Archives 2012

Dad, Teresa and the dogs arrived right around 5 on Tuesday afternoon.  Their arrival was delayed by dad’s drowsiness, he actually stopped at a rest stop and took a nap on a bench.  It was no big deal to me since I had spent the majority of the day working on the SSR radio upgrade which will be receiving it’s own dedicated blog entry at some point.    Let’s just say it has been as challenging as I expected. For now if you would like to see the pictures of the install you can see them here.

The dogs took next to no time to become re-acclimated, they immediately  took off running around the yard, it was very cute.  Clara also wasted no time getting re-acclimated with our pond, jumping into it within the first 10 minutes.

Tuesday evening Ali made nice salads and we reheated some of the rice pilaf and sweet potato patties that she also made a couple days ago.

Yesterday I again spent a considerable amount of time out in the garage with the SSR with my dad offering an assist during certain points of the install.  We broke it up with a trip out in the party van with all four dogs.  We had lunch at Panera and I needed to stop at Best Buy to buy another radio mounting kit after we accidentally snapped a bracket on the old kit via pushing on the dash too hard.

Teresa bought food to make a really nice meal that we enjoyed out on the lanai last night after Ali got home from track practice.

Today dad and I will be driving over to Fort Lauderdale to pick up Patrick and his girlfriend Maureen.  He is flying in from Pittsburgh.  Once they get here we will start doing more sight seeing and tourist stuff.

My Presidents Day got off to a frustrating start yesterday.  I thought I would head out early to Tire Choice and get a nail removed from the tire of the Tacoma that has been there for awhile, it was causing a slow leak.  I originally bought the tires at Tire Choice and when I did I also purchased the road hazard coverage.

So I get down there a little after 8:15 and see a couple people in the waiting room, not bad.  I tell them I need a nail removed and also I would like to have the tires rotated and balanced, another thing I paid for when I bought the tires (lifetime balance and rotate) but has never been done.  A couple times I have stopped by TC over the years to have them do it but it always was met with “you’ll have to wait two hours” or something along those lines.

I was told there was only one person back in the shop right now (something I seem to hear a lot at this location) it should take about 90 minutes, ok, fine.

I walked down to the near by Dunkin Donuts and fueled up.  On the way I went by one of our local Crossfit gyms, they were out running as part of their WOD.  I have been thinking about buying Ali a trial membership there.  I have a feeling she would really enjoy the team atmosphere and everyone knows that strong is the new skinny.

So I walked back to the garage and began what was a marathon wait.  At around the 90 minute mark when my truck had still not moved from the parking lot and I saw there were many more than just one person back in the garage I got annoyed enough to ask what was going on.

They said they were just about to take the truck back now, which they did a couple minutes later.  They took it back, put it on the lift and then it sat there instead, untouched for a good 20 minutes.  I could see it from the waiting room.

Eventually I see a guy working on the problem tire but then I also notice that he puts the tire back on the same spot on the truck.  Obviously if he was rotating the tires that wouldn’t be the case.  I just shook my head as he brought the truck back out front.

I told the counter person that the mechanic did not rotate or balance the tires as I asked but at this point I was done wasting my time, it was almost 11 AM at this point.  The clerk shrugged his shoulders and said he guesses the woman that did my work order did not include the rotate and balance on there.  Yea whatever, great.  So I wound up spending almost 3 hours at Tire Choice and got one third of the work done.  I was sure to utilize their feedback email address I saw in the store.  I think I will be getting a call today.

So next I went down to Sam’s to get gas and run the truck through the car wash.  More frustration awaited with lines at the pump and even longer lines for the wash as the snowbirds had inundated the place.  Lovely.

So I finally get back home, annoyed I wasted most of the morning doing something that should have taken a half hour.  Ali had texted me earlier saying when she came out Sadie was outside.  Well that’s odd, I didn’t let her outside before I left.  Ali said she made sure she hadn’t punched out another screen.  Well she hadn’t punched out a screen but there were two claw rips in the screen door.  I think she pushed on the door and perhaps it wasn’t latched securely and she punched through.  I wasn’t planning on doing screen repair as well yesterday but suddenly that was now on the to do list.

So then I go outside and see the hole that Nicki dug, right in the area I just resodded the day before.  Ali told me how cute it was that Nicki was digging, something she used to do pretty regularly but not anymore.  I told Ali it was not cute that she did it right there.  Ali did not agree that she should have scolded Nicki for digging.  I repeated I don’t care if she digs but there are 3 other acres she can dig at.  I told her she just will confuse Nicki by encouraging her to dig at the same spot where I will scold her for doing the same.  More frustration.

So finally we were taking out some of the indoor plants to the shed to transplant and combine with some of the new houseplants we bought.  The one plant I got down had some standing water on the top of it.  I evidently added too much water on Friday night.  Well Ali did not notice the water and threw the pot up on her shoulder, trying to be efficient so she would have another hand free to grab another one.

