Archives September 2009

So tomorrow will mark a week since the cat was taken to the vet and unfortunately I have seen very little improvement in her condition.  She has eaten very little over that time period, acting like her ear problem causes her discomfort while eating. She will approach food and then start shaking her head and scurry away.  I’m not really sure how much further I am willing to delve into the problem.  Perhaps this is simply Spook’s swan song. 

When I talked to the vet about the issue last week she wasn’t real sure on a course of action beyond the meds we were given.  She mentioned the possibility of x-rays or an mri to investigate the problem further but both of those options, especially an MRI would cost a bunch of cash.  Even if it would show something, are we going to have brain/ear surgery on the cat? Of course that would not make sense. 

Her ear looked like less of a mess last night so perhaps we are making some progress.  Yesterday morning she ate/licked a small amount of food but consumed nothing since.  I am thinking if she eats nothing today that I will touch base with the vet again tomorrow.  I am tiring rapidly of the situation.  The weird thing is besides looking like she was hit with a bat, her unstable gait and regular head shaking, Spook has been friendlier than normal and has been looking for some attention.  Perhaps it is similar to terminally ill people that sometimes will have a brief but substantial improvement in their feeling of well being shortly before they kick the bucket.

Ali seems surprisingly detached from the situation.  Of course she helps me with the unpleasant duties of giving the cat medicine but she doesn’t seem all that concerned otherwise.  Perhaps her years of working in a nursing home has somewhat insulated her from the unpleasant last stages of old age.

Why do people think I give a damn?

Saturday morning Ali and I headed outside to do the yard work.  We both commented on just how intense the sun felt, instead of it being late September it felt like a mid-July day.  If I was a candle I would have melted in short order.  After weeding Ali took to the tractor and I grabbed my trusty weed whacker a little later.  For some reason I got the idea in my head to weed whack the inside of the entire fence line as well as the last ditch in the back which in spots had grass that was two feet high and as dense as some right wing zealots.  It took me a long time to do it all.  I went through 2+ tanks of gas and had to refill the spool line,  in total I think I was out there for almost two hours just whacking away.

I had mentioned something to Ali that we should try to do something with the TONS of lemons we have on our myer lemon tree.  The lemons we get are a bit odd.  They only seem to turn yellow once the outer skin splits, otherwise they stay green.  We harvested at least 50 of them.  While we were at it we also picked our key limes, figuring maybe Ali could make a key lime pie.

During the afternoon we worked on juicing the lemons and limes.  It was not exactly fun.  Some of the lemons were so big they had to be quartered instead of halved before being put into the hand powered juice press thing.  It was a mess as lemon juice was spraying everywhere.  Ali and I took turns squeezing the lemons.  I didn’t do as much as I hoped because the motion was not exactly aching forearm friendly.  Like I said, many of the lemons were quite large and despite their green skin were filled with a lot of lemon juice.  In no time we had enough juice to make a pitcher of lemonade with tons to spare.  We had only gone through half of the lemon harvest. The lemonade actually tasted like lemonade, pretty damn cool.

Later in the weekend Ali used the key lime juice to make a damn nice key lime pie.  Ali and I both get a real kick out of eating stuff that is made from ingredients we grew ourselves.  It’s just a satisfying feeling.

Saturday evening we picked up my mom to go to dinner. We took the new party van just for fun.  Ali had bought a gift cert to a place called Naples Tomato off of restaurant.com.  Neither Ali or I had ever been there.  Mom was there once before and she warned of the high prices.  We figured it would be nice to try someplace different. 

The restaurant is right in the middle of strip mall that had lots of empty stores, certainly not an upscale location.  You walk in the place and are greeted by a huge corridor of nothing but wine bottles on the wall.  Evidently this place is big for wine snobs.  We were greeted by what I assume was the owner, they asked if we had reservations which we did not.  Typically during off season, even on a Saturday night you don’t need reservations.  The guy tells us that right now there was roughly a 45 minute wait.  This seemed odd to me considering the front area of the restaurant, including the bar was very sparsely populated.  The owner said that if we didn’t mind sitting at the high top tables up front we could sit right down.  He indicated those were first come first serve tables.  We told him that would be fine.  The owner would have been more accurate to call them “first come. no serve” tables.

