Category Rants

So I am going into what promises to be a back breaking, busy and emotional weekend.  I am not looking forward to the experience.  I am however looking forward to getting past this landmark of upheaval in the timeline of my life and start on wherever my new path leads me.

Yesterday I talked to mom about getting together for Easter, she said there was a possibility she might have to work that day, believe it or not.  Mom still wasn’t sure if she had to work but she said she really wasn’t into doing anything for the holiday this year.  She said she wasn’t ready to deal with seeing Ali and I in our new reality.  It became obvious mom wasn’t kidding when her voice started to crack as she was talking to me.

Mom said the deal Ali and I are going through has drug back up some of the things that went down when her and my Dad divorced way back in the early 80’s, even though the circumstances surrounding their split and mine are drastically different. Mom also said seeing the pic I posted on Facebook of the gutted kitchen pantry made her sad.  I suppose that imagery was more powerful than I anticipated as Ali told me later the pic affected her in a similar way.

So anyway, it looks like Easter will be a non-event in 2012, not that I care much since the religious significance of the day is lost on a person like me anyway.

So yesterday after work when I got home we almost immediately headed right back out the door in the party van with the dogs in tow. We were heading out to see the actual condo Ali was going to be renting.  We couldn’t see it up to this point because someone was living in it.

It actually was the second time Ali had been there on Thursday.  She went a little earlier to take some pictures and sign the paperwork.

My role was to help determine what will fit where with the furniture we will be moving Saturday.  My first impression of the place was “damn, this is really nice”  The unit Ali is renting is one of two or three upgraded places in the entire facility that has granite counter tops, upgraded appliances and awesome cabinets.  As you can see by the pic of the kitchen, this is no dump.

Since it is a second floor unit it also has sky high vaulted ceilings which really opens the place up.  The main living area is all tile which the dogs will love to lay on to cool off.  The small deck has a nice view of a lake and will surely be one of Sadie’s favorite vantage points.  The master bedroom has a massive walk in closet, probably double the size of what we have at the house. The garage downstairs not only has an opener, it also has a 8′ x 8′ area that will be great for storing things, a small freezer and bike storage.

The only negative I really saw was in relation to the moving process.  Not only will stairs be involved with every trip into the condo, the stairs have a 180 degree turn in them at the halfway point.  Luckily we don’t have a ton of furniture to move.

The dogs seemed to find the new living space quite interesting, giving it an extensive sniff test.  Likewise they found the grounds around the community equally interesting, their noses were working overtime.

One of the things Ali was looking to score was a small freezer to hold bulk food and more importantly the extra food she prepares monthly for the dogs and freezes in glass crocks.  I found her a nice looking unit on Craigslist that was listed for $100.  Ali called the guy and per my instructions performed the standard Craigslist negotiation, offering $75 for the freezer.  The guy said he would do $85, ok good enough.

Since we had the van I told Ali we could just go pick it up.  I hoisted the freezer into the van myself since the old dude had physical issues that prevented him from doing any significant lifting.  It was a bit tough but I used my pack mule strength to get the freezer into the van solo.

At this point the only short term thing Ali will be needing to pick up is a TV.  I have clued her into several good Craigslist deals in that area as well.

Before we got the freezer we stopped at Pet Supermarket to grab some dog food.  One of the things Ali was talking about buying was food stands for the dogs.  At the house I made two stands for the dogs that have been working great for years.  Ali didn’t want to use them at the new place because they are white and would look out of place.  They also don’t match, something I know would smolder for her since she hates when things don’t match.

Well they wanted a ridiculous $50 for just one stand at the store.  I told Ali that was crazy, something we could do without thinking 3 weeks ago but now, it would be wasteful spending.  I told her I can build her a black version of what we have at home and make two of them for less than what they want for one at the pet store.  I just won’t be building it this weekend.

As I mentioned, prior to yesterday Ali was really down in the dumps.  However after seeing how kick ass her new living arrangements are her mood was significantly better yesterday which I was glad to see.

This morning I had a front row view of an amazingly clueless individual at the Dunkin Donuts drive thru.  They were driving an SUV with a handicap plate.  They pulled up to the menu board and were promptly greeted by an employee over the speaker asking, “Can I help you?”  There was no reply.  A few seconds later they asked again, again, no reply.  I then looked more closely at the vehicle and saw they still had their windows up but I could see the old farts leaning over to look at the menu.  Again and again the DD staff asked to help them and still, the window of the vehicle remained up and closed. What the fck?  I mean even with the window up, they certainly could hear the voice on the speaker.

So then the vehicle starts pulling ahead without placing an order.  Instead, they get to the window and place their order there to the DD clerk with a confused look on his face.  Eventually I see a bag handed to them, money handed to the DD guy and the vehicle drives off.  When I get to the window I asked what the hell was going on.  The guy shrugged his shoulders and said he has no idea but after all of that, they drove off before being handed their coffee.

