Archives 2008

Court rules paper money unfair to blind…

This world is so f’d up…..  let them use lots of quarters then…… asinine.

At the place where Ali takes ballet classes they started offering Judo classes.  They are offering the first month for free so Ali went and took a class yesterday.  She really liked it.  She told me how she threw the instructor as well as being thrown several times herself.  She was excited about it and said how it gave her a feeling of self confidence.  She showed me her throw move at home.  She definitely would have been able to flip me over if she wanted to.  I’m happy that she likes it.  I don’t know if she is thinking about doing it beyond the free period or not.  Her schedule now is already busy enough, something would have to give. Plus the cost of Judo is not cheap.  If I threw that on top of the costs we incur from ballet, hair dresser, massages and facials it adds up to a huge chunk of cash. 

I have done a decent job of not thinking much about Buttons since we had her put down.  One time I can’t help but think about her is every morning when I get done washing my hair.  Buttons had a strange quirk where she actually liked having water dripped on her.  Most cats act like water is sulfuric acid.  After rinsing my hair I wouldn’t dry it right away and instead would let the water drip onto Buttons as she meowed happily.  I still find myself inadvertently standing up and looking for the cat to come in when my head is wet.   It makes me a bit sad.  Although I can say that cat maintenance has become much simpler since Buttons is no longer around.

Ali has become quite the regular reader of my blog, for better or for worse.  She said she was surprised that I omitted her pitching performance when I was doing my experimental throwing Sunday night.  I gave her a brief lesson on throwing from the stretch versus the wind up.  I knelt down and let her throw a few at me.  She had a couple pitches that were pretty good, called strikes in any league.

They finally got the replacement parts to perform the recall work on the party van, nearly 8 months after the initial work was done.  Better late than never.  I drove the van to work today to drop off at the dealer later.  It was the first time I drove the beast in quite awhile, a couple months at least.  It really needs a bath.  The one side that doesn’t get much sun is starting to get covered in mildew.  I’m having the dealership fix the cigarette lighter as it is a necessary for cross country trips to power the GPS and satellite radio.  I will fix the rear view mirror that fell off myself and I’m not worrying about the stereo system that changes volume by itself sometimes.  I need to get a steering wheel grip for it.  Whatever substance is on the wheel now gets slimy as it warms up.  

It’s looking like for our 10 year anniversary we may be taking a road trip to Georgia.  Instead of an expensive and extravagant trip to someplace like Hawaii we are thinking about heading to what looks to be a nice timeshare in northern Georgia.  We were looking at all sorts of places, including resorts in Idaho, Colorado and Montana.  Our plan was to to go to a pet friendly resort so we could take Nicki with, eliminating Ali’s biggest concern when we travel.  However with the price of gas, driving up to 3000 miles one way would get extremely costly and time consuming.  Georgia would be much closer and would allow us to take the Camry if need be since the drive wouldn’t be nearly so long.  The resort looks very scenic with lots of beautiful views and hiking available.  My biggest concern was that Ali would see it as a lame thing to do for a 10 year anniversary but actually the opposite seems to be the case.  The idea of taking Nicki along is thrilling to Ali.  I really want to use the timeshare to see the other areas of the country as well.  If we hadn’t spent so much money already this year on various home improvements a trip to Idaho or Montana might have been in the works.

The Toyota dealer surprised me yesterday.  They called up and said they would replace all FOUR tires for $160 TOTAL.  That is roughly what I paid to replace one tire when it got gashed a year or so ago.  Plus it will be aligned for free, Ali can have a loaner to drive during the day and they will work on the console squeak as well.  It was far more of a concession than I was expecting.  In this case, outwardly showing my discontent has paid off big time.

So the game plan for our Saturday was to drop off the Camry for service at the dealership at 11 am and then head up to the huge Coconut Point shopping area to walk around and watch Iron Man.  My buddy at work told me the theater there was very nice.  So we dropped the car off and told them we would be back around 5.  The car needed an oil change plus I had them looking at a couple other issues.  The Camry had an alignment problem since day one.  At our first 5000 mile service they said they aligned it.  Well over time the one tire has become unevenly worn which has caused it to generate an excessive amount of road noise on smooth roads.  It almost sounds like I am driving a monster truck at times.  We also have had a long term issue with dash console making all sorts of squeaking noises.  Since we have approximately 10k left on the factory warranty I wanted to get these things addressed.

So we drive up to this new shopping megaplex.  SW Florida is jammed with shopping and dining.  America’s unabashed consumerism is on display everywhere you turn.  Ali had been to this place with my mom once before, I never was there.  Well it is indeed huge.  The stores sprawl as far as you can see.  Some of it is a different sort of layout, kind of reminding me of downtown disney.  The stores are on the first floor and the 2nd and third floors are office space, office space that for the most part seemed to be vacant.   Everything was done in a very typical, high end Florida decor.  It was very nice to look at.  However the first thing I noticed after appreciating the sheer size of the place was that it was dead.  There was hardly anyone there.  Now maybe it was the time of day we were there, a little before noon on a Saturday.  However it looked like a ghost town with only a few people wandering about.  Maybe it was more people than I realized but since the area is so big it spread them out, I dunno.  Well we were seeing an early movie.  We found the movie theater which was also huge and fancy.  We bought our tickets but then had about 45 minutes till the flick.  So instead of eating the various overpriced junk food items the theater sold we instead went next door and ate a quick lunch at Johnny Rocket’s.  Our server was some young Russian looking/sounding kid.  It was sort of bizarre.

So we head back to the theater.  Ali goes in and gets us a seat in case it is full while I use the bathroom.  I come into the theater and laugh to myself.  The place is MASSIVE with stadium seating.  However it is practically empty.  I could count the people without moving to my toes.  Ali picked out seats near the top, where we normally choose to sit.  However this theater was so big that we actually moved down a full section.  The seats were comfortable and reclined some what.  It was a Muvico theater, a chain I never visited before.

Before Iron Man started I found myself getting annoyed at what the movie experience has become, commercials.  It used to be that was one of the perks of going to the movies was no commercials.  Similar to when you buy premium channels on cable, movies were devoid of annoying advertising since you were paying a decent chunk of change to view them.  Well no more.  Besides sitting through at least 15 minutes of previews we also had to watch at least another 5 minutes of commercials, annoying.

