Archives March 2008

So after the cat did her wall pissing stunt on Friday, both of the cats lived in the utility room until the following morning.  Neither of them were happy about it as evidenced by the loud meowing and the sounds of them attempting to jam their heads through the blocked cat door.  Ali dropped off Spook at the vet Saturday morning.  Along the way, Spook made sure the trip was as miserable as possible for Ali by shitting, pissing and throwing up all within the first 15 minutes of the ride.  We told the vet to keep her there over the weekend until some sort of diagnosis could be made.  It was pleasant only having one cat under the roof the rest of the weekend.  It would be pure bliss to have none.  Although I have to admit there were brief periods when I thought of Spook sitting in a cage at the vet being all scared.  It made me feel bad.  I just mentally changed the subject whenever I thought about it.  I mean yea, I can’t stand the cats at this point but they have been part of my life for 15 years so it’s hard to to totally insulate myself from any feelings about them.  We should have more news on the cat today I assume.

So Saturday was the yard sale.  Actually the neighbor was having a yard sale and we just tagged on.  I sort of felt like a schlub as I brought our stuff over.  The neighbor had spent the previous day organizing and pricing EVERYTHING he had and he had a lot of stuff.  I just had crap stuffed in boxes and bins and figured I would quickly price stuff as I set things up.  The yard sale was supposed to start at 8 but of course early birds started showing up about 7:20, way before I had anything set up for display.

So I hurried up the best I could and got my stuff set up the best I could.  Ali came over before leaving for the vet and helped me get organized as well.  One of the first people there was “yard sale man”.  We have seen this guy at every yard sale we have had since moving to Florida.  He is an older guy probably well into his 50’s.  He has oily, graying, kind of curly hair with glasses and a beard.  He ALWAYS is wearing a short sleeve, button shirt with no buttons buttoned with nothing else underneath, leaving his leathery belly for all to see.  This guy is a grade A pack rat.  He loves yard sales.  He walks around and round looking at stuff, picking up all sorts of things, negotiating the price down a bit and throwing them in his truck.  He has no need for 90% of what he buys but the thrill of getting something dirt cheap must do it for him.  Over the years he has taken a ton of crap off our hands and Saturday was no exception.  After buying a few things on his early visit he showed up later and bought MORE stuff.  Along the way I talked to him a bit.  He said he has 3 big outdoor sheds, used primarily for storing his junk.  He lives on 5 acres.  I can only imagine what that property looks like.  He seems like a nice enough guy but what a hoarder, unreal.

Early on is when most of the action takes place.  I got rid of a bunch of stuff.  I wasn’t that interested in making money, I just wanted to be rid of stuff that in some cases has been sitting around our house for years.  As part of this strategy I was putting ridiculous prices on things.  Almost everything was a dollar or less.  I even had a decent size bin of FREE items. 

I had to take a break from selling stuff to help a guy get his pick  up truck unstuck.  He pulled off on the far shoulder that had just been filled with sand a few weeks back.  His truck sunk in deep.  So I grabbed my steel cable and attached it to the Tacoma.  Along the way I gave myself a couple of wounds from the sharp cable ends.  The old Chevy S-10 I was pulling out was not in great shape.  When I was under it looking for a place to attach to I saw the frame was rotting out.  The driver side door didn’t open either.  The guy had to get in and out of the truck Dukes of Hazard style.  I managed to get him loose.  He thanked me for the help. 

We had a long lull in shoppers mid-morning.  Then SHE pulled up.  She was an older Haitian woman with some guy that may have been her son.  He spoke decent English, she did not. Of all people to visit your yard sale, Haitians are the most annoying.  It doesn’t matter if you have price listed on an item with big HUGE numbers.  They will ask you how much the item is, expecting you to offer them a price lower than what it is marked.  Once you tell them a price, they will offer you 30-50% less than that.  It is extremely annoying.  Now for me, since I was basically blowing things out I didn’t care that much.  My neighbor was looking to make some money from the sale of his items so he was not quite so open to her shenanigans.

She did laps around the items, then she would pick up several items and put them together and ask for a price on the group.  Then she would group up another pile asking for another price.  She would continue this routine and then when it came to figuring out a final price she would try to get the total price down below the price of the individual groups that the price was already negotiated on.  My neighbor got into a loud argument with her when she tried to dispute a grand total of all of the stuff she had.  As soon as they saw I had a box of free stuff they took it all without even looking what was in it.  Then she started mulling over my items.  She used the same divide and conquer techniques asking for prices of various groups of items which were already dirt cheap and trying to get them cheaper.  She asked for prices on tons of things.  Towards the end she asked for a price on the box of 35 to 40 cd’s I had.  Before I could give her an answer she was on to asking for a price on something else.  I think in total she spent a whopping 6 or 7 dollars with me, getting a bunch of items with that along with the box of free stuff.  I was glad to see her finally leave.  What a pain in the ass.

