Working Late Saves Catastrophy!

My supervisor came by late yesterday to discuss a candidate we had interviewed earlier in the day and I ended up leaving work a half hour late. And today I am extremely grateful.

You see, 5 minutes before I got home 2 huge shelves full of all sorts of stuff (car ramps, golf bags, wood, carpet scraps, lawn chairs, etc) ripped loose from the wall and crash down right where my car would have been. The 2 shelves were 4x12 sheets of fiberboard, weighing about 40 lbs each. The damage to my new Murano would have been extensive.

I was shocked when I opened the garage door and it looked like a tornado had ripped through there. Cdubya said it had just happened and totally sounded like that, enough to freak the dogs out big time.

So, the lesson of the day is: always work late, you never know what you'll be saving from certain disaster.

Frozen Tundra

Bubba and I went up to the Packers/Panthers game yesterday and saw a great game. Packers dominated from the start en route to a 21-3 half time lead and despite giving up a couple of late td's (prevent defense) they won easily 31-17. They're now at 9-1, they're best start since starting 10-0 under Lombardi in '62. Speaking of 62, Brett threw 3 td's in a game for the 62nd time, tying another Dan Marino record. He'll be breaking that Thanksgiving day against the declining Lions (lost 3 straight after starting 6-1). The big game is the following Thursday night against the Cowboys, which is on the NFL Network (go out and get DirecTv this week if you want to see it around here, and no, don't ask me if you can come over to watch it. :)

Friday afternoon I managed to install the carpeting on the stairs. It wasn't that bad. I used my staple gun to attach it and a stair tool to wedge it along the sides. Took a couple hours or so.

Saturday night we played poker at my place. I ended up winning $63 after we doubled the limits and I got hot. We just played Hold 'em for about 5 hours (had to cut it off at midnight so I could get up early to go to Green Bay).

Short week this week, gotta go get some work done.

Have a happy Turkey day.

New ball works

Well, after 6 games with the new ball I'm happy with it.

On Wednesday I started with 9 strikes in the first game for a 234 (2 big splits cost me). It definitely hooks a lot, especially if there's not a ton of oil. I was playing a line I haven't ever come close to playing before and adjustments were a little difficult. I ended up shooting 630.

Now tonight at a place where they slather the oil gratuitously I did a little better, shooting a 711 (212, 266, 233). I had 9 strikes in a row in the 2nd game. Should have done better in the 3rd game but the oil dried up a little and it took me 3 bad shots to realize I needed to move a little.

So, 223 average this week with it. And I'm still learning how it works. Skies the limit here...

New ball

I decided to bite the bullet and get a new bowling ball last night. I needed something that I could still turn despite heavy oil conditions, which I've been seeing a lot lately. What I ended up getting is a super hooking ball, the Brunswick Fury.

Rob drilled it for me last night. I threw a bunch of shots on his lanes but they hadn't been oiled since Friday so it was quite difficult to get the ball to the right side. It definitely hooks. I may need to have it polished a little to get it down the lane more, but I'll wait to see how it reacts first.

One new thing I did have done was to get a switch grip put in for the thumb. Basically it's a 2 part thumb hole. There's an outer sleeve and an inner component that slides in and locks at the bottom. It allows you to have one custom thumb fitting that is perfect and move it to a different ball. Or you could have several sized ones and allows you to swap out when you need to adjust (say if your thumb is swollen due to the heat or something).

I was planning on having him put one in my Columbia Ti Messenger ball as well since it needed to have the thumb hole fixed anyhow. Unfortunately when Rob drilled in he hit the ceramic core of that ball and just about ruined his $200 drill bit. You can't drill into ceramic so I'm stuck. He's plugging it and will re-drill it for a normal thumb plug. Oh well... I probably won't have that ball for tomorrow.

At least it was a good football weekend

Well, the iPod adapter thing didn't work for my Murano. After the tech finished taking everything apart there was nothing to plug it into. Apparently I'm missing a wiring harness that's required. They're going to do more research today to see what they can do. I'm still hopeful that I can get it installed. I figured there would be problems so I wasn't all that upset.

Luckily they had the Badger/Michigan game on tv at the dealership so I was able to watch Bucky dismantle the Wolverines and win 37-21. I guess there's still a chance they could end up playing a New Years game. When they beat Minnesota next week they'll finish at 9-3 (5-3 in the conference).

Saturday night was couples bowling. My game has fallen apart. Partly because my newest ball has just stopped working. I had to use my back up which is not drilled the same and hurts my thumb. I struggled big time and shot my lowest score in god knows how long, a 499. My average is down to 192 in that league (compared to 207 and 216 in my other 2). I don't really care about couples league, it's just for fun.

