Woops, I forgot to mention when I was waiting for my flight on Saturday, who was sitting right across from me in the terminal but Judge Judy. She lives in Naples. She was with her grand daughter. It was kind of weird to be sitting right there next to her. I didn’t say anything to her. I am surprised more people did not notice. Wild.
I have been slacking on taking pictures of my projects so I finally snapped a few. Here they are.
I had another whirlwind trip up north to play in a vball tournament. I flew out Saturday morning and was back by Monday at lunchtime. On Saturday after I got up there I went right to Gary’s place for an informal cookout. Within the first 5 minutes of me being there I was in the pool with everyone playing pool volleyball. It was very weird, like I was never gone and stepped right back into the crowd. It’s nice to have friends that you can be that comfortable with. I drank quite a bit and played some non-jumping volleyball in their sand court. It was really a fun time for me. A reminder of how I miss those hang outs more then most things from PA.
On Sunday we were out early to our tournament. It was Rich, me, Sue and Jonna. It is the first time we played a quads tournament with 2 girls. We played relatively well all day and were in position to go into the playoffs when it started to rain, HARD. A Florida-like deluge that turned the field into a muddy, slippery mess. People left in droves and so did we. It wasn’t worth risking getting rained on more and/or getting hurt slipping in the muck. So, we piled our drenched muddy bodies into Rich’s truck and left. It was a bummer, almost like reading a good book and then not getting to read the ending. The rotten PA weather strikes again.
Saturday night I hung with my bro and sis-in-law (beat him 2 out of 3 in NFL blitz) and then I was out at 5:45 am to drive to Harrisburg. When I got to the gate I saw they were looking for volunteers to get bumped for a free ticket anywhere. YES! I checked and would get into Fort Myers at 5:30 instead of 12:30. A pain in the butt but I could deal with it for a free ticket. I frantically tried to call Ali at home (left for work) and on her cell phone (no answer, right to voice mail) DAMN IT! I debated if I should just do it and let her know after the fact. I finally decided to not do it since I couldn’t reach her and the idea of spending 4 hours sitting at the HBG airport was going to be miserable since there is NOTHING there to do at all. It pissed me off that Ali didn’t have her cell phone on. It turns out that she said she did have it on and she would have been ok with me letting her know after the fact. Oh well, guess I know for the next time.
The flight home was annoying. It was a late departing and arriving, the planes that US Airways uses are all old, I was stuck next to a 300 pounder on the one leg and the luggage took a good 20-30 minutes to hit baggage claim. After flying other airlines recently like Continental and Delta, US Airways is at the bottom of my list.
I picked up a Wired magazine at the one airport. I love that magazine. It is the only magazine that I read almost every article. It has the kind of info I find interesting. It’s great.
I was off from work Monday and Tuesday. I spent that time doing little house things but spent most of the time working on my home built plane and playing Frozen Throne on the computer. On the plane project, I actually got it into the air and flying. It gave me some satisfaction to see something I totally built from scratch flying in the air, albeit very slow and clumsy. Now I just need to do some design tweaks to see if I can get some better performance out of it. It’s a real pig in the air. My video game playing was probably a good 8 hour chunk out of my day yesterday. Yea that’s excessive but I was in one of those moods that wasn’t very pleasant and sometimes I deal with that by burying myself in a game. I think I was still bummed out about the unnatural end to the volleyball competition and some other little things.
3 day week. Like it.
Has ANYONE ever seen ANYONE use those phones that are built into the headrest of airplane seats EVER? Every plane has them. I can imagine they cost mega dollars to implement, and NOBODY ever uses them. Wonder who got canned for that one?
Tomorrow at this time I will be up in PA again! My friends up there are doing a casual cook out thing which should be a great time. Sunday we play, Rich and I are teamed up with 2 of our female friends. They are both good players so it will be a lot of fun going up against all men teams and giving them a run for their money. The forecast may be a little wet but nothing terrible.
My homemade plane project is progressing along nicely. I hope to have it in the air within a week. It isn’t very pretty but I think it will at least fly.
I have to admit I am watching ONE reality show with regularity right now, Paradise Hotel. Yea it is plenty dumb but it gives me some good chuckles. I was happy to see Zack, otherwise known as Mr I am Smarter, Better Looking, Better Built and Harder Bodied than all of you, get the boot. It took balls for Keith to send him packing, the fireworks were great and the aftermath will continue for awhile.
The puppy got into trouble the other night. She was back in the bedroom like she normally is and was laying in the bathroom. We saw her get up and start acting like she was digging. Since she was on the vinyl in there we thought no big deal and pretty much ignored it. Well a few minutes later I see her chewing on something. The little sh&thead dug a hole in the vinyl floor! After a harsh scolding she was thrown out of the bathroom. We covered the hole with a bathrug for now. I caught her trying to start up again last night and immediately screamed at her. I hope this isn’t a continuing habit. It could necessitate our moving to ceramic tile sooner than we planned.
I love animals. I am very compassionate towards animals. If I catch a spider in the house I trap it in a little device I have and throw it outside. When I find a snake, I relocate it instead of chopping it in two with a shovel like many do. Last night I opened the garage door to pull the car in. I noticed a toad sitting in front of the garage door. This happens all the time as the spotlight draws them in to try to catch bugs. Like I always do, I gently shooed it with my foot. Instead of hopping off to the side it hopped under the car. Great. So I pulled the car backwards so I could see where he went. Evidently he went right BEHIND A TIRE! It made me sick, I squashed the poor guy. Felt like a heel as scraped him up. I tried to do the right thing, really. Really made me sad.