Late in the morning an older Hispanic couple stopped by and bought a few items.  As they were paying us the screw fell out of the guys glasses.  We looked in vain for it on the driveway.  I even went over to our house and grabbed a magnet in the hopes to snag the screw with it, but we had no luck.  The man appreciated my efforts.  He told us how they lived down the street in the Waterways development.  He said they have tennis courts and lakes to boat or fish in.  He told us how he plays tennis almost every day between 8 and 10am.  He asked if I played tennis to which I told him I did occasionally.  Then out of the blue he says I am welcome to come use the courts whenever I want.  He gives me his name, his phone number and his code to get in the front gate.  I thought this was all very bizarre but I took the information down and thanked him for it although I knew I would never take him up on his offer.  After he was left I was dumbfounded that an old Hispanic couple just offered to allow us to sneak into their development to use the facilities, funny.

During our interaction with the Hispanic couple the damn Haitian woman showed up while I was getting the magnet.  She was screaming at Ali that she paid for the box of cd’s and we didn’t give them to her.  I had no patience for any further bullshit from this woman.  She starts ranting to me that I told her $3 for the box of cd’s.  I told he in no uncertain terms that I did not say that.  I told her there was $300 worth of cd’s in the box I would not offer to sell them for $3.  She protested more but I stonewalled her.  Then she asks me what I would sell them for.  I said $15.  She offers $5.  I said no thank you.  Seeing I wasn’t going to fall for her little game she gave up on the cd’s and instead bought another 50 cent item, for 25 cents.  What a royal pain in the ass.

Yard sale man showed up later in the morning for round 2.  He grabbed a bunch more stuff, including the old wicker bathroom set that I wanted to unload quite badly.  He said he didn’t know if the girlfriend would want it but if not he will just throw it in the shed.  Sounds good to me. 

During the day the neighbor and I took turns raiding each other’s stash.  We gave him some stools and other small things he could use.  I grabbed a shower head, some tomato towers, shelving and a few other things.  No money was exchanged as we were both happy to help the other out if they could use something we had.  As the one o’clock end of the sale was approaching we had a few late stragglers but nothing much.  I gave away a bunch more stuff, especially anything little kids wanted.  I didn’t care about the money.

The neighbor had made arrangements to have a guy come out with a truck to take anything we had left to some thrift store that benefited an AIDS charity.  This was great because it meant we would unload EVERYTHING, freeing our house of unnecessary clutter.  The only downside was the guy charged 65 bucks an hour.  The bill was $130.  By the time I gave our neighbor half of the truck charge and half of the cost of the newspaper ad he ran, it left us with a tiny profit of $12 for the 5 hour sale. 🙂  I truly could care less.  I was happy to be junk free.  The sale was a big success in my book.

The rest of Saturday we spent stringing fencing along the two completed sections of the property line.  It was tedious work but not horribly difficult.  The biggest issue I had was getting an even pull.  It seemed like no matter how I tried to compensate, either the top or bottom section was a little ahead of the other as you got closer to the section I attached the come-along to.  It wasn’t a huge deal but enough for Ali to ask if I could minimize it which I tried my best to do.  It isn’t perfect but no one but us would even spot it.  Hammering in all of the staples to secure the fencing did a number on my hand, opening up a nasty blister.  I just adjusted my grip on the hammer and kept plugging away.  We were happy with the end result.

Sunday we got good news from my mom.  A couple days prior she had called and said she was going to look at a condo for rent at a development where one of her co-workers lived.  Evidently my griping about her place was enough to get mom to at least take a look.  Well she signed a lease!  I talked to her on Sunday and she told me all about it.  It sounds great.  She is going to be moving at the end of April.  I can’t wait to see the place and help mom get settled in.  I told her to let me know if there is ANYTHING she needs leading up to the move to let me know.  Since I was the one to bug her about moving I certainly need to follow up and make the process go as smoothly as possible.  The new place has a pool, is much larger than what she is living in now and yes, even has a dishwasher!  I think once she adjusts to the new surroundings she will enjoy it.

On Sunday most of the day was consumed with more fence building.  We got quite a lot done.  The last rear corner was finished and we hung the 12 foot gate from Nicki’s old dog run out there.  Sunday afternoon we dropped in line posts down the one side.  I had Ali helping me with digging the holes which really made things go faster.  We got that entire side done.  If things go smoothly, there is a chance that we could have the area totally enclosed by the end of next weekend.  That would be awesome.  I updated the online fencing progress page.  You can see the pics here.

I rewarded Ali for all of her hard work by taking her to Cold Stone Sunday evening.  Ali was shocked that she was getting to go to Cold Stone twice in the same year.  I figured we burned enough calories during the day to compensate. We don’t go crazy when we go there, we get the smallest size.  I had chocolate with almonds and pecans in it, at least the nuts are good for ya.  Fence building is leaning me out even further than I already was.  When I weighed myself Saturday night before taking a shower I clicked in at 170 pounds, holy crap.  I must have been severely dehydrated.

