Archives March 2009

And see me circa 1985…

This weekend friends of ours are coming down for a brief visit.  They will be arriving this evening and pulling out Monday morning.   Unfortunately we have to time a race first thing Saturday morning.  However after that we will probably spend the rest of the weekend just hanging out, going to dinner, drinking, that sort of stuff. I’m sure Nicki and Sadie can keep them entertained until we get back.

Sadie has been mostly good this week while home alone.  Yesterday she had a small setback when she chewed a small hole in one of the dog beds and ripped out a bunch of the stuffing.  I don’t get too bent out of shape if all she destroys are dog only items.  Just keep your mouth off of my stuff.

I got my quote back from the counter top place.  They came in way under the numbers we got from HD.  If we went with Corian the numbers drop further.  I really like the organic, integrated look of Corian however when I read discussions of granite vs Corian it seems that opinion is overwhelmingly on the side of granite.  Granite looks more high end, doesn’t have the scratching issues that Corian can have and does more to increase the value of your home.  Even so, if it was just me I might still opt for Corian, our house is no high end designer home after all. We aren’t doing this to pump up the resale value in advance of selling the place.  However Ali seems really hung up on the scratching thing with Corian and I certainly am not going to drop several thousand dollars to have Ali become annoyed as she sees scratches form on the Corian surface. 

The next step is to go back to the place with Ali in tow to see if we can nail down specifics.  I’m not quite sure when that will be.

Not much else to say today.  My left knee still is hurting.  It annoys me that I tweaked it doing cycling of all things.

Last night at the board meeting for the running club we approved buying the Ipico timing rig. The approval signals the upcoming end to our relationship with DAG.  The DAG system has been a hassle for us due to unreliable reading of the chips.  The reliability problem has been exasperated by the horrible customer service experience trying to get help from the parent company in France. Good riddance.  Hopefully if all goes well I will be ready to use the Ipico system in the fall.

Initially the DAG system seemed like a great option.  Unfortunately all of the feedback we got on the system was from clubs using the V4 chips which boasted very good read rates.  Right after we purchased the system from a Tennessee based distributor DAG changed their technology and went to V6 chips that were supposedly technically superior.  Well instead they have proved to be far less reliable than the V4 chips.  In addition, several months after our purchase our USA based distributor got out of the DAG hardware business leaving us no choice but trying to deal with France directly.  It was a perfect storm of negative events that has resulted in far too many headaches for me.

Last night Ali and I were loosely talking about the Camaro thing.  She was saying how if we didn’t refinance, we would have to make all sorts of concessions, even stuff like WARCRAFT.  I immediately offered up that maybe even stuff like BALLET. Of course I would never expect Ali to give up ballet because it is such a big part of her life now.  My point was that WoW costs us $15-$30 a month depending on if I have both accounts active or not.  Ballet costs us WAAAAY more than that.    It was just another example of Ali zeroing in on the little things before the big things, a normal occurrence.

I tried to explain to Ali that I don’t expect  her to grant me a Camaro like it is my god given right.  I have already been trying to come up with ideas to generate some additional income on the side as well as making concerted efforts to dry up excessive, unnecessary spending.  My desire for the car isn’t enough to make me commit financial suicide to obtain one.  If I was 15 or 20 years younger it might be harder to control those urges.  However today I have a better grasp on the concept of priorities.  I am ok with putting in some grunt work, sacrifice  and patience into the ultimate goal. It will make it all the sweeter the first time I am rowing through the gears.

I went to a counter top place yesterday at lunch.  Man it was a 180 degrees from the experience I had at Home Depot.  I dealt with a woman that was very informative, very knowledgeable and very consultative.  She gave me lots of options.  I had my builders drawing of our cabinets handy.  She copied it and said she would get back to me with estimates on mid-level granite as well as Corian. 