I had been really looking forward to seeing Iron Man. (slight spoiler in here if you didn’t see it) I had very high expectations due to the huge numbers it had been doing along with various glowing reviews I had heard.  Perhaps the hype had blown my expectations out of proportion.  I liked the film, I wasn’t blown away by it.  Ali said she thought the film was good and was surprised when I said I was a little disappointed.  It was hard to put my finger on exactly what went wrong for me at the time.  I think it comes down to the way it all winds up and the improbability of it.  The idea that Tony Stark spent months and months figuring out exactly how to be Iron Man, how to build the suit, how to use it, how to fly and then Jeff Bridges comes along and is able to just jump in a suit and do it all like it was nothing, sort of was where it lost me.  That and Gweneth Paltrow saving the day was sort of silly.  Still the movie was good over all.  Robert Downey Jr was a perfect cast for Tony Stark.  The special effects and action are all top notch.  We even sat through the entire credits to see the little blurb about the next film. (everyone else in the theater had left, even the cleaning crew) I was sort of pissed to see Samuel L Jackson was involved in the next film.  I am so f’ing sick of seeing his face in every other movie I watch.  So anyway I would give Iron Man an A- which is a fine rating.  Although I have to admit I was almost assuming it would be in the A+ category with the likes of 300.

After the flick we had more time to kill so we walked the complex for quite a while.  We were looking for something specific, either a media storage thing for some of our stuff or a bakers rack kind of thing to put across from the kitchen.   We went in a ton of stores looking for such a thing, at least 8 or 9 and we struck out each time.  By the time we left Best Buy I had about enough of the walking.  It was hot and muggy and the truck was parked what seemed to be at least a mile away.  I don’t really know how you could do lots of shopping there.  Carrying the bags would get to be a major pain in the ass.

So we headed back towards the truck.  We stopped and grabbed a smoothie to help cool us off.  I told Ali that Coconut Point was nice and all but I had no compelling reason to come back.  Well the theater was pretty neat, maybe I would see another film there.  But other than that, all the stores we went into are available in several places closer to us.  It wasn’t like the place was an outlet of any sort either, there were no deals to be had.  Walk forever to pay normal retail prices?  No thanks.

We finally found the truck and headed back the dealership.  We got there a bit early, around 4:30 even with stopping at a furniture store on the return trip.  However I figured it wasn’t an issue since they had the car for five and a half hours by that point.  Well as we turned the corner into the service lane I just saw the Camry being driven around the corner….  WTF they were just looking at it now?  Our service advisor, a big, blonde woman with a lot of tattoos yells out to us that it isn’t ready yet.  I didn’t blurt out “I guess not, you just took it back now…” like I wanted to.  This woman rubbed me the wrong way when we dropped the car off.  When I described the problems she would look at me with a look like I didn’t know what I was talking about and then repeat what I said, maintaining the stupid look.  Anyway we said we could run some more errands and would be back.  

We went down to Home Goods, the sales lady at the furniture store we stopped at said that they may have something we could use.  We did find a cabinet/shelf sort of thing but it was a bit smaller than we wanted and it wasn’t all that great of a deal.  There was another furniture store next door so we swung in there just for the hell of it.  They actually had something that I thought was the nicest we found so far.  Ali thought it was cool too but she wasn’t totally convinced.  It wasn’t that expensive either which I liked.  We weren’t ready to commit yet though as we wanted to take some measurements at home to see how it would fit.

We got a call from our service advisor that the car was now done so we headed back to the dealership.  We see her as we walk up and she says all the paperwork was inside.  Well I knew if they only had the car in the shop for 45 minutes they didn’t address my concerns.  When I saw the service order my fears were confirmed.  They changed the oil, said the tires were within spec and “lubricated the hinge” on the console.  So they basically changed the oil and shot the console hinge with wd-40.  I was annoyed.

As we walked out I was grumbling to Ali how they really didn’t do anything besides change the oil.  It was only 15 minutes till they closed so I knew there would be no resolution that would occur on that day.  I was debating if I wanted to just not say anything and then call them back when I confirmed that nothing was fixed or if I wanted to address it now, face to face.  At first I picked the former, I started walking towards my truck.  Then I change my mind.  I turn around and track down our annoying service advisor.

I call her over and ask her if I could talk to her for a second.  She came over with a look on her face like she was acting surprised I needed something else but really knew what I was going to say.  I told her that basically all that was done was an oil change and nothing else.  I told her they didn’t address the other two issues at all.  I said that the car was there all afternoon, I was upset that they didn’t do anything until right before we were supposed to come back.

  Again she starts with the stupid faces of surprise that I had a complaint.  I told her that greasing the hinge of the console would not fix the problem.  I told her we had them work on the problem once before and at that time they disassembled the console and added some foam.  I said that if she would look at the car service history she would know that greasing a hinge would do nothing.  Then I had to rehash the whole alignment deal.  I told her at a minimum I expected them to realign the car so the tire I have in the front does not wear unevenly as the other one that causes all of the road noise.  Just like when I dropped it off, I told her the alignment had been off since day 1 and that it was aligned at our first service at 5000 miles.  Well she could tell I was about to go crazy on her.  She called out the shop foreman.

I actually think I dealt with Ron the shop foreman years ago when I was having the maddening squeal issue on my Tacoma.  I had to give another quick recap to Ron of the background of my gripes.  He went around and looked at all four tires and confirmed that the one was worn more unevenly than the others.  When he saw in the service history that an alignment was done at 5000 miles and the console squeak was attempted to be fixed before he took responsibility for the problems, unlike our service advisor.  He said we should bring it back and they would do an alignment free of charge and also would be willing to work out some sort of deal on tire replacement since they normally cost $150 each.  He also said they would once again work on the console squeak issue.  He did a good job of defusing the anger I was feeling.  So the new plan was for me to bring it back first thing next Saturday so they can actually try to do something about the problems instead of simple acting like they are.

We didn’t get home until around 6:30.  Originally I had mentioned the possibility of heading right outside and getting the mowing and weed whacking done so it was one less thing to do on the list which was still long since we were out most of the day.  However by the time I got home, the shopping, walking, fruitless furniture browsing and car dealership bullshit had sucked any and all motivation from me.  Instead we relaxed and watched Tivo, f it.

Sunday morning was go time.  The weekend chore list had hardly been touched so I got to work early. But before doing so I decided to hop on the treadmill and run a couple miles.  I have not run much at all in the last month or so due to my knees feeling iffy.  It went pretty well though.  I ran at a moderate 9:13 pace.  After running and getting the pool cleaner going I went out and changed the oil on the Tacoma and picked up stuff around the house in preparation for mowing and weed whacking.  Then Ali jumped on the mower while I did battle with the considerable amounts of trimming to be done.  We busted it out and finished outside before lunch.  After lunch there was more to do like cleaning the bathrooms, dusting and sweeping with the Dyson.  We quickly did our May cleaning project by pulling the living room furniture away from the walls and cleaning behind/under all of it.  We had everything knocked out by about 3, not bad.

The rest of the day was pretty laid back.  I watched the some of the Flyers getting crushed in HD as well as some of the Celtics/Cavs game.  I also got to watch my first HD episode of Battlestar Galactica in HD, pretty sweet.  Sunday night we watched The Rookie.

