All posts by Duf

The weekend was ok, even though I was and still am feeling sick I loaded up on cold meds to help me be able to function enough to get the stuff done I wanted to. My illness has transformed from just being extremly lethargic and weak to having an infinitely runny nose along with a good dose of sneezing, coughing and looking like I just got done cutting a dozen onions. I’m really sick of it. (no pun intended) I was a good son and took my Mom out to dinner for Mother’s day.

The Survivor finale was great. So much drama, hurt feelings, backstabbing and twists that it is pointless to try to recap it all. Just a few points:

Jenna was stupid to backstab Rupert.

I never saw 2 finalists get hammered at the final vote as much as Rob and Amber did, however, what Shi_Ann said was quite true. Anyone complaining about being backstabbed didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, it is part of the game. Lex was the biggest complainer about being done wrong yet he cut the legs out from multiple people himself.

Amber actually looked BETTER on the island. She looked like trailer trash at the finale.

Rob looked like he has been sucking on a helium tank, he fattened right up.

Richard Hatch is a camera hog

They focused too much on the Rob/Amber stuff in the after show, they didn’t talk to half of the people

I can’t believe Rob proposed to Amber, what is the over/under till that ends?

Plastic surgery is amazing, they actually made Sue look like a woman

The Tom fake handshake was an all-time classic

What is with Jeff Probst, standing out on the landing gear of the copter just holding on with one hand? Little turbulence and bye bye Jeffy.

I thought in was in poor taste to show 10 promos for the upcoming Charles Manson documentary…. stupid.

It was the best Survivor to date.

The house next door SOLD. Woohoo, my property value just shot up 50k more than I thought it was worth! Down the street there is an empty lot for sale, it is the same size as ours that we paid roughly 23k for 3 years ago, it is listed for 87k! Incredible.

The house that is being built right next to our place had an info/sales sheet in a tube on the realtor sign. Being nosy, I grabbed one. The house being built is slighter bigger than ours, it has 3 car garage opposed to our 2 and it will have 4 bedrooms as opposed to the 3 we have. It is on a smaller lot than ours and does not include a pool, paved driveway or outside storage shed.. The sale price floored me, 335k! The idea that someone would pay that much money to put up with the hassles we do living out there amazes me. However I am pulling whole heartedly for it to sell for that. Such a sale would set the bar very high on our property value which will greatly benefit us. If we can just put up with the inconvenience for awhile yet there could be a big payoff down the road.

I have spent a good 4 or 5 hours working on a pc here that has some ultra-resilient spyware installed on it. I have cleaned it repeatedly both automatically using tools like SpyBot and AdAware and manually gone in and deleted rouge files. The damn thing reinstalls itself after cleanup. It is just crazy how dug in some of this junk can be. I am not sure what is worse at this point, spyware, spam or viruses/worms. If your spyware detection software flags something called Evula, watch out, you are in for a lot of headaches.

Weekend is basically a house chores session. I am hoping I get some strength back so I can do it all. Right now I still feel pretty terrible.

I like disaster movies, they entertain me. When I saw the previews for 10.5 starting a month or so ago it looked fantastic, awesome special effects, things blowing up all over the place, great stuff. Well I suffered through 4 hours of it. It sucked. It had some of the worst acting I may have ever seen in a movie. Bo Duke was in it as a middle aged dad, I just wanted to see him jump the General Lee. It sucks seeing him as an old dude. The story lines they had going were way too many, way too sappy and very poorly written. They used a lot of the “24” style of production where you have multiple windows going at once, that was extremely annoying. If anyone else sat through this I would love to know your opinions. The special effects were good, that was it, and unlike most disaster flicks where crisis is averted, this one ends with southern california becoming an island. Total waste of time.

Last night was Big Band night on American Idol. Damn it was boring. I don’t quite understand the reasoning behind having these kids sing all these genres of music when it is all about being a pop star. Didn’t enjoy it one bit. What was up with Paula crying at the end?

I have been home sick the past 2 days. It’s an odd illness where the main problem is I feel extremely weak and achy like you do when you have the flu but I don’t have the other symptoms. Just standing up makes me tired. Hope to kick it soon, feeling ill really gets me down.

