We followed up our hectic Muddy Buddy weekend with yet another hectic weekend, this time due to Ali’s big dance recital both Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. During the day Saturday I buzzed around the property doing a number of things. Ali had to leave very early for her 6 pm performance, they wanted her there between 2 and 3. I worked right up until close to 4pm. I was rushed to get ready and get there.
Before I left I thought instead of doing the standard “stop at the grocery store and buy flowers thing” I thought I would be more thoughtful and collect various flowers from around our property. During Ali’s last recital in January I was unaware of the post dance tradition of giving the participants flowers. I didn’t want to get caught with my pants down again. I collected a nice assortment of pretty flowers and put them into a small plastic canister that is used to deliver pool water samples to Pinch-a-Penny. I dressed it up by covering it with aluminum foil.
I got to the location around 5:35 or so. This time it was being held in an auditorium in Naples High School, a much bigger venue than the January performance. There were a lot of people there, at least 200-300 I would guess. I had a good seat in the third row on the end in a seat that had nothing in front of it. Plenty of room to stretch out my legs. It was interesting scanning the room to see the various parents and relatives of the dancers. They ranged from the rich and snooty to the normal average Joe’s.
They brought down the lights and the performance started. The first act was a jazz number that was rather unpolished. It was the first time I had seen a jazz performance at one of the dance studio recitals. Ali’s group was next up, a group of 6 adult students. Their number this time was much much longer than what was performed in January, somewhere around 6 minutes instead of two. I thought the group and specifically Ali did very well. During the number Ali was out there briefly with another dancer doing a duet. The routine was pretty complex. I was proud of Ali for doing so well.
Before the show Ali asked me if I planned to stay for the entire show or leave after her performance. At the time I told her I didn’t know but since I had my homegrown bouquet I needed to stick around. Right after Ali’s act was another routine that I thought was very good. It used more modern music instead of the dry, frumpy variety that so often goes along with ballet. There were two full acts for me to sit through yet. I managed to stick them out without major discomfort. Sure I’d rather be somewhere else in an ideal situation but I didn’t mind sticking around to show support for Ali and what she does. Ali was able to come out after the second intermission and watch the rest of the show with me which was nice. She liked my mini-bouquet. It was cool to see how excited she was about her performance.
On Sunday morning I wanted to wedge in a bike ride around getting the remaining chores done before having to leave for Ali’s next show. I decided to do the Publix ride again. I wore the baggy bike shorts and the GPS watch this time. Both items made the ride better.
On the way out I had a little tail wind for most of the ride. I monitored my pace pretty regularly. My speed varied between 14 and 17 mph for the majority of the ride, not exactly hauling ass from a bike perspective but for a novice like myself it was ok I guess. This time instead of taking a 10-15 minute break at Publix I just turned around, chugged some Gatorade and headed back. It took me about 34 minutes to do the first 8.75 miles.
Within the first 25 yards I realized that the ride back was going to suck. The light tailwind felt like a huge head wind now. Realizing that I had a basically 5 mile straight wind tunnel waiting for me was not a great feeling. The wind made a huge difference in my speed. At times my speed dropped into the 10’s and most of the ride was in the 12 mph range. I had to drop gears in order to keep my stroke pace up. Dropping gears resulted in my hitting one of the gears on the bike that is noisy. When you are working hard pedaling into the wind little things like additional gear train noise become very annoying, very quickly. I need to get out the manual and figure out how to correctly adjust the gear train.
Finally I got back to our driveway 42 minutes later, a huge difference from the first half of the ride. My legs were tired, my ass was a bit sore (much better than the non-bike pant ride) and I was sweaty but I didn’t feel too bad. After a quick dip in the pool filled with Sadie splashing action, I got out to get ready to leave once again.
This time we were going to use one car instead of two. I dropped Ali off at the school and then headed right out to pick up my mom who was going to attend this show. The trip back and forth didn’t take quite as long as I anticipated, we got back to the school around 2:30 or so, a half hour early. Mom and I spent the time reading the program cover to cover multiple times as well as just watching the crowd. Finally the show starts at 3 and Ali’s group comes on.
The first part of the routine went well, I snapped a few poor quality Iphone pics. As the performance progressed I noticed something was weird. All of a sudden instead of 6 dancers there were 5. Then a different woman came out to do a brief solo part than the prior night. WTF? Well shortly after the first intermission Ali came out dressed in her street clothes, she was all hyper. She said that the one woman did something to her calf, possibly tore something. Ali said she was going to drive her to the emergency room. Well luckily a few seats down a woman was listening. She said her husband was a doctor, ironically a foot/ankle specialist. She said he could take a look at her.
The doctor disappeared up behind the curtain. When he came back he said that she ruptured a tendon in her calf, something that is a relatively common injury. He told her that there was really no need to go to the emergency room, there is nothing they would do for her besides tell her to ice the injury. She will need to go to a specialist to get proper treatment. So that meant that Ali didn’t have to drive to the emergency room.
It was now the second intermission. Ali said that if we wanted we could head out awhile and go to dinner. I told mom it was up to her. She in turn said it was up to me. Well I know mom well enough to know that she would have welcomed an early exit so I said “ok, let’s go” We headed over to Carraba’s for a post dance celebratory dinner.