Well within a few seconds she had a muddy stream flowing down her arm and onto the carpet.  She blamed me for overfilling the pot with water.  I blamed her for not noticing the lake in the pot before she picked it up since I saw it right away.  Cleaning the mess up required use of the Dyson and SpotBot.  Yes, it was frustrating.

Luckily for both Ali and I, she had a dentist appointment in the afternoon so we got a much needed break from each other.

While she was gone the equipment for my SSR upgrade came.  Once Ali got back I headed right out in the SSR to Best Buy, I wanted to buy some high grade wire connector for the install.  While I was out I got a call from my Dad with an updated status.  He was stopping for the day just inside the Florida border.  He and my step mom have been making the trip south pretty slowly but they should finally arrive later this afternoon.

During the day yesterday our neighbors across the street dropped off two boxes of dog supplies.  They had just recently had to put BOTH of their older dogs down, each had their own set of health issues.  We felt so bad for them as we knew how much they loved their dogs, just like we do.  I could see the pain in Steve’s face as we tried to offer our condolences.  It has to be an absolutely awful thing to deal with.

While Ali was away I figured I would try to burn off some of the frustration of the day with another crack at this month’s forum challenge.  I improved my numbers from my first try by 3 pull ups and 9 push ups, a decent improvement but I was actually hoping for a bit more.

Ali made a really good rice pilaf last night.  She also reheated the left over sweet potato patties in the frying pan, it made a ton of difference, they tasted much better to me now with no additional seasoning.

I am not sure how much I will get to blog once my dad shows up so I figure I’ll do what I can now.

Saturday morning we timed a race.  It was our first time timing this particular race, they held it last year as an untimed “fun run”.   We ran into a few issues as is normal the first time the club does a race.  The parking area, registration area, start line and finish line were all a considerable distance away from each other making the race logistically difficult.  I only had a few minutes to get the finish line timing equipment running before the first runner crossed because of the long walk from the start line.

We also seemed to be short of hands to both set up everything and tear it down which is never a good thing.  We worked through the issues and pulled off a decent event I think.

Ali again on Friday made a strong effort to get a lot of stuff done around the house.  We had more than usual to attend to since I also wanted to give the grass a once over so it looked decent for our visitors.  Saturday afternoon we finished up the cleaning, mowing and weed whacking.  We had a compressed schedule because of attending the Pet Lover’s Ball.

They were having the ball at yet another location this year, they seem to move it around yearly for some reason.  It didn’t take long till we saw the first dogs accompanying their owners into the hotel.  Ali has bugged me about bringing our girls for a few years and I always didn’t want to because I thought it would be too big of a distraction.  Nicki would want constant protection/reassurance and Sadie would be like a bull in a china shop.

Well this year it might have not been too bad.  They had a much larger area designated for the silent auction unlike last year where you felt like a sardine jammed into a much too small room.

The silent auction didn’t have too many items that excited me.  We did actually bid on one item, a private box suite for an Everblades hockey game.  The suite would hold up to 10 people.  It also included a hockey stick autographed by the team.  We were in the bidding up until the last minute or so but the dollar figure went above what I considered reasonable for the package so we backed out.

This year was a sit down dinner with assigned tables.  I got stuck sitting next to an old lady who was a freelance writer for the newspaper.  I found her annoying as she was constantly trying to wedge herself into conversation with me and as the night wore on I got really tired of her unflattering remarks about the gay couple that was at our table. Old coot.

We almost had a meal issue.  Ali said she made a verbal reservation with one of the Humane Society staff so she didn’t get to officially chose the vegetarian dinner option.  She figured she could just request it.  She told the server she was a vegetarian and needed the all veggie plate.  The server said she wasn’t sure if they had any of the vegetarian meals left but she would check.

Well out comes Ali’s meal, a piece of steak and some scallops.  The server said they didn’t have any veggie dinners left which made no sense.  Unless these were tv dinners made in a microwave it should not be too hard to throw some vegetables on a plate.  So Ali sat there with a plate in front of her she wouldn’t eat.  For what each ticket to this thing costs it seemed pretty ridiculous that they couldn’t accommodate her.

Well just as Ali was chowing down on a roll which she thought would be her meal the server comes back out with a vegetarian plate for Ali.  Crisis averted.

The best part of the meal was the desert.  The service overall was disappointing.  Before the meal they came around with wine.  They served everyone but two people at our table but then emptied a bottle and didn’t come back until like a half hour later.  At the end of the meal they asked if I wanted coffee, which I did.  They gave me a cup, cream and sugar but never came back with the actual coffee.  It was pretty lame.

The live auction items didn’t seem to draw the big bucks I am used to seeing.  I bet the 5 items that went up didn’t raise 20k between them.  I left the ball thinking that this year’s event overall would probably be at the bottom of the list for me.