The Rookie is based on a true story of a guy in his mid 30’s that resurrected his failed baseball career that he pursued when he was younger.  The movie is 6 years old, I’m surprised I hadn’t seen it before since I am a sucker for feel good baseball movies.  Dennis Quaid is the star of the movie.  Based on his age which I guessed to be in his mid 40’s, I assumed Jimmy Morris was older than the 35 he turned out to be.  In a nutshell somehow the guy discovers that after having arm problems and only being able to pitch in the mid-80’s in his youth, he somehow managed to throw 98 miles an hour 10 years later.  He gets signed by the Devil Rays and makes it to the big leagues.  It was a feel good story for sure, although after the movie I quickly investigated the real story and saw that his stats did not reflect his depiction in the movie where he was portrayed as basically unhittable.  He only lasted in the big leagues for a few months total, the end of the 99 season and the beginning of the 2K season before arm problems once again shut the door on his baseball career. 

The movie didn’t match up with my all-time favorite baseball movie, The Natural, which makes me cry pretty much every time.  I’d rate The Rookie behind Field of Dreams as well but not all that far behind.  However since I would rate both of those other films strong A’s, that means I’d give this film a B+ or A-.  Definitely worth seeing even if you don’t care for baseball.

Of course a film like this immediately connects to my baseball filled youth where I did nothing but dream of playing in the major leagues.  I thought how awesome it would be for me to get a chance to play again at the ripe old age of 40.  The movie did inspire me enough to go into the old toy chest and pull out my first and most loved baseball glove, a roughly 30 year old Wilson.  It is an infielder’s glove with Dave Cash’s signature burned into it.  I always thought it was funny that Dave Cash had a glove endorsement deal although when I look back at his stats he had a few years where he hit .300, not bad.  My glove is beat up as hell but I still love it.  I also pulled out one of my soft sided baseballs.  It is the size of a real baseball and close to a real baseball in weight but it’s soft enough to throw against a wall and not damage it.  With both in hand I walked by Ali and told her I was going to go outside to see if I could still throw.  She smiled and followed me outside with Nicki in tow.

As I mentioned above and surely in other blog entries I used to be all about baseball.  As I was warming up against the wall I told Ali about some of my childhood baseball memories.  I told her how I spray painted a strike zone on the side of the barn and used to throw against it to improve my accuracy.  My brother and I also built a lean to thing that we used in wiffle ball games.  It had a rectangular opening that was roughly the size of a strike zone and had a net hanging from the back to catch the balls.  In my early 20’s when I was contemplating reigniting my baseball career after contacting one of the Blue Jays scouts that scouted me in high school, I made a more complex training aid.  It sort of looked like an elevated rabbit pen with one side open.  Inside of the box I had a towel hanging down to deaden the ball.  The idea was I would throw into the box and then the ball would drop out the bottom and roll back to me.  I spent a lot of time and effort on this box but it never worked very well.  I wasn’t accurate enough to hit the opening consistently resulting in me having to chase down all of the missed throws.  The balls I got into the box often bounced around and out, again not saving me any time.

So anyway as I was telling Ali these stories I was slowly throwing a bit harder against the side of the house.  Ali was afraid I would crack the wall but I assured her the soft sided ball would be safe.  Nicki liked me throwing against the wall, she would try to grab the ball as it rebounded.  Then I was ready to try to throw a few hard ones.  I haven’t tried to throw a baseball hard for a good 15 years or so.  The most throwing I do is when we throw a football around before a volleyball tournament and that motion is a lot different than throwing a baseball.  So I wound up and let my arm snap forward.  The ball made a satisfying THUMP as it smashed off the wall and came back to me.  The sound echoed off our neighbor’s house.  Wow that didn’t feel too bad.  I retrieved the ball and snapped off a few more what felt to be pretty hard throws.  I have no idea how fast they were, all I know is that it felt good to throw.

  To throw hard overhand requires a lot of fast twitch muscle action as well as putting large amounts of strain on the shoulder and elbow joints.  Considering the problems I have with my joints, I was surprised I would be able to throw with any authority at all.  After about a half dozen hard ones I didn’t want to push my luck.  I wished I had my brother around so he could kneel down and catch a few full speed throws.  Ali threw around with me a bit as the sun was going down.  It was fun.  I’m surprised my arm doesn’t hurt today.  It would be fun to be able to throw a few off a mound to a catcher with a real catcher’s mitt just to see if I still can generate that same sweet WHAP when a hard fastball hits the mitt in the sweet spot.  Nothing used to make me feel prouder than to have someone drop the glove and shake his hand in pain after catching a fastball.

It feels like I have a ton of things I am monitoring to make sure they get taken care of.  I have the Scooba and Automatic Litterbox still out and waiting replacement.  I have to make sure the pool cage guy follows through on closing out his permit and then in turn make sure the pool builder closes out his.  I have to make sure Toyota handles the issues with the Camry.  I’m in the middle of trying to get the shitty pool drain covers returned which is proving to be a hassle.  I need to get the van in the shop so they can finally complete the recall work.  There are a handful of other things that are not popping into my mind right this moment.  It just feels like I have a lot of rods in the fire at once.     

“Dave” is a guy I knew from playing WoW.  He is one of the people in the game that was quite interesting because he was so bizarre.  His main character in the game was named “Brainherpes” His real name isn’t Dave.  Well anyway, in real life Dave has had a rough go of things.  He hates where he lives and is unhappy with various other aspects of his life.  Getting sucked into WoW certainly didn’t help things any.  Well “Dave” recently decided to quit WoW as part of a plan to turn his life around, good for him.  Dave and I always got along well in the game, our off center senses of humor matched up well.  Well Dave thought he would be nice and sent me all of his remaining in game items for me to do with as I pleased since he would no longer be needing them.  He also included a real world email address.  I wrote to him and thanked him for the stuff and wished him well on his new endeavours.  This is part of the reply I received.

