Category Sports

So Saturday morning I got up very early to go do the club run.  As I was leaving my house I saw a pile of roadkill right in front of the driveway.  It looked like an armadillo.  Then, I saw another armadillo along the neighbors fence line.  I can only assume this one and it’s smashed counterpart are the culprit for the many holes in both my and the neighbors property.  I have to admit, I did not feel my normal level of remorse when I saw the dead dillo in the road.  If I wasn’t pressed for time I would have tried to catch the other one.

So I went into the club run with conservative numbers in mind.  My right knee has been troublesome since the KOB vball tourney in mid-August.  I have run one three mile session on the treadmill in the last 6 weeks, that has basically been it.

Taking that into account, I figured it would be smart to only shoot for 4 or 5 miles.  I needed to get my running ramped up for the Tough Mudder but I don’t need to aggravate the injury. So not only did I plan to keep the distance down, I was looking for a rather leisurely pace so I could get my body acclimated again to distance.

Well the slower pace thing didn’t last very long.  My natural instinct to want to pass people took over almost immediately.  I moved up through the large group of runners and then came upon Matt who was running and talking to someone else.  Well Matt accelerated and hooked up with me.  I knew at that point my pre-run intentions were officially scuttled.  I would be running 7 miles and it would be at a decent clip.

Honestly I was kind of surprised that I was able to do 7 miles at a 9 minute mile pace without MAJOR complications. Yea I was tired but not gassed. The knee had some discomfort but not bad pain.

I picked up the dogs on the way home as Ali was going to work.  I had a number of things to address at home.  One of those things was going to be mowing but after another deluge Friday night the land was too swampy to bother.  I decided to just wait until things dry out later this week.

One of the things outside of normal chores I wanted to look at/fix was the battery in the Tacoma.  You may recall that after I replaced the starter I had some mysterious battery charging light issues that went away.  When I was looking into them I noticed the positive battery terminal had a TON of shit accumulated on it, despite the battery only being a year old.  At that time I gave the terminal and connectors a thorough cleaning and applied stuff that is supposed to prevent the corrosion from returning.

Well when I last changed the oil in the Tacoma I noticed the shit had returned in short notice.  I cleaned it off again.  The last time I had the hood open a week ago I noticed the corrosion returned AGAIN.  I also started seeing the battery light flicker off and on last week once again.  Ok I needed to look into this closer.  Under normal circumstances a battery should not corrode the terminals that quickly.

Getting the positive terminal off the battery was tough.  The corrosion had eaten into the nut and bolt that secures it, it was quite tough to break it free.

Well once I got it off I noticed something.  It looked like the positive terminal was loose, there was a crack around it’s base that leads into the battery.  It made sense.  This kind of corrosion is normally caused by leaking battery acid.  It seemed obvious that the acid could leak from the cracked casing.

I threw the battery into the van and took it back to Wal-mart where I bought it to get it replaced for free.  It was actually the second time I had been to the store I love to hate in a few hours.  I stopped there initially to grab more battery cleaning supplies.  While I was there I grabbed a new battery terminal to replace the badly corroded original.

I have to tell you, every time I go to the local Super Wal-mart, I feel like a hypocrite. The store represents everything that is wrong with America, as it sells dirt cheap made in China shit to an all consuming, fat, lazy, american population that stuff the aisles like mindless cattle.

As I walked around the store I found myself involuntarily just shaking my head at the humanity I was observing.  Maybe much like my slow transformation to a meatless diet, I can finally proclaim once and for all I will not buy another item from Wal-mart, ever.

So anyway, I got my new battery and battery terminal installed without issue.  I am hoping that is the end of my battery idiot light.

Saturday night I took my mom out to dinner at a place called the Fish House.  It was maybe 5 minutes away from mom’s place.  The nice thing about eating with mom is she typically wants to eat dinner early, meaning for the most part you miss the core of the dinner crowd.

The restaurant had a very casual feel, it kind of reminded a bit of the Snook Inn with outdoor seating, a seafood heavy menu and a relaxed atmosphere.  Mom and I sat in the covered sunroom style area. The restaurant is right on the water so you have a relaxing view as you wine and dine.  Both mom and I enjoyed our meals.  I would definitely take someone back there.

Over the weekend I had a couple odd wildlife sightings (besides the one alive and one dead armadillo).

When I was weeding the garden I pulled aside a 2×6 that is used to sit on while working.  To my amazement I was looking back at the face of a little mouse that had moved in to one of the raised beds during the last week.

After staring at me for a few moments he slowly backed down into his nest out of sight.  I put the board back in place as it was his makeshift roof.  Lucky for him, I currently have a lot of unused garden real estate until the winter planting season hits.

The other sighting was a small, young bird on the dash of the SSR.  The bird had somehow found itself on the dash of the truck (the top was down) and kept trying to escape through the windshield.

I was able to snap a picture shortly before he realized that flying the opposite direction was the ticket to freedom.

I also had a lot of buzzard visitors that came to dispose of the armadillo carcass.  I had no less than 20 of them hanging around.  These suckers are huge.  I could hear them hopping around the roof of the house while I was inside.

Sunday morning I did my second day of endurance work, riding 12.25 miles at a brisk pace (for me) and following up with 1200 in the pool.  Unlike the last time I swam at the water park in bathtub warm water, the temps were more suitable this time around.

The water park closes for the season next weekend. It sucks they close so early.  The weather here could easily support the place staying open into November but economics dictate otherwise.

The Eagles didn’t play until 4pm so that gave me some extra time to of course get things done.  After paying the bills I set the Scoobas loose on the hard surfaces while I used the carpet cleaner on the rest of the house.  After the dog excrement heavy prior weekend I figured a thorough cleaning would be a good idea.

I asked Ali if she wanted to bring the dogs over to watch the Eagles game which she did.  When she arrived I was on the phone with DirecTv.  When I flipped on the game I noticed that I was only getting the standard def broadcast, not the crystal clear HD that I normally receive.  When I tuned to the HD channels I was receiving a prompt to BUY the HD game for the low, low price of 44.99, WTF?  Well this surely had to be a mistake since everything worked just fine the first two weeks of the season.

The first person I spoke to had very limited power in the system besides being able to send a reset to the receiver.  She was not able to help me so she forwarded me to tech support.  This was another woman that seemed like she knew her stuff.  She joked about my issue and assured me she should be able to get me up and running shortly.  That’s great, except she didn’t.

She was dumbfounded for awhile, not sure why she could not get HD working on my account.  After putting me on hold several times she came back and gave me the very annoying news.  She said that because of my bastardized package, where I just have the Sunday Ticket but no regular DirecTv programming, she said that they no longer can include HD access.

I said “What are you talking about?  This worked 7 days ago and has worked for the last 5 years why would it just stop working?”  All the girl could say was they don’t offer the HD option anymore if I just get Sunday Ticket.

