Front row seat, Rural King, X’d off, Bad News Bears, Timed and toasted

So Thursday I was doing all sorts of scrambling to try to get the Prius ownership transfer done.  The heat was getting turned up because the seller was ready to pull out for Idaho, waiting for the title to clear was one of the last details he needed to attend to.  The seller was suggesting that he could just mail us the title when it gets released but that was not going to fly with me as it literally could have taken WEEKS to get resolved that way.

As I was digging around for any answer, in between frustrating refreshes of the state title check web site, I stumbled across a possible solution, power of attorney.  Basically there is a form the seller could sign off on that gives me power of attorney over the vehicle, allowing me to sign it off to someone else. (Cindy)  Doing this would allow the seller to leave town, releasing the need for him to be geographically present for the transaction to transpire.  This wouldn’t make things necessarily move along any faster for Cindy, as we still needed the state to release the electronic lien, but at least we were removing one layer of complication.  After verifying with one of our MV clerks that what I was proposing would work and verifying the seller was cool with it we were good to go.

I skipped my lunch gym session to drive north to meet the seller to get his signature on the power of attorney form.  We met at a Staples so we could get copies made of the form for his records as well.  As we did we talked about his new truck he got for the trip, his prep, his dog, all sorts of things.  He is just the type of person I find easy to talk to.  I thanked him for his flexibility in getting this all done and wished him good luck on his new adventure.

I was shocked when mid-afternoon after another refresh of the state title site I saw the electronic lien status finally disappear, meaning the title could actually be printed and transferred.  I asked Cindy if she wanted to try to get it done after work but she had too heavy of a workload to make it on time.  We decided instead we would hit the Immokalee office first thing Friday morning before her Lasik surgery.

We hit the Immokalee office first thing, standing by the door waiting for the guard to open it.  We had the title that I signed off on transferred and registered quickly, getting out of the office by 8:15.  We headed back home, slapped the license plate on the Prius and took it for it’s first official drive under new ownership, to Cindy’s Lasik surgery in Fort Myers.

Cindy drove the first leg to Dunkin Donuts, I took over from there so she could do the eye drop regimen required leading up to the procedure.  The Prius drove great and averaged 46-47 mpg, even with driving 75 mph on the highway for 20 miles.

I had experience with being a Lasik surgery bystander as I took Ali for her procedure years ago.  The actually have a window where you can view the procedure from the waiting room.  I recall from the first time around that it was sort of freaky to watch.  The second time around it was much the same.  They have a big tv on the wall which shows the close up picture of the eye from the same perspective as the eye surgeon sees it.  As I watched the eye get pinned open I felt a bit unsettled.  Then when the lens is cut and flipped back I could feel the blood flush to my head, as I felt squeamish, a reflex reaction.  Thankfully the procedure is super quick, she was in and out in about 15 minutes.

Cindy emerged from the surgery area with a valium enhanced smile on her face and protective goggles on her face.  She said the procedure wasn’t bad, more weird as you can see layers being peeled away of your eye.  We carefully loaded her in the car and headed home.    I encouraged Cindy to take the advised nap Friday afternoon since the first few hours after surgery can be the most painful.  They give you one extra valium to help promote that nap.

I had to run out to do a couple errands while Cindy napped.  When she woke up she was feeling a lot of light sensitivity and pain in her eyes which is very normal.  She donned a set of my dark sunglasses to help knock down the sensitivity.  Despite the pain she said she already could notice an improvement in her vision.  As the evening went on she was having some lessening of the discomfort at least.

Cindy woke up Saturday morning feeling better, good enough that she was happy to head out on a pretty long drive that had us checking out Tractor World and Rural King, two similar stores in very dissimilar locations.  Tractor World is in extreme east Naples, Rural King is in Bonita Springs, a solid 40 miles away. We took the Prius once again, wanting to take advantage of the car’s gas sipping personality.  I am not sure why I had recollections of the car being uncomfortable for someone of  my height when I looked at buying one in 2006, I had no comfort issues in either the driver or passenger position with Cindy’s Prius.

So the purpose of this trip was chicken related.  We heard both stores had lots of farm animal supplies and that they may even have some live chickens for sale.  We visited Tractor World first.  The store was big and seemed to have everything a real farmer would need.  Cindy and I enjoyed just wandering the aisles and checking stuff out.  They did not have any live chickens however.  I asked a clerk if they ever carry them.  She said they do but only in April, rats. Cindy picked up a set of polarized sunglasses at TS and was very happy to see that the higher quality lens did a great job of knocking down the light sensitivity she was still dealing with.