Well the cat urination issue just got to code red status.  I receive a distressed call from Ali telling me how while she was sitting at her desk she heard a weird sound, like water running.  She looks down and sees f’ing Spook pissing on the wall.  Ali said she freaked out and chased the cat away.  When she tried to grab her to throw her in the utility room the cat bit her.  Both cats are now sequestered in the utility room with their exit blocked.  Spook will be traveling to the vet tomorrow morning.  If the vet tells me she has diabetes I am having her put down.  It would be an impossibility to give her shots daily like I do for Buttons without suffering daily bite wounds.  I’m not dealing with that.  Have I mentioned how sick I am of owning cats?  Hairballs are one thing, pissing crosses the line from inconvenience/annoying to blatantly unacceptable.   

I didn’t realize that the rovers on Mars were still both plugging away.  That is amazing.  They originally hoped to get 3 months out of them before the brutal Mars conditions knocked them out.  They are now working on their 4th year and still going!  Pouring over the NASA rover site is amazing.  The images are incredible.  It’s hard to believe that something made by man is sitting on the surface of Mars.  A lot of the images remind me of scenes we saw driving out west. There are shots of clouds in the sky as well as frost on the rover, obviously there is water vapor present.  The -160 degree F nights could get a bit chilly though. Space has always fascinated me.

Been spending too much time at the buffet?  Is reaching for the bag of Defenbach chips your idea of exercise?  Do we have the thing for you!

This brilliant invention allows your pants to expand with you!  Here is the description of this item.

“Just slips over existing button to add one inch.
Gives added comfort from tight pants and skirts. Fits in seconds. No sewing required. Hides under your belt.”

If this little doodad doesn’t buy you enough room you can bring out the heavy equipment  and stretch your clothes with this beast!

No worries about packing on the pounds, use tools like this to stretch the shit out of them until they fit!  It’s reassuring to see technology being used to address the problems of a forever expanding and gluttonous American public, bravo.

Saturday we are teaming up with the neighbor on a yard sale.  We have a TON of stuff to unload.  I am hoping we get rid of it all.  The only downside is it will cut into fence building.  Last night I put in the few remaining line posts to reach the halfway mark.  This weekend I expect to have fencing up and installed over these two spans.  I also want to get the last corner completely finished as well as getting a bunch more line posts in the ground.

I’m sure people have been anxiously awaiting my review of this season’s cast of Dancing with the Stars.  Well wait no further!

As always they brought in a couple ringers which I never have understood.  I mean come on, Kristy Yamaguchi???  Yea she doesn’t do ball room dancing, she basically dances on ice!  It’s week two and she looks like she should be one of the pro dancers, what a joke.  The other ringer is the Chris Rock look-a-like named Mario.  Never heard of him but again, he as tons of dance experience, just not ballroom dance experience.  I wish they wouldn’t sign people like this up.

Ok let’s go to the opposite end of the spectrum, the shitty dancers, namely Monica Seles (already booted), Penn of Penn & Teller (gone) and Adam Carolla.  This is what the show should be, people that look like they have two left feet struggling to get through every performance.  Monica looked ok as long as she stayed in contact with her partner, as soon as she was on her own it looked like she was a drunken marionette. 

Penn danced ok for what limited physical ability he has and he did a good job covering up his poor dancing with lots of grandstanding.  I think he got the boot because people couldn’t stand him during the interview portions of the show.  He was loud and obnoxious and never would shut up.

I love Adam on the show.  He is the only “funny guy” on the cast.  He has dropped a lot of good one liners.  He knows he sucks and he is just going with the flow. I think he may stick around longer than he wants to because everyone loves his partner, Julianne.

Ok the rest.  The chubby girl from Hairspray needs to do lines of valium.  She is just too hyper.  Her “I’m crazy happy” smile is cute at first but gets old real fast.  She isn’t a great dancer but has over the top energy.  You wonder how a girl that energetic could be a porker.  Ali says I don’t like her cause she is overweight.  I’d be lying if I said that didn’t influence me.  She has a cute face and big hair though, always a plus.

The Colombian guy is another one I never heard of.  He’s good looking and has basic dance ability, I figure he will make it to the top third.

Marlee Matlin is pretty amazing.  I think what she is doing is far more impressive than what peg leg, money grubbing, evil Heather Mills did a couple seasons ago.

I like Jason Taylor a lot.  His athleticism will serve him well on the show.  Football players have done quite well so far.

Steve Guttenberg disturbs me.  I used to think the guy was cool.  He almost acts like he either got castrated or smokes a few joints before each show.  Everything is wonderful and he is so ecstatic to be there, a little too ecstatic if you ask me.

