All posts by Duf

I had another one of those bite your toungue when you shouldn’t have moments. My wife’s watch had a dead battery. It has one of those press seal backs so I couldn’t replace it myself. In the past I have taken our watches to this place at the mall run by some immigrant that always did it for us quick and cheap. Unfortunately it appeared that his store was no longer there. As I wandered around I saw one of those stands in the middle of the hall that sold watches and advertised battery replacements.

Running this booth was a balding, short, middle aged man. I politely asked him “Can you replace the battery in this watch for me?” The reason I worded it that way was because it was fossil watch which wasn’t something they sold there, I just wanted to verify they could do it. He responded (paraphrasing) about how they spent hundreds of dollars on the signs advertising battery replacement for nothing. Of course he can replace it. He said this while smiling. In that split second I had to instantly analyze if this guy was just making a joke or being a genuine smart ass. By the time I decided he was being a smart ass he was already into the watch. Now the choice was to just shut up or expose his remark. I decided it wasn’t worth it. The guy was probably bitter about having a career as a mall watch stand tender. However, it is sticking in my craw. Even as I walked out of the mall I was debating if I should call him out. Even if he thought my question was ignorant, I am presenting him business as a customer, therefore it becomes a mute point. This sort of stuff drives me crazy. I should have asked for the watch back immediately and made a scene. Instead I did the “logical” thing. Damn it is a hard habit to break…

A constituitional amendment to ban gay marriage? You have to be joking. What role does government have in individual relationships? If 2 gay guys or women get married, how does it adversely affect society? I could care less. To attempt to mandate such a thing from a federal level is outrageous to me. So many other things to worry about that actaully affect our citizens and GW decides this is his focus between trips to the ranch. I can only hope this fuels the momentum behind getting him out of there.

Today we are getting absolutely dumped on. It may be some of the hardest rain I have ever seen. It wouldn’t be that noteable except that it is February which is normally very much a dry time of year. A look out the window and you would think everything was under a waterfall.

Being permanently sleepy is starting to become a state of being for me. I have had a very hard time getting a solid night’s rest recently. Last night I was awakened at 4am by the sound of the cat throwing up by our bedroom door. I certainly wasn’t going to get up at that moment and clean it up. Just as I managed to fall back asleep, the cat jumps on the bed and wakes me up again. In one instinctive move I grab the cat and fling it off the bed. I then jump out of bed and chase the damn thing out of the room. The quick adrenalin burst keeps me from falling back asleep until just before the alarm sounds at 5:45. Yawn……

Here are the 3 pictures I took of the puppy. 1 2 3

I went back to volleyball after a 3 week hiatus due to my shoulder killing me after the last experience. Overall I played subpar to average at best. My shoulder hurt but not as severely as before. I had one hit that was in rhythm that made the night worth it to me. I hit it in stride, in front of me, hard, with full extension. It was one of those bang bang hits that gives me the most satisfaction. It was good to be able to still do it. But if a set is off or I try to hit a ball that is behind me the slightest bit, I can’t do shit with it but tap it over. I never have been a great sixes player. It doesn’t make much sense, you would think playing with 6 on a side would be much easier than just 2 on a side but it doesn’t work out that way for me.

I never thought I would hear this combonation of words used in a commercial jingle but the good folks at Pepto Bismal have proven me wrong. It goes something like this “Nausea, heart burn, upset stomach, diarhea, indigestion HEY PEPTO BISMAL” Catchy, huh?

I loved this bit on last year’s MTV music awards!

I really don’t enjoy having to do prolonged thought on things. It wears on me. For the past week I have been back and forth about the ideas of a vette purchase. I could make strong arguments for either choice and the mental deadlock was really frustrating. Then Friday night a diversion strolled into our front yard. Just after we got home, I was walking Nicki and we both saw a dark shadow going up our property line and then make a beeline towards us. I knew it was some sort of small animal but couldn’t tell much more than that. I held ground, even though Nicki wanted to bolt. It was a small lab mix puppy. Instantly it was sniffing and licking Nicki, when I went to pet it I got tons of licks too. I told Ali we had yet another stray dog. Not again. This one had a green collar that was way too big and a flea collar that looks like it was sloppily applied. Noone uses flea collars anymore, normally people will use those chemicals that you apply to a dog once a month instead.

We escorted the puppy back to the lanai so we could have a better look. It was mostly black with a little brown on it’s head. It looked all lab in the face but had shorter legs and big huge feet. We were guessing that some mexicans owned the dog and that they left it outside tied up. Of course the idea of a puppy being tied up outside appalled Ali. I wasn’t thrilled with that idea myself. The poor thing has some ticks on it and it’s fur was filled with burrs. We gave it some food and water which it consumed like it hadn’t eaten in days. As hungry as it was, it didn’t affect it’s personality, it was all over us. Nicki is normally terrified of all dogs. For some reason she hit it off with the puppy. Within the first 10 minutes they were playing, chasing each other around and having a grand time. Soon the initial joy we had from watching them play together turned to dismay as the reality hit that we had to come up with a plan. Ali of course wanted to adopt it, throwing all logic to the wind. I immediaitely have to point out that logistically, it is a near impossibility unless she can figure out a way to commute TWO dogs to work every day or if we can magically have Ali stay home from work permanently starting Monday. So as the night wore on we ran scenarios. We had a couple options as I saw it. Try to find the original owner with signs or just take her to domestic animals to see if she is claimed and if not be adopted out.