While talking with her about the installation charges it became quickly apparent that I would save a bunch of dough by simply dealing direct with manufacturer such as themselves instead of going through a super store that adds on another layer of profit taking.  The numbers I got for removal of the old counters, installation of the sink and price of edges was dramatically less than what I got at HD.  There are a number of counter top/cabinet businesses in this area of town.  Unless I am blown away by the pricing I get, I will probably shop the number around.  The woman was so pleasant and helpful though that I really would like to give her the business.

Woops I meant to say MILD, well actually non-existent would be a better word.  To be honest I totally forgot it was Saint Patrick’s Day until I saw a bunch of women at the office wearing green.  Despite my name which is about as Irish as you can get, St Patty’s Day has never been a big deal for me.  Hell to be honest I don’t remember ever doing any drinking on the holiday.  Maybe once or twice when I was on my drinking binge stage in my first marriage.  I can tell you for sure in the last decade I haven’t drank on the holiday.  I just have never felt an urge to celebrate the day.  Green beer has never touched my lips.

When I posted my non-celebration of the day on Facebook I was quickly vilified.  Speaking of Facebook, I am amazed at how many old high school classmates I have found on there.  Most of the people I have not seen or heard from since graduation back in 1985.  It’s sort of weird though, for the most part you become Facebook friends with the person but there is no direct communication between you.  Most people, including myself, are mostly interested in seeing pictures of the other person to see how they held up after 25 years and to read their info to see what they are doing with themselves nowadays.  After that you rarely if ever look at the person unless they are active on Facebook so you see their updates.  It is interesting to see the path people have followed.  Some went as expected, some were totally off the script.  Of course when I see a classmate that has gained 100 pounds, lost their hair or has aged poorly it is hard to not cringe a bit.

My left (good) knee was bothering me this morning.  The only leg related exercise I have done in the past few days was the biking.  I certainly hope that isn’t the cause of the discomfort since the idea behind biking is to alleviate knee issues.

Last night I wound up staying up too late trying to do an instance in WoW.  It turned out to be a big waste of time that had me seriously annoyed.  I asked myself why I would want to allow a game to cause me such stress and frustration?  The answer of course is there is no reason. It makes no sense.

Chevy is “officially” launching the Camaro.  As part of the release they revamped their Camaro site.  You can go in and spec one out online and find out what it would cost you. Just for grins I went in and specced out what my pie in the sky, ideal Camaro would look like.  Of course I picked a similar orange as my beloved 69 Firebird was decked out in. Yes I’m sure Ali thinks it looks hideous.   Take a peek. Click to see it full size.  I better start working a paper route. 426 HP attached to a six speed ….. what a rush…..

So during the day on Friday I picked up the bike I bought at the UPS depot. They tried to deliver on Tursday but noone was home.  Friday night while we were watching TV I worked on putting it together.  The bike seems pretty nice to me.  The instructions were less than stellar. Putting it together took me awhile but it wasn’t all that difficult to do.  I took it out briefly later in the night just to give it a quick test ride.  It seemed ok.

Saturday Ali had a meeting to go to.  I had some server work to get done at the office as well as a good chunk of things I wanted to get done around the house including mowing/weed whacking the grass.  I got busy and worked diligently until mid-afternoon.  When I was done I thought I would load the dogs up in the party van to go for a quick ride to refill the propane tank.  They were quite excited when I pulled out their leashes.

After I got back I decided to take my new bike for more of an extended road test.  The bike came with the toe cage type of pedal.  I’m not nuts about them.  In fact I removed the tightening strap altogether and just used them like regular pedals.  I went up to the dead end in our street and back a round trip of about 4 miles. It took some fiddling around until I got comfortable with a riding position as well as getting a feel for the shifting mechanism.  The bike seemed to be riding well enough although there was a bit of noise in the gears that makes me think I need to adjust things a little bit yet.  I went most of the way in 7th gear, peddling hard the entire way to maintain a decent amount of speed.  By the end of the 4 miles my legs were burning, I forgot just how tiring biking can be.   I need to score a helmet, bike pants and maybe a different set of pedals before I hit the open road for a longer ride.