Shannon Elizabeth has a kicking body and is probably the best looking female contestant.  That being said she has an annoying personality.  She does have decent dance skills though.  I don’t think she will make it much past the halfway mark, people will get sick of her.

And finally the bad plastic surgery poster child, Prisicilla Presley.  The judges have given her undue praise in my opinion.  I don’t think she has been nearly as impressive as they seem to think she is.  Maybe I just can’t get past looking at her bizarre, frozen, Bride of Chucky looking face.  She used to be such a good looking woman.  Now it’s borderline frightening to look at her.  She dances just ok to me but I think she will be around for awhile.  People will enjoy the freak show plus all the Elvis maniacs will be burning up the phone lines for her I’m sure. The woman is 63.

How about the story of Cheryl Burke getting it on with Nick Lachey, her partner from a few years back?  Nick is married and has a kid.  Cheryl the little homewrecker, who woulda thunk it?  I read that someone walked in on the middle of some oral sex between, them. Doh!

The cats managed to finally break me down and put their old litter box back in place over the weekend after managing to render the automatic litter box useless.  Well this morning the saga continued.  Scooping the conventional litter box hasn’t been a big deal, it takes less than a minute.  I am fine with it.  Well this morning I am standing by the pantry and I smell something odd.  I look down and see that the crate that we throw old newspapers in is soaked.  “No, that isn’t what I think it is” I thought to myself.  I pick up the crate and see the liquid is yellow.  A cat f’ing pissed in the CRATE!  This time I am pretty sure Buttons is not the culprit.  Spook often jumps in boxes and scratches like she is in a litter box however she has never pissed in them.  So I dumped the contents of the crate that was all piss soaked.  The cat must have just done it sometime during the past few minutes when I wasn’t in the room.  I was in disbelief.  Pissing anywhere around the house besides the litter box will not be tolerated at all.  If it doesn’t stop asap Spook will be punching a one way ticket to a permanent nap.

Last night I dropped another 8 line posts in the ground.  It was almost pleasant.  The temperature was cool  and the work wasn’t all that grueling compared to what I had to do the prior few days.  By tonight I should have line posts half way back the property line on both sides.  I’m looking forward to getting the fence stretched along those sections. 

For my fellow WOOTaphiles, today is a WOOT OFF, FYI.

It’s a relief to be back at work so I can get away from physical labor for a few hours.  It’s been a pretty tough 4 days.  My initial hope was by the end of these past 4 days was to have half of the fence done, I wound up a bit short of the goal.  The weather for much of Saturday was shitty.  It looked like rain most of morning and then finally it started to come down in the afternoon.

Our day started at 4am as we had to load up and head to the beach to get ready for a race.  It was going to be the first large scale test of the timing system.  I was nervous about it.  Setting up computers and electronics on a beach is not my idea of a good time.  We had to bury the timing lines in the sand.  Initially they were about 6 inches down.  During my testing I had very poor detection results so we raised the strips to a couple inches below the sand.  Even at that height, detection was not great.   I had a few runners go across the line as a test before the race and missed a few detections, sending me into panic mode.  I decided to drop in the second set of timing lines as a fail safe and cranking up the power on the system to nearly it’s max.  Much of the time leading up to the race was draped in total darkness with the main source of light being the full moon.  There was a real cool moment when I was walking down to the beach after the equipment was set up.  The gulf was calm as a lake and lit up by the moon.  In the foreground was my table with the timing system and the laptop.  The screen was lit up with the club logo.  If I had a camera that could capture a picture in such conditions, it would have been a good one.

So the race starts and I hold my breath.  I managed to keep everything plugged in this time around.  The first two runners came towards the finish at a rapid pace.  As they both crossed without any sort of acknowledgement BEEP I immediately swore to myself.  Damn it!  Well we discovered that one of the two runners had lost his chip along the way, the other one just plain didn’t register for some reason.    It wasn’t a great start.  However the rest of the race went better with people getting detected.   Soon an obvious problem was identified, a lot of people coming across simply didn’t have a chip.  They either got there late and skipped it or were not told to get one.  We had at least twenty people that came across the line chipless.  Another issue was people not attaching the chips correctly.  Several people came across with chips flapping and loose and a handful had them fall off during the run.  Even so, the lion share of people were captured as they crossed the line.  I was able to import the times and prepare results relatively easily.   I would classify the run as a success but there are definitely more bugs to be worked out.  We were all cleaned up and back on the way home by 9:15.

  Even though Ali and I were both sleepy already from the 4 am wake up the fence was calling our names. We were working on the front section of the fence on the left side of the house.  The rain held off for awhile but then started to come down consistently.  Ali HATES being in rain but she toughed it out with me for most of the time, even donning an umbrella while holding posts in place for me.  Eventually the rain was too hard.  She went in while I finished up putting in a few line posts in a steady rain, it was pretty miserable.  The shitty weather resulted in me getting less done than I hoped for the day.  I wanted to have the front section totally done, complete with fencing up and attached.