We spent the rest of the night untill 11 pm or so, outside with the puppy and Nicki, watching them play, watching them hang out together, thinking how fun it would be to have the puppy as well, but saddened by the reality that it is next to impossible to manage. We didn’t want to keep the puppy inside because we had no idea about her health, cleanliness, bugs, potty training, that sort of stuff. I took her out on the leash a few times and she went to the bathroom for me on cue, a good thing. We covered the outside table to shield it from the wind and then setup a puppy bed under it. She laid down on it like a good dog and slept there all night.

I slept like shit. The puppy was the last thing on my mind when I went to sleep and first thing on it when I awoke. I looked outside and she was still spread out on the pillow, sleeping. I was surprised she made no mess on the lanai and instead waited for me to take her out to do her business. Again her and Nicki played a bunch. When Ali awoke we had to decide on a gameplan. We agreed that the best option was to take her to the shelter. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of her going back to her original owner since it seemed apparent that she would be nothing more than a tie out mutt to them. It really was tough taking her to the shelter. She sat on Ali’s lap the entire time like an angel, looking about as innocent as you can imagine. At the shelter I had to do all the talking because Ali was crying the entire time. Once the paperwork was done, I asked for detail about the process. They said they hold them for 5 days to see if owners claim them, then they get evaluated and if everything checks out ok they go up for adoption. I told them that if for some reason she wouldn’t be adopted we wanted to be notified because we wouldn’t let her be put to sleep. They couldn’t give any guarantee but they thought there would be no problem with her adoption. When it was time to go, Ali was borderline hysterical, I was upset too. I didn’t even look at the puppy as we left because I wanted to maintain composure.

The rest of the weekend, I thought about the puppy all the time. Very odd that I got so attached so quickly but it had just about the perfect personality to go along with it’s cute appearance. I was very sad on Saturday, on Sunday I tried to keep busy with work and other stuff to keep my mind off it. Today, I already called the shelter to see if the owners claimed her and to get a clarification on the process. Adopting her is still on my mind but I have not been able to come up with a feasible plan for doing so..

The puppy situation was that slap in the face I needed to divert my attention from a vette. I am sort of half hearted pursuing it at this point. I am not sure why though because I think I already have determined that right now, that money would be better utilized otherwise.

I just extracted a long gray hair that was curling out of my left nostril. How pleasant growing old is. I have some stuff on my ears that has to go as well…

I have to thank Keener for this classic link. It looks like almost every one of those covers were from the 70’s. What a god awful decade for fashion.

We just had to evacuate our building because some old lady pulled a fire alarm handle, thinking it was a way to open a door. This woman drove here.

I have seen these around for sometime. I’d love to have one in my office so the geeks that watch my cam page could do things like pan around the office, zoom in on stuff, all that junk. However, it would be next to an impossible sell for the wife, unless I raised the funds from the sale of something else or other non-salary sources. I will be scouring my house for potential sale candidates.

The other week, on the drive home I noticed a house with a nice looking vette outside of it with a for sale sign on it. A Vette has always been my dream car, the top of the food chain in GM muscle cars. However the sky high pricing has always been a deterrent. Well a week or so later, we were driving by and again the vette was out there but this time it had a piece of plywood in front of it with 7,000 spray painted on it. Hmmm ok, that drew a double take from me. That is within the realm where I could actually think about it. Then, last saturday, on my way back from a rock pick up run, I stopped and actually looked at it. The owner came out and told me it was an 88. It has over 100k miles, 109k to be exact. On the outside it looks pristine, bright red with hardly a scratch on it. However as with most vettes of this time period, the weather stripping was shit. The owner said he got a quote of 800 odd bucks to replace it all. The interior was not in great shape, it needs new rugs, a new console, a good cleaning and some minor odds and ends. All stuff that I am able to do. All in all not bad for a 16 year old vehicle. He started it for me. It sounded a bit rough, he said it had one of those performance chips in it and it was a little rough until it warmed up. I asked him why was he selling it and how long he has owned it. He lost his job 3 months ago and he only has owned it for a couple months. He said originally he was thinking of asking 10k for it but said he needed to sell it asap and was willing to sell it for around 7k. Sounded reasonable. I told him I’d give him a ring if I had further interest.

Ever since then I have been thinking about it often. Surprisingly, Ali gave me her total blessing on it. She said I deserve it and she wants me to get one. You would think that would be all it takes right? Well my commitment to getting Ali to be able to quit her job this year is weighing on my mind heavily. Purchasing the car would retard the timeline for her retirement from full time work. It feels like a selfish act on my part to get it. The other part of me is saying that once she isn’t working full-time, the opportunity to do something like this may not come for a long time. I’m torn.

