Category Rants

So yesterday I followed up my complaint to animal services via the web site with a call, verifying they got the complaint.  I was glad I called because for whatever reason the complaint was not in the system.  I gave the guy on the phone the details of the situation.  He sounded genuinely angry at the owners treatment of the dog.  I asked what would happen next.

The guy said an animal control officer would be going to the house to inspect the dog’s living conditions and if they are found to be in violation they will be warned.  He said if I still see the dog getting out I should let them know. Ok fine.

I later talked to a friend of mine from the running club who is deeply involved in animal rights in the county.  He told me that county animal services basically does a dreadful job of enforcing code when it comes to animals.  They will issue warnings but then do not follow up to see if the warning is heeded.

Evidently in a case like Thina’s not only would they find her living conditions suck, they also should be forcing the owners to license the dog, make sure she has her shots, and if they don’t want to pay $60 a year, get her spade as well.

My buddy said he is quite familiar with how this goes.  It’s bad enough that Thina has to endure living in a home where she is little more than a lawn ornament.  If she continues to run free around the neighborhood and runs into a loose male dog now all of a sudden one mistreated animal multiplies into 7 or 8 when the puppies come.  It’s a vicious cycle that is fueled by irresponsible and ignorant pet owners.

When I drove home last night I looked at Thina’s property.  The front gate was wide open but the dog was not visible.  What was visible was the garage door was cracked about 6 inches.  I have a bad feeling the answer these idiots have to keeping Thina contained is to throw her in the hot as an oven garage.  During the heat of the day a garage in SWFL is not much different than a sauna. The reason I suspect this is because that is where they put her during one of my trips to their front door with the dog.

I have been in contact with my neighbor across the street about this bullshit as well, she is an animal lover as I am.  She is disgusted with what is going on as well although she is accustomed to dogs being treated poorly in our area.  She plans to reenforce my call to animal services with a call of her own.

I plan to call them back today as well.  First I want to get a case number so I am able to track what is going on.  Second I want to let them know that I suspect the owners have now locked the dog in the hot garage.

Before I headed out to the Ultimate Bowl last night I went home to change and feed the dogs dinner.  Outside my front door was a BIG box.

I knew I had a box arriving from New York, I didn’t know it would be that big.  Inside was a set of heavy duty, homemade parallelettes.  They came from my long distance calisthenics buddy Lou, one of the many great people I have come to know through my involvement with the Bar-barian forums.

Lou makes me look like a total beginner when it comes to exercise.  He eats, breathes and sleeps exercise, 24/7.  His intensity is something I use for inspiration on a regular basis.

Anyway these parallelettes were actually something he made.  He put together some metal parts from an old job he had at a lumber company with some 4×4’s to make a super sturdy set of bars.  He used these for a long time but eventually bought himself a professional set, so he sent me these, for free, no less.

I hope to keep these things forever and perhaps extract some of that magic Lou energy along the way.

So I headed out to the Ultimate Bowl, arriving at the arena around 6:45.  The parking lot didn’t seem to be any more or less full than it was for last weeks game.

I decided to get my first non-$7 ticket for the Tarpons, laying out the big bucks for a seat in one of the corners down low.  I figured since it was the last game of what I assumed would be a perfect 12-0 season I might as well go crazy.

After grabbing a slice of pizza and a beer I found my seat.  Damn it was nice being that close.  I also enjoyed upgraded seating amenities including a padded bottom and a cupholder, sweet.

I took turns watching the pre-game action on the field and walking the concourse.  I downed a couple beers pretty quickly and felt a bit fuzzy.  I walked by the merchandise stand repeatedly, weighing if I should buy anything or not.  Actually the thing I was considering buying the most was a pink Tarpons t-shirt for Ali.  However logic won out as I visualized both my and Ali’s existing t-shirt collection.  Neither of us need another one.  Still, if they would have taken credit cards at the stand, impulse may have won out.

Being that close to the field has other advantages besides the nice close vantage point, you also get to interact with the players.  Before the opening kick off the Tarpon players slapped hands with the fans, including mine, it’s all part of the feel good effort the team puts out for the fans.

The Tarpons opponent for the championship were the Cincinnati Commandos who won the Northern Conference.  The Commandos had three losses this season, unlike the Tarpons sparkling 11-0 record.  I think pretty much everyone in the arena just assumed the Tarpons would steamroll their way to the championship, just as they have the entire season.

Well that assumption took a quick punch in the mouth.  The Tarpons kicked off and on the Commandos first play they immediately scored on a long TD pass.  The pressure continued to be applied and before the first quarter ended the Tarpons were down 21-8.

Well the Tarpons were also down briefly in last weeks playoff game.  They shrugged it off and went on a torrid scoring streak.  The fans were simply waiting for them to step on the gas.  Well the Commandos played really well, they picked a few balls off, put a lot of pressure on the Tarpons QB and had a pretty potent offense of their own.

At one point later in the game it looked like the Tarpons were ready to finally make their move, they were down by less than a score and driving for a TD.  Instead they turned the ball over and it was the beginning of the end.  The crowd was mostly quiet for the last 5 minutes of the game once the outcome became obvious, there would be no perfect season. The Tarpons lost the game by a final score of 62-44.

Despite the outcome I still had a good time at the game.  One of my personal highlights was at half time.  One of the cool things the Tarpon QB does is come out early from the locker room during halftime and play catch with the fans in the stands.  He basically goes around the field and throws a ball to people in the stands and they throw it back to him.

Well my beer induced buzz was still in effect at halftime so I had no issue standing up and waving my flag pole length arms for number 7 to throw to.  He spotted me and sent a pass my way which I snagged cleanly and then threw back to him in rhythm.  It was cool.

Despite the disappointing end to the season I really am glad that I rediscovered local arena football this year.  For whatever reason I found it significantly more fun then when I was a Firecats season ticket holder.

So Michelle, Ali’s normal training partner for her marathon training was unavailable to run on Saturday because she went to a concert Friday night.  When Ali told me this I offered up my services as her pacer, despite her training plan requiring an 11 mile run this week, a distance I have not run since the half marathon in early March.

Since the race I haven’t run any further than 7 miles and in the past month or so I haven’t run any further than 4 miles.  Jumping into an 11 mile run would not be something recommended by any conventional running logic.  Obviously I don’t subscribe to such logic.  As long as the muscle between my ears thinks I can do it that is all that seems to matter. Hell I wasn’t even planning to go to the club run on Saturday, now I am running 11, funny.

So my alarm went off at 4:45 am and I met Ali at her place so we could carpool.  Despite it being very early in the morning the air already felt like soup, heavy with humidity.  We set off at what would normally be a slow pace for me, right at or a little under a 10 minute mile pace.  It was fine with me to err on the slow side since we were running a long way.

