Currently Hysteria By Def Leppard Love Bites see related

“When I'm with you are you somewhere else?
Am I gettin' thru or do you please yourself?
When you wake up will you walk out?
It can't be love if you throw it about
Ooh babe

I don't wanna touch you too much baby
'Cause making love to you might drive me crazy

Love bites, love bleeds
It's bringin' me to my knees
Love lives, love dies
It's no surprise
Love begs, love pleads
It's what I need“

Pretty much the same routine as usual this week.  The biggest news: my truck finally hit 29,000 miles.  It’s sitting in my garage right now with exactly 29,106 miles on it.  It’s getting old.

I did finally decide on a bike between my three choices.  I decided on a red 1125CR, but when I called to tell the dealer to go ahead and move on it for me, the price jumped on me about $800 than they previously told me on the phone, which is bullsh*t, and the dealer said they’d call me back on Wednesday and I haven’t heard boo from them since.  I was going to call them back, but I’m not going to press the issue since I really don’t NEED another bike.  I’d like one, for the right price, but if not I’m not losing sleep over it.

Thursday night ball at the Splash Zone, we played a team that was 1-2 to our 0-3, so we had hopes that they’d be near our skill level.  We still lost.  It was a close game though.  At halftime it was 11-20, the final ended up being 33-40.  We actually had a decent ref this time too, which was something we’re not accustomed to.

Friday, Abby left for her dental conference thing in Newark at Cherry Valley Lodge with 6 other girls – yea, that’s not a recipe for trouble or anything.   I ended up meeting a guy in North Olmstead to buy his Pitbull rear stand to match my front one.  So, now I have an extra rear stand if anyone is interested, only works with spooled bikes - $40 and it’s yours.  I was going to go down to Columbus to party with some of my OR.net buddies, but I was tired and I didn’t think it was worth the gas money or two and a half hours of travel time just to hit the bar for a couple hours this weekend.  I told them we’d do it in December when I have more spare time.  So instead, I hung out at home and played Forza Motorsport II and won a crap load of new cars.

Saturday, I slept in until 2PM (aside from Abby’s phone call waking me up at 11AM).  It was glorious.  I played some Left 4 Dead, Dave ran the cooler he borrowed from Halloween back over here – that was an interesting interaction.  I think that’s pretty much how all male social interactions should be patterned after.  We both show up in wife beaters.  We both said “Hey, nice shirt” at the same time.  He handed me the cooler and we both said “Thanks, later” at the same time.  And that was that.  Fifteen second exchange of words and goods and we both went about our day. Concise, efficient, and complete.

Then I just lounged around until about 8PM.  Around that time, I showered at headed out to Clubhouse Grill on Sperry Dr. of Columbia Rd. in Westlake.  There, I met up the Matt, Kathy, Kerry, Jon, Danielle, Dave, Tarah, and Phil for some food and libations.  Sadly, it was a pretty bad dining experience.  The food was so-so and the service was atrocious.  The guy messed up our orders, he didn’t bother asking if we wanted drinks, etc.  It was bad, especially considering there was no one else in dining area, but us.  I still left the same tip I always do (percentage-wise), so maybe I’m the one that’s actually a sucker?  I’m not planning on going back, ever.

After food, we hung out at Matt and Kathy’s for a little while, then I came home, watched a little SNL and went to bed.

Abby woke me up when she got back today, then we went to Walmart to get our groceries, came back and had a lazy Sunday afternoon between football and VH1Classic – I learned about Def Leppard and Nirvana.

Two more weeks of work until my full week vacation – I think I can make it.

“I gotta a redneck homeboy
his name is chuck
we take monster bong hits in his monster truck
my other friend Cindy
I think she's from Boston
I think she likes me she says im so frickin awesome
she's a biker chick
she got a red Harley
she loves keg parties
she rock Ed Hardy's

I got some white friends
some cool white friends
and man when we party its like the party never ends
I’m a cool dude
yeah I drive a benz
but sometimes I like to hang with my white friends”

Not a lot going on this week.  It was the usual at work – except I helped a little setting up for the Trick-or-Treat kids walkthrough on Friday.  It’s always nice to get a break from spreadsheets and watch all the kids and parents come around with costumes on.

At Thursday nights basketball game we didn’t get beat as bad this time.  Yes, we lost 50 – 86, but all-in-all played a good game.  I had 10 pts.

I’m still working on deciding whether I want a new Buell or not.  I know at least five guys that’ve gotten bit by the ‘Buell bug’ and ended up with new bikes.  It’s still 1125R vs. 1125CR vs. CBR1000RR... <sigh>  I think I might end up settling on the CR and calling it a day.  It’s the cheapest, price and insurance-wise, plus it was a one-year only model run, so you won't see a lot of them, and I think they look the meanest.  Now I just have to decide whether to get red or black.