To me, the scariest part of this encounter is this same person that is evidently daft to the complex workings of a drive up window is also entrusted with operating a vehicle on the local roadways.

Oh well.

The next time you see a blog entry I will be on the other side of a tumultuous weekend.  Oh did I forget to mention that on top of moving Saturday we have to get up at 4:30 Am to go time a race that will have close to 1000 participants?  Yea, going to be tons of fun.

Yesterday Obama made a statement that lit up the headlines regarding the Supreme Court and their potential to overturn the health care legislation that was passed through congress.  The bullseye line was mentioning that an unelected group of individuals such as Supreme Court justices, should not be involved in determining law that has gone through the full legislative process.  He also mentioned that if this would happen, it would go firmly against past GOP policies decrying “judicial activism”.  For conservatives to support this move would be pure hypocrisy.

One of my buddies, who dislikes pretty much any and all things Obama, sent me the link to the story, presumably because he thought this somehow reflected negatively upon Obama.  Ironically I think it does exact the opposite.  I am glad to see Obama not back down from this fight, something he has done entirely too often during his term thus far.

Let’s not even take the health care law into consideration for now.  How stupid is it that supreme court justices are appointed, LIFETIME positions?  Very.  It makes absolutely no sense why a sitting presidents decision on a supreme court justice can have lasting effects years or even decades after that president has left office.

To me a supreme court justice should be on the same election schedule as presidential elections. They should come in and potentially go out with each administration.

Kudos to Obama for putting a light on the stupidity of our higher court system selection process, regardless of what decision they come to on health care.

After many, many, many months I posted a new blog poll about a subject that typically is tread lightly upon, religion.  Feel free to post your your vote on what role religion has for you in today’s society.  It won’t take long by viewing some of the choices I have made available that personally, I am not a big fan…

The announcement of Ali and my separation seems to add to the steady stream of other long time couples splitting up recently in our circle.  Over the past year there have been a number of people that either split up or in the process of doing so.  It’s not a bandwagon that I am all that happy about jumping on but oh well.

So my blog entry yesterday was like my cyber press conference announcing our upcoming parting of ways.  As expected a number of people were taken by surprise by the announcement but universally nothing but kind words and support for both of us have been put forth which we both appreciate.

So both of us have started on the mountain of details that will need to be handled in order to facilitate our separation.  Yesterday I worked on changing a number of accounts that were set up to use the American Express credit card that going forward will be solely used by Ali.  I changed them all to bill to my Amazon rewards card instead.  I was surprised by just how many accounts there were, I bet in total I had to change almost a dozen.

Then I turned my attention to the necessary process of reducing monthly expenditures as money will now become something I have to pay much closer to attention to than I have for the last decade.

The first thing I did was kill a universal life policy that I have had active since my 20’s.  It was only for 100k and it’s premiums were rising quarterly.  I have life insurance through work and a much larger policy Ali and I set up a couple years back so there was no reason to keep this one active.

Cancelling it was sort of a lackluster experience.  The phone rep on the other end could have cared less I was cancelling a policy I had in place for around 20 years.  She basically said she didn’t have to cancel the policy, I just had to stop paying for it and it would die.

I remember when I was pitched the policy in the 90’s it was presented as not only a life insurance policy but an investment vehicle that could potentially generate some serious dollars.  Lol, what a joke, the cash value on the policy is basically nothing.

Next up I called Truly Nolen, the company that we have utilized for pest control at our house since it was built.  They have been annoying me for awhile, raising their rates several times over recent years.  I got a woman on the phone named Wendi.

I told Wendi that I just received the latest notification of a rate hike and I was thinking about cancelling the contract altogether as it is just too expensive.  Wendi said she could exempt me from the rate hike if I liked, ONLY charging me $127 for the 15-20 minutes the guy spends at our house once every 3 months.

I told her I still felt that number was excessive.  Wendi became obviously annoyed that I didn’t lavish her with praise for offering to not raise my rate further.  She then asked me what I would consider a reasonable rate.  I told her something less than $100.

I could hear Wendi rolling her eyes through the phone as she told me in a perturbed tone there was no way they could do that.  Hmm so I guess ZERO dollars is better than a 100 bucks.  Without any further attempts at remediation she said she would cancel my account.  When I asked her if there was some sort of confirmation number of the cancellation she said “Use my name and today’s date, GOOD BYE”  Haha you are welcome for 10 years of business Truly Nolen, I’ll be sure to look elsewhere if I look to reestablish pest control in the future, you pricks.

My final cost cutting of the day was a call to ADT whom we pay for monitoring our security system.  The security system was something that we did entirely to help Ali’s feeling security living out in the boonies.  Once we got the dogs, especially the addition of Sadie it was hardly necessary as the dogs sound like dual Cujo’s whenever someone approaches the house.

Anyway, I called up ADT and told them I was interested in cancelling.  Unlike Truly Nolen, they seemed more interested in keeping my business, offering several reduced rates before finally accepting my repeated desire to just cancel, although I did thank the rep for their efforts.