During the first half of the run Ali and I were chatting about various things, the pace made it pretty easy to do so.  Well the second half of the run was a different story.

The sun had now come up.  I had decided to run shirtless since I knew I would be soaked with sweat.  I didn’t think I would totally sweat through my shorts as well.  I just had a constant stream of moisture flowing from my body.  I kept wiping annoying streams of water off my elbows on my shorts.

Despite the slower pace, the cumulative miles were taking their toll.  My legs were simply not accustomed to running for that far and that length of time.  Conversation between the two of us was very sparse during the long run back, we both were just trying to keep moving.

To Ali’s credit, she kept pace the entire time, in fact I was sort of letting her set the pace for a good portion of the run.  When Ali runs with me the same thing happens as when I run with Matt, she goes faster.  I have told her before that she should try to get some work in running with someone faster than herself, it will make her better.

Ali pissed me off towards the end of the run.  We were down to about a mile to go.  Despite not saying anything I am sure it was obvious I was not enjoying myself at this point.  Ali says to me something like “if you want to stop and walk back it’s fine…”

To say something like that to me when I am was in the throes of physical misery really annoyed me.  I snapped back at her “Why would you say something so stupid to me?  Since when do I stop… I should smack you on the back of your head!”   She instantly realized it was not the smartest thing to say and dropped it.

So then we are running by a hotel that has this steep incline in front of it’s front door.  Ali says she wants to run it.  I said nothing but followed along, thinking, “you son of a….”  Then just for fun there was one more smaller bridge we had to run across and back at the final turn around point.

So we now had like a half mile to go.  Despite having two legs that felt like they were filled with cement at this point I wanted to put a little exclamation point on the run, to let Ali know that if you ask me if I want to stop, I am going to make you run faster.  I picked up the pace and kept it picked up all the way back to parking lot.  Again to Ali’s credit, she was behind me but more or less kept pace. I think we wound up running a negative split. (second half of run faster than first half)

When it was all said and done we covered the 11 mile sin a sub 10 pace, something I do not think Ali has ever done before for that many miles.  I looked like a sponge that was dropped in a bucket.  I was so glad to be finished.  I think I have established 11 miles is the limit to the distance I can “just do”.

Ali was nice enough to pick up the tab for some DD coffee and a donut on the ride home.  I then loaded the girls up in the truck with their supplies for an extended stay out at the house.  Ali is up in Orlando for a conference until Thursday.

When I got home I immediately headed outside for more uncomfortable garden maintenance and weeding in the brutal heat and humidity.  When teamed up with the early morning run I was absolutely gassed after eating lunch.  I had no choice but to retreat to the bedroom and take a nap for close to two hours.  The dogs were happy to join me.

When I awoke I continued working on what remained to be done.  I took the girls with me for a ride to Home Depot.  Initially I was going to go to Lowes to buy the paint I am going to use in the bathroom.  However in an effort to save some cash, I applied for the 10% mover discount coupon on their website, figuring I can wait a couple days to get the paint.

Well I was on slickdeals.net, looking for Home Depot coupons as well.  I saw on their site that both Home Depot and Lowes honor coupons from competitors.  The post also included a link to an online True Value coupon that gave you $5 off any purchase of $25 or more.  Others reported using the coupon successfully at their Home Depot.  Hey five dollars is five dollars, that would pay for two DD coffee runs. I printed it out and had it in my pocket.

At the store I grabbed two $20 sling chairs to replace the two rotting, greenish chairs on the lanai.  I also got a new towel bar and toilet paper holder that will be installed as part of the bathroom painting project.  So I was easily past the $25 price point and presented the coupon to the woman working the register in the garden center.  I told her that I read online that HD honors competitor coupons.  I handed her the True Valu coupon that I printed off the website.

Well this seemed like news to her, she placed a call to the head cashier and asked if she could accept the coupon.  The answer that came back was no.  She said they honor coupons out of competitor ads but they don’t accept coupons printed online because of fraud.  I told her that I know others have used this coupon at Home Depot but there wasn’t much she could do.  I wasn’t going to stand there and go into a big production over $5 but it annoyed me slightly as I stuffed the coupon back in my pocket.

Sunday morning I had it my head that I wanted to do a bike/swim brick despite my legs feeling pretty tired from the long run the day before.  I also decided I wanted to take my Dawes out of the cobwebs and use it for the ride.  I have not been on it since sometime in 2011.

Wow riding the Dawes is such a different experience than riding the Trek, the geometry between the two feels dramatically different.  To be quite honest, I find riding the Dawes to be more comfortable.

With the Trek it feels like I am reaching down 10 feet to the handle bars.  This steep forward lean helps cut down wind drag but it also results in a lot of weight on top of my hands.   The Dawes position is less extreme and if I am able to utilize the aero bars comfortably, cutting down the wind drag while offering me a much more comfortable riding position.

The temperatures again were brutal.  Despite having the constant breeze from my nearly 20 mph pace, in no time I was again dripping wet.  I got down on my aero bars and stayed there for the majority of the ride, it was comfortable and efficient.  Pretty much every time I looked down at the GPS I was between 19 and 19.5 mph, topping out at 22 during the last mile or so.  I was surprised when I stopped the GPS to see my average pace was 18.9.  I must have dilly dallied too much at the turn around points I guess.

Regardless, I enjoyed the 12.25 mile on the Dawes.  I think I am going to use it for the next few rides.

I then headed inside to swim.  I was quite overheated from the ride and was looking to cool off a bit in the water.  Well that didn’t happen.  I dove in and was immersed in water that almost felt like a bath tub, it was that warm.

I originally had plans to put in 2000 in the pool but I bagged after 1200.  Swimming in warm water when you are already warm kind of sucks. For the ride home I didn’t put the top of the SSR down, I had already met my sweat quota for the day, I enjoyed the AC turned up high for the drive.

After doing some more stuff around the house I took the girls on another ride, this time to Trader Joe’s.  I wanted to stock up on their fantastic, relatively healthy microwave meals for one.  I really like them and they aren’t very expensive.

When I got home later in the afternoon I had had ideas of starting work on pulling the bathroom apart in advance of painting.  However I once again got smacked in the face with a wave of sleepiness and for the second time in as many days I laid down for another nap.  I am not sure the last time I had a dual nap weekend.

Over the weekend I watched a bunch more Falling Skies episodes.  I am glad to report I still like the show, even after getting past the episode 3 or 4 dead zone that Jeremy warned me about. I should finish up season one this week.

After eating dinner I finally regained the motivation to start work on the bathroom.  Part of this project will be the elimination of the three shelves that were installed to the left of the mirror.  I installed these things years ago and admittedly did a very shitty job of doing so.

Not only did I mess up the spacing between them, I tried to fix a loose drywall anchor with glue which wound up running down the wall a bit. For years we simply covered up the glue marks by sticking items on the shelf in front of the eye sore.