Sunday was Easter.  Our Easter celebration at home was a simple exchanging of cards.  No Easter basket, no coloring of eggs, no gifts were exchanged.  Well I did buy Ali a pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs the day before, woo hoo.  Before going to my mom’s we  had to run out to the condo where our neighbor is now living to drop off some stuff.  We had Nicki with.  Normally when Nicki is in a new place she gets excited.  Getting excited normally translates into her taking a dump.  True to form, shortly after we got there she left a pile.  As she was in the process of doing her business, a short, old woman with two little dogs came walking around the corner.   It only took me a split second to identify this woman as a condo cop.  A condo cop is normally a person over the age of 65 that lives in a condo community whose life is so empty that they fill it up policing condo association policies.  This annoying hag comes scurrying over and says something about how we needed to clean up after the dog.  Ali assured the woman that she had no intention of leaving it there and she was waiting for our neighbor to bring a bag out.  The woman was besides herself about the idea that a pile of dog shit might possibly not be picked up.  She offered the bag she was carrying to Ali.  Ali again told her that she would have one shortly.  Again the crazy hag encourages Ali to use hers.  Ali finally relents and takes the bag.  The woman watched as Ali picked up the mess and then took joy in telling her where to put it.  I kept my mouth shut during the entire incident.  If the woman would have taken that approach with me I would have not been quite as nice.  As soon as the woman walked away our neighbor confirmed that the woman was indeed a condo cop.  I told him I identified her instantly as such, how annoying.

After our delivery trip we had time to go home and drop the van off at home before heading out to mom’s.  Mom said she had some outdoor landscaping things that she could use help with so we took the truck to her place, complete with the chain saw, loppers and pole saw in the bed.  Once we got there mom also asked me if I could hang a venetian blind in one of the front windows.  Before we had our Easter lunch we had some time to kill.  I brought up to mom that she didn’t respond to the emails I sent her that had several example condos that were both for sale and rent that could easily be afforded by her.  As expected my inquiry was met with a barrage of excuses why she didn’t want to pursue such a move.  I told my mom that I didn’t like her living in a place that she constantly complains about.  It’s old and not well maintained, I said how I would like for her to get into something newer with less maintenance requirements.  I went so far as to call her place a “dump” which I don’t think she liked.  I told her now was a GREAT time to make a move, the market is jammed full of great rental or purchase opportunities.  I told her that I would help her along the way.  Mom’s counter was she can just wait till a hurricane knocks the place down or something just happens to pop up magically and is presented to her. (I’m paraphrasing)  Mom hates to talk about things that involve her changing in some way and I could tell I had run the meter out of time on the subject.  I was frustrated that she wouldn’t even agree to actively look for somewhere else to live that would raise her quality of life and instead is content to passively sit by just hoping something will change. Some of the reasons mom gave for wanting to stay put just made no sense.  As the discussion ended an exclamation point was put on my point of view when a small lizard poked it’s head up on the back of mom’s sofa.  They come in through various openings in the building structure.  Oh well I am going to keep looking at the ads and keep presenting the options to her. 

We had a non-traditional Easter meal, instead of ham, mom made eggplant parm from scratch, something that would slide into Ali’s vegetarian diet easily. It was quite good.  Shortly after the meal I changed shirts and we headed outside to cut back various vegetation.  I hacked into the Bird of Paradise, coconut palm and sea grape with both my chain saw and pole saw.  We quickly amassed a large pile of brush.  The three of us made quick work of the chores.  Afterward we went back in and had a refreshing desert, strawberry shortcake, something I hadn’t had for years and years.  Mom knew I had fencing construction plans for the rest of the day so she encouraged us to get going.  She thanked us for our help and we thanked her for the meal and that was that.

  I whined to Ali how empty holidays feel in comparison to years past on the ride home.  She pointed out correctly that unless we have kids, and since we have limited family close by that is probably the way holidays will be.  It’s just reality.   When I think about positive holiday memories it’s true, they involve the scenarios where there were considerable numbers of family/extended family members present.  I guess you just can’t recreate that with two or three people.  I couldn’t remember if I normally called family on Easter.  I decided that I normally did not.  I guess I was right because we didn’t receive any calls from family members either.  I didn’t even bring up the idea of calling grandma while we were at mom’s and felt guilty about it.

So we were back home and I dug into the final part of the front fence, installing the actual fencing.  We cut a section of fencing slightly longer than was needed and then secured the one end on the H post by the house.  Then I brought the truck down to the other end and attached the neighbor’s come-along to the frame and then attached that to a steel cable that was hooked around a pole that I had threaded through the fence.  As I cranked on the come-along the fence sprung to life, standing up straight on it’s own.  I let Ali crank on the come-along a bit, she enjoyed it.  Once the fence was taut I started nailing it in at a few spots.  The area we were stretching across was very challenging.  We came off the house mound, into a small valley and then back up and over Nicki’s area which is elevated then back down to normal ground level out at the property line.  When I attached the fence to the post in the valley we had an obvious problem.  After telling Ali to release her downward pressure on the fence, the post immediately started to lift out of the hole from the tension, shit!  So Ali and I threw around ideas about how to address the problem.  What we settled upon was Ali’s idea of bringing in fill to raise the low area and raising the fence post to relieve the upward tension.  I was leery of the idea but had no better ideas of my own.