It quickly became apparent that these tables were the bastard step child of the main dining room.  Serving customers at these tables, at least in our case was obviously a low priority.  We sat at the table for at least 10 minutes until our waiter came over to ask us if we wanted any drinks.  This slow response was a common theme during the entire meal.  Our waiter checked in on us very little. 

Every aspect of the experience was slow. Our meals took forever to come out and when they did finally come out they brought the wrong food.  The food was not brought out by our waiter, it was brought out by some hispanic guy that understood little to no english.  He figured out the food was wrong via our pointing and shaking of the head.

Finally we all had our food in front of us.  They gave mom the wrong topping for her prime rib but she said it was fine.  Ali liked her food, mom was ok with hers, mine was not great. I didn’t come close to finishing my food which was some sort of chicken meal. 

Even the bathrooms in the place were annoying.  The place seated a lot of people yet the bathrooms were the gas station variety, a single toilet and urinal in an open room.  The urinal was mounted so low and was pitched at such an angle that I wound up with urine splattered shins, sigh…

So thankfully the meal was over and we got the check.  Despite having $25 knocked off the meal the tab was roughly $75.  The reason it was this much was because they automatically added an 18% gratuity to piss me off more.  You know I normally have no problem tipping 15-20% for decent service but when a place removes my ability to tip based on the service we receive there is zero chance I will be returning.  It is a ridiculous business decision in my opinion.

Ali and mom had their leftovers boxed up, I told the waiter to not bother boxing mine.  Mom got one more slap in the face when she went to heat up her warm ups last night and found that for some reason they decided to dispose of her peas for her.  So long Naples Tomato, you won’t be seeing me again.

So Sunday we had another race to time.  When I crawled out of bed at 4am and heard the symphony of frogs screaming in the background I knew we had to get some considerable rain during the night.  I was surprised when the gauge showed almost an inch had fallen.  I hadn’t even considered bad weather for the race.  As we drove to the race site it was in a steady rain which continued up until shortly before the 7 am race start.

Luckily wet roads do not cause the same technical issues with the Ipico system as it did with the DAG set up which required us to duct tape lines to the asphalt.  The weather proof timing mats that Ipico uses work equally well in dry or wet conditions.  The course stayed dry for the majority of the race but somewhere around 9:30 it started raining steady.  Luckily I was under a canopy but even so some water was blowing in.  There also was puddle of water that was creeping towards the various electronic devices I had on the ground. I quickly scooped the stuff up and stacked it on the table.  getting electrocuted would just ruin the entire weekend.

So even with the wet conditions the timing system performed perfectly.  Any problems I had were self created as I am still working out the procedure for certain timing operations.  The last runner came across the line over 3 hours after the race started.  I had turned off the timing equipment by that point but wrote down the guys bib number and time and included him in the final results.  Hey if you are gonna cover 12 miles it would be nice to get credit.

The Eagles game was pretty much a cake walk.  We saw a lot of Michael Vick, unfortunately he did very little when he was on the field besides hand off, throw a couple incompletions and ran for a short gain.  The Eagles are really going to the wildcat formation A LOT so far and I have to say I am not impressed.  I haven’t seen it gain more than 10 yards yet, more typically it results in a short gain.  Perhaps they are still fine tuning the formation but for me it hasn’t done anything to make the Eagles offense more dangerous.  Kevin Kolb had a solid, mistake free game.  It had to make most fans feel slightly better about the various times that Donovan is out, which has happened every year for the past half decade.