Rural King was a new store that only opened up a few months ago.  It was HUGE, if I were to guess they had at least double the floor space of Tractor Supply.  They have just about anything to do with the outdoors inside the walls.  Unfortunately the one thing they lacked once again were chickens.  A clerk there told us they had chickens when they opened but the county came in and made the store remove the birds because of some concerns about their living conditions. Damn it.  We didn’t leave the store empty handed, Cindy bought some more plants for the pool border area.  Rural King is COOL, we will definitely be heading there more often.

Saturday night, despite being one day removed from eye surgery, Cindy and went to go see the new X-men movie.  Before going we had dinner at Iguana Mia, a pretty authentic Mexican place that I hadn’t eaten at in a long time.   We had a very nice waiter but had the visit a bit jaded by the chimichanga Cindy was served.  It was supposed to be heavy on the black beans and rice.  Instead it came out stuffed with nothing but peppers and onions.  When we told the waiter about it he said either we could wait for them to make another one or he could bring us a serving of black beans.  Cindy chose the latter and re-engineered the dish on the spot more or less.

I have always liked the X-men movie series and this latest version was great as well, I would rank it above Spiderman with a very solid A rating.  There are a LOT of characters in this film considering it deals with older and younger versions of heroes/villains.  I think they did a nice job of tying it all together, I enjoyed it.

On Sunday morning we picked up the dogs bright and early so they could spend the day out at the house.  Unfortunately it almost felt like mid-summer temperature and humidity-wise so the girls were not all that interested in extended periods of outdoor play.  Cindy and I worked on various things throughout the day before we left for the second Tarpons game of the season.  We took the Prius with the back seats folded down for dog accommodations.  They had plenty of space back there and seemed quite content on their ride back to Ali’s place to be dropped off.

The Tarpons this week were playing the Corpus Cristi Fury.  Cindy and I hoped that last week’s terrible performance by the Tarpons was only a fluke.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t.  Once again the home team got absolutely stomped, losing by something like 30 points.  It was pretty embarrassing.  Despite the poor performance on the field there is always some source of entertainment to be found.

For example, after the Tarpons scored a touchdown they lined up for an extra point attempt.  The snap was horrible and one hopped cleanly into the hands of the kicker who decides it would be a good idea to try to pass the ball, despite the rest of his team having no idea what was going on.  He cocks his arm to throw and promptly has the ball slip out of his hand.  He chases down the bouncing football and instead of just falling down, again tries to toss the ball wildly in the air to anyone wearing a Tarpon jersey.  Instead the ball wound up neatly in the hands of a Fury player who promptly ran the ball in for a touchdown.  It was an unbelievable display of poor athleticism, poor judgement, and rotten coaching.  Unfortunately all three of these characteristics seem to run rampant on the Tarpons roster.

Just observing the players on the field can be fun.  Cindy and found a few of the Fury players especially interesting. Evidently the Fury doesn’t have the budget to buy uniform tops that actually fit their larger players.  As a result several of their big guys had their jersey cut on both sides so it flapped around like a tabard in the front and cape in the back.  It was very funny.

During the game the owner of the team, whom I had talked to before, was talking to us about the sad state of affairs.  He is basically trying to give tickets away for free to games, just to get bodies in the seats.  The hope is if people see the game they will become interested in supporting it.  Unfortunately, with as poor as the team is this year,  I can’t imagine anyone walking away from a game saying “oh that was awesome, I need to see more”.  This year’s team is simply dreadful.

Thankfully the game Sunday night started early at 5:30 PM, giving me time to get home and packed for the race I was timing Monday morning.  I had the truck loaded and ready to go a little after 9PM.  The race Monday morning was hectic.  Because of some changes we were late getting the registration area up and running.  Once we did we were crushed with over 70 walk up participants.  I was buzzing around more than normal and had to hustle my ass off to get the start line up and running on time.  After the start things settled down for me thankfully.  The rest of the event went relatively smooth.

When we got home Cindy dove into preparing a ton of food for the club’s Memorial Day picnic later that afternoon.  I had a lot of race related work to keep me occupied for awhile before getting to finally relax for an hour or so playing some Hearthstone.  We pulled out for the party around 3PM with the back of the SSR loaded down with stuff including chairs, a cooler filled with alcohol and the four food items Cindy prepared.

The picnic was very well attended.  I spent the majority of my time there chilled in my beach chair drinking Miller Lites while I talked to various people.  I did take the copter up for one quick aerial photography sortie but other than that it was a pretty chill time which Cindy and I both enjoyed.

I was approaching double digits in beer consumption so I had no problem handing over the keys to the SSR to Cindy to transport both of us back home.  The picnic wrapped up a busy but very enjoyable four day weekend.  I wish I could find a way to make a three day work week a normal way of life.