So it was off the fill pit with the tractor and yard cart to get a couple loads of fill.  It didn’t take very long to raise the problem area enough to alleviate the pressure on the post.  It looked a bit weird to have a raised ridge at the fence line but we said we would cover it with sod.  So I continued attaching the fence to the posts.  When I was almost done Ali uttered one of her discerning “Hmmmms…” “What’s wrong?” I asked.  Nothing, she says which I know means something.  On the second half of the fence the bottom part of the fence line was lagging somewhat behind the top section.  I had driven so many staples in by that point that trying to undo it at that point would REALLY suck.  I think the reason for issue was the up and down terrain, causing the bottom of the fence to get hung up on the high ground.  Ali admitted that it is the sort of thing that only she would notice.  I agreed with her but felt bad afterwards that she saw that section of fencing as less than perfect.  I secured the rest of the fence, cut it and that was that.  The front fence line across both sides of the house was completely done.  It was a bit of a relief as I knew those sections were the most challenging because of uneven ground.  The rest of the project would take much longer but should be more straight forward.

Sunday evening we brought over the neighbor’s Jack Russel, Zoe.  He was out of town for a week so we agreed to dog sitting duties.  Zoe is very high maintenance as I have described multiple times before, demanding attention during most of her waking moments.  Sunday night I had a MISERABLE night of sleep.  Initially I was woken up around 2am by Zoe moving or making some noise.  After that my mind kicked into overdrive.  I started thinking non-stop about various things going on like the fencing, cleaning out the spare bedroom to accommodate a treadmill, getting stuff together for the yard sale, the worthless litter box and even other unrelated things that were depressing as well.  I couldn’t quiet my mind no matter how hard I tried.  I bet it was close to 4:30 until I managed to fall back asleep, only to crawl out of bed again at 7 am.

Monday was going to be a lot of fence building, plus I wanted to rent the power auger from Home Depot.  The plan was to get the two middle H sections built and then I would go rent the auger.  Building the H’s is by far the worst part of this project as it involves several grueling tasks.  Digging the three and a half foot deep holes for the 8 foot posts is hard enough.  However quite often after I would drop the 100 to 150 pound post into the hole it would either be a few inches too high or too low meaning I had to lift the damn thing back out again which was a real bitch to do since there was little clearance between the post and hole.  Making an H also meant I had to twist the brace wire around and around until it was tight.  To do so I stuck a big Craftsman adjustable wrench in between the wires and start twisting.  After the first three or four revolutions each cranks gets considerably tougher.  The last few turns require tremendous amounts of torque.  The second brace wire, required by Ali for visual symmetry is even tougher because you have to work the wrench around the first brace wire with every turn.  By the time I am done with each H my forearms and hands are burning.

We got the two middle H’s done around noon so we took a break and headed up to Home Depot to rent the auger.  I viewed the auger as a gift from the heaven’s, something that would make the job exponentially easier. I was wrong.  Once we got home I was anxious to try to zip in some line posts with my power tool.  I fired it up, and squeezed the throttle.  It didn’t take me long to realize that it wasn’t going to be a huge help.  The auger ripped into the sandy soil easily and dug down quickly.  However it doesn’t come up by itself, you have to pull up against it’s natural direction to pull the dirt out of the hole.  As you do this it creates a huge loose ant mound of dirt around the hole.   You repeat the up and down process several times and then when you pull the heavy device out of the hole a bunch of the mound of dirt falls right back in.  Then in order to measure how far your post is above the ground line you have to clear more dirt away which inevitably causes even more to fall into the hole.  The 8 inch bit made a hole way too big for the small line posts, creating tons of backfilling to do as well.  After two posts I realized that I would be able to do line posts faster just using the damn post hole digger.  I decided to switch gears and take the auger to the back of the property to dig the holes for the remaining H braces since those holes need to be much bigger. 

Again it was a tough go.  At one point I went too deep in one run without pulling the auger up, getting it stuck with a bunch of dirt on top of it.  I had to enlist the help of Ali on the other side to get the sucker out of the hole.  Using the auger for the big holes saved a bit of time and the large holes it created were helpful with some of the 8 foot posts that had large, outwardly tapered bottoms.  By the end of Monday we had the one rear corner done with just one more corner left.  We were both very tired by the time we stopped between 6 and 7.  But I was not done working.