Sunday morning I wanted to get a long 10 mile run in.  Ali planned to bring her bike and ride while I was running.  My plan was to run an even bigger outside loop this time, pushing my cross over road up to Logan Blvd instead of Oakes.  On the way there we dropped a bottle of water at the intersection of Logan and Vanderbilt Beach Road, thinking that was approximately the half way point.

I wasn’t real happy on the way there when I saw the car outside thermometer was already reading in the mid-70’s.  The higher temps paired with what felt to be decent humidity was going to make for a difficult run.

So I headed out, not feeling very into the run.  It was one of those days that running with someone would definitely help.  Nonetheless I tried to push my pace,  with the idea of what is required for a two hour half marathon in my head.

Right from the get go the run was uncomfortable. The bright sun and rising temps made me heat up quickly.  I still managed to hit the bottle drop spot which was around 4.75 miles in a little over 40 minutes. Once I stopped to drink I realized I felt a strong urge to pee.  I tried to casually walk over behind a row of hedges where I dropped to my knees and then bent over at the waist to conceal my urination from cars that were driving by.  I am sure it looked ridiculous.

I chugged the small 12 ounce bottle of water until it was empty.  I was a bit concerned that was the only hydration I would have for the rest of the run.  I also downed the first of the two energy Goo packets I brought along.

So I took off again.  After stopping to drink my body was not real happy with running again, I was feeling more drained than I would like to be at the 5 mile mark.  Eventually the water and Goo kicked in and helped me push on.

This loop is tough mentally because it is just a big huge rectangle.  You would see your turning points far off in the distance but they looked so far away that it was discouraging.  I tried to combat that by using short term visual markers, in my case light poles, each of which may have been a couple hundred feet apart.

So as I was running long, feeling more miserable as I went, I was trying to figure out how far I would have to run yet once I got back to the water park.  My rough math said if half way was a little less than 4.75 miles then I should have somewhere between a half and three quarters of a mile to go once I get back to the park.  Ok, I can do that regardless I thought to myself.

So as I am back on Livingston I keep pushing through the discomfort, pushing to keep my pace up since I knew I only had a short distance to go once I reentered the park.  So I turn in the driveway look at my GPS and see 8.34 miles.  The shock of that number instantly short circuited my mental toughness and I stopped instantly, the idea of trudging close to another two miles shut me down.  As I stood there I wondered how the F I could have misjudged the distance so badly.  I realized if I would have continued back to Immokalee Road I would have then hit the true halfway point.

I was pissed.  Once I stopped my legs turned into cement and felt like they wanted to cramp, I was severely short on the amount of hydration I needed to run in those conditions.  Twice I started to run, trying to just suck it up and run to get my intended 10 miles and twice I stopped less than a 1/4 mile after starting.  My legs felt awful, my mind felt awful, I pulled the plug.

I saw Ali who was riding her bike around the park and told her I was done.  I trudged back to the truck and drank whatever water we had there.

It was a very disappointing run overall even if I did manage a 8:55 pace for the 8.5 miles I wound up running.

After the run we ran into Michelle and the kids. We also saw Matt and his little boy Zach.  I told Matt I could have used him out there as a running partner.

Inside the pool we hung with Michelle and the kids a bit.  We sat at the bottom of the waterslide as Parker got to take his first ride ever, he was finally tall enough. He was so excited.   After Michelle went down with him the first time, I took him up the second time.  His excitement made me remember how I too thought water slides were the coolest thing on Earth when we first got to try them out at Rehoboth Beach many decades ago.

Ali and I got some swimming in.  Ali swims 3 times a week but I have not done any swimming since the water park closed in September.  Ali’s practice has definitely made her a much better swimmer.  Her and I were doing pretty much a similar pace for most of the laps although of course in the end I always made sure I finished slightly ahead.  I put in a 1000 meters total at around an 8:30 per 400 pace.

After the water park we made a pit stop at Lowes.  I needed sod to repair the circle around the one landscaped areas.  The dogs love to run around this spot and in doing so they destroyed the grass, it was bare sand.  We also picked up a few other items.  When we got home I quickly placed the sod, took a shower and we were right back out the door to go to the outlets.  I wanted to get pants that fit as I mentioned earlier last week.

I scored 4 pair of pants at Gap.  32 x 34’s were actually long enough although the 32 inch waist is rather big on me believe it or not.  I noticed all of the pants fabric felt much thinner than my older khaki’s.  I can only assume this is intentional so they wear out faster.  Oh well, it’s nice to have pants that don’t look like I am wearing a sack.

We scored a couple clothing items for Ali so her shopping itch got scratched as well.

When we got home I was so tired it was ridiculous.  While Ali made supper I laid down for a mini-nap.  Ali was making a vegan recipe I found for sweet potato burgers.  She also made some “chips” out of one of our rutabagas.  She had mixed results.  The chips tasted decent but baking them in the oven didn’t give them a chip texture, they were mostly soft and mushy.