Who can it been now
I don’t like my mail slot.  It is located on my door, which is cool.  The Mail man simply opens the slot, pushes in my mail (proof and reassurance that I exist) and it drops into my apartment.  Well that’s the plan anyway.  There are two slots that need to be opened for the mail to get in, one on the outside of my door and one on the inside.  The Mail man can easily lift open the outside one, but he has no access to the second.  This causes he trouble in pushing my mail in, and it often causes my mail to get wrinkled or bent.  Not a big problem, but it a long and loud process for the Mail man to push my mail through the second slot.  As I am currently working the night shift, I tend to be sleeping when the mail gets here.  Thus, this loud process wakes me up, which I hate.  So I removed the inner slot, so that my mail can more easily and more quietly get into my apartment.  Success, I solved a simple problem and created a new weird one.
With the inner mail slot no longer in place, you can look into my apartment by lifting the outer mail slot.  I sleep, during the day, on my couch, bed in dis-use due to other people masturbating on it (so gross). 
The other day I am trying to sleep, which I still can’t do well during the day, and I hear a weird sound.  I look up and someone is looking at me through my mail slot.  Its not the Mail man, as he already dropped off my mail, and woke me up.  Some person is looking at me, while I try, in vain, to sleep on my couch.  I am in this state between being asleep and awake, that is like sleep, but is not at all refreshing.  Summer’s Eve, now that’s refreshing! 
Later when I do get up I look for a solution.  (Really, you don’t want strangers watching you sleep?  Weirdo.)  I have a box that I was going to throw away that used to hold a lamp.  It s a tall lamp, hence a long box.  (Not a long as my dick.)  Actually, it is quite longer and both my dick and my attention span put together.  If I placed the box against my door it reached just a bit above my mail slot.  Awesome problem solved.  I even placed a set of book ends in the bottom so that the mail would not knock it over.  Hurray!
The next I am again attempting sleep then the box starts to move.  First a little to the left, then a little to the right.  Now it is moving out away from the door.  Mother fucker!  Some one (I assume the same some one who had looked in on my feigning sleep) is trying to push over the box and again voyuerize me.  Luckily the book ends at the bottom hold the box in place, the creepo quits and I return to staring at the inside of my eye lids.  God, I hate my town.  You should too.  Stay in Florida, even though it is a crazy stupid state that can’t vote right. 

“Dave” makes me laugh.

Well I just made arrangements to get my satellite dish upgraded to HD.  I can’t imagine watching Eagles games in low def now.  The cost to upgrade wasn’t bad although if for some reason I wanted to drop DirecTV in the next two years they would bash me over the head with a $480 early termination charge.  To upgrade requires a new receiver AND dish.  I figured my 3 LNB dish would work for HDTV.  Nope, HD requires a 5 LNB dish, sheesh.  It will be good to have an installer come out anyway.  The dish we have now doesn’t seem to be aligned very well as even normal cloud cover can sometimes cause picture problems. 

The other week Ali forwarded me a link to a website regarding the 2009 switch to all digital tv broadcasts.  It is a government site where after filling out a form they will send you a card for $40 off a converter box that would allow you to watch digital tv on older analog sets.  Without doing any research I filled out the form and got my cards a few days ago.  I saw the cards expired in 3 months so I was considering using them to get a box awhile.  Well after doing some reading I don’t need them.  The digital switchover refers to over the air broadcasts.  So in other words, if you are getting your tv via rabbit ears you have a problem.  With satellite and most cable customers, the change won’t mean much to you at all.  Eventually you may have to get some sort of converter but at least for the immediate future there is no reason that your old analog tv that is wired to the cable company will stop working.  Now of course you should check with your local carrier to be sure, but I know at least with Comcast no changes will be magically occurring in 2009.

Our vet sent us a sympathy card regarding Buttons.  I expected it to be just a generic card.  However it was actually very nice.  She took the time to write a long personal message inside and the all of the staff there signed it. It was touching and appreciated.  Of course reading it reopened the emotional wound just a bit.

I got the composite video cable I ordered for the Wii yesterday.  It allows slightly better video out of the game but more importantly it allowed me to free up one of my RCA jacks which in turn let me hook the satellite receiver back in.  Now all I am waiting for is the component cable for the Xbox. The only other thing to be resolved is what I wind up doing for external storage on the HD Tivo.

I played some Mario Kart last night.  I am definitely improving.  When I tried to play online a week or so ago I was always hanging at the bottom of the rankings.  This time I finished no worse than 5th in any of the five or six races I ran.  Each race had 10-12 players.

The weekend will be pretty busy.  I have a pretty full plate of projects plus on Saturday after dropping off the Camry for some service, we are going to some big new shopping mall to see Iron Man and take a look around for some sort of additional storage piece of furniture. I really look forward to seeing the film.

We have been looking around at places to take our 10 year wedding anniversary trip at unexpected locations.  Last night Ali was checking out some places in Canada.  We are loosely entertaining the idea of going to a place like that and driving with Nicki, many of the places are pet friendly.  It would be a different type of vacation where instead of heading towards the warmer climates we would be driving away from it.  I think it would be a real cool experience though, literally and figuratively.  The party van doesn’t appear to have heat however so travelling could be tricky if temps got real low.  Ali and I always thought it would be cool to see how Nicki would react to snow. 

Boy did W stick his foot in his mouth with his latest stupid comments.  They really should not let the man speak unless he is reading a teleprompter.  His veiled comparison of Obama’s ideas about dealing with Iran to Nazi Germany was incredulous.  Bush pulled out the only trick he knows, fear, saying in no uncertain terms that if a democrat gets elected we will be attacked again.  I laughed out loud when I read the other day how W made the tremendous sacrifice of not playing golf anymore to show his solidarity with the troops. I’m sure the parents of the the thousands of dead soldiers feel much better knowing that the clubs are in the closet George.  We can’t get this brainless puppet out of there fast enough.

Unreal…

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won within four years, leaving a functioning democracy there and allowing most U.S. troops to come home.

Taken from the book “How to make the 100 year war, one year at a time, for dummies…” 

So yesterday at the gym I am doing my 300 routine.  About halfway through doing the box jumps I decided to dedicate the work out to Buttons.  I memory of her I did plus one reps for each of the remaining exercises.  So for one day and one day only, it was the Buttons Memorial 305 Routine.  Not that it means anything to anyone else but me.

Years ago during my first marriage I did something similar after a young cat we owned that had all sorts of health problems died.  At that time my torture exercise of choice was the Versa Climber.   The Versa Climber was the most tiring piece of aerobic equipment I ever used.  I would be dead after a 10 minute session.  Well after the cat died I was very upset.  That day I went to the gym and I PUNISHED myself on the Versa Climber, covering more distance than I ever had before or ever did afterward.  I practically fell off the machine when I was done.  I’m not sure how it computes in my head that pushing myself physically does much to honor the memory of anything.  All I know is it made me feel a bit better. Even after Maggie died Ali and ran an extra hard run the day afterward and deemed it the Maggie Memorial Run.

One of the cool things that Tivo HD’s allow you to do is plug in an external SATA hard drive to easily expand the amount of recording time.  Western Digital sells the official external drive but it costs close to 200 bucks.  I figured I would be frugal and build my own external SATA rig, it’s simple enough.  I bought the parts and spent less than half of what the WD rig costs.  Well it looks like I should have done some more research ahead of time.

Apparently only the higher end, more expensive Series 3 units will allow you to plug in any ESATA drive into the port.  The less expensive Tivo HD that I have will only allow you to plug in the branded WD drive, anything else will be spit out as “unauthorized” and not work.   Damn it.  Now there is a hack work around for it.  Using a method similar to what I did years ago to expand the storage space on my original Tivo’s I can get my homemade esata set up to work.  It requires cracking open the Tivo and slapping the original Tivo drive and the new one into a pc and running a utility.  It’s not very hard to do, like I said I have done it before.  I just sort of like to keep things “factory” on this unit.  I’m not sure what I will do. I can either bite the bullet and buy the official kit that allows you to just plug in and go, relegating the rig I just got to use on my PC or try to hack the unit.