Even though the Eagles enjoyed a fine outing my fantasy team did not.  In fact I found myself focusing on the poor performance of my fantasy team instead of basking in the glory of the Eagles win.  I had a bad break when Frank Gore went out early in the Niners game.  I also invested HEAVILY in the Saints this week, starting 3 players since they were playing the Bills whom had the worst pass defense rating in the league.  Well the three players netted me less than 15 points.  Oh well you can’t win them all I suppose.  My next week is going to be tough.  I have a TON of players on bye week.  I am going to be scrambling to fill the lineup without having to put key players on waivers.

Spook ate next to nothing all weekend until last night where she ate some pureed tuna and egg.  Ali and I have been giving the cat various meds twice a day and hating every minute of it.  The most disgusting part is after putting the goop in her ear that is supposed to help clean out whatever gunk is in there. We both get coated with residue as the cat shakes her head violently after we put her down.  Last night I had the bright idea of putting some pureed tuna in a large syringe and trying to inject it into her mouth.  There was an air pocket in the tube and the plunger was stuck.  I pushed harder and Spook got a tuna projectile fired into her mouth.  Of course Ali wound up wearing most of that as well.  

Who knows what sort of cat adventures Spook has in mind for us this week.  All I know is I just want her to eat.  Having an animal starve on my watch would not sit well with me.

I think I finally may have the water conditioner working correctly.  I went out to check on it last night and saw the tank was filled to the brim with salt water which is not the way it is supposed to be.  I took the float/valve assembly out of the salt tank and inspected it.  I noticed that I did not have the valve put together correctly and I also found yet another piece on the ground that I somehow misplaced.  I put it all back together and started a recharge cycle.  Last night for the first time in at least a month the water coming out of the shower felt soft. I’m crossing my fingers that I finally have it handled.

Unfortunately our cat health issues are not fixed as well.  Ali took Spook to the vet once again yesterday.  The good news was the cat’s mouth appears to be fine now, there was no more evidence of infection or swelling.  The bad news is her left ear has some sort of bloody discharge in it.  Whatever the issue in the ear is, it could be causing the strange unstable gait the cat currently has as well as contributing to the latest eating problems.  Chewing could cause pain in her ear.  Who the F knows.  So now we have another collection of various things to give the cat over the next two weeks to see if we can clear it up.  It includes more pain meds, a different anti-biotic as well as some stuff to squirt in the bad ear. 

I assume we will continue to puree her food as well to minimize the amount of chewing that needs to take place.  To be fair, for the majority of her life Spook has been healthy and without issue.  She sure has been making up for lost time the past few months though….

This weekend we are taking mom out to dinner and then she is staying at our place for a couple days.  We have a race to time on Sunday morning so mom can do some dog sitting duties for us.  Other than that, not much else I care to cover at this time.

So Ali picked up some tuna on the way home and thought she would try to puree it, aka throw it in a food processor.  This is the same thing that happens to the food many nursing home residents “eat” to aid in digestion/consumption.  Well in our situation it would allow the cat to simply lick the food without having to chew.  Well the experiment was a success.  Over the past day Spook has cleared 2 or 3 servings of the mushy tuna.  She is still heading to the vet today for further analysis.  I am suspecting that whatever infection she had where the tooth was removed never cleared up completely.

I have ranted several times about the various bullshit Sirius has been pulling on it’s subscriber base.  One of these items was releasing the official Sirius Iphone app MINUS some of it’s most listened to content, namely the Stern channels.  Short of jailbreaking my phone I figured I was pretty much screwed if I wanted to listen to Stern via my Iphone.  I was wrong.  An app called “Pocket Tunes Radio” has come to the rescue.  This nifty little $8 app will allow you to listen to TONS of various internet radio INCLUDING ALL OF THE SIRIUS channels.

Now you still have to be a paying Sirus customer with internet radio enabled on your account.  This isn’t a way to pirate Sirius.  It uses the same internet portal that is used from your PC to access the content.  For some reason if you try to log in to the portal from within your standard Iphone browser it will not work. However due to some magic this app performs you can log in and play any channel that you already can get with a pc.  I downloaded the app immediately and tried it out, it works beautifully. 