In the meantime I did some research and found that actually 7k is an inflated asking price for a vehicle like this. Two different used car guides came back with respective numbers of 4700 and 5200 as reasonable pricing for a private party sale of a car in good condition with that amount of mileage, surprising. I did some snooping on autotrader.com and found some examples of vette’s selling in the 6k range with 20-30,000 less miles on them. I am debating if I want to contact the seller again and pursue haggling the price based on my findings. I even picked up the phone and dialed last night but it was busy 3 times. So here I sit, still debating the path to take. I know what the fiscally responsible thing is to do. I think I will continue on this holding pattern for a bit until something smacks me in the face to definitively steer me one way or the other.

A long three day weekend with lots of things jammed into it. Saturday was Valentine’s day. I started it out by going to the local quarry and picking up stone. Project month continues, with this weekend’s project being a 3 foot stone border around the house. So on Saturday, I got a load of stone, dug the trench, laid the border and weedblock. Then I shoveled the egg rock out of the truck and spread it. (Ali helped with this as well) One load of stone was only enough to do one side of the house and the quarry closed at 11am so that was all I could do for the day. It looked great and wet my appetite to get the other side done. I had to relent for the day.

We cleaned up and got ready for our Valentine’s day gig. I got tickets to the Naples Dinner theatre to see Pirates of Penzance. Musicals are not my cup of tea but Ali likes them and since V day is all about the woman, I bit the bullet and set it up. The place was much bigger in size than I thought. When I bought the tickets, the person on the phone said we had side view seats. It was all they had available. Well they weren’t kidding. We were as far to the side as you can get. Basically, a perfect right angle to the stage. We also found ourselves seated at a table for four with 2 old gentleman. Of course when I saw this, I initially cringed inside. The one guy was a snowbird from Boston, the other guy was a brit from London with a heavy british accent. Surprisingly we were able to keep the conversation going and by the end we actually enjoyed their company. The snowbird made me laugh when he said matter of factly, “When you get old like me, you get grumpy” Hahaha. We related some of our traffic nightmare stories to the brit. He chuckled and said “So that commute causes you distress? In London, my daughter has an eight mile commute that takes an hour and a half, everyday”

He had many interesting stories about life in London. He told us the horrors of the “free” healthcare system in England. He had to wait 7 months to get an angiogram after a heart attack. Then they wanted him to wait an additional year to get a bypass operation. He could either wait the year, hope he doesn’t die or have the surgery done privately (by the exact same doctor) and have it done the following week. He opted for the latter and spent upwards of 30k of his own money to have it done. Free healthcare doesn’t sound quite so appealing to me now.

The buffet before the show was great. Every single thing we tried was outstanding. Just before the show started the stage expanded out into the dining area which meant that at least we would be able to see most of the show, a relief. Once the show started it took me less than a minute to realize that this was going to be a loooong performance. I just didn’t enjoy it. I was constantly referring to the program to see how much longer I had to endure. Sort of like what I would do when I sit through a church service. The performers were good, I guess, but it just didn’t interest me in the least. Some 2 hours later it thankfully ended to a large round of applause from the audience of mostly over 65 seniors. I tried to hide my malcontent from Ali the best I could. She liked it, so that is what mattered.

On Sunday I did a run to Lowe’s to get the materials I would need to finish side two of the rock border project. I got it all dug, bordered and weed blocked that afternoon. All I needed was the rock, which had to wait till the quarry opened Monday.

Monday I was up with Ali at 5:45 am so I could hit the quarry early. In total I had to make 3 trips till I got all the stone I needed. On Monday alone I shoveled about 2 tons of rock. It was cool yesterday (60’s) so it made it bearable. The finished result was great. It will save us lots of weeding time, as well as giving the area around the house a more finished look and being termite unfriendly (as opposed to mulch). The rest of the day was pretty busy as well. I did household chores till around 5:30 pm. Even though the day was chock full of work and it was supposed to be a day off, I didn’t really mind. I need something to keep me busy or else I feel like a bum.

A new Tivo tweak was implemented this weekend. Now I can go to my Tivo via a web page, display all the current shows that are on it, click a link and poof, it fires up the show in media player on my pc so that I can watch it on my computer. Now that is COOL!

I noticed an interesting phenomenon. I know the gnome will attack me for even mentioning this but who cares. Recently, I have switched from briefs to boxers. I find that I walk around in boxers like they were just a pair of shorts. I will walk the dog in them, answer the door in them, and even talk to the neighbors in them, where as I would never do the same in briefs. I am not sure if this is improper behavior or not. I guess I am assuming the people can not discern if I am wearing boxers or just shorts. I need to research this further.

Anyone else think Ryan Seacrest is looking run down this year? I’m not surprised. I believe he is currently doing 2 radio gigs, a daytime talk show AND American Idol simultaneously.

If you would like to see one of the funniest American Idol auditions ever, go see William Hung.

Was anyone else incredibly offended by the reports of the Mexican soccer crowd chanting , “Osama, Osama” during the Mexico /USA soccer match? That is so tasteless and over the line I can’t even describe my anger. We support this god damn country, take in millions of their people and they chant something which is about as anti-american as you can get? F them.