Yesterday after work I stopped and bought a powered amplifier from Radio Shack to boost the signal to the Tivo HD in order to address some of the picture glitches I was seeing.  The amp seemed to do the trick.  The signal level jumped from the mid-60’s up to the 87-93 range a big improvement.  I flipped through all of the HD channels and everything looked great.  I got sucked into watching the last half of a Modern Marvels show on the History Channel.  I found that show while we were out in Vegas and loved it.  It love it even more in HD.

HDTV truly lives up to it’s hype.  Last night we watched the American Idol results show on the FOX HD channel with the surround on and it was pretty damn cool.  I looked over and thanked Ali for letting me make this pricey but truly awesome purchase. 

This will be a very hard entry to get through.

I was looking forward to my exciting 4 day weekend of 73 inch goodness.  The party started right after work on Friday. I met Ali over at Best Buy.  Up to this point the purchase experience at Best Buy was pretty much without a hitch which surprised me.  I was holding my breath that the pick up would go as smoothly.  I was quite surprised when it did.  Other than having to wait a bit long for them to bring the TV out, there were no snags.  The box was MASSIVE.  There were multiple comments by the staff and some other customers about the size of this thing.  Luckily with DLP, even though the set is big, it doesn’t weigh a ton, around 100 pounds.  The box barely fit with in the bed of the truck.  I had to quickly take a snap shot of it with my Treo.

Initially I thought the box was big enough and tight enough in the bed of the truck that it would be fine on the way home.  However after seeing it rock precariously as I came out of the parking lot I quickly pulled over into the movie theater parking lot to secure it.  As I stopped Ali was just trying to call me to tell me to pull over.  So I took out my arsenal of bungee cords and strapped them around, across and over the box in every way you can imagine.  I also put my lunch box into duty as a wedge to keep the box from sliding back and forth.  Our efforts worked, I pulled into the driveway with the tv intact.

 Ali and I were able to carry the big box in the front door without much issue.  I almost immediately ripped into the box to unveil the tv.  I was relieved when after removing copious amounts of packing that the tv looked to be physically unblemished.  We watched Tivo on the old tv one last time while eating pizza before I ripped it out and slid the 73 incher in it’s place.  We had no stand yet so I just hooked everything up with the Mitsu sitting on the floor.  The moment of truth came when I was ready to flip the switch.  I hit the power button and after a brief warm up the tv jumps to life.

It works!  I breathed a little sigh of relief.  I went about the various set up menus just checking stuff out.  It was all pretty intuitive.  I flipped over to the old Tivo and played a show.  The picture didn’t look as bad as I thought it might because of the stretching.  The TV has a built in HD tuner which meant that it should be at able to at least get a few HD channels on it’s own without the HD Tivo.  I flipped around but couldn’t find them.  Then all of a sudden I flipped to channel 21 and it somehow transported me to channel 201 which was HD.  Wow it looked awesome!  It was amazing the difference in quality, especially in such a large screen format.  I called Ali in to see.  Even Ali, who normally is oblivious to things such as video quality could see the dramatic difference.

Part of the agreement with me getting the tv was Ali had to ok the stand/console we would put it on. We looked at the ones Best Buy had in the store and were not that impressed.  I didn’t want to waste any time and started to look at different stands online Friday night.  I found a few and showed them to Ali.  She was tired and not very motivated to pick one out.  There were a few we liked.  On a whim I decided to pull up the Haverty’s web site, the place my mom used to work.    The actually had one that caught both of our eyes.  It had the extra storage that we wanted and sort of matched the other furniture in the room.  However Ali wasn’t interested in making a decision so quickly, she wanted to make sure she got something she liked.  We went to bed Friday with out making a firm decision.

On Saturday morning I didn’t waste much time until I started on the next phase of TV prep.  Another promise I made to Ali was that we could move the cabinet we had to the left of the old tv to the spot where the white shelf was, across from the kitchen.  This has been another one of those eyesores that no one would notice but Ali but I was happy to comply since she let me buy the ultimate tv.  Well once I started the process I wasn’t quite so happy with my agreement.  Between the shelf and the cabinet there was a TON of junk in them.  I wasn’t seeing the logic of replacing two storage units with one and then having a pile of stuff with no home.  I told Ali that I was performing the swap because I agreed to do it but I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea.  She was a bit mad that I would offer up any resistance to her suggestion because of the huge tv sitting in the room.  She offered up that when we get the tv console that some of the stuff would be able to be stored there.  I bit my lip and continued with the work without offering up any more complaints.  I figured it was my responsibility to get the furniture moved.  It would be her responsibility to decide where the left over junk would go.

During the morning I pressed Ali more about making a decision about the tv stand.  I was leaning towards the Haverty’s stand.  It seemed to offer up pretty much exactly what we needed.  Ali was still a bit hesitant to commit.  She felt that if she made a quick decision it could equate to the wrong decision.  I tried to coax her along saying that if we like the stand, there is nothing wrong with making the decision quick.  She agreed to go with me to Haverty’s to take a quick look at it before she went to a luncheon.

I made a call to my mom telling her that we were going to her old place of business to look at a tv stand.  I wanted to know if there was someone we should ask for.  She gave me the name of the assistant manager, David.  She said he was one of the nicest guys she ever met in her sales career.  So we headed to the store and asked for him.   I told David that I knew exactly what we were looking for.  I showed him the picture off the web site.  He took us over and showed us the models on the floor.  They had a 70 something inch white stand and a 60 inch black unit.  My entertainment nook would only accommodate the 60 inch model.  I was already sold on it before we walked in the store but I asked Ali for her final blessing.  She said she liked it.  I asked how quickly they could get it.  David said that Haverty’s adopted a new $100 delivery charge on ALL items but if I wanted I could come to the store and pick it up.  That’s fine with me, it was stupid to pay 100 bucks to deliver a $600 piece of furniture.  Originally he said it would come in Wednesday.  I told him that was too bad because I was off Monday and Tuesday.  He said it could get there Tuesday but it was his day off so he wouldn’t be there.  No big deal, I’ll get it Tuesday.  I was excited to have another piece of the puzzle set to go.

During the afternoon I continued my prep.  I began the laborious process of ripping out the rats nest of cables that have built up behind the old tv.  My goal was to have the wiring much more organized this time around.  After spending a good hour or two dewiring I turned my attention to the shelf.  I was a bit sad about ripping down the shelf.  It was one of the first home improvements we did after moving into the house and we did a pretty nice job of making it blend in.  Well the height of the new tv and stand required it’s removal.  Ripping it down didn’t take very long.  There are a bunch of ugly holes in the wall where it was secured but I didn’t bother to fill them since the new set up will totally eclipse them from view.