I woke up without the alarm on Saturday morning. I didn’t feel any better than the day before but I didn’t feel any worse either so I guess that was all I could ask for. I pulled out of my place solo (we decided ALi would stay home to watch the dog) at about 5:45 am. The tourney website said you had to be there by 8 or risk paying a 10 dollar late fee. Well of course I didn’t want to pay more. I got there way early, about 7:25 am. I checked in, waited for my partner to show, applied sunblock, went to the bathroom a few times and waited and waited. Our pool play did not begin till 10 am which sucked. They said it was due to a “computer glitch” F that, if the computers don’t work do the pools by hand.

This was the first time I ever played with a “blind” partner, I never even met him before. He is a funny guy and a good player. We started out the day well, we jumped to an 8-0 lead in the first game and then stuck. We were playing a team that just was not good and somehow we let them get back into it and I think we were actually down to them 8-9 at one point. We came back and won the game but it was way closer than it should have been. In doubles it is crucial to know what your partner will and won’t get because if you both go for a ball usually it ends up badly. We had a bunch of that going on.

Game 2 was against some young asian kids. They warmed up forever and then just before the match they dropped and did some pushups and handstands, a new experience for me. These kids weren’t awesome hitters but they were good with placement shots and they were fast as hell. Balls I thought they had no shot of getting to they would get up with relative ease. We had a bunch of long rallies with both teams making good saves, however in most of them they wound up winning. The game went on for close to an hour. With temps pushing the upper 80’s with high humidity it was pretty tiring. In the end they won by 3 points.

After that long battle we had to immediately play our 3rd and final game of pool play. I didn’t think about it before the match but this game would determine if we did or didn’t make it to the playoffs. If I had thought about that I may have played with more desperation. It was a team that we should have beaten pretty easily. Like all the other games we shot out to an early lead and then faltered. A lot of sloppy plays and unforced errors on our side did us in. That last loss hurt the worst.

Even with the setbacks I think we generally had a good time playing with each other and I think many of the problems we had could be rectified with more regular play. We are going to play another tournament in 3 weeks.

The best part of the tournament was that I came out of it virtually unscathed. No significant limps, no shoulders that felt like I should be in a sling, just 2 brushburns on either knee. That is great and gives me some confidence that I may be able to play some significant hours this season without having to deal with severe week after trauma.

The rest of the weekend was low key. Alison did the majority of the weekend chores while I played which I appreciated. On Sunday we took Nicki back to the dog beach only to find that again we hit it at high tide, even worse than last time, there was no dry beach to be found at all. So we put our gear back in the car and just let her run and play in the water for awhile. She had fun. Later in the day Ali asked me if there was more I wanted to get done and I think she was surprised when I calmly said “Nope”. Even though there were a lot of things I could do, I had some inner discussions where I came to realize that the only one that really cares about all this stuff I do is me. There is no pressure to get all that stuff done every weekend except from myself. I am seriously going to try to ratchet it back as best I can in order to make things less stressful for myself and Ali.

Got to watch the first Kill Bill movie, I enjoyed it, looking forward to seeing the second one.

Gnome has been bitchin so I thought I would drop a quick entry in. When you live in a hole in the ground like a gnome does there isn’t much else to look forward to.

I have been more or less healthy for at least 6 months, maybe more. During that time my wife has come down with sickness after sickness. Wouldn’t you know it, last night 2 days before I am playing in my first meaningful volleyball action in almost a year, I start feeling sick. I have that feeling you get in your throat before illness and I feel weak and tired. Just perfect. I’m hoping for a miracle recovery between now and tomorrow at 9am.

Shi-Ann got the boot last night on Survivor, eliminating me from the Survivor pool I am in. Adios to my shot at 350 bucks!!

Simon had a classic line the other night comparing John Stevens singing latin music to putting chocolate ice cream and onions together….

Bloggin has been slim, I have had some projects underway that will keep me busy for a bit.

I haven’t made any blog comments regarding this season’s American Idol although I have been watching it faithfully. However since we are down to 6, I thought I would offer up my opinions on each.

Diana Dewhatever – she sings well, she is very young, it annoys me that they always flash to her butterball mother during the performance. Diana is only 16 and already looks like she is a only a few twinkies away from joining mom in porkertude. She doesn’t have anything that would make me want to hear her over anyone else.