Well the shelves serve minimal purpose so I decided they had to go, I was sick of looking at them.  So I grabbed a hammer and knocked them off the wall.  The shelves left behind a considerable mess of glue and beat up drywall.  I am going to have a lot of prep/patch work to do in there before any paint gets on the wall.

So as I was in the middle of working on the bathroom I glanced out front and saw Thina sitting in middle of the yard, obviously looking for her best friend.  I thought Nicki and Sadie would have fun interacting with her so I walked them out to the back yard and called Thina over.

As soon as my dogs saw Thina they of course started barking.  Their barking instantly set Thina into scared submissive mode, she started to run away with her tail between her legs.  I called to her repeatedly and she stopped and then cautiously approached.  Eventually she belly crawled to the fence line and was sniffing with both Sadie and Nicki.

The interaction looked good enough so I opened the gate and called her in.  When she came inside she immediately went full submissive rolling over into her “don’t hurt me” pose.  Once she realized my dogs meant her no harm she sprang to life.

Within a few minutes her and Sadie were sprinting around the yard.  Thina with her long, bounding strides actually seemed to be faster than Sadie, something Sadie is not used to since Nicki is not exactly a speed demon.

Sadie also for the first time was on the receiving side of numerous dog kisses from Thina.  Sadie is always the kisser, not the kissee.  Thina was giving Sadie kisses almost non-stop, to the point where Sadie got annoyed briefly, it was funny.

I brought out a big bowl of water for the dogs.  Even though it was now well into the evening it was still very humid, they were panting heavily.  Thina drank like she hadn’t had water in days, she went back to the water bowl again and again.

Later she decided the pond was a good water source.  I ran over and tried to get her out of there.  It was too late, she was already laying on the muddy bottom and had taken a few licks of the nasty water, ugh.

Nicki played with Thina as well in a much more reserved manner, typical for her.

So after watching the dogs all play for close to an hour it was getting dark.  I figured I would walk over to the hispanic owners house yet again and tell them to come get their dog.  I thought maybe forcing them to come get her would allow me to stress once again that the dog HAS to be kept safe.

As I walked into their driveway I looked back and saw Thina was following me.  I also saw a large truck coming, driving well over the 30 mph speed limit.  I yelled for Thina to stop but since she has had absolutely no training, she continued to approach.  She JUST missed getting hit by the asshole driving the truck.

Now I was pissed.  I almost watched these people’s dog become road kill because of their lack of responsibility.   I walked up to the door and rang the doorbell, ready to be much more forceful in my plan of action for the dog.  Nobody was home.  Great….

My anger multiplied when I looked down at the pet dish that was by the door, something that looked like it was made for a cat or a small dog. The dish had nothing in it, no food and not a drop of water.  Knowing how brutally hot it was on Sunday I realized why Thina was so damn thirsty.  We have now officially entered into the realm of animal abuse.

So I took Thina back over to my backyard and left her in there with my dogs.  I then went back over to the hispanic’s house and started trying to block up the numerous holes in the shrubs.  In addition to using a number of dead palm fronds I even grabbed some unused shelving of mine to assist.

Well I soon realized that there was a whole other set of potential escape points on the other side of their driveway, this was going to be a fruitless effort.  The only way to stop her from escaping would be to put up some sort of temporary fencing along the front property line.  I would place the odds of these people doing that at slightly above zero.

After my blockade attempt I went back over to my property and hopped on the computer.  I printed out two letters, one in Spanish and one in English.  The letter basically said that I witnessed their dog just miss getting hit and she keeps getting out of the yard.  I said if I saw the dog out of the yard again I was contacting county animal control.   I taped both versions on their door.

I then grabbed a leash and walked Thina back over to her house.  Sadie was not happy at all with me as I took her new friend back home.  I brought some of our dogs dry food with as well.  I filled her tiny dish with food and water.  She hungrily gulped down the food all three times I filled it.  She also seemed to have a hard time drinking the water since the bowl was small.  I actually walked back to my place and brought over a larger spare bowl for water and left it there.

I hung out across the street well into darkness, hoping the owners would return so I could let them know what went down and what I think about it.   Finally a little after 9 I finally went back to my place.  Thina was worn out from all of her play and actually stayed put thank goodness.

I was so annoyed that I ignored the “one more time” warning in my letter to the family and placed a complaint with animal services via their web site.  I plan to follow up with a phone call today.

The bad thing is there is a process that has to be followed.  They will first warn the family a couple times, and then maybe eventually fine them.  I am not sure at what point they actually would take ownership away from them.

The saddest thing is no matter which way this goes, unless she gets removed from the house, Thina is the loser.  Even if they actually do something to prevent her from getting out of the yard they still will keep her thrown outside with scare food and water, cut off from any sort of love that she obviously is craving.

Ali decided she couldn’t justify a 6 hour round trip to go to the Tarpons “Ultimate Bowl” tonight.  Unless I can snag a last minute “date” I will wind up just going by myself.  I think I am going to spring for one of the good seats close to the field.

So yesterday the big news was that the Supreme Court upheld the majority of the health care law that was passed in 2010.  Evidently the most shocking aspect was the conservative judge that wound up backing the law wasn’t the one most people thought would.  Now this guy is being cremated by the health care haters.

Ok although I have covered this topic many times in my blogsphere, let me quickly recap my thoughts on this.

I think the healthcare mandate that was passed was far from ideal, it was manipulated and mangled by the infinite dollars in the pockets of insurance company lobbyists. However I think it is a step in the right direction.  Prior to the law insurance companies had the deck ridiculously stacked in their favor.  They got fat insuring low risk customers and if an actual health problem arose they would find a way to dump them. Once a person was dumped they were literally f’d since no company would touch someone with the dreaded “pre-existing conditions”.

This plan has been incredibly successful for insurers.  Despite the sky rocketing medical expenses of the last couple decades, insurance behemoths have consistently posted immense profits.

The healthcare law attempts to level that playing field by doing stuff like removing lifetime caps and the pre-existing condition black hole. Now as a compromise to insurance companies, the stipulation that people MUST carry health insurance was added.  The theory behind that is by enforcing this requirement, the cost of insurance gets spread among a significantly larger pool of individuals.

I have a very simple question for people that rail against this theory.  I ask if they think that owners of automobiles should be required to carry auto insurance?  You are required to carry insurance because you could potentially impact others as a result of your driving.

If I extend this to health insurance, if you are 350 pound fat ass with no insurance that finds themselves in the hospital treating your various obesity related health issues (heart attacks, diabetes, strokes, etc…) then you are impacting me as well.  Your lack of insurance means the health provider is absorbing all of that expense which directly affects the cost of health care for people actually footing the bill.

The health care law has some other good things in it like requiring no co-pay for preventative type procedures, check ups.  Honestly I wish it did even more to reward people that take personal responsibility for their health.