Well I certainly wasn’t going to take this as an answer.  I have had similar run ins with DirecTV when it comes to my package where I was told I couldn’t have certain things where eventually I could, if I pressed hard enough.  So I started the press.

I told the girl this was asinine that I am paying 300 for the Ticket, something they are giving away for free to new subscribers and I can no longer get it in HD.  I reminded her it was 2012, to make HD optional is ridiculous in the first place.  I used my normally successful tactic of asking her to put herself in my shoes.  I have been a customer for 12 years and this is how I am rewarded?

Well regardless of what I was saying, the girl said she is nothing she can do.  She said the option to add HD back into my account “was grayed out” because of my lack of a normal subscription.  Ok well then it was time to turn to common tactic two, “let me speak to your supervisor”.

The woman obviously was not pleased by my request and my belief that I would get further with someone of greater authority.  In fact she told me that although she can connect me with a supervisor, I will be told the exact same thing.  I told her I want to talk to her anyway.  She was an unhappy camper with me but I didn’t care.

So after a few minute wait (at this point the call was over 30 minutes long) I get another woman with a pleasant sounding southern accent.  She asks me what is going on although I certainly assumed she had an idea.  I recapped the scenario, basically no HD now, had HD before, fix it.

Initially the woman did do what the prior support agent indicated, said there was nothing she could do, the option wasn’t available.  Despite hearing this 7 or 8 times now, I persisted.  I told her that as a long time customer I find this very disappointing and if I it wasn’t resolved I would just cancel and be sure to let someone at DirecTV higher up the chain know why I cancelled.

Well that statement apparently got the woman to dig a little deeper.  On digging she saw that I stopped being charged an additional $10 a month for “HD access” in October 2011. Despite it’s removal 11 months ago, I had HD versions of the games until yesterday which she could not explain.  She put me on hold several times trying to figure it out.  Then all of a sudden the HD version of the game popped on the screen, it’s back.

I told her it was now working.  She was glad.  She said the trick was although she could not add HD back to the account, she did have the option to re-activate it.  Evidently that is different in the DirecTv world.  So anyway all was well again although I asked her if I was going to see this problem reoccur when I go to watch next weeks game.  She said it “shouldn’t”.  Of course I know that means it probably will. Oh well at least I had the game back in a format suitable for the 73 inch TV.

As I hung up I put an imaginary notch in my belt as I snickered mentally at the tech that said transferring me to the supervisor would be worthless.  Worthless, my ass.  Not taking no for an answer in certain situations is a valuable lesson.  I was told there was absolutely nothing could be done about the situation, but in there end, there was.

After all that effort to get the game on, it would have been nice if the Eagles put on a performance worth watching.  Unfortunately it was the exact opposite.  The Birds got smashed by the Cardinals 27-6.  Once again the Eagles and Vick had big turnover problems, the most horrific was a fumble at the end of the half when the team was ready to score.  Instead the Cardinals ran the fumble back the length of the field, a huge 14 point swing.

Once again Vick seemed to be getting smacked more plays than he wasn’t.  Some of it was his fault, some of it wasn’t.  He doesn’t seem to respond well at all when the defense dictates a quick throw to beat the rush.  Instead he holds the ball and more often than not makes a bad decision in addition to taking a physical beating.  Unless they find a way to change this trend there is no way Vick is going to make it through the season.

The game was ugly from start to finish.  At least this wasn’t one of those games that we can lament the team “should have won”.  This was a no doubt about it ass kicking.

It had to be sweet revenge for Kevin Kolb whom was traded away after Andy decided to bet the farm on Vick.  Kolb had a very solid game and was clearly the better QB yesterday.  Other than his torrid run in 2010 when he became the starter, Vick’s numbers have been middle of the pack at best.  His performance/numbers are nowhere close to the level his astronomical contract would dictate.

 

So by the time Friday rolled around I was totally over my training class, I couldn’t take it anymore.  By that time I had gotten what I needed out of the class, a basic understanding of how IP6 functions and is different than IPV4.  Unfortunately for me the class dealt with high end router/switch technologies that I have no use for in my current job environment.  Hell, a lot of the acronyms I never even heard of before.

Even with 5 days dedicated to the class, there was entirely TOO much content jammed in there.  It was ridiculous.  Even if the instructor did nothing but read each slide non-stop I don’t think we would have gotten through everything.

The instructor didn’t help the situation either.  Don’t get me wrong, this guy was a Cisco GENIUS but he was not so brilliant in time management.  Earlier in the week he was very sloppy with making sure class started on time, breaks were observed and lunch hour was actually only an hour.  Plus he didn’t set any finite time on the labs we did which was dumb.  Instead of saying “you have 40 minutes for this lab” it would be open ended which resulted in hours being wasted.

I was so glad when I clicked the TERMINATE button for the video conference for the final time.  It was a long week in the virtual classroom.

So I had a race to time Saturday morning.  I was out of the house early, right around 5AM.  I got Nicki to take a dump before I left so I figured I would be in the clear till I got back around 10.  Sadie didn’t dump beforehand but traditionally she is fine when it comes to not dropping deuces unless outside.

Well when I got back to the house I was hit in the face with the lovely stench of dog shit.  In front of the guest bathroom was a large pile of what looked to be Sadie shit.  In the master bathroom on one of the mats was a small runny puddle of Nicki shit.  I was not pleased.

I pointed out each pile to the offending canine and used my stern voice to let them it was NOT ok.  I then got to the pleasant duty of doody clean up, before even starting on all of the post race work that I needed to do.

Nicki’s shitting in particular is the most perplexing.  It was a tiny amount of crap, certainly she didn’t do it because she could no longer hold it.  Like I mentioned, she went before I left.  Part of this is our problem.  We have conditioned Nicki to associate taking a shit with getting treats her entire life.  Now it’s like she feels the need to HAVE to eject something from her anus nearly every time she is outside because she wants the reward.

This could all be stress related because of the uncertainty of bouncing between two living arrangements/time schedules.  Nicki is much more schedule/environment dependent than Sadie is, who can roll with just about anything.

On top of the shitting I have been treated to multiple episodes of vomiting.  Twice overnight Nicki has thrown up and Sadie has barfed more than that as the result of her insistence to ingest grass when I am not looking.  Every pile of vomit she produces always has grass mixed in with it.

Saturday night I went out and saw Lawless.  It was surprisingly good although were some cringe worthy moments with graphic violence.  I’d give it a solid A-.

On Sunday morning I was thinking about doing the DD bike ride.  Instead I decided to go to the swamp early with the girls to beat the heat.  We were in the empty parking lot before 9AM.

The first thing we saw were two deer in the parking lot. It made me think we might see a lot of wildlife this time around.  I had not been to the swamp since June.  I figured the summer rains would have brought the water levels back to their max, bringing in more wildlife.

As we walked the boardwalk we came across an older gentleman who wore a volunteer shirt.  He was towing a wagon that had wood and cordless power tools.  He was replacing rotted boards.  I talked to him a bit and told him I saw a few boards he already replaced, it looked like he did good work.