There have been other apps that  have tried to snag Sirius radio using their own custom UI to do so.  These apps have been squashed by Sirius as violating the TOS. (terms of service) However with Pocket Tunes since it is using the standard Sirius web app to connect and you are doing so as legitimate Sirius customer there is no violation of these terms of service.  FU Sirius, you shortsighted, money grubbing, idiots. 

 If this proves to be as robust as I think I very well may be dropping my second subscription that I use for my plug and play receiver.  I’ll simply use my Iphone to listen.  Sure it isn’t as convenient as turning on the vehicle and pressing one button to get to the service but I’ll deal with 30 seconds of logging in to the service to not pay Sirius a dime more than necessary.

When I was forced to join Planet Fitness I pretty much wrote off my 300 workout program.  They just are not equipped to do it plus it could possibly be viewed as , GASP, LUNK behavior.

Well as I have worked out there over the past couple weeks I have been scoping out the place to see if there was any way I could get a 300 workout in.  Today I launched my first attempt.

300 work outs at Planet Fitness are not ideal for a few reasons.  The equipment they have for pull ups is not great for the way I do them in a 300, hard and fast.  There are too many objects that I can hit my head on.  Compounding this problem is the mirrors in the place are not high enough.  I can only see from the waist down in the mirror when doing pull ups so I can’t tell if I am going to hit my head or if I am going up and down as far as I would like. It’s a bit annoying.  The grip is a bit farther apart than I would prefer as well. 

They don’t have spare olympic barbells scattered on the floor like Pure Fitness did.  In fact they have exactly one barbell available that I could use for dead lifts and floor wipers.  It’s not quite full size but is workable.  They also only have one Reebok step and only 8 total risers which is half of what I used at the other place.  As a result my box jumps were significantly easier.  I tried to compensate by going at a rapid pace.

I found myself a little 5 x 5 space back in a corner where I did my dead lifts and floor wipers.  Doing the wipers was another challenge.  A woman asked if she could have the steps after I was done jumping on them.  Usually I would use the risers as the platform to rest the barbell on when doing wipers.  Well now I just have to slide my body under the bar as it sits on the floor and then thrust my pelvis up to assist in getting the weight to a starting position.  I again raise the pelvis to return the weight to the floor.  I’m sure it looks ridiculous.

Well I managed to get 300 reps in, albeit not in a manner I was accustomed to.  This gym has a lot more people in it than the shit hole did.  As a result it sometimes can be a challenge to get on a piece of equipment, especially if it is in short supply.  So the 300 lives on and at least so far, I managed to do so while flying under the lunk radar.

[podcast]https://blog.duf.net/podcast/LookMaNoHands.mp3[/podcast]

I forgot to mention that one other thing I did Sunday morning was crawl up in the attic to try to address the leaks around the main AC distribution box.  I had bought some HVAC tape to help with the project.  As I felt around the various connections I felt large amounts of cold air coming out.  I found myself getting extremely annoyed at the original AC installer for doing such shitty work.

The distribution box is supposed to be flat on the ground.  Our box instead is suspended in the air haphazardly by some plastic tape.  It looks like the installer planned poorly and that was the only way they were able to get all the vents connected to the box.  The flexible ducts were mostly only attached to the box with an over sized zip tie.  The spots where they used tape were coming loose in many spots. 

I also noticed that certain vents had zip ties pulled tight down on the main duct section, apparently a method to restrict airflow to those areas.  One of these ducts looked like it was going towards the front of the house where it is notoriously warmer.  These vents have never had good air flow coming out of them and I am sure this was part of the reason why.  I cut the restricting zip ties off.

I did the best I could with the tape but it was pretty tough working conditions.  Trying to reach around the box while making sure to keep your feet from going through the floor while avoiding the thousands of nails protruding from the roof was not easy.  Add in extreme temperatures that had me sweated through my shirt in 10 minutes. 