From a historical perspective, it is important to know that both social security and medicare were initially greeted with similar amounts of resistance with similar predictions of doom and gloom.  However today, if you took a poll regarding if these programs should exist or not there would only be a tiny fraction against them.  Our elderly population relies on them.

It seems like there is a lot of focus on the slimy part of the population that make a career out of not doing shit.  Instead they muddle through life doing as little as possible while collecting government benefits as a reward.  Hey, I HATE that mentality as much as anyone.  But the difference is I don’t let my dislike of those type of people blind me to the fact that there is a much larger percentage of people that are in genuine need of help.  They aren’t working the system, they are doing the best they can but still are drowning.

I also think that people that feel strongly about either side of the healthcare issue are huge hypocrites if they are not doing the right things to take care of their own health.  I mean the biggest part of this entire health care cluster f is looking at back at us in the mirror, we are the problem.

Our country as a whole is disgustingly unhealthy.  The massive health care costs we see today are a direct result of our own gluttony and laziness.  It’s only getting worse as the fat ass curve is moving farther and farther down the age range.  Childhood obesity is accelerating at frightening levels.

So to summarize, I’m glad the court did not cut the legs off legislation that is at least a start in the right direction but until our country stops shoving shit down their throats at breakneck speeds we are ultimately f’d in the end.

I used a couple vaca days to give me a 5 day weekend next week after 4th of July.  I am looking forward to it and plan to utilize that time to do some painting.  I want to at least get the master bathroom painted and if I am feeling crazy ambitious, the bedroom as well.

I have been debating what I want to do color wise.  I am leaning towards sticking with the color used in the main living area for the bedroom and maybe the bathroom as well.  It’s not a daring color but pleasing to my eyes.  I was considering painting the bathroom the same green that we used in the spare bathroom and office, I like that color too.

I guess I will firm up my color choices this weekend.

Originally I had ideas of trying to run with the group on Saturday morning but my legs still felt like shit from my leg work on Wednesday.  Plus I was tired, still catching up on the sleep deficit from my late Thursday night Prometheus showing. Instead on Saturday morning I picked up the dogs early and brought them back to the house, Ali was going into to work. I had stuff to do around the house so I figured the dogs would rather hang out with me while I was doing stuff than be at home alone.

I finally got around to creating a new to do list, something I have wanted to do for quite awhile.  For years I had a list pinned to the fridge of both short term and long term projects, Ali hated it.  However for me, it serves an important purpose.  I find having these items in front of me day and in and day out makes me much more likely to complete them sooner rather than later.  Having a “hey I should do this” item pop into your head and then just hope you remember to do it later does not have a high success rate.

This time I split the list into three categories, home improvement projects, home repair/maintenance, and automotive related items.  I am looking forward to starting to cross off some of those items.  I really need to knock some of those painting projects off the list.  Painting indoors is the perfect Florida summer project.  Anything involving being in the AC is an ideal summer project here.

I had another visit from the German Shep over the weekend.  Again she was cute as could be.  Well once again I walked her back over to her place which once again had the front gate wide open.  I walked her all the way up to the front door of the tiny house and rang the doorbell.

First the woman, whom I think doesn’t speak much english came to the door followed shortly by whom I assume is the husband, flanked by several of their multiple children.  I told them their dog, whom I confirmed is named Nina, was over at my place again.  I asked them if they wanted me to close the gate as I left.  He said no, he will put her in the garage, lovely.

So evidently Nina is either thrown outside or locked up in the garage, poor dog.  Later in the weekend I saw her walking in front of one of my windows, looking for her new friend (me).  By the time I got outside she had gone back to her side of the street.

After I got done with my house chores I took aim at flushing the coolant on the SSR, something I should have done shortly after I bought the truck.  There is a good chance the original coolant was still in the SSR and if that was the case, it is two years past the maximum recommend change interval of 5 years.

I followed the general procedure I found on SSRFanatics, draining the system and then flushing it with distilled water multiple times.  It took awhile to go through the fill, let engine run for awhile and drain cycles but it certainly wasn’t difficult.

I decided to document the process to add to my growing library of automotive maintenance videos, some of my more popular YouTube videos.

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

During the afternoon I saw a number that caller id’d to Orlando.  Normally if I don’t know the number the caller will get a big fat serving of voice mail.  However for some reason I decided to pick it up.  On the other line was some young guy from the Festiva group.  I recognized the name, that was the company that took over ownership of our timeshare, another one of our poor investments,  several months ago.

I forgot the guys name but boy was he a talker, he immediately started rambling, I only interjected a sentence or two, for the better part of 10 minutes he did all the talking.  This was the crux of what he said.

As part of their grand take over plan, Festiva is offering to convert current owners off of their current deeded arrangement as well as the tie in to RCI, a company that I have already discussed here many times negatively.  RCI sucks plain and simple.  Well the idea of dumping RCI sounds good, keep blabbering away sales guy.

Festiva supposedly has their own exchange program that supposedly has very minimal fees compared to what RCI charges, ok that is nice as well. Who doesn’t like lower fees?  However I knew there was another shoe to drop, and drop it did, a big muddy work boot no less.

Switching over to the Festiva plan would be easy, easy as long as you were willing to drop ANOTHER $5500. When I heard that I may have literally said “what the fck” under my breath.  What a joke.  The joke got better.

The guy tells me that approximately 70% of the current owners have opted to switch over to Festiva (I am sure that is an OMGWTF lie), meaning that there is a much smaller collection of deeded owners remaining to spread those lovely maintenance fees across. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if my yearly maintenance fees double.  Ok, well now I was pissed.

I told blabber mouth that this is how it appears to me.  Festiva came in, sends out a letter that their new ownership is a great thing, they were already doing some repairs/improvements to the property and it didn’t talk of any other signficant changes for owners as far as costs were concerned.

The reality is they are using a Mitt-like Bain Capital approach to the timeshare.  Come in, gut the principals that the current owners bought under and give them one $5500 option to get out, else face higher maintenance fees, directly caused by their actions.  It was utter bullshit.

So when fast talker took a breath I stopped him.  I told him this was the bottom line.  If anything he is proposing involves me laying out another large sum of money to chase the other large sums of money we already flushed down the toilet with this timeshare he can forget it.  I told him I am now separated and there was not a chance in hell that I would be taking his offer.

I told him that if the maintenance fee armageddon he was referring to comes to pass I would simply dump the timeshare and walk away from it.  In my financial situation turning my back on the thousands of dollars we threw at this pig is a better option than dropping another $5500 to put lipstick on it.  F that.

Despite leaving absolutely no doubt that I was not going to do anything this guy continued trying to pitch me it’s merits.  He was determined, I’ll give him that.  For whatever reason I didn’t just hang up on him. Despite his annoying persistence, pitching something that is intended to do nothing but screw me over, he seemed like a nice guy.  Finally I convinced him I was not interested.  I thanked him for the info. Regardless of how I feel about it, it was important for me to know it was coming so I can act accordingly.