After Ali’s meeting she picked up my mom for her sleep over visit with us.  Mom brought along her taxes for me to do and her Roomba for me to clean/work on.  Ali bought a vegetable lasagna for us for dinner but it took 2 hours to bake.  We killed the time by eating salads early and then started watching Gran Torino, a movie mom actually requested to see.  Luckily I had already gotten the movie a few weeks ago. 

Gran Torino is about an old, grumpy guy that fought in the Korean war.  The neighborhood he lives in has been taken over by asian families and he is not very happy about it.  If you are offended by ethnic/racial slurs then you might not want to watch the movie.  Clint has a 72 Gran Torino that is his baby.  He had it since new and helped build it as he was a Ford auto worker for decades. 

A friend of mine in high school had a Gran Torino just like it.  His name was Hoyt Feister.  That thing was a beast.  When he stepped on the gas hard your head better had been on the headrest else it was going to be planted there in a split second.  Anyway, the movie started out with lots of humour as Clint curses out everybody in a manner that made you smile.  Towards the end things get much more serious.  It was a very good movie.  Who would have thought Clint could pull offf a psuedo-Dirty Harry role after almost 80 years on the planet, pretty amazing.  Mom said she would give the movie a B, I give it a solid A.

After the movie I hopped online to turboxtax.com and did mom’s taxes.  Since her return is simple I was able to use the absolutely free version.  Yep, free as in ZERO.  It even included e-filing in the free version, hard to beat!  Mom is getting more back than last year which she did not expect, a pleasant surprise for her.

Sunday morning we hung out for awhile.  This was mom’s first meeting with Sadie.  Of course Sadie was very happy to meet my mom just like she is everyone else.  She hung all over her throughout her stay.  At times mom had a hard time distinguishing between Nicki and Sadie.  She got to see the crazy dog antics first hand as the two of them put on many wrestling exhibitions as well as rapid chase sessions around the yard.  

Mom killed the battery on her Roomba.  She was only running the thing twice a month which isn’t sufficient to keep the battery cycled.  It’s my fault, I never told her that she needs to run it more.  It also was badly in need of a thorough cleaning.  I wound up giving her my spare battery.

After lunch where I made burgers on the grill we packed up and headed out.  Mom agreed to go with us to Home Depot to look at kitchen counters.  She has a much better decorating eye than either Ali or I possess.  We looked at both Silestone, a granite-like man made substance and granite.  We were walking around the area for quite awhile and no Home Depot employees came up to us asking if we wanted any help.  Instead I had to walk over to the desk where two of them were shooting the shit and interrupt them.

The guy that helped me was nice enough but he was not much more than  just an order taker.   We told him we were looking at Silestone and we had our measurements.  He didn’t try to tell us anything about the product he just started adding up numbers.  On the wall it said they were running a promotion where you get a free sink with a Silestone installation up to a $499 value, sweet, NOT.  You only have a choice of three or four sinks and if you want another style too bad.  That is stupid.

When we ran numbers on Corian a few years ago the install figure came out somewhere between $3000 and $3500.  With Silestone there was a wide range of pricing.  It started at $44 a square foot installed up to nearly $70 a square foot.  Of course the styles Ali and I liked were the most expensive variety.    Jack starts adding up numbers.  There are a lot of ancillary charges he is mumbling as he scratches out figures on a blank piece of paper.

So the installation charges you pay doesn’t really cover the installation.  What it gets you is a new counter top installed.  However they nickel and dime you on everything else in addition to the “installation” charge. To me when you say there is an installation charge it should include everything required for an installation, not in Home Depot land.