I was eagerly awaiting Ali’s return so we could tackle getting the old tv into the truck.  I had called mom and told her that we may deliver it Saturday night instead of before Mother’s Day lunch on Sunday so we wouldn’t be a sweaty mess.  All day I had been running plans through my head on how I wanted to attempt to get the 200 plus pound tv into the bed of the Tacoma.  The final plan involved attaching the two tractor ramps I had to the bed of the truck and then laying one of our home made hurricane shutters (plywood) over the ramps, giving me a smooth surface to roll the tv over.  Once Ali got home it didn’t take long until I put my plan into action.

The casters on the TV rolled easily once we got it out onto the sidewalk.  Once we got out to the truck I lifted the front of the tv up onto the plywood and then had Ali get up in the bed to help guide it.  Her primary responsibility was to make sure the tv stayed straight as I provided the horsepower to roll it into the truck.  I was pleasantly surprised. My plan worked perfectly.  Pushing the tv up into the truck wasn’t bad at all.  After getting it up there we again wedged and bungeed it in place using various items to assist like empty chlorine jugs, spare comforters and rubber maid containers.  I called up mom and told her we were a go for launch, the tv was loaded.

Shortly after we left for mom’s I stopped after Ali said the plywood was moving around.  The comforter we had over the tv was already blowing off.  So instead of draping it over the tv I just wedged it between the screen and the plywood.  I attached some additional bungees to further secure things.  The tv was rock solid on the trip to mom’s.  We parked in guest parking and had it unloaded and into her condo in the span of 10 minutes.  I looked upon my trustworthy Sony with pride as it sat in it’s new spot in mom’s place.  Mom repeatedly commented on the size of it and how she wasn’t sure if she would adjust to it or like it taking up that much space.  I told her I thought she would adjust quickly to it and like it.  She was unsure.  She thanked us as we said goodbye.  We were going to see her again in less than 24 hours for our Mother’s Day lunch at Carraba’s.

So I wake up Sunday morning, walk into the utility room and witness an excrement nightmare.  The centerpiece was a HUGE pile of undigested, unchewed cat food close to the food dish.  It looked like Buttons gorged herself and immediately threw it up.  There was all sorts of collateral throw up.  Not only did she throw up food, she threw up just clear mucus/water.  The trail didn’t end there.  There was additional vomit in both the office and dining room.  It was probably the most vomit I ever had to clean up at one time.  I spent at least the first 30-40 minutes of my Sunday morning cleaning it up.  I was angry of course but I didn’t lash out at the cat, perhaps because she was wise enough to not be within in my view the entire time.  After I was done cleaning up and finally got around to putting food down, Buttons made an appearance.  I said menacingly “Get out of here…” and pointed to the bedroom.  She immediately turned around and went back into hiding.  I didn’t feel like having her pig out and vomit all over again.

Well after a few hours she made her way back out into view but  I could tell all was not well.  She was very lethargic.  She showed no interest in eating and instead just laid by Nicki’s food stand with her head by her water bowl.  She seemed to have very little energy.  At one point I picked her up from behind the couch and carried her out to her food in the utility room.  As I picked her up it immediately started her into a pre-throw up convulsion.  I quickly put her down just before she threw up a big puddle of water/mucus and nothing else.  I had seen so many throw up episodes with Buttons I knew them like the back of my hand.  I had never seen her throwing up just water.  It was then that the initial thought that there is something more serious going on than her normal puking entered my mind. She was meowing in a very weak, different manner than we ever heard before.  It sounded painful.

We headed out to lunch with my mom at Carraba’s.  I told mom of the disaster I had to clean up that morning and how we thought it may be finally time to have her put to sleep.  Mom agreed with our assessment.  She had been telling me for awhile that I should just do it.  After taking mom back to her place and performing a few things she needed we headed back home.

  After getting back to the house, the rest of the day we pretty much left Buttons alone.  Ali put a plate of tuna in front of her and she showed no interest in it which is unheard of.  Buttons turned into more or less a zombie at one point just laying on her side at the same spot on the kitchen floor for literally hours.  Both Nicki and we walked over the cat multiple times and she didn’t budge an inch.  As I went to sleep Sunday night I had it set in my mind that if Monday morning the cat didn’t show improvement I was going to call the vet and make arrangements to have her put down and I was dreading it.

When I got up the next morning Buttons was still perched in the kitchen, just laying down next to the water bowl.  There was no fresh throw up but that was probably because her system was empty.  She was still very lethargic.  The vet didn’t open until 9.  Before I called I talked it over with Ali.   Just thinking about putting the cat to sleep upset me.  As I talked about it my voice broke.  As I looked outside to try to maintain composure I saw very dark and ominous clouds from the front that was approaching.  It seemed appropriate in a dark, morbid way.

Buttons had relocated herself to one of her other favorite spots, in our bathroom by the dog water bowl.  Again she was just sitting/laying there blankly.  At one point I walked over to her and petted her a bit and asked her “Is it time…?” To me, she looked like she was ready to die.  Maybe it was just me wanting for the 7 years of diabetic related issues to end.  However Ali agreed with my assessment.  About 9:20 I made the call to the vet.

I told the girl that we thought we were ready to have Buttons put down.  I briefly explained the latest issues and threw in how she had practically no teeth and had other continuing health issues.  I guess I was trying to convince the girl on the phone that it was legitimate to put the cat to sleep.  The girl checked and said we could come in at 4:30.  Although I would have preferred something much earlier, I said nothing and agreed to the time and hung up. 

I knew having to go through the entire day with this looming over my head would be horrible.  I knew they would ask me if I wanted to be in the room when they put her to sleep and I knew how I would react to it.  I considered if I wanted to be in the room when it was done or if I would even be better off just dropping the cat off at the vet early and letting them put her down as time allowed.  I knew that would be wrong.  I knew that even though the last half of her life had been mostly a monumental pain in the ass for me, I owed her to be there.  It was my decision to put her down, it should be my responsibility to go through the emotional pain that was sure to come from the experience.

During the day Monday, both Ali and I did our best to stay busy and not think about what was supposed to happen at 4:30.  For the most part I was successful in keeping my mind off of it but when I failed to do so, the emotions came rushing in instantly.  I have had pets of mine put to sleep or die but I was never directly involved in doing so.  I am the guy that would rather save a wolf spider than kill it.  The idea of telling someone to kill my pet of a decade and a half was just horrible to me. 

Ali tried to comfort Buttons a bit during the day by carrying her out to the office and letting her sit on her lap.  However Buttons wasn’t really interested and in short order had retreated back to our bathroom.  Throughout the day I was questioning myself, am I doing the right thing, how am I going to be able to witness the procedure, am I being selfish?  