I let Ali know about it as well since her name is on the deed.  She is going to call RCI and see what they say about it.

So Ali texted me late in the afternoon she was leaving work.  I asked her if she wanted to grab dinner at Sweet Tomatoes after I dropped the dogs off, a place neither of us has patronized since we separated.  It’s a weird dynamic I find myself in with Ali, I know that I I need to put more effort into establishing a new social circle yet I find myself doing most stuff with her.

I guess part of the reason for that is our split was so amicable.  In marriages that split with a screaming, frying pan throwing, you f’d who hell storm, you typically won’t see the estranged spouses having much contact at all.  We have always been and continue to be good friends.

Anyway dinner at Sweet T’s was good, there wasn’t a big crowd like we saw during season.  Of course we ate later than the old people normally chow down, I don’t think we got there until after 6.

We made Father Day plans for her to bring the dogs out so we could do a swamp walk, something else that I hadn’t done in awhile.

Sunday morning I drug myself out of bed to do a block (bike/run/swim).  Ali talked about maybe joining me for the swimming portion but she decided to stay home.  It was a tough session.  After biking more than 12 miles, running 4 and swimming a mile I was pooped to say the least.

After the swim I drove over to Ali’s.  She had a Father’s Day card for me from the animals which was cute.  I had the SSR so she loaded the dogs up in the Camry and followed me out to the house where we ate lunch before heading over to the swamp.

We knew it was going to be very hot for the dogs so we packed a lot of water and planned to cut the walk short.

The swamp is actually not very swampy at all, it was almost totally dried up.  15 foot deep basins that used to be filled to the brim with water now had nothing in them at all, it was pretty weird.

The dogs were obviously laboring in the heat.  We stopped much more than we normally would, both so they could drink and just lay in the shade.  It was funny watching the dogs veer side to side in the path, making sure to hit every shady spot they could.

We saw a couple gators nestled in the muddy shallow puddles that remained in a few spots.  We did manage to have one new swamp wildlife sighting, a doe and her baby fawn right out on the path behind us.  It was cute.

The dogs were quite glad to get back into the van, the Florida heat and sun is very tough when you are black and furry.

When we got back to the house I jumped in the pool so I could splash Sadie a bit to help cool her down.  You could tell how tired she was.  Instead of her normal sprint around the pool perimeter it was a just basically a fast walk.

As I was drying off I said to Ali how ice cream, specifically a milkshake, would taste good.  She mentioned how she still had a Cold Stone gift card with a partial balance on it as well as a coupon.  Ok , so it was decided, now we were going for ice cream.

I followed her to her place in the SSR to drop off the dogs.  We then headed over to Cold Stone or at least where Cold Stone used to be.  We discovered that location had closed so we went to another that was a couple miles away.

I requested an extra thin chocolate shake, something that can be hard to come by.  I hate when places basically dump soft serve in a cup and call that a milkshake.  I want to be able to drink it with a straw, not use a spoon.  They did a good job of meeting my request. The shake was quite good.

As we were sitting outside enjoying our respective treats, somehow the subject came up about online dating, specifically Ali asked me if I would consider doing it.  Well I was surprised she would wonder if I would consider it based on my tendency to favor electronic communication over all other types.  I told her that I actually had Match.com account already although it is the free variety where you basically can browse and have very restricted communication with other site members.

She seemed pretty surprised by that.  I told her that so far it seems like a weird scene, telling her that it seems I am of most interest to older women, an age range that typically is not going to interest me much.  I guess it was weird to even be discussing that at all with Ali, it just seemed to be part of the conversation.

So on the way back to Ali’s place we made one more stop at the grocery store so she could grab supplies to make the dog’s veggie meal supplement.

It was a fun Father’s Day albeit in a new set of circumstances.

Last night I finally finished watching The Immortals which took me a total of 3 sleepy nights to complete.  The reason I had it my Netflix queue was because it was from the same guys that produced 300, one of my favorite movies ever.

Well these guys had let me down before with that awful super hero themed flick that had the guy with a massive blue penis.  I was hoping that was a fluke and Immortals would be their redemption.  Well it wasn’t, instead it’s strike two.

The movie tried so hard to be epic.  It leaned hard on 300 style cinematography with many, many slow-mo, blood spewing, skull exploding fight scenes.  I just didn’t get into it, at all.  It was a chore to get to the end of it.  Mickey Rourke was the head bad guy.  His random and totally pointless acts of violence got so ridiculous I was laughing out loud eventually.

I don’t know if you could make a film that felt any more unoriginal than Immortals.  Don’t bother, C-.

So once again this week I am trying to cut down on my weekend duties so I hopped on the tractor last night to mow the yard.  While I was mowing I had another visit from the German Shephard, she obviously remembered our interaction from the day before.  As she was coming over I cringed as a vehicle was approaching, the dog was literally in the road as the small SUV passed.

I stopped the tractor and turned it off.  As I walked over to her she again assumed the submissive position, looking for more belly rubs.  I knelt down and petted her, looking over at her house seeing that not only the front gate was wide open but that two people were outside doing yard work.

Well I got up and walked over to the house with the dog by my side.  I say hello to the hispanic couple, both very short and both seemingly in the landscape business, they were wearing uniforms that yard crews would wear.  I said hello and asked if this was their dog.  I got the impression the guys English was very spotty but he said yes.

I started to explain that the dog has been across the street and in my yard quite a bit.  I told them she seems like a very good dog but I am worried about her getting hit out on the road since so many people choose to speed down it.

As I was talking the guy popped an ear plug out of his ear so I am not sure how much he heard or understood.  His reply was simply “Ok”.  As I walked back towards my place he called the dog, I think he called her “Nina”.  At first the dog continued to follow her new best friend but eventually she stopped.  A few minutes later he closed the front gate.  We’ll see how long that lasts.

When I was listening to the Stern Show earlier in the week, Sam Simon, one of the original creators of the Simpsons, called in.  Sam, besides being a multi, multi-millionaire, is also a huge dog lover and animal activist.  The reason for his call was to bitch at one guy on the show, Jon Hein for a tv show he recently started that glorifies the fast food craze in America.

Jon Hein is a real good guy but he is also a physical mess.  Despite being very overweight and suffering from diabetes, he still consumes fast food as the main staple of his daily diet.

Sam’s point was Jon glorifying a business that exists on the backbone of a factory meat farming industry that is responsible for incredible acts of cruelty on animals each and everyday is just wrong.  In addition to the torture of animals, this industry is also responsible for many other related issues such as the techniques used to cultivate these animals in ultra high density/quantity creating health problems with the animals. These issues have repercussions further down the food chain when people consume them.  Then there is the environmental impact of providing meat for the human herd, there are huge side effects that most people are probably totally unaware of. Let’s also throw in the obesity epidemic that now affects more Americans than not from eating fast food and other junk.