Ok so the install includes a hole for the sink.  Oh, you want the sink undermounted like is typical with granite?  That is an extra $250.  You want the plumbing actually hooked up to the sink, that will be another $550 or so.  You say you want a rounded bullnose edge on the granite?  That is another $13 per linear foot ($400-$500) You need a big arc cut into the island to match the existing piece, that’s extra too.  This is my favorite one, you expect Home Depot to actually remove the old counter tops before installing the new ones? No problem, just hand over ANOTHER $400-$500.

As this list of charges accumulated my initial enthusiasm had dwindled down to nothing.  Jack spit out numbers that were in the $4500 to $5000 range, f’in ridiculous in my book.  Keep in mind that would be pre-sales tax and also not counting us paying additional for a sink and fixture that we actually wanted since the throw in sinks were shitty.  So if we wanted Home Depot to come in and do ALL of the work we could easily drop close to 6k which would spend every penny of our tax return as well as another grand our so out of our pocket.  Yea, right.

After we went through the Silestone quote I asked Jack for his opinion of just getting regular granite versus Silestone.  He said he actually recommended granite instead.  WTF, I thought to myself.  I was annoyed he wouldn’t take a more consultive stance in the process.  I guess when you are dealing with people that receive no financial incentive when they sell stuff to customers that is what you are going to get, order takers. Anyway he ran numbers on granite and they were almost exactly the same as Silestone.  His stance was granite carries more weight when it comes to resale.  Everyone knows what granite is, not many know about Silestone.   

We thanked Jack for his time.  It didn’t take long for me to indicate to Ali that I was not happy at all at what we just sat through.  Those numbers were ridiculous in my opinion.  I am having a similar feeling that I did when we initially got quotes from professional fence installers.  They quoted us numbers that were equally sky high.  In the end I did it myself and saved more than 50% in the process.  Now obviously I can’t fabricate a piece of granite myself.  I can however probably  manage to remove the old counter tops myself and muddle through hooking up plumbing to the new sink.  We could also save some money if we go with a less expensive edge treatment, we didn’t really look in detail at all of the options. I plan to go to Lowe’s as well as contact some smaller local shops to get some comparisons.  All I know is I’m not spending 6k to get this done.

After Home Depot we dropped mom off, helped her flip her mattress and then headed back home.  Sadie managed to not destroy anything in couple hours alone.  The rest of Sunday Ali was busy cooking a months worth of food for Nicki.  I spent a lot of the time in WoW working on levelling my engineering profession.  I was able to hit the max skill level and create myself an epic head piece and gun.  It was the first time I played WoW in 5 or 6 days.

My shit hole gym isn’t good for much but it certainly provides a decent amount of blog material.  Today while I was in the middle of my first 300 effort in months, I took a look at the bulletin board where members can post stuff they are selling, renting, etc…  My eyes focus in on a hand written ad that goes something like this:

For Sale: Companion Crypt, 4th level, section F, Naples Memorial Gardens, $6000

WTF!!! I thought to myself as I read the note a second time to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.  I immediately called over one of my gym buddies to share my little nugget of lunacy.  Let’s analyze this.

Ok is it just me or is a gym an odd place to post such an ad?  A companion crypt, does that mean I would be buying a crypt for myself and a person of my choosing to share or would I be sharing the crypt with the stranger that posted the ad to save money? Sort of like finding a roommate for an apartment.  How is the view from the 4th level?  Location is always important I suppose, even when you are dead.  No dimensions were given for the crypt, I am concerned my 6′ 3″ corpse may not fit. Who wants to go through all eternity with your head jammed up against the top of your crypt?

I guess the economy is so bad that people are resorting to selling their expensive crypts and instead opting to just get chucked in the ground or burned to a crisp. Tough times out there….

So I got home yesterday and found that the absence of dog damage was short lived.  There was another small chunk out of the drywall under the front window.  Also the new temperature sensor I just attached outside must have fallen down.  Sadie evidently saw this as a sign from the gods that it needed to be chewed on.  I called Sadie over to the window.  She slunk over, already knowing what was coming.  I pointed to the damage, which admittedly was pretty minor and said in my stern voice, NAUGHTY!  Sadie scurried away and steered clear of me for awhile until I made her supper.