Carraba’s was very empty which is a pleasant change. Ali was distracted for most of the meal due to the incident. She felt very bad about it, especially since initially the women thought that Ali kicked her. In fact it just felt like she was kicked when the tendon snapped. Well anyway we enjoyed our dinner and were out of there by 5:30.
One mini-Carrabas rant, I have railed in the past how they have been slowly neutering my favorite Carraba’s. First they removed much of the decor that made it unique to that location, preferring to instead make it more vanilla. Then they had the balls to stop playing the learn to speak italian tape in the bathrooms and replace it with boring elevator music. They also reduced the variety on their menu dramatically. Yesterday the latest gaffe came into view. The bread that has so long been one of the best parts of going to Carraba’s had been changed. It used to come out warm in a basket wrapped in a cloth. Now instead it comes out in some stupid metal thing wrapped in a paper towel basically. Even worse they went cheap on the bread as well, substituting the great bread they used to serve with generic stuff you can get anywhere. Obviously they are cutting corners, it’s a shame. They have almost wrung every ounce of charm out of the place. Once the 2-1 happy hour is abolished it will be just another restaurant.
Ok back to the timeline. After dropping mom off we headed home. We decided to try to carve some more of our Tivo viewing backlog by watching the finale of Biggest Loser. Thank GOD for Tivo. The show was a ridiculously long 3 hours. Thanks to Tivo we were able to zip through the commercials and endless recap segments cutting the experience to a more manageable 90 minutes. I saw the headlines about who won the $100,00 and $250,000 prize so the initial surprise had worn off. However let me randomly rattle off my thoughts from the show.
Jerry, the oldest competitor ever lost a shocking amount of weight, especially when you you factor in his age and that he was only on campus for two weeks. He lost 54% of his body weight. He looked a bit bizarre. More disturbing than his appearance was his demeanor. He was almost acting mildly retarded. Maybe he was just overwhelmed with happiness. I don’t know, something seemed awry. I told Ali maybe he went on a starvation diet or something, he wasn’t a healthy looking skinny.
Carla and Joelle, the black women that basically ended their friendship over the show both had unimpressive showings. Yea they lost some weight but not nearly as much as they should have in such a situation. I can pretty much guarantee they will balloon back to their initial weights in short order.
Aubrey, the mother of 5 was another big disappointment. If anything she looks like she gained weight since she left the show. She pretty much talked herself into her own failure. Throughout the show she whined about not being able to remain in control once she would be back in her home environment. Well she was right, she’s another one that will roll right back to her former self in short order.
The biggest “loser” of all in my opinion was the worthless, piece of shit kid named David. David came on the show with his buddy Daniel who happened to be the fattest person EVER on the show, tipping the scales at way over 400 pounds. Well David was huge himself at an enormous 380+ pounds. He went home early on and you could tell that his heart wasn’t in it. Well at the finale it was obvious just how much of a schlub this kid is as he weighed in at a ridiculous 350 pounds.
I was really angry with David. I verbally lashed him through the Tivo, proclaiming how shitty it is that there are 100,000 people plus that try to get on the show and this idiot is lucky enough to make it but then totally blows the opportunity. What a loser, a genuine hide your face in shame forever loser. I hope the kid eats enough that soon has no choice but to roll around in his own feces. Idiot. Daniel, his buddy did better, losing something like 140 pounds. At least he seems to have the right attitude, unlikely his lazy, worthless friend.
The majority of the people did a very good job, losing significant amounts of weight. The top three in the final all lost tons. Mike, the young kid that started at 380 + pounds got down the 180’s which was incredible. Most people assumed he would win. Tara who dominated nearly every competition on the show also lost a ton of weight, going from a 280 pound heffer down to the 130’s. But neither of the two favorites won. Instead Helen, a 48 year old mom with bad hair and a rather unlikeable personality won it all dropping down to an amazing 117 pounds after starting around 260.
Helen’s daughter was on the show as well and dropped out early, when her mom rather selfishly encouraged her to go. Not surprisingly she didn’t lose nearly the amount of weight her mom did. Helen looked good although 48 year old skin is not so resilient. Ali remarked she didn’t look that toned but I think it was just the result of her skin not snapping back. So Helen wins, show over. It was a good season, probably the most enjoyable one we have watched. I can only hope for the contestant sakes that they actually get “it” and continue on the path of a healthy lifestyle. Track records of many prior contestants does not bode well.
So at Carraba’s I was talking to my mom about the various movies that are out right now that I want to go see. Ali immediately voiced her displeasure with the prospect of accompanying me to see them with me since she has now deemed that she is sick of action movies. She went as far as saying she wished I could find someone else to go see them with. I can see why Ali would have a hard time with going through the tremendous struggle of going to a movie with me, it’s not like I do much to support her likes and desires. So if there are any hot chicks out there that like action movies give me a ring, I have a free ticket for you. I’d even take Randall with as long as he wears a skirt and shaves his legs.
bike you have to be a level 450 engineer. Just to attain 450 engineering is a large and very expensive undertaking. 