Won’t be back until Wednesday.
I had a very nice weekend. A good mix of doing chores around the house yet still having plenty of time to relax and do what I wanted to do. We went out to dinner on Saturday. I had a lot to drink by my standards, (7 beers) but we had fun. We watched Old School with the couple we went to dinner with. Good thing I was drunk. It had a few funny moments but had one of the dumbest plots I ever had seen. Thankfully it was short movie.
On Sunday we finished up a project with landscaping the front of our house. We have spent 95% of the time landscaping and working on the back of the place since that is where we spend most of our time. Consequently, the front has looked rather bland and untouched. We wound up putting in a river rock border with a couple topiary’s and plants. It’s nothing fancy, but it looks way better than it did. Pictures soon.
I finally embarked on my home made RC plane project. I got pretty far but found out some of the foam I bought tears when you try to cut it. So, I need to find a suitable replacement. I’m looking forward to seeing if it will fly. If so, it will mean I can make 3 dollar RC planes 🙂
Bob Hope died today at 100. It makes me sad to see another childhood memory bite the dust. Granted, his last 10 years or so have not been worth living if you saw the same tabloid pictures of him that I did. Old age is brutal. Just think of poor President Reagan. Can’t remember his own name and craps in a diaper. What a way to go.
Speaking of morbid, depressing things, Fishy may be on his last legs. He is the first of the 2 male beta’s that I have. From what I read, fish only have a lifespan of a couple years. I think his time is coming. He hangs at the bottom and when he tries to swim it seems, wild and uncontrolled. I have been trying to treat him as I did before but it doesn’t appear to be helping this time. I hope he makes it.
After nearly 3 months down here, my mom starts her job today. She is nervous about it but I think she will do fine. She is a very good sales person and has the gift of gab. Crossing my fingers. She is bummed about not having all the pool time but she was bummed about having too much pool time too. 🙂
My mom has been living with us since the beginnig of May. She intentionally did not look for a job when she first came down because she wanted to relax. Well after 2 and a half months of being unemployed she was going pretty crazy. The idea of doing nothing but sitting by the pool everyday may sound enticing but even that gets old in no time. Well she started seriously hunting maybe a month or so ago. She got a job offer from one place that was way too far away and didn’t pay enough. She got a snub from another place that she thought she would have liked. But she finally landed a job with Haverty’s which is a large chain furniture store. This was the closest of all the places she looked into. They offer strong benefits and more competitive pay. She starts on Monday. It will be good for her to get out of the house, she needs to do something.
We saw Terminator 3 last night. It had great effects, a decent plot and lots of great Arnold action. I enjoyed it very much. 2 thumbs up.
We got 3 inches of rain yesterday. Our land looks like a Chinese rice field again.
This week I have been working pretty diligently on getting some Access databases converted so they can be utilized from a web browser interface. I am doing it through Dreamweaver which is much more powerful than FrontPage. It is also more complicated but I have been able to muddle through it. I have a good functional shell up and running. I just need to do some tweaking. When I get involved in stuff like this I tend to get tunnel vision and don’t like breaking out of my train of thought to do other things. (like update the blog)
My past weekend was ok. On Saturday I played golf. I had a typical round. I got off the tee ok but my short game and putting sucked as it normally does. I hit irons all day. It was hot as HELL. One player in the tournament had to call it quits early because he was feeling light headed. The course was very tight. It reminded me of Flying Hills from back home. Lost a lot of balls. Banged one off a roof.
Sunday I did some yardwork and worked diligently on finishing Frozen Throne. (I finished it, fantastic game) Sunday evening we had dinner at the neighbors. They made a HUGE italian meal. This is what they made for 4 people. Big salad with meats, cheese and lettuce, potatoes, pasta, meatballs, spare ribs, chicken, broccoli salad, chicken cutlets, pork cutlets, breaded mushrooms, and a couple other italian dishes I don’t know how to spell. It was the most food I EVER saw at a table. They had 2 or 3 desert choices as well. I felt ill from eating too much. Everything was great, just too much of a good thing.
Played volleyball for the second consecutive week. It was fun and so far my knee doesn’t feel any worse for the effort which is always a good thing. In a week and a half I head to PA for the grass tournament. I am REALLY looking forward to it. Should be a lot of fun.
Yesterday, Ali and I went to get fitted for our braces. It took awhile. They had issues getting a good impression of my bottom teeth. They stuck the goop tray into my mouth 6 times until they got a good one. We should begin the treatment in about 6 weeks. We are both looking forward to it.
The gym is always a good place to get fit and do some people watching. Yesterday I saw a new member. He was young guy, probably early 20’s, shaved head, wearing big baggy shorts with a white, tight, tank top and a black leather looking baseball hat. He wore this high on his head so he almost looked like a mini conehead. A funny look for sure. Today he is there again. Again he has on baggy shorts but now he has on a tight BLACK tank top and a WHITE leather looking baseball hat sitting way too high on his head. I had a tough time not staring as he walked around. Maybe I’m just old and out of style. 🙂 He definitely was coordinating his look, however silly of a look it was.