I called Ali and gave her the news.  She wasn’t happy to hear that Sadie relapsed into her destructive ways.  I told Ali that Sadie is running out of opportunities to prove herself before she is going to find herself in a cage anytime we are not home.  Ali hates the idea of crating her.  I’m not crazy about the idea myself but it’s better than coming home each day having to worry about what got destroyed this time around. 

My mom is going to come over this weekend for a visit.  She hasn’t met Sadie yet and I need to do her taxes so it’s a good excuse to get her out to the house.

Last night after work instead of relaxing I ran the carpet cleaner.  With my mom coming over and more company coming down the following weekend I wanted to get the recent carpet stains taken care of.  The machine did a good job. 

I got these special band aids for the areas that were burned off.  They are supposed to be extra sticky so they don’t come off.  I figured with me going to the gym they would be a good idea.  Well they certainly do their job, perhaps a little too well at that.  Ripping off the band aids before taking a shower was painful.  It looked like it took the top layer of skin with it.

My new bike was supposed to be delivered yesterday but there was no one home to sign for it.  I’m going to just go to the UPS warehouse and pick it up myself today during the day. 

I was doing some more reading about the imminent release of the new Camaro.  Evidently they have started production and the first pre-ordered cars should start hitting the streets during the next couple weeks.  I read different accounts of dealer experiences when trying to pre-order a car.  Some dealers were trying to pack anywhere from $2500 up to 10k on top of the sticker price while others were content with simply charging MSRP for the vehicle.  Needless to say I would not buy from a dealer that tried to pull that sort of shit. 

I was thinking about the hypothetical choice of going with a tamer V6 model or the hell on wheels SS model.  I think if I do get the opportunity to actually get a Camaro I would kick myself if I didn’t get an SS.  Like I said it would be a once in a lifetime car for me, I should get a beast.  Of course this is all pie in the sky thoughts for now.  I certainly wouldn’t be the type to rush out to a dealer and snag a car during the initial frenzy. 

I have still been on a holding pattern with the mortgage refinance.  I have been waiting for 30 year rates to dip back into the 4’s.  Well it hasn’t happened so I haven’t pulled the trigger.  I was running the numbers and comparing the payment difference between a loan at 4.5% and a loan at 5.125% .  The difference with the amount we would loan is about $75 a month, not a huge deal.  I guess I need to talk to Ali some more about it and see how she feels about pulling the trigger at the current rates.

I have a water jug I take to work every day that I use to drink out of through out the day.  Each morning I go to the water cooler and fill it.  Yesterday was like any other day, I filled my jug.  I had left my office for awhile working on an issue and returned.  I sat down and was talking to the assistant network admin while I picked up the jug to take a sip.  As I did I felt something in my mouth that didn’t belong there.  Instantly I spit out the water and whatever was in my mouth out, instantly covering my desk, my pants and my chair in water.  I look down in my hand and saw a nasty clump of HAIR! 

WTF, I thought to myself.  How in the world would hair get into my water??  It was f’ing disgusting.  I was just about ready to call up the company we get bottled water from and read them the riot act when another co-worker came into my office.  Her and I have a good natured joke/prank thing going on.  She is a germaphobe so I like doing things like coughing when she is around or sticking my finger into her water so she has to go clean out her cup.  Well evidently she thought it would be hilarious if she stuck some hair on the top of my water bottle. Well when she tried to plant the hair it unintentionally fell into the bottle.  Well instead of dumping the bottle and refilling it she decided to just leave it in there.

Ha. Funny. Needless to say the prankster has been warned that retribution will be coming, in spades.