When we entered the main trail I was surprised by a couple things.  First the water levels weren’t as high as I would have expected them to be in mid-September.  Second, the grass on the trail looked like it hadn’t been mowed all summer long.

At some spots the grass was almost knee high.  Not only was the grass high, it was wet from the early hour of day.  In no time my feet were drenched.

I was a bit worried about how Nicki would do on the walk because of her recent mobility issues.  I was happy to see that she kept pace for  most of the walk.

Unfortunately we did not see much wildlife at all during the hike, outside of the deer in the parking lot, the only other animals we saw were two baby gators sunning themselves.

Repeatedly during the walk I had to scold Sadie for trying to munch on the high grass.  I don’t know what her deal is with her grass craving.  You would think she is part bovine.

By the time we got back to the van the temps had started to crank up.  I was glad we got there early.  Although Nicki did well during the hike, later in the day I could tell she was feeling the side effects.  When she would get up after napping she looked very stiff.

So I took in the Eagles game, basically assuming they would get smashed by the Ravens who looked great in their opener while the Eagles fumbled and bumbled their way to a narrow one point win against the stinky Browns.

Well with the way the game started it seemed my assumption was right on.  I couldn’t believe that Vick ended the Eagles opening drive with ANOTHER interception, this time in the end zone.  The Eagles turned the ball over THREE MORE times on top of that, an embarrassingly bad stat.  I think in the first two games they have turned the ball over 9 times.

However in the end they managed to grind out another come from behind, grind it out win, this time against a much better opponent. The Birds actually set some sort of record as being only the 5th team in NFL history to start a season 2-0 after committing this many turnovers.  A dubious title but I’ll take it.

Last year these were the type of games that the Eagles would consistently find a way to lose in the end.  The fact that this year they are finding a way to win instead gives me more hope that the team could actually perform up to their talent level this time around.

On a side note, the replacement NFL officials are an absolute joke.  I mean they are embarrassingly bad.  There were some horrible call and non-calls on both sides of the ball on Sunday.  This has not been the exception, the entire time the replacement refs have been in place week in and week out they have sucked, plain and simple.  The NFL needs to fix this.  If important games late in the year start getting decided by these bumbling boobs there is going to be hell to pay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I neglected to mention that on Friday I got word back that I had won my battle regarding flood insurance. I will not be required to purchase it. I was dealing with a guy from Fiserv-Lereta, the company that provided my credit union with the erroneous info regarding my flood zone status.  Last week I told him if he could get this mess straightened out I would be happy to send him a case of beer. Well he delivered on his end so I intend to deliver on mine.  I just need to find some Florida branded beer to ship out to his office in California.

My right knee is in pretty bad shape after this weekend’s volleyball action.  As a result I dusted off my trusty knee ice wrap, something I haven’t had to use in a very long time.  I strapped it on last night and left it there for a long time as I was editing more volleyball video.  Speaking of that…

So when I posted my volleyball video from Siesta Key I just dumped the raw uncut video on YouTube which is very easy for me but results in a big, long video that has way too much dead time in it.

So with the video from this weekend’s King of the Beach event I have been doing the tedious job of cutting out the footage between plays.

Last night I was working on the longest file I had.  It was 43 minutes uncut and less than 16 minutes edited.  I spent upwards of 90 minutes cleaning it up.

So I go to publish the file and MovieMaker hangs….  I groaned out loud, knowing I had not done any intermediate saves and that all that work was just flushed.. FCK!  Now I should know better.  I have had MovieMaker barf before when editing big files.  I should have saved along the way based on past experience.  Oh well, hopefully I will have some time to get the remaining 3 or 4 games on tape out there.

I did snip out one funny moment I forgot about after I hit a ball into the net.  Sometimes I get really frustrated when I mishit a ball.  Over the years I have found all sorts of ways of expressing my frustration when this occurs, here is the latest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5-gQuWksrQ

I also posted the awards ceremony.  Jeremy (and Mandy) actually took the time to make awards for the event which was a funny way to end the festivities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya5n3pCn8g4

Last night I received my new anti-deodorant.  It actually is a brand I heard Howard raving about on his show.  It contains no aluminum which a quick Google search will reveal as a very bad substance to have interact with your body.  I have known about this for eons but never acted upon it.  That is no longer the case.

So last night I watched some of the Eagles pre-season game.  When I tuned in Vick was already out of the game.  I could not believe when I heard for the second game in a row he was knocked out, this time taking a shot to the ribs.

The good news is the ribs aren’t broken.  The bad news is this is a very bad sign for the upcoming season.  Mike Vick has a history of getting injured, largely in part to the way he plays the game, running and scrambling to try to extend plays which opens him up to take additional shots.  Well he is no spring chicken anymore.  When you get older, you get hurt more, not less.  Unless they find a way to keep him on the field the Eagles offense could have problems this year.

Although with that being said, the Eagles rookie QB had a very strong showing against the Patriots, throwing for over 200 yards and a couple of touchdowns.  Still, that was a preseason game.  If the Eagles are going to return to their past success they are going to need to keep Vick upright somehow.

 

 

I was shocked when I saw the news about Andy Reid’s son being found dead at Eagles training camp.  Even with his well documented problems with drug abuse, I had no idea that things were this bad.  I am sure it is a rough existence for a kid growing up where their father is actually more involved with their job than the family. The incredible time requirements for a NFL coach are well documented.  It can’t be helpful to the family dynamic.

There has been some cool space news the past few days.  Last week high resolution pictures were released that should finally end the speculation regarding if we actually landed on the moon or not.  There has been a long running conspiracy theory that the landing was staged and shot in a movie studio out of the US’s desperate attempt to prove superiority to the Soviets in space during the height of the Cold War.

I have read a bunch of the moon conspiracy theories, some of the evidence presented in them seem quite plausible.  I still think there is a possibility that some of what was fed to the public was false. However these new images supposedly show our discarded equipment on the surface of the moon.  You can even see the trail of footprints left by the astronauts. Since there is no  atmosphere and no weather on the moon,  everything is basically as it was left 40 years ago.

The real big space news is the huge, car size rover successfully landed on Mars last night.  If you want to see why this landing was so impressive, watch the video below.  It simply amazes me.

 

 

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.

 

Ali and I continued our new found, post separation interest in Tarpons arena football.  After work I changed and picked up Ali to head to the Southern Conference Championship game.  Yes it was odd that they had the game on a Monday night but I suppose that was when the arena was available.  It was obvious as soon as I entered the parking area that the Monday night timing of the event was going to hurt attendance, there were not a lot of vehicles there at all.

There was no one handing out free tickets this time.  I opted to buy tickets in one of the end zones this time around, thinking it might be fun to catch one of the many footballs that get booted into the stands.