So thus ended the first round of cost cutting measures, I am sure there will be additional austerity measures on the way.

I am conflicted though, there are a couple items for the SSR that I really should take care of, the panhard bar and an upgraded radiator fan.  The bent panhard bar that resides under the truck now could literally allow the rear tires to hit the wheel well if I cornered hard.

The stock fan on an SSR is dramatically underpowered.  When I sit in traffic the engine temp routinely will climb to 235 degrees.  With the brutally hot Florida summer on it’s way I really should replace the fan with the upgraded unit.  This fan swap is something most owners on SSRFANATICS have already done.

I will have to decide if I want to bite the bullet and spend the money now.  It should be the only two items on the upgrade list that are mechanically important as opposed to other vanity/performance upgrades.

Over the weekend I had one of those parasitic home related expenses that seem to pop up so routinely.  The weed whacker died.  There was something wrong with the clutch, as I was running it the area around my hand was getting very hot and it coordinated with a  dramatic loos of power at the trimming head.  The engine was cranking but it felt like the head was “slipping”.

It was a cheap weed whacker to start with so there was no point in spending money to fix it.  I put the old weed whacker and the even older whacker with a gummed up carburetor I was holding on to for some dumb reason, out front where they were picked up by somebody in less than a half hour.  It’s always nice to have a built in neighborhood trash removal.  Almost anything I put by the road finds a new home somewhere, regardless of it’s condition.

I picked up a Poulan Pro weed whacker as a replacement.  It seemed to work quite well to finish up the second half of the property.

My new lunch box arrived over the weekend.  Well, new to me, it is actually a used box I grabbed on ebay.  It is an updated version of the 20 year old box it is replacing.  It looks slightly bigger on the outside but it’s interior dimensions are the same which is all that matters.

It feels kind of weird carrying in a box that does not have pieces of plastic falling off.  It seems to work just as well as old faithful.  My original lunch box will find it’s way onto some shelf on the property. I just don’t feel like tossing it out.

Last night I tried to keep some of my normal routines in place, heading outside for a brief work out.  You can see the first video of a GUTS routine along with my attempt at Bar-baric mode of this month’s challenge, dragon flags.

It was the first time I ever got a full ROM dragon flag on video.  This move is really tough for me since I have such a long build.  After the third rep I literally started seeing stars so I stopped there. 🙂

Well it is anticipated if you are in our inner circle and already have a clue about what I am referring to.

I am not a fan of those people that like to post ambiguous things on Facebook as a status update and then leave the reader to guess what the fck they mean. so to avoid that, here you go, Ali and I are going to be separating.

Yes that is not a typo.

To say it has been a tough weekend would be an understatement although to the casual observer they probably wouldn’t even know as both of us are pretty good at putting up a facade.

The separation conversation started after we had one of our “virtual” arguments, started by my blog post on Friday that was met with Facebook action from her later.  Anyone that follows me/her knows that more than once we have aired our squabbles via cyber mediums.

Surely it is not an effective way to resolve such issues yet we have gone down that path more often than I care to admit.

So anyway, I knew when I got home I would be walking in the door to an unhappy camper.  I tried to cut to the chase and asked her quickly if she wanted to clear the air so we could move on with our night.  She came out but quickly the discussion turned on to an expanded subject matter.  I told her for the past several weeks that I have noticed she was being unusually cold and distant towards me.

Ali sort of shrugged her shoulders and said she was tired of things, tired of issues that we have always had but never resolved.  Instead these issues get pushed below the surface for a period of time until they pop up again and again. Ali and I have struggled with this our entire relationship.  It is very mentally draining.

I agreed that I was tired of them as well and asked her what she wanted to do about it.  I was a bit surprised when Ali was the one to first mention separation as the next step, something we have talked about at various times in the past, but we never had the courage to approach it seriously as an outcome.  Although this wasn’t the path I expected my Friday evening to go, I agreed with Ali’s general premise and the conversation continued from there.

Typically when you hear about married people splitting up it normally is accompanied with stories of a hellacious argument that starts the process, things getting thrown, things getting broken. It was nothing like that for us.

Instead we talked out a basic framework of how it would go down in a surprisingly civil and calm matter.  We both agreed that although it is going to be the source of much pain and anguish, in the long run, this would be a move we both looked back upon as the right thing to do.

It was a very bizzaro situation.  After our discussion we ate our pizza and watched Biggest Loser, just like a normal Friday night.

We kept up the business as usual exterior on Saturday morning as we timed a race, not letting on to anyone that the Duffey team was going to be splitting up.

My feelings were all over the map.  I would have repeated moments where I felt like crying if I allowed myself to think about past good experiences Ali and I shared or about the future arrangements which will include the dogs moving with Ali.  That will be the worst part moving forward.  Not having Nicki and Sadie around on a daily basis will literally break my heart.  It’s going to be damn tough on them as well.