Ali said she really liked the sweet potato burger but for me it seemed to lack flavor for some reason.

We both were in bed shortly after 9, exhausted.

Dad called me and pushed back his ETA by a day, he should be showing up Tuesday instead of today.  He doesn’t like to push pace when driving and driving in the dark for him is very difficult at this point.  He was only in North Carolina as of 3pm yesterday and he was planning to stop driving around 5.

We got word back about our tax return.  We are getting a decent number back but not nearly as much as last year as a result of the unexpected running club 1099.

Last night after work I finally got to try the February 20 by 12 Challenge.  This is a pretty intense routine consisting of 4 rounds of 5 different exercises.  If you want to read more detail about it, jump over to Dufisthenics, I’ll go into detail about it .  Here is the video of the attempt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCuE81jmWvI

Because of doing the workout it was getting late, I didn’t feel like taking the time to juice myself.  Instead I tried some of the Bolthouse juice I picked up at Sam’s. The stuff looked just as gross as anything I have made myself.  I am happy to report the taste was quite pleasant, better than any veggie based juice I made myself.

I kind of wish I had knew there were these decent pre-made juicing options before buying the juicer.  Sure this is not AS good as making it yourself.  Fresher is always better.  But these juices include a lot more fruit and vegetable ingredients then what I make myself.  Plus the Naked brand infuses some of their stuff with extra good stuff like flax seed, potassium, etc…..

When I factor cost/convenience/time these already in the bottle options may be a little ahead in the real world practicality scale for me.

Last night I went on a Breaking Bad binge, watching the remaining five and a half episodes I had remaining in season 4.  I just couldn’t stop watching.  I didn’t finish up until 2 AM….  I would get to the end of an episode, look at the clock and the weigh my need for a decent amount of sleep versus being able to find out what happens next.  Obviously, “next” won out every time.

It is SUCH a good show and this season was the best of the four probably which is damn hard to do considering the other three seasons are stellar.  The ending of this season was just a masterpiece. I simply can’t imagine it being done any better.

If you aren’t watching the show and you have a Netflix account, add it to your queue, now.  Comparing this season of Breaking Bad to this season of Dexter is like comparing the minor leagues to the majors.  The show was that damn good.

I woke up this morning exhausted but with not a speck of regret for staying up so late.  It was well worth the trade off.

I had mentioned yesterday that I wanted to grab some new pants this weekend.  I have also been wanting to go to one of the local minor league hockey games as well for a little while.  The outlets are right next to the sports arena.  I found out the Everblades have a home game Saturday night.  Even though I am not remotely a hockey fan it is fun to attend a game every now and then.

I told Ali last night that we could make it a tandem deal, go shopping at the outlets and then go to the game on Saturday night.  Ali immediately threw cold water on my face, telling me we were already going to the Pet Lover’s Ball Saturday night, shit.

Yea the Pet Lover’s Ball is not a bad time but if I was given a choice to go to the outlets & hockey or the ball, I would definitely take the former.  Rubbing elbows with the ultra-rich at the Pet Ball is interesting for a short while but then gets old for me quickly.  I really don’t like acting like I am part of the elitist crowd.

I had no idea that we were going to the Ball until Ali said something last night.  She assured me she has said something to me about it in the past week or so.  I assured her she did not.  When it comes to remembering details about what I have been told I am pretty sure I will outscore Ali on a consistent basis.  There is a chance she said something, thinking I was listening to her but I doubt that as well.  Going to the Ball isn’t something I wouldn’t gloss over.

I am off all next week for my family’s visit which include my dad, step mom, brother, his girlfriend and the two dogs.  Ali and I will be quite busy doing prep around the house this weekend.  There is a lot to do.

To complicate matters we have a race to time on Saturday morning which will eat up about half of the day.  I also really need to get a long run in this weekend since I have now made a firm mental commitment to do the Hooters Half Marathon.

I am now three or four days into my WD-40 toenail treatment and I can report it is definitely doing something.  Every morning and night I am filing the affected nails with an emery board (new board each day) and then soaking them in WD-40.  The big toe, which is the worst of the three, has started to lose some of the damaged portion of the nail as it is supposed to.

It will be something else if the solution to a decade of toe woes was sitting on a shelf in my garage all this time.

So I contacted Sirius yesterday regarding my 2nd bill in as many weeks.  I decided to try out the online chat version of their support.  I figured I could avoid the language/accent barrier that often occurs on SiriusXM customer service calls.  It didn’t take long until I was virtually greeted by “Cary”.

I gave her my account info and recapped the situation, explaining I just renewed two weeks ago but for some reason received another bill.  Before I started the chat session I had gone into my account online and compared the radio ID to the ID listed on this latest bill.  They were different ID’s which further reenforced the idea that they were charging me for a radio that was already cancelled.