Before we found our seats we once again stopped to grab our food.  We once again were handed less than stellar slices of pizza but I managed to keep my slice off the arena floor this time thankfully.  Our seats were top row, almost directly between the uprights, a good spot to catch balls from. I did become annoyed though that the area around us filled up pretty thoroughly.  It seemed ridiculous considering the rest of the arena was almost empty.

Pre-game during the national anthem Ali was annoyed.  There were several young boys in front of us, if I had to guess, somewhere around the 13-15 range.  Almost all of them were wearing hats.  Once the anthem started all of them knew enough to take their hats off except one hispanic kid, wearing a backwards “Obey Propoganda” baseball hat.  I was thinking about telling him to take off his fckin hat but didn’t, a mistake in retrospect.  I couldn’t help but wonder if his parents were in the country he was disrespecting legally or not.  Well Ali was thinking the same thoughts I was but she bit her tongue as well.

The Tarpons are the clear class of the league, mowing through their schedule to a perfect 11-0 regular season record.  The two games we went to previously were both huge blow outs.  We wondered if since this was a playoff game that we might see a more competitive game.

Well for the first quarter we actually did.  The quarter was uncharacteristically low scoring for arena football with it ending with the Tarpon actually BEHIND, 9-7.  I didn’t have any balls come close to me during kicking attempts.  It’s too bad.  I told the guy that was next to me with his family, which included a little boy, that we needed to work together, if I caught the ball I was going to give it to his son.

In the second quarter the Tarpons mashed the gas pedal to the floor and quickly jumped out to a big lead that they never gave up.

There is some interesting people watching to be done at Tarpon games.  There was this one huge person that Ali and first both thought was a man whom later turned out to be a woman.  She seemed very interested in buying her way into being the number one Tarpon fan.  She was wearing an XXL Tarpons championship game t-shirt, had bought a UIFL arena football and won a raffle for a Tarpons helmet signed by the entire team.  It almost seemed to me like she had never been to a Tarpons game in her life but she wanted to look the part.

Then there was this older couple in the row in front of us and to the right.  The man was wearing a sweater and a brand new Tarpons baseball cap.  The guy although he looked quite old, appeared to be a spring chicken compared to his wife.  She just sat there and stared at the field through her bifocals.

The old guy had also invested in one of those power bands that they were selling in the concourse, you know those things that you put around your wrist that are supposed to fix any ailment under the sun ranging from sore knees to erectile dysfunction.  He was very interested in his band, I saw him touching it repeatedly on his wrist, maybe hoping to accelerate it’s therapeutic effects.

The old guy had a VERY disturbing way of drinking water. He would begin each sip on his bottle by extending his tongue first out of his mouth far further than is necessary.  It was like he was making love to his bottle of Dasani.

I did not see the couple speak once or even acknowledge the other.  Ali thought it was cute that at least they were there together.  That wasn’t the adjective I would have used.

So anyway the Tarpons completed their steamroll of the Lakeland Raiders, winning 60-29.  Ali and I decided to stick around to the very end.  The said that the fans could come on the field after the game which sounded cool.

I was interested how hard the playing surface was, it felt like it had some decent give to it, far softer than the granite like surface of the Vet I walked on (and played flag football on) years and years ago.

The players were interacting with the fans and were extremely friendly doing so.  They seem genuinely appreciative of the few fans that came out to support them, a distinct 180 from the image most athletes portray nowadays. In general, the Tarpons do a real good job of making the fans feel appreciated.  Ali and I both find we seem to enjoy going to Tarpons games more than the Firecat arena football games we went to in the early/mid 2000’s.

Ali and I congratulated a few players but we had wanted to get a picture of Ali with Timmy the Tarpon, the team mascot.  It took awhile till we got the chance to snap the pic but Ali was happy when we got it done.

It was a fun night.  Next week is the UIFL Ultimate Bowl, again unfortunately on a Monday night.  I feel like I HAVE to be there at this point.

So since I was taking the SSR to Siesta Key and I was also going to be playing volleyball on Saturday, I decided a high and very tight haircut would be beneficial.  Buzzed hair does not blow in the wind or collect much sand.  I believe I set a new head shaving speed record, completing the task in 7 minutes.

It went a bit faster than normal since I didn’t leave the top a bit longer like I normally do.  Instead I slapped on the 1/8″ guide and went nuts.  Some people like this look, more don’t.  For me, in my current state of mind, it works.

Friday night I was awakened several times by thunder, there were some strong storms blowing through.  When I got up at 4:45 the rain had stopped but it looked like only recently as the roads were soaked. I wasn’t all that thrilled with driving the SSR up 75 on wet, dirty roads but I knew it was going to be getting a bath regardless so it didn’t really matter.

The drive up to Siesta Key went fine, the SSR is very smooth and fast on the highway, I averaged 80+ for most of the ride.  I opted to keep the top up until I hit the Dunkin Donuts in Siesta Key.

I found a good spot to park next to an island, the other side of which was occupied by a Camaro 2SS/RS, obviously looking to minimize asshole exposure as I was.

As I walked towards the beach, I saw the surrounding park area had huge lakes of standing water.  Wow, it seems like it really rained there as well last night.

Well when I got up to the beach it was a flurry of sights and sounds.  The event organizers were desperately trying to “fix” the beach.  The standing water was not isolated to the park area.  Many parts of the wide and hard beach were under water as well, including many spots where nets for the tournament were located.  It looked like an awful mess.

Well the tournament organizers had engaged various pieces of power equipment in an attempt to combat the soggy sand.  They had 3 or 4 ATV’s pulling graters around.  They also had a gas post hole digger and fire hose.   They would dig a deep hole and insert the one end of the hose in it,d dragging the other end far off the courts to relocate water.

I was impressed with their efforts but I knew there was no way we were starting on time, it was a huge undertaking.

They had clip boards out with assigned net numbers.  Tabby and I were assigned to court 37.

I decided to walk over there and take a look.  I laughed out loud when I saw our court. It was one huge lake.  There was no way they were going to be able to get it ready in time.

I texted Tabby and told him our court was underwater.  He arrived shortly afterwards.  He had driven over the night before and stayed in a hotel.  He confirmed that it absolutely poured all night long.

By this time I already had been mulling about for over an hour, watching the clean up activities taking place.  Little did I know I would be waiting much, much longer.

As we waited, Tabby went up to grab some of the complimentary water.  As he reached for a third water pouch (he was grabbing one for me too) he got reprimanded by one of the event staff, saying he shouldn’t take too many waters at a time.  WTF??

It was symbolic of how shitty this tour has become.

This tour, which I still refer to as the Bud Light Tour, even though Bud Light hasn’t been an actual sponsor for eons, used to really offer some decent value for the money when I first moved down here to Florida.  Not only did they give out free water without water police watching, they gave out free beer!  In addition the prizes they handed out were quite nice, nice enough to make you motivated to win even more than you normally would be. This tour also used to go  above and beyond with their tournament t-shirts, offering colored shirts with unique designs for each and every tourney.  They did all of this with an entry free that was somewhere around $50 a team.