Ali didn’t waste any time before looking for somewhere to live.  She found a couple possibilities and asked if I wanted to come with her since I knew more of what to ask, which I do.  It was a bit awkward accompanying your wife to look at a place to live without you but I’ll chalk it up to a life experience.

We looked at several places, all of them had some pluses and minuses but none of them got Ali terribly excited.  Well we got a suggestion from Christy about one more place before we were ready to head back.  Low and behold this was by far the best option we saw all afternoon.  It was dog friendly, new construction, in a great location and just inside the high end of what we figured Ali would be able to swing rent wise.

We went back on Sunday and finalized the paperwork, Ali will be moving there in early April.

The rest of the weekend kind of went the same way, lots of weird emotions that ran the gamut.  Ali actually seemed to be handling her new reality quite well, she was genuinely excited about her new living arrangements.  To be honest in a way I was jealous.  It would be pretty sweet to move to a nice place that is much closer in with no maintenance or long list of to do’s that have to be addressed week in and week out.

Ali and I both agreed her staying at our house would just be a mess.  Financially she couldn’t swing it and her attempting to handle all the upkeep that I do would have quickly became miserable.  Plus I have a lot more big items like the 3 vehicles that would have to stay there.  Her getting her own place was the only option that made sense.

Our attempts at normalcy continued when I accompanied Ali on a training bike ride late Sunday afternoon.  I suspect even once we are living at two different addresses we will continue to be each others training partner on occasion.

Over the weekend both Ali and I made calls to our parents to inform them about the major change as well as telling our close friends.  Of course everybody was surprised but supportive.  This blog entry will be my notice to the rest of the world.

I am trying to maintain an overall positive attitude about the changes that are now on the way.  I expect a lot of tears to be part of the process but I’m hopeful both of us can wind up in a better place where we both find meaningful happiness.

I think we both knew this day would eventually come, it’s just too bad we ate up 15 years getting around to it.

I forgot to mention earlier this week I found a replacement for my rapidly deteriorating lunch box.  It is a blue model that appears to have similar dimensions to mine.  It is used but I could care less.

I have already decided that I won’t be tossing my old box in the recycle bin, at least not yet.

After work I took a shot at normal mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge which is dips after a 20 second static hold.  My 25 reps was a little less than I hoped for but I absolutely had nothing left at the end, my tri’s were shaking.

Last night I finally got around to making some fresh juice for dinner, something that just hasn’t happened lately for a few different reasons.  Last night the mixture included carrots, beets, celery, tomato, spinach and apple.

The stuff I was watching yesterday about the insidious nature of wheat was pretty eye opening.  Finding out that a piece of whole wheat bread has a higher glycemic index than a spoonful of pure sugar puts an entirely new spin on things.

Plus the fact that wheat has undergone the same process as soy and corn where the plant is modified to be able to survive exposure to highly toxic weed killers is just more gas for the fire.

Our food chain is just full of landmines wherever you look.  Corn has been turned into the backbone of the mess between it’s use to fatten up livestock to it’s utilization as the world’s most insidious sweetener.

Soy, which has been pitched as a great meat replacement by the companies that profit by growing it, is actually not very good at all for you when you do some digging around into what it actually does when ingested.

And now I can add wheat and it’s “wheat belly” effect, causing  blood sugar spikes higher than if you were swallowing teaspoons of sugar.

Now short of growing your own food exclusively, there is no way to escape the evil food empire. The best course of action is to practice moderation as much as possible.  If you are slamming bread, even wheat bread or other grain based products like it is going out of style you definitely are not doing your body any favors.

During the week lately I hardly see Alison at all.  Since she has a triathlon coming up in two weekends she has been adding on to her group training sessions.  In total she has been doing 6-7 group training sessions per week. When she does come home at night she is typically has little energy to do much more than eat and go to bed. It surely doesn’t make for much quality interaction/communication.

Last night was pretty much par for the course, our main interaction was when I noticed Ali’s latest impulse purchase, a new pair of cycling glasses.

I asked her about the purchase, questioning the need to buy ANOTHER pair of glasses when she already owns no less than 5 pairs of sport glasses.  Ali’s logic was much the same as her purchase of a “swimming parka”, these glasses were specialized, and automatically change their tint level as daylight changes. If there is one thing she loves, it is specialization.

This weekend I have a race to time on Saturday.  This is my least favorite race of all to time because it is literally held on a beach.  Sand gets everywhere.  Sand and electronic equipment just do not mix very well.  I really would like for this race to not be chip timed . The hassle/benefit ratio just does not work.

I have a new set of plugs and spark plug wires for the Tacoma.  After 136,000 miles it is way, way overdue. I watched a video on the basic procedure to remove/replace them which appears to be a mild pain in the ass but nothing I can’t muddle through.

I think we will be doing a bike ride on Sunday but I won’t be swimming laps yet.  Although the pain in my ear is gone it still does not feel 100% normal.