Well after getting nowhere discussing the point with Jon, whom claimed he was aware that his rampant consumption of factory meat via fast food chains had side effects he would rather not think about, he had no intentions of changing because he liked hamburgers so he was going to eat hamburgers.

Sam then just asked that Jon takes 15 minutes to watch a documentary called Glass Walls.  It is hosted by Paul McCartney, whom I didn’t know was a big animal activist.  The premise is if slaughter houses had glass walls, most people would be vegetarians.

Well last night I found the video on YouTube and started watching it.

Within the first 60 seconds I could already feel tears coming to my eyes as uncensored scenes of animal cruelty were displayed.  It was absolutely horrible.  I only made it to minute four before I had to click it off, I saw more than enough.

Now I have already been more or less on this path for awhile now.  My meat consumption in the last 6 months is hovering just barely above the zero mark.  I have had seafood occasionally, that industry hasn’t clicked in my head as being quite as heinous in my mind. However I have never in my life had a whole lobster and cringe at any restaurant that has a tank of live ones, awaiting execution by boiling water.

So if I needed any additional push to continue my meat moratorium, this certainly provided it.  If you care to pull back the curtain on what is involved to put that pork chop or steak on your plate, take a look.  WARNING it is extremely graphic and extremely disturbing.

I was surprised that I went through the entire day yesterday without hitting the expected wall due to my lack of sleep the night before.  Sure there were some yawns here and there but nothing much above the ordinary.  I went to bed at my normal time.  Getting up this morning however was a bit more challenging than normal.

Last night I watched this week’s AGT episodes.  Thankfully they seem a bit easier to swallow in 1 hour chunks.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some very interesting and entertaining acts on the show, I just hate the editing style they have chosen to display it.

I have to laugh a little bit at all of the controversy about the Facebook IPO.  Evidently there was some inconsistent release of earning numbers leading up to the IPO which had a few people crying foul.  I wouldn’t be surprised if something somewhat shady went down. Even after all of the financial chaos that almost destroyed the US economy a couple years ago, it seems clear that all the industry has received thus far was a light rap on the hands.  I am sure abuse of the system is still the status quo.

What I think is funny is how the lemming mentality has now taken hold.  Every Tom, Dick and Harry that bought Facebook stock and feels jilted that they didn’t double their money on the first day is on a “me too” rampage even if they had absolutely no connection to the misinformation that is reported. (they weren’t getting any calls from Morgan Stanley anyway) They just wanted to get rich quick.

As I recall, FB’s down quarterly earnings was announced before the IPO was released.  If you rolled the dice, ignoring that indicator of possible rough waters, don’t go looking to blame someone else for the end result. The stock market after all is high level gambling when you strip it all down.

Hey I use Facebook every day and generally like the services they provide.  Would I invest my retirement money in it? Not a chance.

So yesterday I got a call from insurance agent’s office from a woman named Kim.  She wanted to go over my options for my soon to renew home owners insurance.  You may recall that I have had a bit of an ordeal dealing with my agent, getting very poor response to a request to make some changes to both my homeowner’s and auto insurance policies.  I am looking to save my money on my insurance costs as part of my overall slimming of expenses plan.

Well Kim gave me what the cost would be for the next policy year if I kept my coverages the same with Castle Key, which is another name for All State down here.  I almost shit my pants when she said it would be about $2200.  Castle Key had just raised my rates 30% last year.  To follow that up with another roughly 20% increase the following year is insanity.

When I commented to Kim about how ridiculous this sounded she said that all home owner insurance companies have been jacking their rates by similar percentages.  She cited some change in the way insurance companies need to guarantee they have funds available to insure in catastrophic circumstances (hurricanes).  Yea ok whatever, I have seen profit reports for insurance companies, I don’t care what excuse they provide, raising rates 50% in two years is insane.

So I told Kim I needed some alternatives.  I told her how I already asked about getting the replacement value of the home reduced.  She said they have some standard formula they go by which they won’t change unless you want to pay for an appraisal and even then they probably won’t reduce it.

She said for the coverage I was getting the Castle Key rate was competitive.  She gave me some quotes from other companies they represent, the best number was still just under 2K.  I told Kim I would call her back and let her know if I wanted to stay with Castle Key or pay less of an increase by going with one of the other companies.

I was very annoyed after I hung up the phone and vented to my buddy at work.  I asked him what his home owner’s insurance was.  He said he just renewed in March and his rate was less than $1200. WTF???!!  My buddy’s house is newer, bigger and worth significantly more money than my place, how could he be paying almost half of what I am being quoted??  I thought ALL insurance companies were raising their rates???

I asked him for some details about how he managed this.  He said he changed a few options that most insurance agents won’t even tell you are options. The first thing he did was waived the replacement value option for his personal property.  Basically what that means is if your house and everything in it is wiped out, you only get depreciated value for your items, not new replacement cost.

He also opted to exclude his pool cage from his policy.  Since pool cages are one of the most probable things to fail in a hurricane (as I know first hand), insurance companies will knock a good chunk off your policy if you are willing to exclude that from coverage.

Finally, my policy had an extra layer of cost because the house was built in 2001, before the latest and greatest building code changes were enacted. This coverage is called Ordinance and Law.  What it basically means is if some part of your house needs to be repaired/rebuilt and additional measures/costs are necessary to bring the structure up to current building codes/regulations this coverage handles that.  Otherwise you are on the hook for the difference.

Well I found all of this info very interesting and I immediately called Kim back since she didn’t present these coverages as optional.  I was a bit confused about how it all worked.

For example I said to her, suppose my house has damage, the roof needs to be replaced.  The repair cost is way under the 235,000 replacement value of the house.  If the repair includes upgrades to meet current code, would they  be covered?  Evidently not, regardless of what my replacement value for the home or personal property is, you would not be covered for code upgrades or replacement cost on personal property.

So I asked Kim to send me a few quotes from a few companies with various options.  Now all of  a sudden I had a price range that was $2200 at the high end and $1279 on the low end! Wow.

The $1279 quote would include the Law and Ordinance clause but would not include pool cage coverage or personal property replacement value.  The knee jerk reaction of course is just to take the lowest premium, especially in the cost cutting frenzy I find myself in.  I am rational enough to realize that doing so is rolling the dice that the house doesn’t blow up.  I feel pretty secure in that bet but it is a bit unsettling.

Regardless, I am annoyed that these options were not made readily available to me until I pulled teeth to pursue them.  Agents of course can hide behind the line that they are just looking out for their customers, making sure they are covered in the remote chance they are struck by a disaster.  Of course they can never admit that these options are in there primarily because they are huge money makers since it is a safe bet most homeowners will never utilize the extra security those add on’s offer at a stiff price.