Like I said, the night before I was going crazy laying in bed thinking about various things I wanted to get done.  One of which was getting the treadmill the neighbor was giving us into the house in the spare bedroom.  In order to do this we needed to do something with my mom’s daybed that has resided there since she moved out of our place.  On Easter we tried to talk mom into putting the day bed in her second bedroom but then the issue with the existing, landlord provided twin beds created a roadblock.  Mom said I could just take the daybed apart and put the parts in the garage, shed or attic but doing so would surely warp and damage the wood in some way.  The week prior Ali was all excited after working on the room a bit and coming up with the plans to make room for the treadmill.  After leaving mom’s she had pretty much given up on the idea.  Well I always hate to see Ali disappointed so I planned to address the issue after rolling several plans of action through my head during the day.

So even though I was exhausted from a day of fence building I ripped into the spare bedroom with wrench and socket set in hand.  I took the day bed apart and then propped it all against the far wall.  It at least took up far less room this way.  I had to move around a bunch of other stuff as well but I eventually I had a space where a treadmill could go.  Ali repeatedly told me to just relax, that it didn’t need to be done right now.  I told her I wanted to be able to sleep that night.  So now we had to get the treadmill to our house.  We drove the truck next door to load the treadmill into.  Getting the treadmill out of their house was quite challenging.  Several doorways left us a fraction of an inch clearance. We managed to get it out the front door without damaging the walls thank goodness.

The plan was to load the treadmill into the truck and drive it over, however this thing was quite heavy and getting it into the truck with just Ali and would have probably resulted in us damaging it in some manner. Ali came up with a simple yet strange idea, I should just wheel it to our house.  After weighing any other options I agreed that would the the simplest choice although slightly unconventional.  So I start pulling the treadmill down the neighbors driveway and out onto the main road.  I hoped no vehicles came during my brief road trip but was not so lucky.  A couple cars drove by.  I did not look into the vehicles to see the weird stares at the strange man pulling a treadmill down the street.  I made a right turn onto our driveway and got the unit up to the front door.  Getting it into our house wasn’t too bad, easier than getting it out of the neighbors place.  We slid it into the spare bedroom and it fit with a couple feet to spare.  Ali got on it for a quick test and all was well, it survived it’s trip out onto the roadway.  Having the treadmill will make it far easier and convenient for Ali to keep up with her running.  I am sure I will use it quite a bit myself. 

My thirst for getting things done wasn’t quenched quite yet.  I decided to tackle the stupid automatic litter box.  This new model has been a disaster, jamming constantly with cat excrement.  I told Ali I would just pull the good old fashioned litter box out of the shed and use that.  I scooped litter for the past decade, it is simpler than having to babysit the “automatic” unit.  So I disassembled and dumped the litter out of the new box and set up the “manual” box.  The manual box is a lot deeper so it will do a better job of containing the mess.  I left the new box out in the garage in pieces, in the hopes that Ali will clean it up and try to return it for a refund even though we threw out the box.  I know she isn’t looking forward to it.  Finally my manic Monday of work had come to an end.  I slept better that night, still waking up quite a few times but at least able to fall back asleep quickly when I did.

Tuesday I was up and out the door early before 8 am.  I had to go back out to the place we got the fencing from.  I had miscalculated in the number of 8 foot posts and was one short.  I also needed to get another roll of brace wire and some gate hinge pins.  It was quite chilly Tuesday morning, right around 50 degrees.  Any other day I would be less than thrilled with such temperatures but on a fence building day it was more than welcomed.

I only had the power auger rented until 1pm so I wanted to use it to dig the four remaining holes for the big 8 footers in the back corner.  By the time I got those in it was a bit after 10.  I hosed off the auger, threw it in the truck and had Nicki accompany me on the trip to Home Depot to return it. On the way there I had to stop for gas.  As I did I noticed the self storage facility near by.  I decided on a whim to check it out, my thoughts being that with a small storage box we could throw the day bed in there along with anything else that we didn’t know what to do with.  I knew I would have to get climate controlled storage because of the furniture which costs more.

So I pop in and tell the girl at the desk I was just sort of looking for basic rate information. Well all of a sudden the place morphed into a car dealership.  The girl wants to know what size I am looking for and what price range.  When she presented me the numbers I cringed.  She immediately said she would talk to her manager and see what she could do.  In seconds she came back with a rate 25% lower.  WTF?  I never imagined someone would be trying to hard sell me storage space.  I again told the girl I was just getting some information and was not going to make a decision at that moment.  She handed me her card and said the “deal” was good till the end of the month.  Geez she should be selling Chevy’s, not boxes.  When I relayed the idea to Ali she shot it down.  She wasn’t interested in paying $600 a year to store a bed.