Once winter hits I want to do more extensive work on the box to see if I can get it sealed tight.  I love our house but it certainly was not built by many contractors that took pride in their work.  I can’t tell you how many little annoying examples of this I have come across over the years.  If I ever built another house I would be much better prepared to make sure it was done right. 

So did you get an invite to my Windows 7 launch party?  WTF?  Let me explain, just in case you did.  Windows 7 is being released towards the end of October.  I heard on a podcast about a URL you could go to that would allow you to sign up to host a LAUNCH PARTY.  Normally I would never entertain something so silly, yea I work all day with Microsoft products but I’m not such a zealot that I would deem the release of a new OS as a reason to throw a party.

Well the catch was if you agreed to do this and were accepted as an “official” launch party site one of the things you will get is a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. DING DING DING!  Hey I’ll jump through some hoops to get a free copy of Win 7.  So last night I jumped through the last of the hoops and was notified that I was now officially a party site.

I am somewhat confused what exactly that means.  I set a date and time for the party and they will be sending me my party materials.  I invited nearly 20 people although most of them live far away or work on the Stern Show.  As of now I don’t think it will be an actual party at all, just me at home enjoying my free software, however if any of the invitees want to come over to get drunk and have fun we can do that as well.

So my podcast was officially accepted by the Itunes Store.  Simply do a search for “duf” and look in the podcast section.  My ideas about what to do with the podcast are still shifting around.  After hearing Homey read an entry it made me appreciate how lame my efforts were.  I think I will use the podcast as a supplement to the blog.  Perhaps I can use a blog entry as talking points but reading the entry verbatim is just not going to add much value.  I’m sure I’ll go off on my own tangents.  I think a podcast is better when the person is talking about subjects instead of recanting a series of events. Tune in and listen to what I come up with.

On Saturday I finally took the time to work on some of the surface rust on the frame of the new party van.  The rust appears to be worse in the back, perhaps it was backed into several snowbanks in Michigan.  I backed the van on to my ramps and got out the floor creeper so I could roll around underneath it.  My tools to attack the problem were my drill with a rust stripper head and a small wire brush.  There was a lot of rust.  Even with the van being up on the ramps I did not have a ton of room to work.  I was smart enough to wear safety glasses.  It also was necessary to keep my mouth closed at all times, I had rust particles spraying all over me.

The spare tire for the van is back in the area I was working on.  I figured it would be smart to take the tire down so I could access the frame underneath it.  Just like everything else in the area, the nut that released the tire was rusted as well.  I attacked the nut with a robogrip pliers and to my surprise it started to turn.  Then in a split second the tire came crashing down, smashing my left arm to the ground underneath it.  I was surprised that after a quick visual survey the arm seemed to be intact.  The nut wasn’t actually turning, instead I was twisting the metal wire it attached to.  The wire snapped. Add “fix the spare tire mount” to the list of to do’s.

After knocking loose as much loose rust as I could I got out my spray can of rust inhibiting stuff.  It looked just like black spray paint as it went on.  Again the tight quarters made for some less than ideal working conditions.  I used my t-shirt as a make shift air mask, as the fumes got pretty strong under the vehicle.  I ran out of the anti-rust stuff faster than I expected so I ran to Wal-mart to get some more. 

I got back just after Ali got back from her haircut. I came inside, Ali looked me over, and said “You went to Wal-mart looking like that??”   I had not looked in the mirror before departing.  It looked like I dressed up as a redneck for Halloween.  I had on ripped up, hole filled, denim shorts, a camouflage t-shirt, a baseball hat and a face that was coated with rust/paint particles.  No wonder I was getting some double takes in the store.

So I finished up treating the frame.  It looks much better that it did.  I am thinking it will be enough to retard any rust issues on the frame beyond my days of ownership.  I wheeled the spare tire into the garage and swept the rust shards off of the driveway.