So like I said, yesterday I finally broke down and took the Tacoma to the garage to get looked at for it’s warm starting problem.  I have been trying to resolve the issue myself  for more than 4 months at this point and had had enough.  Trying to drive the truck after a warm start had become blatantly dangerous.

I took the truck to Master Tech Imports, a place that is run by two ex-Toyota dealership mechanics so they know Tacomas.  I have used them several times over the years based on a recommendation by a co-worker, a co-worker whom doesn’t use them anymore either.  They are a competent garage and have always resolved whatever problem I have presented them with.  The problem is what they charge to do so.

I stopped using them a couple years ago when I tired of never being able to get out of there without spending at least $500, no matter what the issue seemed to be.  Since that time I have done a lot more hands on work on my vehicles and have a better understanding of what is and is not involved in some aspects of their repair.  I am now the type of person that a place like Master Tech doesn’t really want as a customer since I know what stuff SHOULD cost.  I will be granting them their wish. Read on.

So their garage evidently was not busy on Monday as they said I could bring the truck right over.  I got a call from them a couple hours later saying they found the problem, a bad upstream 02 sensor.  They said to fix it would be $250 plus $90 for the “scan charge”.   When I first heard the scan charge the bullshit meter went off the charts, thinking they were charging me $90 for reading the CEL code, something I can do myself with my cheap code reader or something a place like Autozone does for free.

I later got a clarification that they actually hook the truck computer up to a dealer style diagnostic computer that not only reads codes but also shows real time status of the various engine electronic components to assist in troubleshooting. Ok, well that’s nice but making that scan a separate $90 line item seems excessive.

So I authorize the inflated repair cost, at this point I just want the issue to go away.

I get a call back an hour or two later.  There is still a problem, now they show the mass airflow sensor is ALSO bad.  He throws out a quote of an additional $285 to replace the MAF.  That is when I threw on the brakes.

I replaced the MAF myself maybe a couple years ago. The idea that it was bad again seemed improbable.  I tried to logically talk through the problem with the guy, saying it didn’t make any sense to me that the sensor would work fine if I started the truck cold and then drove until the motor was hot but not if I simply started the truck when it was hot.

The guy was not able to logically offer anything besides this is what his computer is showing him.  Of course the idea that both the O2 sensor and MAF would be bad at the same time was highly unlikely as well but when I mentioned that improbability I was once again only offered, “that is what the computer is saying”.

Ok fine, but now I moved on to what they wanted to charge me to replace the MAF.  I told him I was going to check on the price of the part, $285 sounded outrageous.  A quick check on Autozone revealed I could get a MAF for $79.99, I laughed out loud.

I called back the garage and told them of the price discrepancy, made more egregious by the fact I was quoting a RETAIL price, I am sure the garage pays significantly less than that.  They said that if I wanted to provide them the part they would install it and just charge me labor.  Ok great.

So I now borrow my bosses vehicle, go to Autozone and then drive to the garage to drop off the part.  After verifying I got the right thing he said he would call me and let me know the result.

It was now getting late in the afternoon. I was getting nervous that I was going to be getting another call saying the problem still was not fixed after two overpriced sensor replacements. I called back asking for a status update.  The garage said that he thought they had the problem fixed, they just needed to do a another test drive to verify it, great.

So I got dropped off at the garage after work and saw the truck was indeed done and parked out front.  The total bill for the repair was just under $500.  The one owner quickly added up the line items, I signed off and got the hell out of there without making an additional fuss as I should have. After getting frustrated all day I just wasn’t in the mood to bang my head against the wall again.  However when I got home I took the time to analyze the bill line by line.  It looked like this.

Engine scan – $90
Labor to replace O2 sensor – $90
Labor to replace MAF sensor – $117
O2 sensor – $159
Misc expenses – $12.50

The $90 to scan the engine (hook it up to their computer) still seemed ridiculously expensive.  I am quite sure the problem could have been diagnosed with a normal engine code reader as well.

However two other line items REALLY annoyed me.

The $159 part charge for the O2 sensor was almost double what I saw the same part go for at Autozone.  Again knowing the garage probably is paying wholesale for their parts means they are marking them up to the customer by almost 100%, that is just inexcusable to me.

Second, charging $117 labor to install the MAF sensor was a joke.  Again my insight into the process since I did it once myself, meant I knew it took at most 15 minutes if you are going slow.  The labor charge for the O2 sensor was actually less ($90) so that was probably even easier.

The bottom line was for the repair, that probably cost the garage maybe $75 in parts, I was charged $500.  Sure every business needs to make money but this sort of price gouging is offensive. On top of the large amount of dollars that were sucked out of my pocket, the interior of my truck reeked of cigarettes. Evidently whomever was doing the test drives is a chain smoker whose clothes stink from cancer sticks.  I drove with both windows all the way down, all the way home to try to air the Tacoma out.