So Cary asked me what the ID was on the radio I was using.  I told her it was the Xact PnP model, Sirius should already know what the ID is since I have had it in service for years.  Well this started a circle jerk of confusion.  To the rep it looked like the ID number on this second bill was indeed the correct ID for my Xact radio.

I wanted to make sure so I went out to my truck and retrieved the radio.  The ID number was indeed the same number that was on the second bill. So now I was more confused and annoyed.

So if this bill is for my current radio, what exactly did I pay to renew on February 3rd?

The rep said she looked at my account and said that my Xact radio did show it was renewed on 2/3/12 and that I can disregard the second bill.  Hah!  I have been told this several times over the years by Sirius when I received suspect bill notification and every single time when they tell me to ignore a bill I wind up being billed for it anyway and have to waste more time calling them back to correct it.

I looked again at my online account.  The main radio ID that is listed is something different than my Xact radio.  However when I looked at a detailed account summary I saw the transaction that supposedly renewed the Xact unit on 2/3.

I pointed out this discrepancy to the rep and asked for an explanation.  She had none forthcoming and instead again just assured me that I can disregard the bill that was in front of me.

I told “Cary” I was going to be extremely annoyed if I see that Sirius goes ahead and charges me a second time on the date listed on the new bill.  I asked for her full name and some sort of reference number I could refer to if this occurs, which I assured her was very probable.

“Cary” said I could keep a copy of the chat transcript as my record and was unable to provide me a reference number.  Well that sounded idiotic and I let her know as much.  She had no further answers for me and asked if there was anything else she could do for me.

I can almost assure you I will be billed again by Sirius, despite their assurances I will not.

Last night we had our monthly running club meeting.  It was pretty mild and short in comparison to some meetings we have had in the past year.  Typically I am one of the few board members that have regular action items to go over, most of them related to race logistics.

Last night I only had one item.  It had to do with the club starting a new retroactive policy of making what they pay Ali and I to time races, maintain the web site and all other organizational/IT functions we perform, as reported income.

I was a bit blindsided when I found out this was going to be the case for the prior tax year, which inadvertently meant that in 2011 we took more or less a 30% cut to do what we do for the club because of the tax burden.  I wasn’t real happy about that obviously, who would be?

So anyway my proposal was pretty simple, from here on out our fee goes up 30% to basically absorb the tax hit.  The board realized my point without issue although there was some discussion about how to best handle the tax burden reimbursement.

In the end the treasurer and I agreed just doing a flat 30% bump would keep things simple for all parties involved. I could have been more aggressive and pushed to get reimbursed for the tax hit I will be incurring for last year but I decided not to.

I’m glad there was no big fuss raised about the increase.  There are times when the hassle associated with my responsibilities to the club outweighs what I am reimbursed to do so.  The idea of getting a 30% cut to perform those duties would probably been enough to tip the scales the other way. I already have been dealing with coming up on a half decade of stagnant pay at my real job (actually a decrease in net pay this year), I am a bit sensitive in this area as a result.

I started watching the last of my second 4 episode AVI block of Breaking Bad last night.  I was annoyed to see that for some reason this last episode had the audio and video track badly misaligned.  The audio was lagging behind the video by a good 3 or 4 seconds.  Well I didn’t feel like waiting until I re-encoded the DVD to watch the episode so I just dealt with it.  To say it is mildly distracting would be an understatement.

I think this weekend I am going to suggest to Ali that she comes with me to the outlets, I am sure I will have to twist her arm to do so.  I need to get some pants that fit.  The majority of the khaki’s I wear for work are the same ones I wore when I was close to 200 pounds.  They literally look like sacks on me and require a belt to stay on my waist. Plus a bunch of them are just old and worn out, suffering from fraying at the cuff and some of the seams.

You may recall a couple weeks ago I ranted about my SiriusXM renewal that came in the mail.  I called them up and told them I would rather cancel my subscription than pay their bullshit price increase.  Well my cancellation threat triggered an instant 50% discount for my subscription so I decided to renew.

Well imagine my joy when I receive ANOTHER renewal notice in the mail yesterday.  I wish I could say I was surprised but this is par for the course with SiriusXM, if there is any possible way they can f something up, they will.

When I went online to look at my account activity I saw that I was indeed charged for my renewal at the beginning of the month as I agreed to.  When I looked at the new bill I realized Sirius was trying to bill me for the radio I cancelled almost a year ago!  I have no idea how they are so amazingly consistent with their ineptness.

So now I get to waste more of my time calling them up to ensure that they do not try to bill me for an already cancelled radio.  I can hardly wait to hear what the excuse is this time.

Since we did our official Valentine’s Day dinner last Saturday last night we had a less formal celebration yesterday evening.  I gave Ali a card, a movie gift card that I indicated was good for one, gasp, chick flick of her choice, and the small box of chocolates.

I typically would not buy Ali chocolates but the cute puppy that looked exactly like a puppy version of Nicki sealed the deal.