Abby and I went out to the local Harley dealer (Lake Erie Harley Davidson) on Friday to see if they had any left in stock.  I had been in there a week earlier and they had a couple, but they were down to one XB12 and one 2008 1125R demo (already had 2100 miles on it).  The same salesman I talked to last week was there again this week.  I’m pretty sure he recognized me, so he came over and we started talking about the bikes again.  Well, seeing that XB12 on the showroom floor was strike one.  Why?  Because I know the guy that bought their “last” XB bike (Cherry Bomb XB9) less than two days prior.  He wanted the XB12 – an identical bike, but with a bigger engine, but was told the XB9 was their last bike – so he sucked it up and bought it.  After seeing the XB12 on the floor and that it was new... I knew my buddy had been lied to.  Strike two was them saying the 1125R demo model was $7200 + TTL.  I about choked to keep from busting out laughing.  Once I told them I was talking to other dealers, they gave me the ‘Elyria discount’  and the price magically dropped $1200 to $5999 + TTL – which was still high, especially since it was a demo model.  So, after those two strikes... I don’t think I’ll ever be back to deal with Lake Erie Harley Davidson.  The sad thing is, the same owner owns Honda of Avon next door – and I’ve been happy with the sales and service staff there.  In fact, I even walked next door to talk about the CBR1000RR’s they had in stock.  They didn’t BS me or try any funny stuff.

So, I don’t know whether I got a tool salesman at Lake Erie Harley Davidson, or that’s how they run the Harley portion of their business, but I don’t think I’ll be recommending anyone to Lake Erie Harley Davidson.  I let my buddy know about the XB12 – and he wasn’t too pleased.

After our trip out there, and since it was a freakishly nice day out (75*F) I finally got those stumps from the pine trees I pulled out, out of the front my yard and to the grass dump.  Chuck helped load them, then we came back and made another trip to get his grass clippings and the leaves Abby raked.  That was productive.

Then, we got some Fiesta Jalapenos and ran to Walmart.

Saturday, the plan was to go out to another Harley dealer near Youngstown, but I called ahead of time to see if they had any 1125R or 1125CR stock in, and the sales guy informed me they didn’t have any, but could still order them while supplies lasted.  That saved me a 2 hour drive.  Instead, Abby and I went to Cici’s for lunch then came back here to watch Land of the Lost (well, she watched it – I saw half of it and slept the other half).  Then just hung out until bedtime – I spent that time researching bikes and my investment portfolio. 

Today, it was nice to gain that extra hour of sleep (did ya’ll remember to set your clocks back?).  I winterized the SV while Abby washed vehicles.  She’s got some veggie stew brewing so I assume that’ll be dinner.  I can’t believe it’s 3PM right now, and it feels like 5PM.  We’ll see how long it takes for me to re-adjust to it getting dark at 6PM.

Currently Swan Songs By Hollywood Undead My Black Dahlia see related

“I wish I could I could have quit you.
I wish I never missed you,
And told you that I loved you, every time I fucked you.
The future that we both drew, and all the shit we've been through.
Obsessed with the thought of you, the pain just grew and grew!
How could you do this to me?
Look at what I made for you, it never was enough and the world is what I gave to you.
I used to be love struck; now I'm just fucked up.
Pull up my sleeves and see the pattern of my cuts! “

I finally got my front stand painted.  I used the Duplicolor Rust Fix and it didn’t really perform how I thought it would, even though it did exactly what it said it was going to do, if that makes sense.  I coated the entire stand with this clear Rust Fix, and only the parts that had any rust turned black – which was basically the area I sanded only.  The rest of the stand stayed clear.  So, I ended up going back over the entire stand with black spray paint.  I actually think it turned out well.

Wednesday night, we headed to Tailgators in Avon Lake for Ladies night + karaoke, except there was no karaoke.  Either way, I had a few beers (thanks to Abby) then Udell and Garrett stopped out so I could check out Garrett’s new Buell 1125R.

Given the recent announcement by Harley Davidson that the Buell brand would be discontinued, they’ve heavily discounting the Buell bikes (almost 1/2 off) so even though I’m not really shopping for a bike now, it’s really hard to pass up a brand new bike 140+hp bike for less than $7,000.  Not to mention you’re going to end up with the last bikes of a dying brand – if I wait too long I might miss out (like I missed out on my G8 GXP), and I can justify $7,000 much more than I can justify spending $40,000 (Hell, I'd lose $7,000 in depreciation in the first year on the car).  I’m really torn over it, because Garrett’s new bike looked, schweet.