Well fast forward to present day.  They have raised the entry fee almost 50% to $70 a team PLUS this tour now requires you to be a USA Volleyball member which costs an additional $20.  Instead of offering more for your money, they offer significantly less.  The only free thing you get is water and rationed water at that.  The t-shirt is now an ultra-low cost, low quality white variety with the same artwork for every tournament.  Oh and the prizes now suck as well, low quality crap that falls apart in a few months.  The only decent item given out is a volleyball if you win first place and how many volleyballs do you need?

About two and a half hours after I arrived the organizers got on the stage and made an announcement.  They said of the 40 nets they had set up, almost half of them are unplayable, despite their efforts.  They gave the players two options.  The non-open divisions could convert to a fours format instead of doubles, requiring less nets, or you could ask for a credit good towards a future tournament.

Well the crowd groaned at the announcement.  A huge portion of the players opted to bag it and take the credit.  Tabby and I probably would have done the same except he already had a hotel room booked and paid for Saturday night, he had nothing else to do.  I had nothing on the schedule until Saturday night so I said I would be down with playing fours as well, a format I haven’t played in forever.

The organizers said the teams that were interested in fours should team up and report in.  Well Tabby and I didn’t know anyone else playing in the A division so we just gave them our names and said we would play with whomever.  Well there happened to be another team that checked in right before us in the same boat so they became our new partners, Nick and Josh.

So when the brackets were finally established, which took quite a long time, it turned out we had a total of 4 teams of A 4’s.  We would be playing on one net.

By the time the first game got started it was after 11 am, ridiculously late, but at least we were playing and on a court that was in relatively good shape at that.

Both Nick and Josh were younger guys, I don’t know if either of them had their 25th birthday yet.  They brought with them three young cute girls as well.  I never got a firm handle on who was paired up with who.

Josh said that Nick and he played a whole bunch of indoor volleyball before but they only started playing beach ball last year.  Of course I noticed right away that Nick was wearing a Tough Mudder headband.  Evidently Josh and he not only did the Tough Mudder, they are basically mud race junkies.  He said on average they do two a month, wow.

In addition to their mud racing, Nick is a triathlete, sporting an Ironman tattoo after he completed the Louisville event.  It was cool being able to exchange stories with him about both mudder life and tri’s.

On the court we did pretty well.  All of us were sort of thrown off balance by playing 4’s, especially when you have never played with or met half of your team members.  We kept things basic, doing a full rotation where everyone plays every position, not a great formula for success but we went with it.

Despite not playing for almost exactly a year I felt pretty comfortable out on the court which kind of surprised me.  Playing fours does take some of the pressure off since you have more bodies covering the same area normally covered by only two.

We wound up losing our first game by a couple points (rally to 28), but it didn’t really bother me.  After all that lead up to us actually getting out on the court, I was happy to just be playing.

The girls that Nick and Josh brought did a nice job of being our official team cheerleaders, cheering loudly and offering encouragement throughout the game.

During the first game I had a foot collision with a guy on the other team at the net.  I was rushing in to hit a low set and he was planted there to block.  My toes smashed into the side of his foot.  It hurt, but I didn’t pay much attention to it at all.

Well after the game I happened to glance down at my left foot and saw this. It looked like I was beating on three of my toes with a hammer.  My second toe was the worst as blood was seeping around the toenail. It was gross.

I was surprised that I was able to play more or less unencumbered despite the mangled toes.  Evidently those three toes serve little functionality when it comes to playing beach volleyball.

As we watched the other two teams on our net it became apparent that there were no weak teams playing, I am pretty sure that everyone that agreed to play 4’s signed up for A doubles, not BB.

One of the teams had one of the dreaded father/young son phenom combos on it.  The dad was a real strong player, evidently he plays AA skill level or higher normally.  His kid whom I can’t believe was more than 12, was a great player with setting skills that far eclipse mine.  Playing 4’s was actually perfect for him as he could be the full time setter with little penalty to the rest of the team.

Our second game was against that team. Once again the game was pretty tight but again we came out on the losing end.  Personally I was still playing well so the eventual game outcome didn’t concern me all that much.  Both Tabby and I agreed that it was too bad we weren’t playing doubles because we would have probably done pretty damn well.

So our last match in pool play was against another good team that happened to lose their first two games by a narrow margin as well. (every game during pool play was close, no blowouts)  We tried mixing things up this game, making Tabby the designated setter since he was the best setter by far out of the four of us.  He said he didn’t mind setting full time.

He did a nice job of setting but we wound up losing yet another close game, mostly on the back of unforced errors, including a number if missed serves. (which I had none of all day)  There was a funny moment in that game where the tall, big hitter on the other team, whom was drilling balls all game, hit another rocket right at me.

I crouched down to dig it but the ball was coming so fast it got there before my arms were extended.  I wound up catching the ball dodgeball style instead, it looked funny.

So we weren’t sure if we were going to be involved in the playoffs or not, with a single, 4 team pool sometimes they let all the teams participate in playoffs.  Nick and Josh asked if we wanted to get out on the court for a bit while it was figured out to play doubles, like we were supposed to.

In a way it seemed like a way to prove which team was the reason we were 0-3 in pool play.  Well I think we got the answer.  Tabby and I were ahead 15-9 by the time we had to stop for playoffs to begin.

So we found out we did indeed get to play in the playoffs, albeit against the father and son team whom was undefeated.

We saved our best game of the day for last.  We really made some nice plays and I was really hitting well when I had the opportunity.  My arm felt very lively.

The playoff game, which was to 21, was tied 19-19.  I was so hoping to get a chance to crush a couple balls to give us the win.  Instead, the last two plays didn’t involve me at all and we wound up going down for the fourth time of the day, 21-19.

Oh well, despite the goose egg,  I walked away from the day feeling really no remorse.  Considering the circumstances I played really well.  If I play well and we still lose, then it bothers me much less.  If I stink up the joint and lose I take it much harder.  And that isn’t to say anyone on out team stunk up the joint.  It was just very evenly matched, good competition all afternoon long.

I had some time before I had to head for home to go to the Tarpons game so I stayed to ref the next match which turned out to be the first blow out of the day with the old guys dominating the big lunk team, 21-5.

I set up my Flip cam and stubby tripod to tape the pool play matches.  It’s a far cry from the good old days of Ali footage that included panning, zooming and cutting out the time in between action but you can see generally what is going on.  I have the first two games posted here and here.  I will get the third one posted later this week.  Even if you get bored with the volleyball, listening to the girls commentary and the occasional rear end walking by helps make up for it.

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

Some new winning volleyball tips from this weekend have been added here.

I packed up my stuff, thanked Tabby and limped out to the SSR, my bloody toes were starting to hurt.  I texted Ali and told her we should still be a go for the Tarpons game.