I was annoyed enough to make a follow up call this morning to the garage about the bill.  Once again there wasn’t a hint of compromise from the garage perspective on the labor since they charge book rate (although of course the customer never sees the book) for repairs instead of basing it on the actual time spent on the repair.

When I asked about the inflated parts pricing I was once again told they just charge whatever the “standard” price is. Lol, yea whatever dude.

Hell I have doubts that the O2 sensor was even bad at all.

This scenario is exactly why I tried to avoid going to a garage for the issue in the first place.  I knew in all likelihood I would get overcharged for whatever services they provided. Trying to get a garage to change the price of a repair based on your understanding of the true cost/time of a repair is fruitless.  They are far too accustomed to preying on the automotive ignorant, charging them inflated dollars to perform repairs.

My only real recourse is to speak with my wallet and not frequent Master Tech Imports in the future.  Since I moved to Florida I have tried at least a half dozen different mechanics, trying to find one that was the right mix of fair pricing and competency.  My search continues.

So last night Ali needed to get down a container from the hobby room.  She came out with a confused look on her face.  She asked me if I bought her some Under Armour shorts.  I had no idea what she was talking about.  She took me into the hobby room and showed me three pair of UA shorts that were on top of the container.  Then I remembered.

I bought those shorts when I went to the outlets with Randall.  They were indeed intended to be Christmas presents for Ali, I just forgot that I stuck them up there as a hiding place.  Well I wished Ali a Merry March Christmas.

So this morning I had to stick around the house to wait for the wind mitigation inspector to show up.  He had a window between 8AM-11AM.  I figured the odds of him showing up right at 8 was very low so I decided to make my spare time productive.

The first thing I wanted to do was put in the new ECT (Engine Coolant Temperature) sensor I bought for the Tacoma.  I am hoping this sensor will succeed in fixing my warm start issue where the IAC valve failed.

Replacing this sensor was a bit of a challenge.  I had a hard time just getting room to pop the electrical connector off the sensor.  In order to do so I had to temporarily remove a small piece that connects the two sides of the fuel rail together.

Once I got the connector off I had another issue, my 19MM socket was nowhere near deep enough to fit on top of the sensor to turn it out.  I grabbed the dogs and made a quick run to the hardware store where I found a deep enough socket and a 1/2″ extension bar.

With the proper tools removing the sensor wasn’t very tough.  I really need to get a good torque wrench though, doing this by “tight enough” feel is not a great thing.  Putting the fuel rail connector piece back on was a bit of a challenge because of the tight space and dual washers that are used.  After about 10 minutes of futzing around I got it back on.

The truck started back up and ran fine, but it always does when it the engine is cold.  I can only hope I have finally squashed the warm start problem.

Another less annoying issue has been my Hayward pool cleaner.  I have had an issue for awhile where it is moving about very slowly in the pool, not coming close to covering the entire area.  So far I have made two attempts to fix the problem, first by replacing the rubber feet on the bottom of the cleaner and then second by replacing the vacuum tubes since the old ones were brittle and had plastic breaking off in the connector portion of the hoses. Neither of these things fixed the turtle-like pace of the cleaner.

I just bought a maintenance kit that includes the feet, the wings, the front and rear flapper and the “pods” which are all of the items that get worn from the friction with the pool.  If this doesn’t fix it I will be giving up and buying another pool cleaner.  I don’t think I will be going the Hayward route if I do.

So the wind inspector guy showed up about 9:45.  Originally I had anticipated a somewhat confrontational encounter with this guy as I viewed him as the enemy, sent out by the evil insurance company to try to f me out of money.  It took me all of 15 seconds to change my viewpoint.

Mark was a big, chubby, friendly guy who let me know right up front that he is just contracted out to do the inspection, he was just there to document what we have.  He let me know that my self installed anchor/plywood system which successfully protected our house through various storms in 2005 would be flagged.  He said that they want anchors EVERY 6 INCHES!  I laughed out loud, that sounded just ridiculous.

His inspection was very simple.  He just took some pictures around the house and in the attic.  He said he wouldn’t think this inspection would reveal anything different than what the state funded inspection did since nothing significant has changed in that time period.  He was a nice guy, we talked pretty much non-stop as he walked around the house.  I definitely got no sense he was going to try to screw me in anyway whatsoever.

Of course the same can’t be said about my insurance company.  It will be quite interesting to see if they try to ramp up my rate based on what the inspection did or did not show.

This weekend we have no races to run or time.  I am hoping we get to go to the water park at some point.  I have stuff to do around the house but not a mountain size collection of items.

You may recall the big controversy that went down last year where the Florida legislature, acting on Rick Scott’s directive, passed a bill that started docking employees that were on the state pension system a mandatory 3% of their pay towards the pension system.  This decision came on the back of many state workers already suffering from a half decade of no salary increases.

At the time the tea party nut jobs, like Rick Scott, were riding high on their, “state workers are the cause of the problem” bandwagon.  Lots of “me too’rs” jumped on board.