Sunday I got to watch the Packers destroy the Vikings. They're making a believer out of me now. They now have a 2 game lead in the NFC North since Detroit lost to Arizona (they still haven't played anyone decent yet). Packers play Carolina Sunday then Detroit on Thanksgiving day.

In between football I managed to tear all the old carpeting off the stairs. What a pain the ass that was. It was all stapled down, with about 100 staples on each step. Took me about 5 hours to get it out and to pull all the staples with a pliers. My hands, back, shoulders, all killing me today. I have a blister on my right ring finger that could impact bowling Wednesday. I'm hopeful it will heal, it's not a big one.

I'm going back to see Rob Bailey tonight. I may end up just trading in my newer ball for something better. I'm getting sick of trying to get it to work and taking it back in to get cleaned every couple months. We'll see...

My balls need some refurbishment

Bowling balls... sheesh, get your minds out of the gutter.

The resurface job done on my newer Track Solution Plus ball last week lasted all of 3 games and it was back to not hooking again by game 4. Now I have to take it in to put it in the super oil sucker machine to try to unclog the pores that are filled with oil. Sounds like a teenager problem. Maybe I should try some clearasil instead.

I ended up using my old Columbia Ti Messenger ball the rest of the night. It's not a reactive resin ball so it doesn't have these same features. In fact, I've had it for about 5 years and never had anything done to it. I've only had the Track ball for 8 months and this is the 3rd time I've had to take it back in to the shop...

Unfortunately the thumb plug is wearing out causing it to cut into the base of my thumb where I already suffer from tendinitis so it feels terrible. I have to just put my thumb in part way (that's what she said). I'll get that fixed Monday when I go in. Until then I guess I'll just deal with it. Bowl again tomorrow night.

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And now for the really bad news. No "24" this year. The producers said that since they can't guarantee that they'll be able to film all 24 hours they decided to just cancel the season instead of risking not finishing. Bummer, my favorite show, gone. Looks like I'll get more use out of my Netflix subscription in the coming months.

And I think I'm coming down with a cold... I've had a stomach "issue" all week and went home early on Monday (hence the reason I'm still at work at 2:30pm on a Friday) but now it's my throat and sinuses. Great... just great. Lots of sicko's around the office, I'll blame them since I don't have any kids (aka germ factories) to blame it on.

Ok, that's enough for now, see you after the weekend. Party on....

iPod adapter

Got a call from Nissan today. The iPod adapter I asked for is in and can be installed on Saturday! This took a bit of work on my part as there technically isn't a Nissan iPod adapter for the Murano, but according to several forums, the one for the Titan works fine. I had to find the part numbers and pass them to Zimbrick Nissan so they could order the right part.

Once installed I should be able to hook my iPhone into it and play audio through it in crystal clarity along with displaying artist, album, song info on the navigation screen and be able to use the steering wheel controls to move through songs. Can't wait to try it out.

There's one more thing I'd really like to add and that's to add another video input to the nav screen so that I can actually play videos from my iPhone on the nav screen. Of course, doing this while driving is illegal so I would never try that. ;)

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In other news, I had to run our hockey team Friday night and suffered our first defeat of the season and the first time I've lost while substituting as GM. Not sure what I did wrong but we couldn't beat a hot goalie despite controlling most of the play. We lost 4-2. I had 1 assist, no goals. For the season I have 2 goals and 4 assists in 3 games. I need to step it up.

Unfortunately I won't be playing this week. Our game was moved to Saturday night which happens to conflict with couples league bowling. Pretty sure Cdubya would have my ass if I bailed on her to go play hockey so I'm not even going to try. They'll have to make due without me (and 4 other guys that can't make it).

That's it for now.

Ooops, I did it again

As most of you know, I have a bit of a car "issue". I can't seem to just buy a car and keep it... which leads me to this past Saturday.

On Thursday I got a letter from Zimbrick Used cars saying they were desperate for some late model cars with local histories and would pay over for them.

So, just for shits and giggles I found out what it would cost to pay off my '05 Murano to get out of the lease and went in Saturday. Their initial offer was about $2,000 over blue book but $2,500 under what I owed. I thanked them for their time and was about to leave when they asked what I would be looking for when it came time to trade it in. I told them I really loved the Murano but wanted Nav and ipod integration.

Well, as it just so happened, they had an '06 Murano with the same package as mine (SL AWD Touring) and the Nav system. Only 5,000 miles on it, was one of the Nissan salesman's and they traded it after a year for an Altima. We started working the numbers and I got them to increase their offer on mine to cover the lease payoff without increasing the price on the other one and also throw in the ipod adapter so that I can control it through the nav/stereo and I drove it home 90 minutes later.

I'm still not sure how that helped them out with their shortage of used cars as I took a better car and left them mine. Maybe it'll be easier to sell it since it's cheaper. Anyway, not my problem.

Here's a pic I took this morning...