Monday, April 30, 2012

Illin' and Chillin'

Everyone in the house seems to have come down with harsh cold...everyone but me, that is.  I seem to have been spared the fever, cough, and congestion that has been visited upon the ladies of Taylor Manor.  I would say my ability to repel the vile germs of this cough are due to my rugged constitution and chiseled good looks, but I would be lying.  In time, I too will more than likely fall victim to the monkeyflu or whatever it is everyone else has...

So, about that French drain in the backyard...to quote Junior from 'Platoon', 'that hole ain't gonna dig itself, white boy!'  Junior was definitely right about that, and then he got run through by a Viet Cong bayonet.  Luckily, we are no longer at war with the North Vietnamese, but yeah, those holes ain't gonna dig themselves.  I did some manly pickaxing on Saturday, spending most of the time unearthing rocks the size of reported Yeti skulls.  I keeping these rocks so my family will have a decent start on building a cairn should I drop dead of a heart attack while digging.  I'm telling you...nothing gets the heart rate going like a good dozen swings of a pickaxe. 

Anycrap, my progress has been slow as I took Sunday off from digging...not because I was observing the Sabbath (black or otherwise), but because I'm a gigantic candy ass and my hands and shoulders hurt from Saturday's exertions.  I'll need to pick up the pace this week to be done by the weekend...

The Better Half and I watched 'Shame' Friday night, and 'Shame' was an apt title as that was how we felt after wasting two hours of our lives on that film. My goodness, what a pointless pile o' shite that movie was.  I understand why critics liked it...it's well shot and stylish, and Michael Fassbender has definite charisma...he also has a wang and said wang got plenty of camera time as well...and not Viggo Mortenson in 'Eastern Promises' naked knife fight in a steam bath wang time either.  Let me put it this way, I was surprised Fassbender's ween didn't have an assigned assistant listed in the credits.  Enough wang talk...

We also watched 'MI: Ghost Protocol' and both fell asleep at various times.  I was expecting a lot more from Brad Bird, so I was disappointed in the dialog, pace of the movie, and overall preposterous premise...and please, Hollywood, enough with the 105 lb gals kicking swarthy 250 lb Ukrainians through walls and plate glass windows.

That's all I've got for now...hope everyone had a good weekend...and remember, the answers are blowin' in the wind...peace!   

Monday, April 23, 2012

The Day John Henry Died

We finally received some Spring like weather 'round these here parts over the weekend and I spent it like a majority of my 9 loyal readers...interviewing potential nannies and digging ditches.  Let's take the last part first...

As some of you may know, I planted corn in my backyard last year.  It grew well once the weather finally decided to warm up in mid-September, so this year I planned on expanding my corn field from 6 stalks to 10 or 12...it would be a veritable corn maze come fall, 2 bits for a harrowing journey through 3 square yards of terror!  Well, no.  However, 10-12 stalks would require more room for the corn to grow.  The root systems on those bad boys are impressive when all is said and done.  Unfortunately, when I began digging water percolated up Beverly Hillbillies style out of the ground.  About 6 inches down I hit standing brackish water.  Gross.  Now, our backyard has always been boggy during the winter months, but this year was especially bad...plus, I had never hit standing water before.  This called for some action and investigating, and sadly, that's the order I undertook when I decided to remedy the boggy depot I call a yard once and for all...

I began by hauling out the pickaxe and shovels and started toiling away at creating a French drain that led to the collection basin by our back fence.  I did this because collection basins, in the real world, collect run off and ship it off to retention ponds and what have you.  The collection basin in my yard does not...but I didn't discover that until I had dug a fairly long and deep trench along the northern fence line of my yard.  It wasn't until the next day that I realized that the trench I had dug the day before was useless...

See, one of my neighbors just undertook a major yard drainage project, and somewhere in my action first/have a plan second brain I remembered him saying that his collection basin was useless.  So, that's when I decided to dig around the area of the basin.  That took most of yesterday because our homes were built on top of an ancient Indian quarry.  Once you get past the top soil it is nothing but rock and clay and dirt that may as well be concrete.  Swinging a pickaxe is not exactly easy work either, and there is nothing like the nerve shredding sensation of striking a rock that the axe fails to cleave - it is literally bone jarring. 

At one point, I even resorted to wearing gloves.  Now, my hands are as manly and fierce as the hands of any other full-time cubical warrior and part-time blogger.  There is no keyboard I can't coax into submission, but the pickaxe, well...that somnab!tch was talkin' back to me...loudly.  So, I had to sport gloves. 

