? If you do the math, unless you have the ability to take a month of vacation a year, it will take a long ass time till you just get back to a break even point.  If I had it to do over again knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t do it.