The drive home I think I actually made better time than the drive up.  I nestled in with a convoy of vehicles that were cruising around 85 mph.  I made it back from Siesta Key in about 90 minutes.

On the drive home I had an unwelcome visitor to the SSR dashboard, the check engine light.  Geezus Cripes, I thought to myself, can’t I get a f’ing break with the automotive issues!!??  I am hoping the light is related to a loose gas cap since I filled up that morning for the trip.  I haven’t had time yet to throw my code reader on the truck.  It drove fine otherwise.

So I got home, threw the stuff that was in the truck on the garage floor and headed right to the shower to clean up.  Looking in the mirror revealed that the spray on, 70 SPF sunblock appeared to work.  My scalp, which was exposed all day didn’t even look pink thanks to me spraying the gunk generously on my head.  Washing my bloody toes was a bit painful.  They sure looked broken but I was able to wiggle them so maybe they were intact after all.

By this time it was right around 6, the game started at 7:30.  I jumped right back in the van and headed over to Ali’s place. She was nice enough to drive us to the game in the Camry, I was beat.  I told her I would be happy to pay the $5 parking fee this time, not wanting to do more walking than was necessary.

I had not bought tickets ahead of time so we were walking towards the ticket booth.  As we did we were stopped by a guy asking if we needed tickets.  Skeptical, I said yes, we didn’t have any yet.  He said that he is one of the sponsors of the Tarpons and he had a bunch of tickets he was just giving away.  He showed me the tickets and then gave me a business card of his  for the legal service he provides.  He just asked that we visit the web site on the back to which I said “sure, no problem”.  I was still a bit skeptical this was legit but when the two tickets got us in the door my skepticism faded.  Wow, we actually got free tickets, sweet.

Well I wanted a beer and some food before anything else.  We stopped at an Italian stand near our section.  For some reason I thought they sold Papa John’s mini pizzas there.  The woman behind the counter said they do not but the single slices they sold were really nice and big.  Ok, give us two slices.

What we were handed almost seemed like a joke.  The slices looked like shit.  They were small and looked to have almost every speck of moisture baked out of them.  Ali’s also looked a bit mangled.  In retrospect I should have been more of a prick about it and asked for slices that didn’t look like red cardboard but I was hungry, thirsty and just wanted to sit down and relax.

So we walked into the breezeway of the stadium.  I had my slice of shitty pizza in one hand and my beer in the other.  I needed a third hand to pull out my free tickets.  Since I was lacking the necessary appendage I decided to balance the plate on one arm while reaching in my pocket for the tickets.  Well in short order the pizza became unbalanced and dropped on to the black, disgusting cement by my feet.  In my attempt to prevent the drop I also spilled a good portion of my beer as well.

Well without hesitation, I swooped down and picked up the pizza and slapped it back on the plate.  My instant analysis was the rock hard pizza landed crust side down, limiting the ability for microrganisms and bacteria to penetrate it.  Plus I grabbed the pizza well within the 5 second rule parameters.  Ali of course was grossed out beyond belief and offered to walk back and ask if they would swap out pizza slices.  I told her to not bother, I was fine.

So once we sat down and I did a quick visual spot check on the bottom of the pizza, I ate the entire thing, washing it down with what remained of my Bud Light.  Yea typing this out makes me realize just how gross that actually was. As far as I know the floor of arenas are typically not cleaned, ever.  At least to this point, I have had no side effects from the dirty slice.

The game itself was sort of a joke.  It was the final regular season game.  The Tarpons were still undefeated and the team they played from Western Pa, was winless.  Not only were they winless, they had some awful looking purple uniforms.

It didn’t take long to see why the Phantoms were winless.  On the first play from scrimmage the Tarpons sacked them for a safety.  Then on the kickoff, the Tarpons ran it all the way back for a touchdown.  It was like that the entire game, I believe the final score was something like 91-16.

Despite the lopsided contest on the field I generally had a good time just hanging out.  I had a couple more beers and went back and got Ali and myself another slice of pizza from the other end of the arena.  The quality was much improved and I didn’t even drop it this time.

We didn’t do any seat jumping this time around.  Our free seats were good enough and to be honest, the place is small enough that there really are no bad seats anyway.

We left a little after 10pm with a little less than 10 minutes to go in the game.  The game was already well beyond over at this point anyway.  The Tarpons begin the playoffs in a couple weeks.  I may try to go to the game if I can.

So when we got back to Ali’s place we made arrangements for me to come back the next morning to pick up the dogs.  Ali was going to go to work on Sunday and I planned to mostly work on the truck during the day so I figured the dogs could hang with me.

After a much needed good night’s sleep I jumped in the van and got the dogs.  After completing any remaining house chores I started on the long awaited and somewhat dreaded, starter project.

When the Tacoma starter died in 2007 I remember contemplating doing the job myself.  After looking at the tight working space and not doing any research on the internet about it, I decided to just pony up the money and pay someone else to do it at that time.

Well my financial situation is a lot different in 2012.  Wherever I have an opportunity to shave money off my expenses I need to do it.  Doing this job myself would save me roughly 250 bucks.  After looking into the procedure pretty thoroughly I determined I should be able to pull the job off with the addition of a couple tools, a long ass socket extension and a swivel socket, both of which I bought at Sears earlier in the week.

The job had it’s peaks and valleys as I expected.  The biggest f up was when I mistakenly thought the bolts that hold the solenoid cap on the starter were the bolts that held the starter to the motor.  I spent a good 20 minutes carefully removing them unnecessarily.  Eventually I found the correct bolts and was quite glad I had my swivel socket and extension, doing the job without them would have been close to impossible.

Once I got the old starter out I tried sliding the solenoid cap off of it to see if I could look at the internal contacts that were most likely the problem.  Once I got the solenoid cap loose I couldn’t see the contacts and I also couldn’t push it back together.  I said f it and left it that way since I was going to just be giving the old starter to Autozone for the core charge.

The girls were excited to go on yet another ride in the van to go get the new starter.

I was a bit bummed that the closest Autozone to me did not have a starter in stock.  The guy said they sold the last one the day before.  He called the next closest store and verified that they had one, which they did.  For my trouble he told the other store to give me a 10% discount on the part, sweet.

I walked out of the second store having only dropped $92 for the new starter, which included a set of body fastening connectors, a nice deal.

Reinstalling the new starter was a bit of a challenge.  The first challenge was getting the starter into place.  To do so required bringing the starter up from the bottom of the vehicle in an upright position and then carefully rotating it in just the right way so it would go back into it’s mounting position.

After that I had to get the two bolts back in that hold it in place.  I had an issue with the top bolt.  It almost felt like the top hole in the starter wasn’t threaded properly.  I started encountering a lot of resistance while cranking it earlier than I should have.  I turned on that sucker hard and was only able to get the bolt close to but not quite snug.  Although the starter feels plenty secure I think I am either going to use a nut for a washer or get a shorter bolt so it is attached as it should be.  I don’t like half assing a repair if I am going to spend the time to do it.