After getting back from Home Depot I quickly laid down sod I bought to cover the area we raised on Sunday then it was straight to doing line posts.  I came up with a system that worked pretty well.  I laid out the line posts every 10 feet first so I wouldn’t have to be stopping to measure each post I put in.  After that I would dig the hole, step back and close an eye to visually line it up with the posts behind it the best I could.  After that I would push a bit of dirt in the hole to secure the post while I used the level to plumb it.  Then I would tamp down the dirt, add more dirt, tamp some more, dirt, tamp, dirt tamp, until the hole was filled.  I finished off by giving it a good foot stomping.  Getting the posts lined up exactly was nearly impossible due to the undulating ground and the less than symetrical line posts.  Many of them had curves and bends in them.  I had to f with them quite a bit to minimize the effect of the twists.  I got all the line posts to the middle H set and then jumped to the other side and got another 6 or 7 in the ground before calling it quits around 6:30.  I was just plain wore out.  Even though the temperature was great, right around 70, driving the post hole digger into and out of the ground hundreds of times is quite tiring.  Shortly after the time Ali got home from work I was in the shower and ready for bed.   Ali was impressed with what I got done and said it looked great.  I knew it wasn’t perfect but it was pretty darn good in my opinion.  I hope to knock out more line posts after work during the week.

It was a tough four days but a rewarding time period as well as I slowly see the project taking form.  Busting ass on the fence project for a few days doesn’t compare with roaming the country and surviving in the the Alaska wilderness for three months but it did succeed in making me feel a bit more alive at least.  The virtual/cyber related events in my life just don’t compare to getting out there, getting dirty and building something with your own two hands.  

This week I turned on email archiving at work.  It is something we should have turned on awhile ago.  As a government agency we are supposed to keep all emails as part of public record.  Setting it up wasn’t too hard.  I am using Exchange 2003 built-in archiving along with a 4 terabyte NAS device.  If you are a person that has emailed me at work in the past, I’d ask you to please use either my home or gmail address from now on.  It’s just better that way. 

I was able to figure out the issue with the timing system last night, no thanks to the French manufacturer whom did not respond to the distributors request in a timely fashion.  It turns out there was a slightly newer version of the timing system “brains” that I needed to load.  After doing that all was well.  Then I spent the majority of the night programming 400 of the timing chips.  Tomorrow will be the first large scale test of the system.  Should be “fun”.

I took off next Monday and Tuesday.  The weather forecast for those days looks decent for fence building so I figured I would take advantage of it.  I am hoping that by the time I come back Wednesday at least half of the fence project will be done, more if things go well.  I plan on renting the hand auger so I can drop in the line posts quickly.

God I hate the cats, especially Buttons the diabetic one.  She has already managed to jam up the brand new automatic litterbox several times this week using her “piss in the front of the box to not trip the electric eye” trick.  I get so f’in angry at her.  I have verbally wished death upon her multiple times in the past few days.  Ali often scolds me for the things I say about the cats.  I think if she assumed litterbox duties she would be right there with me in no time.

For Easter we are going over to my mom’s place.  It would have been fun to have her come to our place so we could have Wii’d some more but mom has a few things she wants me to do around her place.  Mom told me there was a robbery right by her house the other day.  I REALLY want her to move to a nice, newer condo community.  The place she lives in is old and the landlord could care less about maintaining it.  The place doesn’t even have a dishwasher.  Mom insists that she likes it there and makes a million excuses about not looking for something better.  I’m going to have to drag her out of there. Everytime I think about it I feel guilty.

Instead of spending my evening putting fence posts in, I instead spent it trying to upgrade the chip timing system we have for the running club.  It was a frustrating few hours.  The company that makes the system is from France.  As a result the instructions are translated from French to English, poorly.  They are not very easy to follow and in several cases there are gaps in the process.  Luckily my computer background allowed me to fill in a lot of the gaps.  However I still had to contact the distributor and had him on the phone for quite awhile.  We got the hardware upgraded but when I tried to do the real test of running the chips across the timing lines, the chips didn’t register correctly. Shit.  The distributor wasn’t sure what was wrong and he sent off an email to the company to see if he could get some answers. It was a long night, I didn’t turn all the stuff off until after 10.

Ali started on the process of labeling the 1000 chips we have with a paint pen.  She labeled the first 400 chips.  She is by far more qualified to do this process than me.  Her penmanship is nearly flawless.

I thought Obama’s speech regarding his crazy sounding minister was very good.  Unfortunately the damage may already be done.  Just look how it affected Randy Romero.  I still fear that the underlying racism that is still rampant in our country could derail him from getting to the white house.  I crave a president that fits the role, a person that is educated, well spoken, level headed and above all DIFFERENT. There is just no way I can imagine a very old man that wants to stay the course in Iraq and represents old school politics could possibly be elected in 2008, but if John McCain manages to slide in there, that nightmare could just come true. 

NEVER admit you were wrong…

 “President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he had no regrets about the unpopular war in Iraq despite the “high cost in lives and treasure” and declared that the United States was on track for victory”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080319/ts_nm/iraq_usa_dc_3

What a f’in idiot.