As I mentioned Ali finally got her haircut on Saturday.  She went to the stylist with three pictures of herself as a reference.  All of them had her hair about shoulder length and layered.  The stylist did his own interpretation and chopped Ali’s hair way shorter than the pictures.  It looks good but not as Ali intended it to look.  He also colored it with a color that Ali is less than thrilled with. 

This has been a recurring theme with this guy.  Ali has gone to him for years.  He is a high end, expensive stylist.  More often than not she comes back from him with hair different than she tells me she wants.  He basically does whatever he feels like doing.    I’ve encouraged her for years to go to someone else.  Why should you pay tons of money to have someone ignore the direction you give them regarding your hair?

One of the other things I was battling with on and off over the weekend was the water softener.  It still was not producing soft water.  I had the venturi assembly apart and together a number of times.  On Sunday I noticed a rubber gasket on the ground behind the cleaner.  A couple weeks ago when I was screwing with it, the parts in the venturi got blown out when I inadvertently applied water pressure with the unit apart.  I thought I recovered all of the pieces but I evidently missed this gasket.  I put the gasket in and crossed my fingers.  We’ll see if water quality improves this week.

Saturday night we watched Wolverine Origins.  It told the story of Wolverine which I apparently did not know in full.  I thought they shot him full of adamantium years back and that was that.  I had no idea he was born in the 1800’s, didn’t age and originally his “claws” were made of bone and not steel.   The movie was pretty good and certainly not deserving of the terrible knock it got when the pre-production cut was released.  It was abut middle of the road as far as super hero flicks go.  It certainly is no Dark Knight or Spiderman but it also isn’t anywhere near as bad as Daredevil or Hell Rider. 

How bout them Eagles?  Wow did they get embarrassed.  When I heard that Kevin Kolb was starting I had little hope that a win would be forthcoming. Well for the first half of the game I was pleasantly surprised, Kolb and the Eagles were in a tight game although the Eagles D was giving up yards by the bushel. Well in the second half the wheels came off.

Kolb started making some of the mistakes you would expect from a QB starting his first game, throwing a real bad int on an out pattern to Jackson.  The Eagles defense continued to have no answer to the Saints offense.  Drew Brees had all the time he needed to throw and throw he did.  By the time the carnage was over the Saints had slapped 48 points up on the board.

So now the question is which Eagles defense do we actually have?  Is it the one that played poorly all pre-season and stunk up the joint yesterday or is it the one that dominated the Panthers the week before? I can only hope it’s the latter.

Why do the Eagles lack a home field advanatage any more?  It seems like they play better on the road for the last several years.  I remember when teams DREADED coming to the Vet.

Well while the Eagles were stinking up the joint I was closely monitoring my fantasy team.  I was in a bad situation this week, I had Drew Brees as my QB going up against the Eagles D, whom I also had starting.  Normally you don’t want this scenario because it means if one does well the other normally isn’t so they cancel each other out.  Well yesterday was exactly that case.

The week before the Eagles D scored 50 points plus, this week they got me 6. On the upside Drew Brees scored 39 on the back of his strong showing.  I was also kicking myself for sitting DeSean Jackson.  I read that he had a groin injury so I figured his effectiveness would be limited.  Of course he rips off a huge game, scoring twice the amount of points than the receiver I replaced him with.

Thank god for Frank Gore.  Gore had a MONSTER day, grabbing me 61 points and vaulting my weekly total to 145, securing another fantasy win.  In fact the 145 points is likely to be top points in the league for a second week in a row.  Making a 100 bucks during the first two weeks of fantasy football is a sweet thing.

My buddy Homey is a morning DJ back in Reading. He was nice enough to volunteer to be my first guest reader.  Take a listen to what a difference having a pro read copy makes.

[podcast]https://blog.duf.net/podcast/DufNet_AudioPodcasting.mp3[/podcast]