By the end of yesterday afternoon, I was drenched in sweat, my shoulders and triceps were on fire, and my spinal cord had been compressed about 3/4 of an inch from swinging and shoveling away.  And how far did I get?  Far enough to realize I've got at least two more ditches to dig and lots of drainage pipe, gravel and sand to put down.  The collection basin in my yard only collects water if it falls straight into the grate from above...there were no pipes leading into it and only one leading out.  That means in order for my yard to properly drain I have to give the water somewhere to go...hence more ditches and more blinding back pain. 

Oh, and at one point yesterday the neighbor's yard guy put down a metric ton of organic fertilizer on their yard...and the smell was at times overpowering, to the point where I thought I had pulled an Andy Dufresne escaping Shawshank by breaking into the sewer pipes under the prison.  Yum! 

One thing this whole ditch digging endeavor taught me is that I am sadly lacking in what I refer to as practical strength.  Digging ditches, hauling lumber, laying brick all require a modicum of strength you just don't build doing bench presses and preening in the mirror with dumb bells.  That strength only comes about from being got-damn useful around the house.  I'm finally realizing that being able to bench press a decent amount of weight means sweet eff all when it comes to not having a heart attack while swinging a pickaxe.  This realization led me to this million dollar idea, pay close attention Outdoor Network and Spike TV:

The Practical Olympics...games where average dudes square off against each other in everyday tasks.  I'm trying to come up with 10 events to make this a Practical Decathlon, this is what I have so far:

1 - Shoveling snow:  Each contestant is given an identical driveway uniformly covered in 6 inches of snow and a snow shovel, the first to clear the driveway wins.

2 - Wood stacking:  Each contestant stares down a pile of cord wood, the first to neatly stack it into a woodshed wins (my dad can judge this competition, he was notorious for tearing down wood me and the Pescado brother stacked if it was uneven or sloppy looking)

3 - Wood splitting:  I'm thinking of combing this with stacking, each competitor would have to split a cord of wood.

4 - Jar opening:  Competitors would be timed to see how many home canned Mason jars of tomatoes they could open in 5 minutes. 

5 - Ditch digging:  A poorly draining back yard and pickaxes, what more can you ask for?

6 - Room painting:  Olympiads would mask and then paint a room with identical dimensions red.  Why red?  Because pushing red paint on a roller sucks a mountain of ass, especially if painting over contractor grade flat paint.  Quit asking silly questions!

7 - Leaf raking:  Our athletes muscles will be aching after even 5, especially their delts and traps...having to rake and bag a quarter acre clear of leaves will be a test of their endurance...this even will separate the wannabes from the contenders...

And that's where I kind of peter out a little...laying tile is more tedious than strenuous...although having to unload a pallet of bricks and building a retaining wall would be a challenge.  Let me know if you have any suggestions and I'll get you a producer credit when Spike or Outdoor Network options this idea for a pilot.

That leaves nanny talk, and I've only got one word for that; unacceptable.  Not one decent candidate in the mix of people we spoke to over the weekend.  That's all I've got to say about that. 

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Tuesday Night Gymnastics Club

This is my first attempt at a blog post from my phone. Tuesday nights are usually reserved for gymnastics sessions for the girls...or, as we learned from Maddy's broken arm a while back, a catastrophic injury waiting to happen. Yes,well...the girls enjoy it and I get to sit in very uncomfortable bleachers while breathing in second hand chalk and Icy/Hot vapors.

So, Courtney Love, the most overrated relic of the 90s, recently tweeted that her long time nemesis Dave Grohl (former drummer for Nirvana, current front man of boneheaded radio friendly unit shifters Foo Fighters) tried to hit on the daughter of the late Kurt Cobain, Frances Bean. Frances was quick to refute her mother's delusional tweet and then stated that Courtney Love should be banned from twitter...I probably would have asked that Courtney be banned from life, but that might be seen as extreme in some quarters. Anyhoo, why so many people kissed Courtney Love's ass throughout the 90s and into the new millennium is beyond me. She is a dolt, a barely functional drug addled retard. Yet, her and her band Hole were given a free pass, her obvious lack of talent (aside from her skill at garnering undeserved attention) ignored. Worst yet, some effing genius had the bright idea to stunt cast her in movies even though she can't act. Go back and watch 'Man On The Moon', she's a scene killing wet mop. Paper airplanes have more range than Courtney Love. Luckily, her train wreck of her life became yesterday's news and age was properly tossed into the 'where are they now?' dustbin. Well, she's in twitter, pathetically trying to drag her daughter into the muck and mire of her life. Good on Frances for breaking away from Courtney and calling that wretch out for the liar and fraud she is. Funny how she's become a musical mute after Kurt offed himself and Billy Corgan stopped collaborating with her...


We watched 'We Bought A Zoo' the other night. It wasn't bad, but Cameron Crowe seems to be trying to out Ron Howard Ron Howard. The story is interesting enough, but Crowe leaves lots on the table. Perhaps he should stop blocking scenes in order to show off his record collection...