Sadie actually got through around 7 hours at home yesterday without destroying anything.  Ali went out and spent 100 dollars on various dog toys that are supposed to help with boredom issues.  We now have 4 or 5 kongs along with three or four other things that contain treats that the dog works to get to.  I was quite skeptical if they would help but apparently they did.  I don’t want to rely on these items long term though.  First I don’t think it is good for the dog to be consuming whatever substances these “treats” are made out of in large quantities.  Then there is the expense of constantly replenishing these consumable items.  It could get out of hand very quickly.  Sadie simply needs to learn what she can and can not do when she is home without supervision. 

Last night Sadie had horrific, toxic gas.  I’m not sure if it was from the flavor of canned food she got or something from all the treats that she consumed in the “busy” toys. Several times it was bad enough that I woke up choking on the fumes from a dead sleep.  I am a bit concerned because right before she started the diarrhea episode she had the same sort of gas.  We might have to be very careful with her diet.

Right before bed Nicki and Sadie got into a hellish fight, the worst one yet.  Evidently Sadie went to one of the treat toys that Nicki deemed off limits.  I was in the bedroom when I heard the commotion going on.  It sounded like a pack of wolves had invaded the living room.  Ali was yelling at them but they were still fighting.  I pulled out my “you better back off or die” voice (yea I have one of those) and told them to knock it off.  They split up.  We scolded both of them loudly.  I can tell Nicki is not happy with the concept of sharing.  It’s amplified since Sadie’s natural disposition is to assume she should be first in line for anything and everything. 

I ran with Ali after work for the first time in a year or more.  It was a short 1.5 mile run.  IT was fun to run with her.  Unfortunately later in the night she said her knee was bugging her a bit.

I have heard, read, watched various people including co-workers, friends, republican talking heads (Rush) carrying on at length bashing Obama.  In some cases it almost like they are gloating in the fact that in the span of two and a half months that Obama has not been able to right the sinking ship which is the US economy. I mean come on, WTF is wrong with you people?  I’ll tell you what is wrong. 

Our country has become the land of the “quick”.   Fast food, crash diets, bountiful and foolish credit extended to the unworthy so that they can have their desires NOW instead of later, it’s all about getting me what I want now with as little effort as possible.  I mean look at the physique of the “average” American today.  To me the old adage “what you see is what you get” applies.  We are lazy, fat and unmotivated.  We want others to fix problems for us.  If they don’t fix these problems with a snap of their fingers then it is taking too long.  There has been way too much focus on fixing the symptoms of a problem instead of the source of it.

Take health care for example.  Our country is being decimated by skyrocketing medical costs.  A huge portion of these costs is a direct result of the unhealthy path most Americans choose to follow.  Being obese causes tons of ancillary issues that all cost a lot of money to address.  The idea that the way you “fix” a heavy person is with pills is ridiculous.  That’s like putting a new coat of paint on a house that is built on foundation that is on the verge of collapse.

Anyway my point is that anyone that is ready to pass judgement on Obama after two months in office is thinking like a moron in my opinion.  Things are so f’d up in so many areas it makes my head spin.  Only the president’s office has changed.  The lobbyists that have corrupted the government for decades are still entrenched in the system.  Changing that dynamic is a massive job that is going to be fought every inch of the way by those who have had their pockets padded by the scumbag lobbyists.  Nothing about the job that Obama has to do is easy and it certainly is nothing that can be fixed quickly.  It’s time to swallow hard and make sure your own house is in order.  Get healthy, don’t spend money you don’t have and use some common sense when you look at the reality of the situation we are in today.   

Obama is digging in and getting his hands dirty.  I much prefer some sort of action than sitting on your hands and letting big business pull your strings like W did for almost a decade.

I got some first hand experience in what burning flesh smells like yesterday.  I had my appointment to have three small areas of basal cell skin cancer burned off.  The worst part of the procedure is when they inject the areas with a localized anesthetic.  It felt like they were injecting liquid fire into my skin. 

The stuff works though, I didn’t feel a thing afterwards as the doctor cauterized the areas and then scraped off the burned remains.  The entire procedure took maybe a half hour. 

Gotta fly.