Fantasia – a natural performer, highest energy of the group, however most of her songs sound the same to me, really found it annoying the other week when they brought her kid on the stage right after she sang, seemed almost like a ploy to draw votes (which backfired as she was in bottom 3)

The Hawaiin girl – She is another good singer but she seems to have a hard time getting through an entire song without hitting a few rough spots. She looks better since she stopped putting the flower in her hair every week. However I don’t think there is anything unique enough to let her win

Latoya – I think she is the best in the group, she sings great, looks good and dances well. However I will be surprised if she wins because I don’t think she has huge support because she doesn’t have any “quirks”

George – George is Alison’s favorite. His personality is his best trait. He sounds great if he sings a song tailored to his voice. His recent performances have been less than spectacular. I don’t think he will win.

John Stevens – I pity this kid. Although he has definitely made an effort to display more personality as the show has progressed he just is overmatched. His voice is tailored for doing Christmas albums, nothing else. He should drop out and get right to work on his Xmas compilations. He seems like a great kid but he just can’t sing pop songs with that voice. He’s the next Johnny Mathis.

There ya go for all those that follow AI, let me know your thoughts. If I had to pick a winner at this point I would imagine it would have to come down to Fantasia or Latoya, however the recent voting says otherwise.

This weekend I kick off my 2004 volleyball season with a tournament in Siesta Keys with a guy I never met before who lives on the east coast of Florida. I met him on a volleyball message board and we agreed to give it a go. Rich, my preferred partner for the past 10 years or so has more or less retired from serious volleyball. So I hope things go well this weekend so I have someone to play a few tournaments with down here. It is tougher and tougher each year to find the time and motivation to play but everytime I do I wind up being happy I did so I will continue on as long as I can. Physically I am holding up better than I have in many years so maybe I can actually do a few more touraments this year instead of steadily decreasing my number of tournaments like what has happened the past 5 years. Forecast is for the upper 80’s and muggy. Whew…..

I swear, 80% of the time I look at the Reading forecast it is rain, it’s become east coast Seattle.

Wow almost 3000 hits on the blog, only 97,000 to go till I hit my goal.

This weekend was not very relaxing for me. I felt overwhelmed all weekend. I had a list of stuff to get done and didn’t do it all. I spent way too much time making an impossibly long list of things that I would like to address and then being frustrated by the inability to do it all. I don’t think the upkeep on the house is anything greater than when we first moved into it but it sure feels that way. When I feel overwhelmed and that I don’t have things firmly in control, I get real down. I can’t mask it, can’t push it away, I just clam up and think about how it sucks.

When I lived at home I aspired to live on my own. When I lived in the townhouse in Wernersville, I aspired to live in a single family home, detached from immediate neighbors. Now that I have been in a single family home for going on 3 years, I am thinking a house with minimal or zero maintenance is ideal. What I want seems to be a moving target and even when you hit that target it only seems to give temporary satisfaction. At this point I am trying to find some angle that I can get my moods elevated and devise a way to satisfy the home maintenance issues without driving myself insane.

On an up note, Sunday we took Nicki back to the dog beach. Unlike the first time when she was extremely timid and afraid to go in the water, this time she was much more open and was in the water with us constantly. It was really funny to see her walk and eventually swim for the first time in the gulf. She was running back and forth in the water after a little while and seemed to have a great time. The rest of the day she was passed out cold from being so tired. By the time we left, the dry area on the beach was next to nothing, it must have been high tide. We came back from a trip in the water to soaked blanket and a beach bag that was “marked” by an over zealous canine. We will take her back on a regular basis. It is a good, fun, free entertainment, something we can use right now.

This week the wheel started to very slowly move in the direction of us selling our place. On Tuesday after a long day we were on our way home and ran into a huge backup. It was creeping along. After a few minutes realizing this was going to be a long delay, I swung a u-turn to go the only other way there is to get to our place, although it is significantly longer, at least we would be moving. WRONG. On that road traffic was snarled due to a head on collision where both vehicles were destroyed and incinerated. It took us over an hour and a half to get home. During that time I turned to Ali and expressed how “Sometimes, I really HATE where we live” It’s true. Although I love our house, I love the normally quiet neighborhood I hate the commute. I hate sitting in traffic every damn morning, I hate spending over an hour to go 23 miles. The roads in our area are the most dangerous in the county. They are 2 lane roads with no medians with vehicles going in excess of 60 mph. People get frustrated and do dangerous manuevers like swinging out into oncoming traffic in attempts to pass a slow vehicle. All it takes is one maniac, one drunk, sleepy or distracted driver to cross over the line and take you out in flash before you can even react. All these things have been pushing me along for quite awhile towards ideas about relocation. We spend 40 hours a month commuting for cripes sake. So I got a rough idea of value of houses in our area. The downside is although our property has appreciated greatly in the 3 years we have been there, so has everything else so even if we clear a big chunk of change in the sale, chances are we will be lucky to move anywhere and keep a similar mortgage. So who knows what will go down, I just know I am thinking about the possibility more and more. The idea of living in a development where there is little to zero maintenance and is close to my workplace is sounding like where I want to be.