Practice is over, catch ya on the flip side!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Knee Deep

It was finally confirmed what I had been fearing for the last several weeks; I tore the medial meniscus in my left knee for the second time...what I wasn't ready to hear was that I also tore the medial meniscus in my right knee for the third time. That was news I really could have done without.

Surgery to repair my knees isn't on the table at this time. The damage to my right knee is severe enough that microfracture surgery is an option I'll need to consider. My summer would be pretty much shot if I have the surgery in May as recovery from that procedure involves being on crutches 6-8 weeks. Rather than endure a summer of hopping around on crutches for two months, I'll just be going in for cortisone shots as needed....and then revisit the topic of surgery in the fall.

My left knee is in much better shape and a simple arthroscopic clean up procedure to remove debris and what have you should do the trick. However, that also involves some recovery time and my doctor really couldn't get pain to flare up in that knee the way he could the right one. Therefore, he's thinking that we can put off even cleaning up the knee for quite a while given my ability to tolerate pain and discomfort...a trait I picked up having learned to deal with sh*tty knee injuries for 23 years.

In the meantime, I'm supposed to stay active. I wasn't restricted from any activities as long as I can handle/mitigate the pain of having torn cartilage in both knees. Running is still allowed, and I ran 3.5 miles today at lunch...slowly at first and then building up speed as my knees warmed up and my brain simply got tired of telling my that my got-damn knees hurt. I'll continue running until I can't. Then I will find something else to do...

As much as I would like to swim to avoid the impact that running doles out, getting to a pool is a gigantic pain in the arse...and then there is no guarantee I'd even get lap time. Here are my main issues with swimming:

1. Pools are kind of hard to come by. We don't exactly live in pool country here in the PNW. Lake swimming is out of the question, even with a wet suit. A harrowing case of swimmers itch back in 1983 has turned me off to lake swimming for the rest of my life. So, that leaves indoor pools which brings me to point 2...

2. ...indoor pools are very often found at the YMCA. Joining the Y is expensive, as are municipal pools. If I joined the YMCA I would purchase the family plan, which isn't cheap. That means the girls would want to come swimming too...so, yeah...lap swimming would be out of the question as I'd be spending my time bobbing around in the 3 ft pool with Katelyn and Jocelyn or teaching Maddy how to swim. While those are worthwhile endeavors, it wouldn't do much for my overall fitness.

3. Being able to work out at lunch is kind of awesome. I don't pay gym dues and don't have to leave The Better Half all alone with the girls so I can work out. However, I have always dreamed of owning an Endless Pool, which is more or less a treadmill for swimming. Sadly, I am not independently wealthy and don't have the duckets to pony up for an Endless Pool, so that will remain a dream...for now...but I can see it set up in the refurbished garage right now as I type this...

4. Avid swimmers are annoying. Even more annoying are avid geriatric swimmers that spend an eternity completing one lap, barely leaving ripples in the water as they drift by. Criminey, some of these old timers expend less energy than a meditating monk...yet, there they are...taking up a lane and taking their sweet time doing so. The flip side are the wannabe men/women from Atlantis that show up in Speedos, swim caps, and then proceed to do a million laps of every stroke imaginable, including the ridiculous butterfly...the butterfly is a stroke that exists mainly to let others know you can do the butterfly. Peddling a unicycle across the bottom of the pool would be more efficient than the butterfly. Anyhoo, yeah - so I'm not exactly enamored of swim culture...but I do like to swim. I would do more of it if it weren't for swimmers and the scarcity of pools that don't require a days pay to use.

For now I plan on running every other day and biking in between. One thing my neighborhood is blessed with are three heart bursting hills that are all but custom made for climbing on a bike. I'll have to find a way to get some climbs in when out on rides with the family. I usually haul Katelyn in a bike trailer, and she's a little tank, so pulling her is a decent work out as it is. What I wouldn't want to do is try to ride down a hill with her behind me, that would be disastrous...and climbing while pulling her would be ludicrous. So, I'll need to work out a routine where I can get some hill time in on days I don't run.

Here's hoping my knees hold out for the summer...!

Monday, April 9, 2012

More Random Stuff...

...yeah, I know these posts are kind of a cheap way for me to add content, but it is pretty much all I've got right now...

A woman patron at the Starbucks by my office this morning stunk to high heaven and beyond. Her BO was so bad I think I let out a scream when she took up next to me at the cream/sugar station. I've ridden many buses/trains/taxis, so I am more than familiar with BO...but this lady...she smelled the way I think John the Baptist would have smelled like, what with his diet of locusts and wild honey and wandering in the desert wearing animal pelts. She looked normal enough, but the stink was ungodly. It was all I could do to complete my very simple coffee routine, but the odor was so offensive I didn't get through it without incident. I spilled half & half everywhere because my brain was shutting down my extremities to deal with the psychic pain the stink was inflicting upon me. Then I got crossed up trying to add Equal to my coffee...instead of ripping the two packages open and dumping them in my coffee, I threw the Equal into the garbage and the shreds of paper into my cup. At that point I decided to escape before her BO permeated my clothes.