Well the teacher’s union did not take this action sitting down and filed a lawsuit stating the state’s actions were unconstitutional.  The pension benefit was enacted in 1974 and was offered in lieu of pay raises.  The union claimed trying to flip back was basically a breach of contract since state employees typically trade lower salaries for steady employment with retirement benefits.  Yanking that rug out from under existing employees that signed on under those terms is shady.

Well yesterday a judge finally made a ruling on the case and guess what, she said it was shady too, ruling the mandatory 3% contribution was indeed a breach of contract.  It was a nice victory for employees but it will be likely appealed all the way to the Florida Supreme Court until a final resolution is reached.

The funny thing is originally this employee contribution was pitched by Tricky Rick as necessary to help balance out the state pension system which took a dip like everything else when the stock market took a dump a couple years back. However since then it has rebounded and remains one of the top 5 strongest state pension systems in the country.

But to me, the most outrageous part of all is the 3% that was skimmed from employees was not used to help fund the pension at all.  Instead it was just given back to the local governments to spend as they saw fit, a true indicator of just how much bullshit the entire situation was.

Anyway I will be thrilled if this holds up all the way up the court food chain, dealing Rick Scott yet another black eye.  His governorship has been an epic fail thus far.

So yesterday I got the call from the company contracted by my home insurance carrier to do a “quality assurance wind mitigation inspection” on Friday.  Several years ago the state offered free wind mitigation inspections to home owners.  If your home met certain requirements after the inspection your insurance carrier was required to offer you a discounted rate.  Well this is All State’s (Castle Key) attempt to reverse that discount.

The letter I received from them a couple weeks ago said that basically they didn’t trust that the original inspectors did a good job.  So they have gone out and paid for another company to do an “independent” inspection.  Yea right, that’s total bullshit.  I guarantee that these independent inspectors are getting a kick back for each and every house that they are able to disqualify for the discount.

Anyway when I made the appointment the woman asked me a couple questions like if anything was repaired on the house in the last 10 years.  She also asked if the front door was hurricane rated which I had no idea if it was or not. (I later found it is not)  She was obviously trying to lay the groundwork for possible red flags when this inspector shows up.  Of course I have a plywood ‘storm shutter” that goes over the front door anyway so the hurricane rating of the door itself should be a moot point. Our house has gone through a true Cat 3 storm and escaped with only pool cage damage.

Although Ali is off Friday, I made arrangements to make sure I will be home to meet this inspector.  I will be carefully making mental notes of what he does/says.  If they do indeed try to withdraw our home owners discount I will be using the info on my follow up call to my agent where I will tell them the discount better remain or I will be shopping my insurance needs for our home and four vehicles elsewhere.

Allstate has already filed for huge premium increases, they will not be getting a penny more from me.

So yesterday I finally signed up for this Sunday’s Hooter’s Half Marathon. I did so with some trepidation.  As I described previously I have had some issue with my left calf/knee although today was the first morning I woke up without feeling that cramping sensation which is a positive.

I also have not trained as much for the race as I did last year.  Last year I did a number of 10 mile training runs and even the full 13.1 distance once before doing the race.  This year I have run 10 miles a couple times and several 7 milers.  I am going to have to rely on my lighter body weight, higher overall fitness level and some mental toughness to pull me through the event.  I still have a less than two hour goal in my mind, I wish I had someone like Matt or Patrick doing the race so they could help keep me on point.

Last night we heated up the last of the spaghetti we had left over from the weekend.  There was a little left over so I decided to give the dogs their first taste of pasta.  I am not sure how we never gave them spaghetti before.  Anyway Nicki definitely approved, gobbling down a couple forkfuls in no time at all and was looking for more. Sadie was funny when she ate hers.  She sort of sucked it down like a little kid would do.

Today is leap day.  I don’t have anything witty or unique to say about this day that happens only once every four years.  Personally I plan to utilize the extra day to make one more attempt at the February Bar-barian challenge.

I checked in with both my brother Patrick and my dad yesterday  on their respective journeys home.  Pat said he got back to his place around 1Am (had to work the same day).  Dad’s drive north had an unexpected detour when all of the idiot lights on his brand new Subaru started flashing unexplainably. A trip to the dealer revealed the problem to be a defective gas cap which seemed odd to me.

I have heard of gas caps that aren’t on all the way throwing a check engine light but I have never heard of it causing a Christmas Tree of lights on the dash.  After he got a new cap he was on his way.

Dad also spent about an hour on the side of the road arguing on a conference call with reps from the insurance and drug company over some prescription snafu.  Dad evidently introduced obscenities into the stream of discussion which is never a good thing.  With as mad as I have gotten on the phone with various inept businesses I have never started swearing at them, it is outside the lines of reasonable behavior in that situation to me. It also will do very little to make your ultimate goal be realized and in fact may instead have the exact opposite effect.