Speaking of half assing, I managed to break the outlet off the back of the air box when I was removing the tube that runs between it and the throttle body.  For now my solution is duct tape but I am hoping to find a used box cheap somewhere in the future.

Replacing the starter was INCREDIBLY dirty work.  The Tacoma slowly leaks various fluids at this point in it’s life so the area I was working with was a greasy, oily mess.  By the time I was done my hands and forearms were pure black.

So anyway, eventually I got it done, stuff hooked back up and was able to do the big test, turning the key.  I held my breath and then exhaled when the truck turned over and started normally on the first try, success.

I got done just in time.  About 15 minutes after I got the last tool put away it started to downpour.

I videoed the starter repair as my automotive repair videos typically garner a decent sized YouTube following.

I was dead tired after a day turning wrenches under the truck in the hot driveway.  I asked Ali if instead of me getting back in the van and driving the dogs to her place, if she would mind driving out to the house to pick them up.  I sweetened the deal by offering to provide pizza for dinner.

I could tell she wasn’t thrilled by the idea but she agreed to come out, she knew I was beat up from volleyball before throwing the truck repair on top of things.

So by the time she got out there I already had burgers for the dogs made and cooling on a plate.  I made their supper and then used the burgers as a garnish, a combo both of them found quite tasty.  After the pizza came out of the oven Ali and I ate it while catching the season premiere of Master Chef.

When she was ready to go both of the dogs were looking quite comfortable.  Ali asked if I wanted the dogs to sleep over and I could just drop them off Monday morning on the way to work.  I said of course I was fine with it if Ali was.  Ali likes having the dogs with her at night.

So it was decided, it was officially a dog sleepover night.  Sadie snored happily next to me.  It was nice to wake up to the two black and furry faces.

I dropped them off this morning as planned.

I am pretty gimpy today between my smashed toes and normal muscle/knee soreness that accompanies rare volleyball action.  None of the pains feel like they are the type that will last beyond a few days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So after doing my research into what I would need to be successful in replacing the starter on my Tacoma, a 14 MM swivel socket seemed pretty important.  I decided after work to do something I haven’t done in at least a half decade, set foot inside the walls of the local Sears.

I do the vast majority of my item shopping online and the vast majority of that via Amazon since I get free two day shipping thanks to my Amazon Prime account and the points I accrue on my Amazon Visa card.  Going to an actual store just happens very infrequently unless that store is a Home Depot or Lowes.

Well Sears is famous for it’s Craftsman tool line.  I figured I would be able to find what I needed in their huge tool department.  I did indeed and then some.  In addition to the 14mm swivel socket I picked up a three pack of universal swivel sockets one for 1/4″, 3/8″ and 1/2″ drives which will give me some flexibility (no pun intended) going forward.  I also grabbed a 20 inch extension since it was advised that using a long extension will allow you to remove the one starter bolt from the front of the engine bay.

I took a few extra moments to look in wonder at the rest of tool section.  Man I could have some fun in here…

After Sears I had to make another stop at Sam’s Club to both dump some cheap gas in the thirsty party van and pick up a few items in the store.  One of those items was fish oil tablets that are used in the dog’s dinner prep.  Ali was out of them so I told her I would drop them off.

Of course the girls were happy for my unexpected visit.  Before I left I helped Ali take them on a walk around the lake, albeit a hot and sweaty one since I had my work clothes on which included a dark colored long sleeve shirt.

When I got home I quickly made a wrap for dinner and then got busy on some chores.  I wanted to clean Tuki’s cage and get the indoor plants watered.  While I was watering the plants I had a DOH moment.  Two of the pots are rather large with a hole in the bottom and a base underneath.  What I do is put one in the sink, drench it, let it drain and then drench it again.

Well for some reason I didn’t let the one plant drain very long before putting it back in it’s base and back on top of the kitchen cabinets.  I placed the other big pot in the sink and started watering it.  Well I heard a sound like water running behind me.

I spin around and see a stream of water running down the front of the cabinet doors and pooling on top of the fridge.  DAMN IT!  So I quickly grab some rags and throw them on top of the fridge and then grab the heavy, still leaking pot and lift it back to the sink, spilling more water as I did so.  I was pissed. I have pulled this stupid move before and each time I do I wonder how I manage to do it.  I utilized several big towels until I had all the water cleaned up.

I got a nice surprise in the mail when the electric bill arrived.  Last month my $120 bill was the lowest ever.  I fully expected May’s bill to be more, after all it was hotter in May.  A big smile crossed my face when I pulled the bill out and saw $110! Wow.  I was really, really surprised but I’m not complaining.

I saw one of my FB buddies post a little while back how he has managed to have almost every one of his monthly expenses billed to his credit card, which he pays off monthly.  The advantage to this is not only convenience but also accumulating CC rewards points.

Well I need to do the same thing.  I have a number of things that I pay via an EFT from my bank.  I do it that way just because it has been done that way forever.  Well when I add it up, I am missing out on a ton of potential Amazon spiff points by this practice.

Last week I started billing my home owners insurance to the card and yesterday I added my cell phone bill to the list.  I will be looking at every monthly bill I receive and if possible move them to automatic CC billing.  Damn I wish I could slap my mortgage payment on the card.

There is one drawback to this strategy, you lose a bit of control.  If for some reason there is a dispute about a bill you lose some leverage as the company/utility has been authorized to pull whatever funds they deem proper from your CC.  Of course I can still dispute charges and even take action on a charge via my CC company if things get ugly I suppose.  My dad, who is all about fighting the evil empire, refuses to give a credit card number to any business that bills on a regular basis.

So tomorrow I will be pulling out early in the SSR for Siesta Key to play in a volleyball tournament with Tabby.  Last year I played in the same tournament and we won the BB skill level.  Tabby asked if I minded playing the next level up, A, this time around.

I told him that was fine with me although his expectations should not be very high since the last time I literally touched a volleyball was June 2011 when I played the Rumble with Charlie.  Yea, me and volleyball just don’t seem to cross paths much anymore.

Jeremy has predicted that Tabby and I will unable to muster more than two wins in A ball.  He may be right but I hope to prove him wrong obviously.

The Florida Tarpons who are still undefeated, play their final regular season game Saturday night.  I told Ali that if I get home in time I’d like to go to the game and asked her if she wanted to come.  She said she would.  We’ll have to see how long my day on the beach goes.

My Sunday is going to be packed.  On top of doing whatever I have to do at the house I plan to rip into the Tacoma starter replacement project in earnest.

I got it in my head that I wanted to get the grass maintenance taken care of last night.  As soon as I got home I changed my clothes and backed the tractor out of the shed.

I was able to get both the mowing and the weed whacking done in record time, in total I think I spent 90 minutes.  I was able to chop a bunch off the time because I didn’t have to mow everything.  The area of the yard that are not getting hit by the sprinklers is pretty much in hibernation right now.