Thursday night, we had another game in our basketball league in Oberlin.  I joined the league thinking we’d be playing white farm-boys, but we played team ‘H2O’ which was a black church league team.  I have never been so thoroughly embarrassed in my life.  If there were a word that held 10x the meaning of the word ‘embarrassment’ it wouldn’t even be enough to communicate how bad we were routed by this team.  The sad thing is, it’s not that we did anything wrong, it’s just that they were incredibly good.  I know I’m not a real baller, but I’m usually athletically competent enough to hold my own with people that’ve played in high school or college, and we even had a guy who played in college on ourn team, but this was ridiculous.  I kid you not, they had to have been over 90% shooting.  They rained down points on us so hard they should’ve been team ‘Hurricane’.  So, I’m sure you’re all dying to know the final score...  125 to 37.  Absolute trainwreck.  We were dunked on 3 times, along with an alley-oop dunk.  To our credit, we did it using a 5-man team (so we only had one sub), and we’re at least consistent scoring.  As long as we can keep the other team from scoring less than 35 points, we may win a game.

After the game, we thanked the guys for the exercise, and I asked where they parked their ‘AND 1’ tour bus because I didn’t see it walking in.   They were nice guys and have crazy good game.  I think they’ll be winning the league.  Abby said she was watching the other two teams on the court next to us, and was pretty sure we would have beaten them.  I don’t know if she was saying that just to be nice, but it gave us a little hope.

Friday, my coworker Jason and I went to the HD dealership to look at bikes.  He’s eying up the XBs while I still debated the 1125Rs.  Then the monkey wrench in this whole thing is the deals they’re offering on overstock 2008 CBR1000RRs.

Friday night, Abby and I went out to Fiesta Jalapenos with Chuck and Teresa – it’s almost becoming a ritual.  Then we went to Walmart to get our groceries.

Saturday, Abby went running and I slept in.  We hung out around the house until about 8PM then headed to Dave’s house for the Halloween party.  Abby went as Joe Dirt, and I went in all black, with a mask, gloves, and a claw hammer.  We stopped at the convienient store to pick up an AutoTrader to complete Abby’s costume before getting to Dave's.  Once we were there, I went ahead and went downstairs to see everyone while Abby waited upstairs for a few minutes (if we showed up together, it would be a giveaway who it was).  I go downstairs and don’t say a word... everyone was trying to guess who it was.  Abby shows up 5 minutes later and blows my cover (She was supposed to tell everyone I went out to buy beer and I’d be back later), but I still don’t break character.  I went the first 2 hours of the party without saying any word to anyone – so even though they assumed it was me, they really weren’t 100% sure.  I just stood/sat there in my mask, silent, petting and rubbing my claw hammer.  I think it finally creeped out one of the girls enough that she used the excuse of giving me a lapdance to come over and pull my mask off... so, sadly, I finally was forced to cave and break character.  Which was fine, because now I could start drinking and eating.  The rest of the night was more bullshitting, beer pong, flip cup, party stuff.  Abby and I left around 1:30AM.  Thanks to Dave for hosting again this year, hopefully he got enough in his donation box this year to cover the food he bought, I think Abby and I did our part.

Today, didn’t start off on a good note.  Abby wanted to get into an argument about the doublestandard she’s imposing on me.  It’s OK for her to go on a weeklong cruise and stay with her “friends” (one of which was a guy who’s asked to make out with her twice, well aware she's got a boyfriend – we covered all this previously), but I’m strictly forbidden to stay at a girl friend’s apartment in Columbus – even with other people being there, including her male roommate.  I was just going to party with some Ohio-Riders friends and made a contingency plan if I was too drunk or tired to drive home since she graciously offered up her couch for me to sleep on.  But, Abby wants me to stay home, alone, all weekend.  Or schedule it for a different weekend so she can come along and babysit me. 

I wish I would’ve known I could’ve asked her to reschedule her cruise so I could babysit her on it to make sure she wasn’t anywhere near the partyboy that was crushing on her.  No, she went anyway (because she NEEDED a vacation) and expected I trust her... instead I find out she’s grinding on the guy and kissing his cheek and stuff (or so I’ve been told).  Then she comes home after the cruise and gets on eHarmony to meet guys because she’s questioning our relationship. 

But, she wants to presume I’m already guilty and condemn me when I haven’t even given this girl more than a hug and it's not like she's asked me to makeout with her knowing I have a girlfriend.  I haven’t crossed any of the boundaries Abby has, yet I’m already punished for it...That makes sense? <sarcasm> 

Abby thought the lapdance at the Halloween party was funny because she “knows the girl” – so apparently I’m only ok to hangout with girls that Abby’s met and approved of (i.e. she’s decided that they don’t pose a threat to her), otherwise everything I do needs to be supervised by her.  Ball and chain. 