I picked up the Hungry Howie’s pizza as promised.  We enjoyed it while watching episodes of The Office.  I think the one episode we watched last night might have made me laugh more than any others to date.  It featured the Rabies Awareness 5K.

When reviewing last year’s blog post I saw I made mention of how my body weight had hit the 190lb mark at this time last year. I had almost forgotten that I allowed myself to bounce back that high.  I do recall Randall, who at that time was high on the hog for breaking the Mendoza line for the first time in years, jokingly calling me a “fatty”.

Well anyway, that day was the start of me applying more discipline to my diet and exercise routine.  Around that time I was in the middle of doing the long distance run training for the half marathon last year.  I think I probably fell into that classic trap where you think that because you burned 1000 calories on a run it green lights eating  poorly, in many cases consuming even more than you burned.

Since this time last year I am down a full 20 pounds and have stayed that way for quite awhile.

So yesterday several months of research, consternation and indecision regarding what route to go with an audio upgrade for the SSR finally culminated with my purchase of equipment online. I have compared options buying it all from a local audio dealer, piece meal from various internet sources or from an online audio outfit like Crutchfield.

I decided to go with sonicelectronix.com, who offers similar customer support to Crutchfield but prices their equipment more competitively.  I actually got a better deal calling them up than if I went through their web site which was kind of odd.  The guy on the phone also steered me to some better options for certain items instead of the web site recommendations.

I decided to go full geek and opted for the back up camera that includes the park assist function that utilizes a separate processor to overlay graphics on the image, depicting their distance as potential obstacles.  It’s a feature I wouldn’t have been able to get even on a brand new Camaro. I also got the harness needed to maintain the use of my steering wheel audio controls.

Another nice part about buying from Sonic was I paid no sales tax since they are based in California, they ship it all for free and include the mount adapter hardware for free.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some apprehension about doing this install myself.  I will definitely be taking a “measure twice, cut once” attitude during the install.   I expect there will be many mini-hurdles along the way. Hopefully there aren’t so many to clear that my legs give out. One thing is for sure, I will become much more familiar with the workings of the SSR.

The truck warm rough idle issue is really getting to be a pain in the ass and it seems to be getting more prevalent.  Two footing the gas and brake is never a good thing.  I have already resigned myself to buying a new IAC for the truck, I was just hoping to wait to do it until we get word about our tax return from our accountant.

On the way to work today even after the real rough idle disappeared I had a few unexpected stalls when I was standing still.

So Saturday morning Ali and I decided to cut ourselves some slack and instead of getting up at 4:30 AM to do the GCR club run we instead decided to just run by ourselves a bit later.  Before running we stopped by mom’s place.  We had a bunch of items from our garden to give her and I also needed to pick up her tax information as well as her artificial Xmas tree that we store in our smaller shed.

We decided to run around the water park, doing the big 10k outer loop.  About an 1/8th of a mile into the run I suddenly found myself crashing down on to the sidewalk.  I somehow managed to get the toe of one foot stuck in the shoelace loop of the other, tripping myself.  I was stunned for a second and Ali was worried I hurt myself seriously, I went down pretty hard.

A quick physical inventory turned up some brush burns on the side of right knee and some banged up palms but other than that I felt ok.  I got back up and told Ali I was good to go.

Ali kept up with me for the entire run although she was really struggling during the second half.  The worst part of the run just happened to be the last part of it when we turned onto Livingston Road and got smacked in the face with a wind tunnel that lasted all the way back to the park entrance.

There were a few points where I thought Ali was going to stop.  I can normally tell when this will occur based on her breathing which gets uncontrolled and heavy.  To her credit she pushed through those spots although she later admitted to me that she did want to stop multiple times. One advantage of Ali running with me is I can push her to run harder than she would run on her own.  She has been making some strides in her pace lately, running her first sub 8 (7:59) speed mile ever at track practice earlier in the week.

When we completed the 6 miles Ali was spent.  I took a Goo and a drink of water and ran the 2 mile loop inside the park myself, I wanted to make sure I at least upped my mileage from the 7 miles we did last Saturday.  Despite already running 6 miles I trekked the last two at a decent clip right at or under a 9 minute mile pace.

By the time we got home it was close to lunch time.  After eating lunch Ali retreated to the bedroom for a nap. I attended to the remaining house chore items before sitting down to do mom’s taxes on the TurboTax web site.  I have used the TurboTax online version for several years to do mom’s taxes and have had no complaints.

Mom was concerned about her taxes for 2011, figuring she would have to pay into the system since she had to pay taxes on her SS benefits.  When she was collecting unemployment she at least had the taxes taken out up front.  With mom’s current income stream the last thing she needed was a big tax bill.

Well by the time I was done I had good news.  Instead of paying in, mom instead was getting a refund, a sizable refund, probably the biggest amount she ever got back.  Mom of course was very happy to hear the news and was very surprised.  I told her it was because of her low income level, sort of a bitter sweet situation.  Yea it is nice to have a super low tax rate but it would obviously be better to pay more taxes if you had more of an income stream coming in.  Anyway, the extra cash will certainly be a good thing.