The weather the past couple days has been great, we are getting a VERY late in the season cold front.  I have had the AC off and the windows open, it’s great plus I’ll take the electricity savings as a bonus.

Tomorrow will be my road trip to Plant City.  I am very excited about the prospect of getting my SSR back on the road.  I’ll be pulling out 5am-ish.  DD coffee will be riding shotgun.

Yesterday Homey clued me in that Microsoft was dialing back the amount of space allocated to people for free on their Skydrive service from 25 gig to 7 gig. However if you go to the site and click a link, they would allow existing clients to retain the free 25 gig of web storage space. So that is what I did.

Going back to the site allowed me to see that they have polished Skydrive since it was first released.  It now has a built in desktop application and apps for i devices that give Skydrive a feature set very similar to Dropbox, which I love.  With Drop Box, I only have 3.5 gig of free space and I only managed that by referring a number of people to the service.  The 25 gig I get from Skydrive is a HUGE upgrade.  You might want to give Skydrive a look see.

So the other day I was at the gym on a cardio machine and was watching Sportscenter.  I saw the clip of Ron Artest delivering a hellacious elbow to an opposing player.  What I didn’t understand was why they were referring to Ron Artest was Metta World Peace.  WTF?

Well evidently Ron decided to steal a page out of Chad Johnson’s script and legally changed his name to something utterly ridiculous, Metta World Peace.  I really wish media could just use these idiots original real names. Or better yet just refer to anyone that changes their name to something idiotic, as “Dipshit” or “Asshat”, for the rest of time.  Morons.

My uncle just finished his latest clock.  His imagination and craftsmanship is just outstanding, approaching super hero level if you ask me.

 

So I left from work to head up to Fort Myers last night to pick up the used Dyson vacuum I spotted on Craigslist.  I had already performed the obligatory CL negotiation, offering $150 for the $175 listing which the seller accepted.

I was lucky that I had printed out back up directions from Google Maps.  The guys address evidently was so new that my 5 year old GPS had no idea where to go.

I arrived about 25 minutes earlier than I expected.  I called ahead and made sure he was home which he was.  As I pulled into his driveway he was just opening up the garage.

His garage was filled with a number of toys like a 270Z convertible, mountain bikes and a bad ass Suzuki fat tired motorcycle, that instantly made me feel like we had common ground.  However first and foremost he showed me the Dyson.

I was at first struck by the size of the DC24.  It was A LOT smaller than the Dyson Animal we have had for 5 or 6 years.  Hell I bet it is close to half the size.

The smaller brush bar meant more passes on the carpet but the smaller size also meant it was a lot lighter and easier to push around. This model also has the ball design which I really have come to like as it makes the vacuum super maneuverable.

The vacuum was in like new condition which didn’t surprise me as I looked around the garage.  All of his items looked to be very well maintained.  I told him I actually had a Dyson but gave it to my wife since we recently separated.  Well this opened up a long conversation where we found we connected in many ways.

Mike was 55 years old, single (divorced) and in addition to being into both 2 and 4 wheeled vehicles, he has competed in triathlons and distance running, including a half Iron Man and a full marathon.  In addition to the stuff in the garage he showed me his top of the line Trek tri bike.  The wheels alone cost a couple grand.  Yes obviously Mike has done quite well for himself.

He has turned his fitness focus to body building in recent years.  He looked great for his age, you would have never guessed he had over a decade on me.

Anyway we got involved in quite a lengthy conversation touching on all of our shared interests, something I certainly was not expecting.  Mike also talked about his relationship experience including what were some absolutely unbelievable successes despite his age. Let’s just say he keeps himself quite busy. He gave me various pointers that may come in handy down the line.

Anyway I bet we stood there and talked for more than a half hour.  We talked about perhaps getting together for a bike ride or a beer the next time he is down in the Naples area.  Well that certainly wasn’t how I expected that Craigslist transaction to go.

When I got home I put the Dyson to the test, making sure despite it’s smaller size it was still big on sucking power.  It worked quite well, pulling out the dog hair from the girls weekend visit with no problems at all.

So there were a couple Eagles news items that caught my eye, something that doesn’t happen much in April.  Brian Dawkins retired from the Broncos.  To be honest I thought he already had since I didn’t see him playing late last year when I watched a few Bronco games.  Evidently he had another serious neck injury last year that contributed to his decision.

Even though he finished out his career as a Bronco, he will always be the heart of the Eagles defense for most of the last decade.  I loved his aggressive style of play.  Even now when I think of Dawk laying it all out there to smash opposing ball carriers it makes the hair on my arms stand up a little bit.

Ironically the other piece of news is about a player who is as Anti-Dawkins as you can get, Asante “Shoulder Tackle” Samuels.  Evidently the Eagles have been actively trying to trade Asante but haven’t had much luck moving him and his fat contract.

Samuels came in here with much hype as a ballhawk and a guy that created turnovers.  To a degree, he has done that for the Eagles but not enough for me to declare him as being worth the money.  I really dislike his weak tackling.  I can’t tell you how many times in the past couple years I have screamed at the tv as Asante missed again and again at weak shoulder tackle attempts.  I will be totally fine if they dump him.  Get me a mean son of a bitch that hits like a truck over a ballerina with stick um on his hands any day.

So now, short of an unplanned demise, Mitt Romney is guaranteed to be THE republican nominee for president.  I am not quite sure how this came to be as Romney is the wrong guy in so many ways it just makes me scratch my head, a lot.

I mean in a time when there is such an uproar and spotlight about the 1 percenters courtesy of the Occupy folks, why would the elephants trot out a guy that is filthy, filthy rich?  On top of that, time and again during the campaign Mitt has stuck his foot in his mouth, obliviously blurting out one liners without realizing how condescending and out of touch they were to those less affluent than himself.

Not only is he richer than rich, if you dig into how he amassed much of his wealth, by devouring companies and spitting out their remains for profit without hesitation, it should give you some pause.

Oh did you hear, in one of Mitt’s homes, a 13 million dollar property, they just installed an elevator as part of an expansion project.  The elevator was for his CARS.  I shit you not.

Now of course you can’t entirely dismiss a guy just because a he made a few bucks.  I think Mitt has done a darn good job discrediting himself on policy decisions as well, backing away from his actual record to play the part of a fiscal conservative in the primary, morphing into the candidate he thinks others want him to be.

All of a sudden he has to make people believe he didn’t create the Massachusetts Health Care Law and that he didn’t have a moderate stance about abortion.

Then there is the Mormon thing.  I’m sorry, any religion that deals with magic underpants is just bizarre.  The hard core right wing Christian Fundamentalists that cast their vote primarily on how many time a candidate says the word “God” can not be pleased with the idea of a Mormon sitting in the White House either.

Hey I am not very happy with the way Obama has been passive on certain issues up until recently as the election season heats up, however if my only choice is Mitt or Obama, it is a no brainer.