My Presidents Day got off to a frustrating start yesterday.  I thought I would head out early to Tire Choice and get a nail removed from the tire of the Tacoma that has been there for awhile, it was causing a slow leak.  I originally bought the tires at Tire Choice and when I did I also purchased the road hazard coverage.

So I get down there a little after 8:15 and see a couple people in the waiting room, not bad.  I tell them I need a nail removed and also I would like to have the tires rotated and balanced, another thing I paid for when I bought the tires (lifetime balance and rotate) but has never been done.  A couple times I have stopped by TC over the years to have them do it but it always was met with “you’ll have to wait two hours” or something along those lines.

I was told there was only one person back in the shop right now (something I seem to hear a lot at this location) it should take about 90 minutes, ok, fine.

I walked down to the near by Dunkin Donuts and fueled up.  On the way I went by one of our local Crossfit gyms, they were out running as part of their WOD.  I have been thinking about buying Ali a trial membership there.  I have a feeling she would really enjoy the team atmosphere and everyone knows that strong is the new skinny.

So I walked back to the garage and began what was a marathon wait.  At around the 90 minute mark when my truck had still not moved from the parking lot and I saw there were many more than just one person back in the garage I got annoyed enough to ask what was going on.

They said they were just about to take the truck back now, which they did a couple minutes later.  They took it back, put it on the lift and then it sat there instead, untouched for a good 20 minutes.  I could see it from the waiting room.

Eventually I see a guy working on the problem tire but then I also notice that he puts the tire back on the same spot on the truck.  Obviously if he was rotating the tires that wouldn’t be the case.  I just shook my head as he brought the truck back out front.

I told the counter person that the mechanic did not rotate or balance the tires as I asked but at this point I was done wasting my time, it was almost 11 AM at this point.  The clerk shrugged his shoulders and said he guesses the woman that did my work order did not include the rotate and balance on there.  Yea whatever, great.  So I wound up spending almost 3 hours at Tire Choice and got one third of the work done.  I was sure to utilize their feedback email address I saw in the store.  I think I will be getting a call today.

So next I went down to Sam’s to get gas and run the truck through the car wash.  More frustration awaited with lines at the pump and even longer lines for the wash as the snowbirds had inundated the place.  Lovely.

So I finally get back home, annoyed I wasted most of the morning doing something that should have taken a half hour.  Ali had texted me earlier saying when she came out Sadie was outside.  Well that’s odd, I didn’t let her outside before I left.  Ali said she made sure she hadn’t punched out another screen.  Well she hadn’t punched out a screen but there were two claw rips in the screen door.  I think she pushed on the door and perhaps it wasn’t latched securely and she punched through.  I wasn’t planning on doing screen repair as well yesterday but suddenly that was now on the to do list.

So then I go outside and see the hole that Nicki dug, right in the area I just resodded the day before.  Ali told me how cute it was that Nicki was digging, something she used to do pretty regularly but not anymore.  I told Ali it was not cute that she did it right there.  Ali did not agree that she should have scolded Nicki for digging.  I repeated I don’t care if she digs but there are 3 other acres she can dig at.  I told her she just will confuse Nicki by encouraging her to dig at the same spot where I will scold her for doing the same.  More frustration.

So finally we were taking out some of the indoor plants to the shed to transplant and combine with some of the new houseplants we bought.  The one plant I got down had some standing water on the top of it.  I evidently added too much water on Friday night.  Well Ali did not notice the water and threw the pot up on her shoulder, trying to be efficient so she would have another hand free to grab another one.

Well within a few seconds she had a muddy stream flowing down her arm and onto the carpet.  She blamed me for overfilling the pot with water.  I blamed her for not noticing the lake in the pot before she picked it up since I saw it right away.  Cleaning the mess up required use of the Dyson and SpotBot.  Yes, it was frustrating.

Luckily for both Ali and I, she had a dentist appointment in the afternoon so we got a much needed break from each other.

While she was gone the equipment for my SSR upgrade came.  Once Ali got back I headed right out in the SSR to Best Buy, I wanted to buy some high grade wire connector for the install.  While I was out I got a call from my Dad with an updated status.  He was stopping for the day just inside the Florida border.  He and my step mom have been making the trip south pretty slowly but they should finally arrive later this afternoon.

During the day yesterday our neighbors across the street dropped off two boxes of dog supplies.  They had just recently had to put BOTH of their older dogs down, each had their own set of health issues.  We felt so bad for them as we knew how much they loved their dogs, just like we do.  I could see the pain in Steve’s face as we tried to offer our condolences.  It has to be an absolutely awful thing to deal with.

While Ali was away I figured I would try to burn off some of the frustration of the day with another crack at this month’s forum challenge.  I improved my numbers from my first try by 3 pull ups and 9 push ups, a decent improvement but I was actually hoping for a bit more.

Ali made a really good rice pilaf last night.  She also reheated the left over sweet potato patties in the frying pan, it made a ton of difference, they tasted much better to me now with no additional seasoning.