Saturday night Ali and I decided to go out for our official Valentine’s Day dinner.  I suggested to Ali we do it Saturday and then on the actual holiday I would treat Ali to pizza since that is her favorite meal of all.

We decided to go somewhere that we knew would be a madhouse in season on a Saturday night, the Naples Carrabbas.  We thought we would be “smart” and get there relatively early at 5:30.  That put us at the beginning of happy hour so we have plenty of time to take advantage of 2 for 1 drink pricing and also hopefully put us ahead of the Saturday night dinner crowd curve. Well one of the two things worked out.

5:30 may be early for traditional dinner goers but it is right in old person prime time.  I was a bit shocked when after I parked the SSR Ali reported a 60 minute estimated wait time. Oh well typically they will overestimate the wait so they can deliver an actual wait time that is less so I figured we would have a seat in 40 minutes or so.

Ali got the happy hour kick started by getting my 2-1 Bud Light taps and her double serving of white zinfandel.  The area around the bar was quite crowded so I suggested to Ali that we head outside to sit on a bench, which we did, briefly.  The cold front had already started rolling in and it was too cold for Ali’s tastes outside, we decided that being warm but crowded was a better alternative.

Well we found a small section of floor that was out of the main flow of bodies.  We entertained ourselves by people watching, primarily old people watching.  I would estimate that 75% of the patrons were 65 years or older.  Seeing what potentially waits down the pipeline for me is pretty depressing although I told Ali I certainly hope to expire well before things would progress too far.  I just have no desire to simply exist where the highlight of my day is a meal.

The four beers I downed did a good job of making the wait tolerable, even as it extended past what we were originally told.   We wound up standing around for 70 minutes until our buzzer lit up. Eventually we got seated and were greeted by our polite but rather generic waiter.  One thing that we typically enjoy at the Naples Carrabas are servers that make an effort to engage the customers in a very friendly way.  Well this guy was not up to snuff in that regard.

Our meal itself was good as normal.  Since it was “Valentine’s Day” I didn’t even make a fuss about getting desert after a caloric bulging pasta and bread filled meal.  Ali I shared  some chocolate desert that went well with my coffee.

Saturday night I started watching season 4 of Breaking Bad.  Randall had given me the season on a set of DVD-R’s.  Well the 360 can be weird when it comes to playing content on DVD-R’s.  Although I watched Dexter on burned DVD-R’s as well, for some reason the BB discs absolutely would not play.

Well after futzing around unsuccessfully with it for a bit I punched “breaking bad” into the 360 Bing search to see what my online options were.  I saw I could get episodes on Vudu, a service I never used before.  If I signed up for the service I got a $5 credit which was enough for me to “buy” the first two episodes.

Well of course I had no intentions of buying all of the episodes. I later figured out a work around.  I throw the dvd into my computer and create a 4 episode AVI file that I can stream to the 360.  I tested it out last night and it works well.  It goes without saying that so far the current season of Breaking Bad is outstanding.

When I woke up Sunday morning I felt crappy.  Basically the lower half of my body just felt shitty.  The spot where I fell not only had painful brush burns but also some bruising as well.  Me left knee didn’t feel fantastic either.  I was walking around like a stiff 80 year old for a good portion of the morning.

Sunday was very low key for the most part.  I was feeling unmotivated plus it was damn cold outside, in the 40’s for a good portion of the day.  I did have one suggestion, to take the dogs out to the swamp for a walk, since the cold temperatures would help prevent them from getting overheated. We headed to the swamp after lunch.

As expected, the dogs definitely had more endurance walking in the cold air, we wound up going the furthest into the swamp on foot than we ever had.  I sort of expected to see a lot of gators out trying to warm up in the sunshine.  I was surprised that we saw no adult gators at all, only 3 baby gators up on a log.

We did have a swamp first as we were on the way back.  A decent sized animal, a little smaller than Nicki, darted out on the path in front of us.  It paused for a few seconds before the barking of the dogs scared it away, it was a bobcat.  Ali and I knew that bobcats were a pretty common Florida predator but they are typically nocturnal.  This was the first time we ever saw a bobcat in the wild.

After the dogs settled down we continued walking until we ran into two women walking into the swamp that Ali happened to know.  We were surprised that after we told them of the bobcat sighting, pointing back to where we saw it, the bobcat had reappeared, standing in the middle of the path, interested in something. It was a cool way to wind up the hike.

Sunday evening I watched the Planet of the Apes movie, the new one of course.  Ali started watching the movie with me but soon bailed.  The theme of the chimps getting abused was not something that she was interested in watching. Of course the abuse lays the groundwork for some payback later on.