Last night after the running club board meeting I once again headed over to South Street with a few board members to drink a few beers. Once again I stayed out very late for me on a Wednesday night.  I laid down in bed shortly after midnight.

Last night after work I decided to play around more with an elbow planche.  It is a balancing move that isn’t too hard but I have had limited success with in the past.  The main requirement to do the move is a strong lower back that allows you to suspend more than half of your body in a near horizontal position.

After a few practice runs I found a good balance point.

Part of my original cost cutting measures was an intent on reducing my costs for both auto and home owners insurance.  I contacted my local agents office back in early April.  I talked to somebody named Dan that went over my policies with me, indicating a few things that could be done to save money.  He said he had to check on a few things and he would get back to me the next day.  Well this started an incredibly frustrating pattern of poor follow up.

No less than 4 times over the past few weeks I have had to call into the office asking for this agent to call me back both via messages on his voice mail and frustrated messages left in person with other office staff.  He kept ignoring me.  I was pissed.

So late last week I call in and talk to some woman.  I told her that I have been trying to get Dan to follow up on these policy changes for three weeks and he keeps refusing to call me back.  I told her I was done with him and wanted to talk to somebody else.  She said she would have another agent contact me.

So I am contacted by another agent.  I recap the lack of communication by Dan.  The new guy said he apologized for the miscommunication, he said Dan supposedly was leaving me messages.  I asked what number he was calling.  Josh said it was my work number.  I told Josh I have no voice mail on that line so somebody is not telling the truth.

So anyway I review the situation with Josh and tell him what we were working on.  Supposedly he was going to be able to save me roughly $125 on my homeowners and about $200 on my car insurance.  I told Josh about a statement I had received in the middle of this miscommunication mess that listed policy changes on my home owners insurance.  One of those changes indicated an additional $381 for “rate change”.

Well of course this got my blood pressure instantly elevated.  I originally thought that my interaction with Dan somehow resulted in a nearly $400 INCREASE in my rate.

Well when I started looking at old bills I realized this 30% rate increase has been in place for the entire policy period.  Evidently they slid this rate increase in last year and Ali just paid the higher rate.  Well I am not the type to let a place suck additional dollars out of my wallet without a fight.

I told Josh that I want the replacement value on my house adjusted down.  It looks to be almost $100k high.  He said he is going to see what he can do.  He better do.

My life right now feels pretty simple.  I do my thing, when and how I want to do it, rinse and repeat.

Saturday morning I drug my sleepy ass out of bed at 4:30 am to do the club run.  The weather radar wasn’t all that favorable, it looked like if it wasn’t raining in Naples now, it would be later.  I didn’t really care, rain helps keep me cooled off. Ali and Christy were supposed to be there as well.  Neither of them showed.

I was a bit bummed because originally I had ideas of running with them at a slower pace, something more favorable with the sleep deprived state my body was in.  Well instead I wound up running again with Matt.  We did run a slower pace than last week, exactly one second per mile slower according to my GPS. 🙂  Oh well in the big picture going harder is always the preferred choice for me, even if I don’t realize it sometimes.  It did rain lightly for part of the run but it never let loose.

On the way back to the house I stopped at Ali’s and grabbed the dogs.  I figured they could hang out while I worked on stuff.  It also gave Ali a break as she had plans to dig into her remaining unboxing duties in earnest.  The dogs were quite surprised to see me and as excited as ever.

So the girls and I headed home to continue on my chores.  I got a head start on Friday night, cleaning Tuki’s cage and cleaning the bathrooms. During the bathroom cleaning process I almost got into a fight with the toilet paper holder.

I was down on my knees completing the glamorous job of cleaning the toilet.  I was reaching down along the right side of the bowl.  As I reached I also dropped my head down to get a better vantage point.  As I did I smashed my head into the corner of the toilet paper holder.  I instantly went into Hulk Smash mode.

I had my fist clenched and was mere moments away from uppercutting the holder off the wall.  Thankfully I took a couple breaths and unclenched my fist before any damage was done.  I was also quite lucky that the corner of the holder was rounded off and not sharp.  I would have been bleeding like a pig.

Well the rainy skies on Saturday took care of one potential chore item, mowing the grass.  I figure I will try to knock that out after work some night this week.

I tended the garden, weeded, put out some bird seed (a $3.50 bag) for the first time in weeks and repaired the section of pool cage screen that was ripping out.

I then turned my attention to the Tacoma, completing my zero dollar oil change.  I had $30 in Autozone gift cards that were a throw in when I bought the IAC valve online so that covered the oil change materials cost.

I had talked to Ali about coming over to her place later in the day on Saturday to help her with some more items, I got over there in the party van with the dogs sometime after 3.

When I came up the steps I immediately knew Ali had made some significant progress by the large collection of flattened boxes piled up.  The main living area looked to be almost empty of boxes at this point.  One of my first chores was to collect all of the cardboard and throw it in the back of the van to deposit in the recycling bins.  Ali helped me do it.

We had talked about running out to a few spots for stuff Ali needed.  I had brought part of my robotic cleaning crew along, the Scooba, to work on the large amounts of tile that covers Ali’s kitchen and main living space.    The floor felt very dirty from the moving process.

I set the Scooba up and let it run while we headed out to run errands.

The first stop was right up the street at Staples and then Target where Ali returned one item and picked up a couple more.  We then headed a few doors down to a place called World Market.  I have never been in the store before.  It is an odd combination of things that include furniture, accessories, food, beer, and clothing.

Well Ali saw some furniture there that was really nice but not horribly expensive. One was a stand that would be much better suited for her TV and A/V equipment than her hope chest.  She also liked a matching shelf that would be a good fit for the top of her steps.  We had the Camry so we decided if she still liked the stuff we could drive back in the van and get it.

We headed to Lowes where she grabbed a few other items and used a coupon that was sent to her as part of a move in pack.  She decided she definitely wanted to get the furniture so we dropped the Camry off at her place and headed back out in the van.

The two boxes fit in the folded down bed of the van but not completely, the back doors didn’t close.  Since we were only going about a half mile down the road we used Ali as a supplemental door restraint.  She laid on top of the boxes and held the doors in place.  It looked funny but worked well.

Now I have a lot of experience with put together furniture, it typically looks ok but obviously the quality is not up to par with conventional furniture.  Well this stuff from World Market was way different than something you would get in a Sauder box.

There are only a few parts to assemble, most of the furniture is already intact.  You are basically just attaching the legs with a number of allen bolts.  The new stuff looks GREAT.  I would challenge anyone to walk in Ali’s place and guess the stuff came in a box.  It looks that good.