Monday afternoon we had a guy scheduled to do a wind inspection on our house.  He was supposed to be there at 3.  He showed up at 3:45.  I had to quickly allow him access to the attic and talked to him briefly.  We didn’t get out of the house until a bit after 4, making us 15 minutes late for our appointment.  During the drive to the vet Ali and I totally acted like we weren’t doing what we were doing.  We talked about all sorts of subjects, none of which had anything to do with Buttons.  I remember thinking that maybe I would be ok, I wouldn’t break down and be an emotional wreck.  I was feeling more logical about everything.  The cat has been sick for a long time and we are letting her finally have some peace.  Yea, that lasted just until we set foot inside the exam room at the vet.

The girl started asking us about cremation options.  She opened up a catalog.  I immediately started choking up. The idea that the live animal that was laying on the table in front of me was going to be nothing but a pile of ashes set me into a tailspin.  The girl asked me to verify our address.  I looked at it for a long time, trying to compose myself.  I was barely able to get out “yes, that’s correct.”  I had no interest in picking out the urn for the ashes, I told Ali she could do it.  Simply looking at the the catalog would throw more gas on to the fire of intense sadness building inside me.

The vet and an assistant come in.  The assistant starts petting Buttons and the cat responds to the affection, acting happy to receive it.  Ali and I describe what happened, the massive throwing up, not eating for two days and all the rest.  The vet does a little exam, feeling Buttons stomach.  She said it felt a bit strange and mentioned that Buttons could possibly have an edema which is a possible symptom of organ failure.  Of course you can’t know for sure without additional testing.  During the exchange between the vet both Ali and I were off and on crying.  I was embarrassed to be crying but it was uncontrollable.  There was a lot of awkward silence during the conversation.  It was like the vet was giving us time to make sure this was what we wanted.  I understand why she would do that but it made things even worse.  Multiple times Ali looked at me and said through tears “I don’t know what to do…” The entire time the discourse was going on Buttons was getting petted and looked happy which made it even harder.

I don’t know that I ever said bluntly “ok , do it”, instead the vet asked us if we wanted to hold her while it was done.  That threw the emotions into another gear.  The idea of holding the cat while it died sounded horrific to me.  The vet could see how badly I was taking this and offered up that I could be out of the room when they did it.  I knew that would be cowardly.  I eventually said it could be done on the table and we would pet Buttons as it happened. 

The vet said they would lay her down on her side and then administer the solution through her back paw.  They laid Buttons down without much fuss.  Ali and I were both a total mess at this point.  I was rubbing Buttons head and neck and Ali was as well.  It seemed like it took forever until the shot was actually administered.  I kept thinking to myself that I could still say no, could still save the cat with a simple wave of my hand.  I didn’t.  I could hardly look as the shot was administered, I just kept rubbing Buttons.  She hardly moved when the shot was given.  She just laid there calmly.  After the shot was given the vet took out her stethoscope and checked to see when her heart stopped which happened very quickly.  Buttons was gone. The vet stepped out and gave us some privacy.

The flood gates opened.  We both were crying uncontrollably.  I felt horrible, like a murderer.  The reality of the moment destroyed me.  Yea it was the right thing to do in the big picture but at that moment it was of no solace to me.  We both continued to pet Buttons corpse.  She simply looked like she was sleeping, like I had seen her do for a good portion of her 15 years on the planet.  I was overflowing with grief.  I said to Ali that there is no way I could imagine if we had to do this with Nicki.   I rubbed Buttons one last time and choked out “I’m sorry…”

I was sorry on many levels.  I was sorry that she had been sick for so long.  I was sorry that I reacted over the years so badly to the end results of her illness. It wasn’t like she wanted to vomit on a regular schedule. I was sorry that we largely ignored her once we got Nicki.  Repeatedly Buttons would come to us looking for attention/affection.  Ali would allow her to lay on her, I normally would shoo her away.  And finally I was sorry that I was her executioner.   We had hoped for a long time she would just pass away on her own so we wouldn’t have to face this moment. 

Eventually we gathered ourselves enough to leave.  The discussion about the delivery of the ashes seemed very inappropriate, almost like I was picking up an item at a store.  I carried the now empty cat carrier back to the car.  Getting out into the fresh air was welcomed. The air inside the vet office felt stifling.

Ali and I talked about how brutal the experience was.  Every bit as brutal as I feared it would be and then some.  Ali said she was surprised with how fast the process went and how Buttons passed without so much as a flinch.  One second she was there, the next she was gone.  I was totally freaked out about it and asked Ali to talk about happy things.  On the way home we stopped at Target to get a cable for the new tv set up.  I wanted to do anything to get my mind off the horror we just witnessed.

After we got home I again took to staying busy to prevent my mind from reliving what I didn’t want to relive.  It was impossible to not think about it for long.  Everywhere I went in the house I could relate it to Buttons.  There is a spot Buttons liked to lay, there was the water dish she liked to drink out of and yes, even there was the stain left over from one of her vomitting episodes.  It all made me sad and if allowed myself to think about it for more than a few seconds I could feel my eyes getting moist.

Later that evening I talked to my mom on the phone.  I told her that we put Buttons down.  I’m not sure if she sensed my voice crack a bit or it was because of mom’s own affinity for Buttons, but she started crying.  Buttons always liked to hang with my mom.  I told mom I was there when they did it.  Mom knew how that would be for me.  It was very sad but mom agreed it was for the best.

I dreaded trying to fall asleep Sunday night.  I laid in bed and watched Cloverfield on the Tivo to keep my mind off of it.  Cloverfield is a different kind of movie.  It is shot like Blair Witch Project (first person, continuous shot) but it is a godzilla type of theme.  I found it entertaining and different.  Don’t look for any happy endings here though.  I’d give it a B+.

My hope was that I would be so exhausted after staying up watching the movie that I would immediately fall asleep.  Of course that wasn’t the case.  As soon as closed my eyes I immediately was transported to the vets office bearing witness to Buttons laying on the table again and again.  I eventually fell asleep after more tears dropped on the pillow.  When I woke up Tuesday morning and looked around the room at various spots in the room Buttons would like to make herself comfy in it again made me extremely sad.  I woke up just as I fell asleep.