You know what would be nice? Never seeing Ashton Kutcher on TV ever again. He's a dolt, and absolute doorknob with nothing interesting to say...yet, there he is, dumbing up music documentaries and Walter Payton retrospectives with his idiocy. Never has someone with so little talent been given so many opportunities.

Lamar Odom has been effectively cut by the Dallas Mavericks. Odom had a rough off-season, but that's no excuse to show up completely out of shape and then mope around the court and not do his job. He's a former 6th man of the year, a 6'10 forward with a unique skill set, but he squandered his chance to be a difference make in Dallas. Instead, he'll sit the rest of the year, gorging himself on candy and becoming a diabetic. The good news is that his wife, Khloe Kardashian, has been cast in Harry and the Henderson's 2 as the love interest of Harry, the squatch with a heart of gold from the first film.

Madonna found a cheap way to gin up album sales for her latest offering, 'MDNA'. Fools...I mean, fans...received a copy of the album for each ticket they bought to her overpriced upcoming tour. Last week, Madonna used this kinda sorta scam to 'sell' 359k copies of her album. This week, with no gimmick to shift units, 'MDNA' plummeted 88%, the second biggest drop in chart history. Madonna has been irrelevant to me since 'Ray Of Light', that was the last track of hers I liked. What I've heard off of 'MDNA' isn't good. At all. It sounds like a fifty something trying to get all 21 Jump Street and down with the kids, which is always embarrassing.

By the way, the CD isn't dead yet. Adele sold over 4 million copies of her latest album on CD, 1.8 million people digitally downloaded it. The shiny discs might be around a wee bit longer.

There's a rumor floating around that Tom Cruise is in discussions to play a 'Kurt Cobain type' in yet another reboot/remake of 'A Star Is Born'. If this is true...well, if true I don't know what to think. Cruise was somewhere south of okay as Lestat, the blonde vampire that dressed like Adam Ant in 'Interview With The Vampire'. Cruise as a 'Kurt Cobain type' sounds like a train wreck. Now, if they said he was going to portray a Scott Stapp like d-bag, it would be much more believable.

Take it light!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

I'm So Tired

I've been taken down by an epic case of insomnia, so I have been all kinds of out of sorts...forgetful, moody, somewhat erratic. All because I only get about 4 1/2 hours of sleep a night. If I suck down some melatonin with a Nyquil chaser I can get close to 6 hours...but bottom line is that I'm not sleeping nearly as much as I need to...and it's not that I can't fall asleep, I can, just not when I'm supposed to. Put me on the train or in a meeting and it's fargin lights out...but at night...nothing. I get all anxious, my heart starts racing, my body temp soars, and sounds get amplified all the way to 11. So, I'm all up in my own head when it comes to sleep, which is part of the problem...

...the other issue is that The Better Half watches TV in our room to unwind at night, and she watches the most annoying goddam shows on the airwaves...Joan Rivers...Kardashians...various housewives in varying locales....the ridiculous Nicie Nash...if they are untalented and possess grating voices, The Better Half watches them...and it is literally killing me.

While TBH does attempt to keep the volume at extremely low levels, the fact that I know those shows are on in our room ramps my hearing up to super human levels. I'm keenly aware that inanity is taking place and I can't help but hear it...every retarded word being spoken is like a sledgehammer to my ear drums. Then my hate cells get activated and my anxiety redlines, my body temp begins percolating, and then I start sweating like a freak. Not. Good. Times.

I used to be able to go right to sleep, TV noise and all, but I can't anymore. Bed time might as well be called dread time around here because I'm in a low grade panic about not being able to sleep. I know TBH's TV habit isn't helping, but there's more to my insomnia than just despising the shows she watches because on nights her shows aren't on I'm still struggling to nod off.

TBH tried wireless headphones, but they didn't function properly in our room. I've tried various sleeping pills, homeopathic sleep cures, alcohol...you name it and I've tried it. Lately, I've been falling asleep to music pumped into my ears via ear buds, and that works...until I wake up when the music stops or an ear bud gets all uncomfortable like...then it's back to not being able to sleep. Next thing you know I'm mixing cold medication and melatonin to drift off to fitful sleep...I'm turning into an over the counter version of Elvis.

So, what do we do now because this can't continue. I'm going to have a massive stroke/heart attack due to lack of sleep if things don't change...