I liked the movie overall although there were some loose ends that were sort of left dangling in the wind.  I couldn’t help but think about that woman that had her face ripped off by a chimp repeatedly through out the film.  I’d give the flick a B+, worth a rental.

I have outlined once or twice the annoying problem I have with toenail fungus.  It has been an issue for a long, long time, probably pushing 10 years at this point.  Thankfully it has been isolated to only 3 of my 10 toes.

Well over the years I have been trying various things to clear it up.  I have applied various creams to the affected toes before bed and then covered it with a sock.  I have soaked the feet in warm water and epsom salts.  I have cut the nail super short and tried to file the affected area.  None of it has really worked.

Now I think part of it is a lack of patience and consistency on my part.  It takes a long time to treat this sort of thing and an even longer time for the affected nail to grow out.  I think I have not been diligent enough.

Well anyway I recently did a search for home remedies for the problem and hit on this page.  Two of the suggestions I had not heard before, using vinegar and/or WD-40.

WD-40 is truly a magical substance.  I have heard it suggested for all sorts of applications outside of it’s intended automotive lubricant designation.  Anyway I read multiple reports of people treating their fungus successfully by simply applying WD-40 to the affected area twice a day, simple enough.  Hey I have nothing to lose.

On a related foot subject, when I was at Sam’s Club Friday I got the inspiration buy some new socks.  My sock drawer has been filled with mostly older socks that are the varying shades of off white / gray that socks go through during their lifespan.

Well I saw packs of BLACK socks and was inspired.  Black socks make so much sense. If black socks get dirty  they still look black, what a brilliant invention.  I had two choices, Burlington socks and New Balance branded socks.  Seeing the Burlington socks were made in the USA and the NB socks were made in Mexico made the decision a no brainer.  I threw out any even slightly questionable old white socks I had in my drawer and added my 11 pair of fresh black socks to the mix.

Next week my dad, step mom, my brother, his girlfriend and the two dogs will be arriving for an extended visit.  I am taking all of next week off as a result.  I am hoping to get all of the SSR radio upgrade stuff ordered so I can use some of that time to do the installation.  Dad is always looking for a project to help me with when he visits anyway.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention Whitney Houston died.  As you can tell I am really broken up about it.  I have little sympathy for someone with so much talent that threw it away and basically turned into a crack whore.  I have a very Amy Winehouse’esque attitude about it.  If you are going to keep playing Russian roulette with your life, don’t be surprised when you finally hit the chamber with a bullet in it. See ya later Whitney.

Several years ago the county I work for made a dramatic change to their health care plan.  They installed three different levels of coverage, BASIC, NORMAL and PREMIUM.  As you move up the chain you have smaller deductibles and less overall out of pocket expense.  The theory was if you put in the work to take care of yourself through a healthy lifestyle  you are rewarded for doing so.  The employer also benefits because presumably a healthy person will require far less cost in terms of health care dollars than someone that ignores their health.

When this was introduced I was all for it.  The ideological part of me thought that this may actually provide enough incentive to encourage the masses of health ignorant people to do something about it.  I recall even saying at the time that this would be a great model for a national healthcare plan.

Well in the years since it’s implementation I am sad to report that the basic human trait of laziness has won out.  You can be a 400 pound chain smoker and STILL be on the premium health plan.  The only difference is you have to complete a few “awareness” classes where they tell you it is stupid to be morbidly obese and to smoke.  There is however no requirement for you to change in any manner whatsoever, you just have to attend the classes.

I imagine that it isn’t legal to tie insurance coverage to certain number thresholds like a BMI range or excluding people that smoke.

Well of course people caught on very quickly that although it is inconvenient to have to go to a few classes, it is far less inconvenient than taking a hard look at themselves and making permanent changes to their lifestyle.  I have not seen even one example of somebody making any significant change after these health screenings when they are told the pitfalls they are facing with their health moving forward.

Hell I heard one woman complaining that the health advocate said she was right on the verge of being a diabetic due to her weight gain.  She acted like the woman was out of line for telling her that.  I almost choked on the irony of her ignorance.

As is normally the case, in most situations, human nature is just very disappointing.

Not feeling overly chatty.

I spent some time trying to do so home work for the perspective SSR audio swap.  There are LOTS of moving parts that have to come together.  It’s a bit daunting.

Yesterday when I was leaving the gym the truck actually started up and idled just fine.  I will be monitoring the situation closely.

I finally got smart enough to look at the weather forecast before heading out in the SSR today.  It will be spending it’s first Friday in month’s in the garage due to the 30% chance of rain.

This weekend I guess I should be doing a long run on Saturday if I want to actually do the half marathon that is coming up in a few weeks.  I haven’t signed up for it yet.  I wonder if I would feel the same satisfaction if I simply go out and run 13 miles under two hours without the pomp and circumstance.  My motivation has been lacking.

This weekend we may do an early Valentine’s Day dinner, I’ll have to see what Ali prefers.