Luckily on Tuesday I had a shit load going on.  Comcast was scheduled to come out, twice.  I had the HDTV install scheduled.  On Sunday we had internet problems as well.   I called up to Comcast and got some guy on the phone.  I told him our issues, the connection was routinely dropping in and out.  I told him I had already reset the modem.  He asked if I had a router and I told him I did and that I had already reset that as well.  The guy then tells me “Your router may be WEARING OUT”  Well I was already in a horrible mood because of the Buttons situation.  I immediately flipped on the guy.  I said “DUDE, I am in the IT business, routers don’t WEAR OUT”  He says “Well I am in IT and I have seen them wear out”  I had no patience dealing with this idiot.  I said “let me talk to your supervisor…”

So a woman gets on and I tell her that her tech just told me that my router could be WEARING OUT.  I said that was a stupid thing to say so I wanted to speak to someone that knew something.  The woman apologizes but then offers up that she has seen routers WEAR OUT.  I get in her face as well.  I tell her that I have been in IT for 15 years.  Routers are not like tires on a car, they don’t WEAR OUT.  I told her that if a router takes a power surge or something along those lines it could be damaged and need replacement but that is different than WEARING OUT.  She tries to continue on with her bullshit explanation and I stop her mid-sentence. “Listen, all I want you to do is look at the signal level on my cable modem, ok?”  She shuts up and agrees to look at it.  Low and behold, the signal is low, I guess my router is not wearing out.  So now I had not only an installer scheduled to come between 8-10am Tuesday, there was a repair tech scheduled between 1-5pm.  I asked the woman if the installer could look at the cable modem problem as well.  She said no “He is just an installer..” Ok, whatever.

So Tuesday morning comes and the installer shows up around 9.  He is a nice guy and explains he has some work to do outside first.  Well he is outside a looong time.  While I am out with Nicki I see him out at the main pole on his ladder screwing with the connection.  Then later I see him stringing new wire across the road to the pole near our house.  We have had that piece replaced two or three times now.  It is a long run, almost 200 feet I would imagine.  Well a little after 10 the guy knocks on my door and says he has a problem.  He told me the cable was bad and he was trying to string a new segment.  The problem was because of the length of the run he couldn’t pull it and keep it taut by himself, he needs another tech.  I immediately offered up my help but he said I couldn’t because of liability.  I told him how there was another tech scheduled to come in the afternoon for the internet problem.  The installer didn’t know this.  He said he would make arrangements to meet back up here with the other tech after lunch.  Replacing the cable would surely be the fix for the internet problem as well.

After the tech left I quickly ran down to Haverty’s and picked up the tv console.  Again the box was big and HEAVY.  Thankfully it was securely boxed up so I could use my cart at home to wheel it into the house.  While I was waiting for the Comcast guys to show back up I started unpacking the console.  It appeared to be undamaged, something we always worry about with furniture.  I drug the Mitubishi TV off the old toy chest and onto the ottoman while I worked on setting up it’s new home. 

After unboxing the console and attaching the knobs it was time to take out the power tools.  The cabinet only had a couple narrow slots cut out in the back to route cables through.  Some of my AV equipment throws a decent amount of heat so I wanted to cut out some additional holes to assist with heat dissapation.  I put the door knob drilling bit on my cordless drill and popped an additional hole in each of the 4 AV compartments.  On either side of the unit was additional storage.  These areas had slide out plastic dvd holders.  They were a nifty little perk but an impractical use of the space so I removed them as well.

Then I started the long and laborious process of loading up all of the various AV equipment into the console and routing the associated wires and cables appropriately.  In total I have 6 things attached to the tv, the tivo, satellite receiver, dvd/vcr combo, Xbox, Wii and my Bose surround rig.  The TV has a lot of inputs but many of them are the digital sort.  I had to to try various combos to get everything connected and after discovering that the component output on my dvd player was defective I was short on inputs.  I won’t be able to have my final configuration in place until I receive a component video cable for the Xbox and Wii.

While I was putting stuff back together the Comcast guy returned with his co-worker to string the cable.  I wanted to hurry up so I had the TV back up and running by the time he was ready to come inside.  I got things back up shortly before I heard the knock on the door.  Both of the techs came in.  They first checked the internet which was working fine.  Then they came to the tv.  The first thing that was noticed was how I had the cable line routed into the surge protector.  With as many lightning hits as we get I always have thought this a smart move.  Unfortunately, these type of devices gobble up signal which will cause poor performance with HDTV.  So I told the installer it was ok to wire it directly to the tv.  He said they installed a new grounding block outside which should protect the set from surges coming in through the coax.

The next step was to set up the CableCard for the Tivo.  The guy warned me that it will take at least a half hour until the card configures itself.  Evidently once it is on the wire it performs some sort of update of it’s code over the line.  Well after an hour and a half it was just over halfway done.  Now keep in mind there was nothing for the installer to do during this time period. So he just sat in my living room and shot the shit with me.  I learned how he used to work at an auto paint store, and also drove 18 wheelers for Coke and a concrete company before getting the job at Comcast.  He was a native Floridian, born and raised here.  Jose told me about how he was going to be getting his grandfather’s truck and how he planned to trick it out with a custom paint job and more.  He told me of his custody battle with his crazy ex-girlfriend.  I found out all sorts of stuff about the guy.  He seemed real nice.  It didn’t change the fact that I was growing tired of waiting. 

The guy was supposed to be off the clock at 4.  It was 3:15 and the card still had a way to go.  Plus he said he had two more calls he was supposed to get done.  I suggested he go do the other calls and come back.  He said that once the card upgrade completes there will be two numbers displayed that he needs to activate it.  He told me to call him once I had those numbers and he would call it in to activate.  No problem.

So he leaves and I get back to work.  the house is still a mess with cables and junk strewn everywhere.  I felt like I had a million loose ends to clean up.  I was annoyed when I discovered the component output on the dvd didn’t work.  When I first bought the dvd player a couple years ago I tried hooking it up to the Sony component input and it didn’t work.  At the time I figured something was wrong with the Sony, turns out it was the dvd player.  It’s not a huge deal except that it meant I had to use the regular RCA jacks to connect the DVD, something that is in limited supply on the back of the tv. I got those numbers Jose needed and the HD Tivo came to life. I farted around right up until Ali got home from work.

Ali was quite pleased with the stand and how everything looked.  The plan was nearly complete.  The rest of the night I mostly spent continuing clean up duty.  I dare not stop for long else I risked thinking about the cat.  We watched DWTS last night in full HD.  Yea it’s as fruity of a show as you can imagine but damn it looked good in HD.  The difference was striking.  The HD Tivo worked great.  There are a few possible hiccups left to be addressed.  I noticed a few HD channels exhibiting jerkiness/pixelation. When I looked at the signal level I saw it was in the 40’s which is low.  I removed a splitter I had inline and the signal jumped up into the mid 60’s.  I will have to do some more thorough testing to see if the few problem channels remain.  Even with quirks, I am beyond pleased with our new home entertainment arrangement.  It’s simply awesome.  All the pictures I took of the tv migration can be seen here.

 Luckily last night I was so exhausted that I was able to almost instantly pass out instead of lying in bed thinking about Buttons.  However when I got up this morning to go through my routine her absence was obvious.  The litterbox was hardly touched, there was no incessant meowing while I prepared the food and I didn’t have to track her down to give her an insulin shot.  The ironic thing was instead of feeling good about not having to deal with those things I felt bad about the events that lead up to their disappearance.  This feeling is going to linger with me for quite awhile.  Those horrible moments Monday afternoon will be with me until I am put to sleep…