The Scooba had done an amazing job of cleaning up Ali’s tile, the floor felt noticeably cleaner on our bare feet.  When I dumped the waste water out of the robot it was almost chocolate milk dark.  I have a feeling the Scooba will be making some regular road trips.

I also brought over the Dyson Animal vacuum cleaner.  Ali asked if she could borrow it.  The vacuum we bought her is good for step cleaning but it doesn’t have nearly the brute sucking power of the Dyson.   This was confirmed when Ali ran the Dyson in just her bedroom, closet and office and pulled up a ton of gunk.

I told Ali she could just keep the Dyson, saving her the expense of buying one herself.  I had located a used Dyson on Craigslist that I plan to pick up tonight.

We also made time to partake in a Tivo/Biggest Loser session, the first time we did such a thing out of the confines of the four walls of the house.  Doing it at Ali’s place felt a bit weird but it was enjoyable none the less.

During the time I spent at Ali’s place I discovered three ticks on the floor.  The tick problem has not subsided.  Ali took the dogs to the vet last week to get a thorough once over.  While she was there she got some good news and bad news.  The ticks are not deer ticks, the type that typically carry Lyme disease.  However the dogs had a total of 7 or 8 ticks on them, including two more on Nicki that were filled with blood.

The vet put flea collars on both dogs as a backup to the monthly Advantix that is already applied.  The collar and Advantix is supposed to repel/kill the tick if it actually chomps down on the dog however it does nothing to keep the ticks from getting on them in the first place.

Even with this double layer of protection, I pulled another full tick off Nicki later in the weekend.  Ali obviously is still freaked out about the ticks and again said something to the community staff about it.  They said they would talk to the grounds maintenance although they again claim they haven’t heard any serious complaints from other dog owners which seems unbelievable.   I have never heard of a tick that exclusively adheres to black female lab mixes.

So I left Ali’s place with plans to come back the next day to attend to a few items I didn’t get to handle yet.

Sunday morning I finally got to extend my sleep session, staying in bed till an unheard of 7:45 am.  It felt good to not be jarred out of sleep by the alarm for once.

I had a few items to attend to to finish up my duties around the house. My plan for the rest of the day was to head back to Ali’s to finish up and then drive up to Fort Myers to pick up my used Dyson, I originally made arrangements to meet the guy between 4 and 5PM.

I got over to Ali’s place later in the morning and got back to work.  I hung a 4 foot shelf in her small utility/laundry room, giving her a much needed storage option in the small area.

I was going to hang a few of her bigger items on the wall but Ali halted the process when she saw my anchor kit included silver screws.  Having silver screws against the black metal of the wall pieces would drive Ali crazy.  I told her we could pick up some black drywall screws to solve the problem.

So, we made plans to again head out on the road to score some additional items.  The first stop this time was Pier 1 where Ali was juts sort of cruising to see if anything caught her fancy, nothing really did.

We then headed across the street to the recently opened Trader Joe’s, a place I have heard a lot about but have not checked out as of yet due to the huge crowds.  Well evidently 1PM on a Sunday is not a good time to shop there either.  I hypothesized that it was the post church crowd, the place was just clogged with old farts.

I just wanted to take a quick look.  I heard from my mom and a couple other people that Trader Joe’s has a wide selection of healthy frozen meals for one that are not stuffed with chemicals and preservatives yet are reasonably priced.  I confirmed this was true although I didn’t pick any up.  I figure I will grab a handful some other time when it is less crowded and when I don’t have additional stops to make.

We then went back to Lowes, Ali had more coupons to use up.  We grabbed Ali a new detachable shower head, a small stand/table for her master bathroom, a towel bar for the guest bathroom and the black drywall screws.

Once we got back I dug into installing everything as well as using the drywall screws to hang items in a visually matching manner.

I had gotten a call back from the used-Dyson guy saying he was going to be stuck over in Miami later than he planned, we agreed for him to let me know when he was leaving so I could decide if I wanted to make the drive Sunday night or not.  I had asked Ali if she minded if I just hung at her place until I heard from him since it would give me a roughly 12 mile head start to Fort Myers.  She of course didn’t care.

Once all the work was done we actually had some free time.  We took the dogs for an extended walk which they seemed to really enjoy and later Ali and I went over to the main community pool to hang out.  It was the first time since moving in that Ali has gotten a chance to enjoy any of the amenities.

I hopped in the hot tub for a little bit and soaked my aching old bones.  Ali chose to just relax on the awesome padded chaise lounges and read a book.  The pool area at her place is simply awesome.

As we were out on our walk earlier Ali mentioned how it almost feels like we are still married, just a modified version of what we experienced for the last 14 years.  I agreed, the frequent visitation does make it seem at this point like this is simply Diet Marriage or Marriage Lite.

I think though the large amount of assistance that Ali needed in coordination with the moving project has had a large contribution to that.  I know that part of this process needs to eventually be less contact while maintaining the caring bonds where we have each other’s back when push comes to shove.  It’s necessary that we both continue growing outward/forward.

I have been watching Game of Thrones Season 1.  You ask how am I doing this since I do not have cable tv or a HBO subscription?  cokeandpopcorn.com  I am using the site to stream past episodes via a PC.  I extended the viewing to my bedroom last night by attaching a laptop to the tv.

I see why the show has gotten so much acclaim.

As I was paying the bills on Sunday I just happened to run a report showing my gas expense for the last month.  I almost fainted when I saw the number, $609.  Granted that period includes some of the tail end of Ali’s gas expense but still, that is an incredible amount of money to spend on gas in a month.  I will be doing whatever I can to minimize that expense going forward.  The roughly 50 mile round trip to work I put in everyday is a real killer.

So as I mentioned before, tonight after work I am heading directly to Fort Myers to score my used Dyson.  I am hoping the thing is in good working order, supposedly it is only two years old.  Our Animal is over 5 years old and still doing great.  I will put it through a suck test before handing over the cash.

I have a brief three day week, taking Thursday and Friday off for my SSR repair/upgrade adventure.  I am actually looking quite forward to it, as long as the truck makes it all the way to Plant City on it’s noisy flywheel.

I can’t believe I forgot to mention that good old Dick Clark passed away yesterday at the ripe age of 82.

It definitely was for the best.  Anyone that reads my blog knows how much I was bothered by Dick dragging himself in front of the camera year after year since his stroke on his New Year’s Rockin Eve show.

It was admirable that he did it the first year, after that it became nothing but an embarrassment.  Obviously Dick’s ego was unaffected by the stroke.

The physical transformation that took place after his stroke was one of the most shocking I can ever recall seeing.  It was literally like he aged 25 years overnight.

Well I no longer will have to complain about Dick slurring the countdown.  It would have been nice if he had the sense to gracefully take himself out of the picture instead of letting mother nature do the dirty work.

Rest well Dick, despite your sad last years you made a huge contribution to the entertainment industry during your half century+ time in the business.