This weekend Alison has to work Saturday. I have yet to be able to time it that on days she has to work on a weekend I can just be a bum and enjoy myself. Instead I have a plate full of stuff I would like to do. I need to clean, mow, pickup, trim and even go over to my mom’s place to do a landscape project I have been putting off for too long. I just can’t get off that treadmill.

Today we Naples folk had a brush with the president. He was in town for a 25,000 DOLLAR a plate fundraiser among other things. However his motorcade went right by the building where I work. All traffic in the area was blocked and it looked like an impromptu parade. A lot of people standing by the street hoping to catch a glimpse. Needless to say with my views of his administration I wasn’t one of them. However I did wonder how it would be received to be standing out there and then suddenly shooting the moon as the prez rolled by. Of course I could never do such a thing in real life but damn would it be sweet. Some of the women in our office were out there and came back inside near hysterical because they SAW him and HE WAVED to them!!! Oh my.

To me the true definition of a hero is through actions not words. I was shocked to hear that Pat Tillman was killed on duty in Afghanistan. For those not sports oriented, he was a pro bowl caliber defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals. After 9/11 he walked away from a multi-million dollar contract to join the Army. Not a cushy job either, a ranger. I can not fathom the conviction this man had. He had what would be my dream situation, a successful pro athlete and he turned his back on it to serve the country. Although his bravery was no greater than everyone else’s that joins the service, the situation he left to display that bravery is incredible. And now he is gone. I can only aspire to be the type of person that he was. He didn’t go out and buy a flag to hang from the window of his car like most of us. He gave up a dream job that would have set him up for the rest of his life and now at 27 it’s over before it began, very, very sad.

Today I went to the gym over lunch, like most other days. I was doing dumbell pullovers when a petite woman who I would shortly found out was 44 started up a conversation.

She said something about working out and how she wasn’t young like me. I said I don’t feel that young which in turn lead to her telling me her age and I told her mine. She then made a comment about “At least you don’t have a debilitating disease…” Then in the next 10 minutes or so I found out the following background from this woman, without me making any effort to extract any information from her.

She has MS, had it for 14 years
She takes 4 types of medicine a day it costs 1000 a month, she is lucky she is with a rich man
She used to be an athlete, could run 5 minute miles
She was an artist, she made a lot of money with her art, she can’t do her art anymore because of the MS
Got married once when she was 16, divorced at 20, married again at 26 divorced at 30, currently in a 16 year relationship with a man but is not married.
The man she is married to is 60
She has a 10 year old son
Her son is “good looking like you” (me)
Her boyfriend is filty rich, he owns 6 McDonald’s, they have 2 Rolls Royce’s, A Ferrari and an Avalanche to name a few of their vehicles. They also own many houses.
She has a 6’8″ 300 lb nephew that went to an all black school to play football even though he never played football before.
In their home up north they have a smaller house in front of their bigger house. She said that will be her son’s “get lucky” house when he is older.
She used to do fox hunts
She can no longer drive, she got to the gym on a push scooter.
She tries to stay in shape, she think she doesn’t look too bad for her age
She was smart and had a kid with her boyfriend
She said since she isn’t married she can cheat as long as she doesn’t get caught.

I am not exagerrating and there are probably a few things I missed. All the time she is talking I am trying to continue with my workout without being rude. I am doing my sets and she just keeps talking away. Plus she was loud so everyone in the immediate area could hear what she was saying. In a nutshell, I got the impression she was looking for me to volunteer to be her boytoy. Since I had my lifting gloves on she could not see my wedding ring. Finally I got away because I had to go work another bodypart. She went to the lockerroom and then came back out and tried to start up again but I only minimally engaged her and continued on my workout. It was funny as hell. The one guy that was nearby could not believe the stuff she was saying. I’ve never been solicited at the gym before. I felt bad for the lady because she has MS but never expected her to go where she did. Crazy.