If that’s the game that she wants to play, I probably shouldn’t have let her run to the store during the party Saturday night because she was being asked to flash people... I just don’t think you can control people by supervising them, in fact, that’s a good way to push them even farther away.

So now, I’m a little upset and angry I’m expected to behave to different rules than she is.  Unacceptable double-standard.    It's OK for her to do the things she does and I'm supposed to deal with it, but not OK for me.  Right.  Got it.

<sigh> I think I’ve got some movies lined up for the rest of the afternoon before the usual Fox Antimation Sunday lineup.

Currently Cage the Elephant By Cage the Elephant Back against the wall see related

“Deep in the jungle
Camouflaged by all the fallen leaves
A hand holds up the sky
While shamefully I make my plea
The alters callin'
But my legs won't seem to stand
Guess I'm a coward
Scared to face the man I am

I said you got me where you want me again
And I can't turn away
I'm hanging by thread and I'm feelin' like a fool
I'm stuck here in-between
The shadows of my yesterday
I want to get away
I need to get away

Now you know
Yeah you got my back against the wall
Oh god
I ain't got no other place to hide
Chained down
Like a sittin' duck just waitin' for the fall
You know
Yeah you got my back against the wall”

I started prepping my front stand this week for paint.  Some 50 grit sandpaper, some masking tape, some acetone... and viola, it’s ready for paint.  I bought some Duplicolor Rust Fix at the auto parts store to try out.  I haven’t sprayed it yet so I can’t give a review on it, but it’s supposed to convert the rest to black primed metal.  Following the directions, after I sanded the front stand, I basically took all the rust off of it – so I’m not sure what it’ll do without rust on it.  Supposedly, it goes on clear and then turns black.  I masked off the Pit Bull stickers to preserve the value of the stand.

Workout wise, I did zero lifting this week.  I ran 3- 10k runs on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.  Then Wednesday I did some Kenpo to limber up the joints, and Thursday I started my basketball league out at the SplashZone in Oberlin, OH.

The SplashZone is a real nice facility, there were 3 coed volleyball games setup next to our two basketball courts.  This week, our game started at 8:30PM against the Dawgs.  There are 10 teams in the league and we play round-robin for 10 weeks (minus the weeks for holidays) and then the top 4 teams go to a playoff.  It’s 4 on 4, and you play two 20 minute halfs.  Clock only stops under the 1 minute mark if the games are close.  At least that’s how I understand it.  I showed up about 8PM to get stretched and shoot around a little.  We had 6 of the 8 guys show up for our game – Myself, Jason, Tony, Ed, Kevin, and Aaron.  It started off well as I nailed a three pointer on the first shot of the game, so we were up 3-0 right away, but I think that was the last time we were ahead until late in the second half.  Basically, they had a one-man team - #7 on their team had 21 of their 24 first half points, 7 threes, it was ridiculous.  So, we changed up our strategy second half, and Kevin started getting on fire, so we were having him drive the lane, taking his foul shots, etc.  We ended up taking the lead by 3 points going into the last 0:20 of the final half.  Given their ‘one man team’, we overcompensated our defensive effort on #7 (triple teamed him), leaving another guy on their team wide open for the three.  The guy hadn’t made any other shots all night, but of course he miraculously drains the bucket – sending the game into overtime.

The overtime period was 3 minutes.  Long story short, the same thing happened again.  We were up by two, and another kid who hadn’t made hardly any other shots all night, go down and busted a three on us.  So, we were down 39-40 with 0:01 on the clock.  The plan was to give Ed the last shot, but Jason saw I was open and passed it in to me.  I turned and fired up a shot off the backboard, off the rim, and out – so shooting the game winning shot is still going to be on my ‘Bucket list’.  It was kind of a raw deal though, because A) we should’ve won, and B) the ‘league’ is sort of rinky-dink.  The ref didn’t really know the rules and would arbitrarily focus on calling people for 3-sec violations for a few minutes, then not call any other the rest of the game and do the same thing for other types of fouls.  Plus, he had no clue how the team fouling worked in OT, so we ended up having to foul the Dawgs 5 times to stop the clock and get them to shoot shots in the OT period.  Whatever.  We’ll get ‘em next week.  I think I ended up scoring 7 points total, meaning I was 3 for probably about 10... 30% - see, LeBron James I am not.  Though I had plenty of rebounds.

Friday, Abby and I ran our typical errands, then Saturday I prepped the stand and winterized the Hayabusa (remove the battery, fill with gas, clean it, plug the exhaust, cover it, park it on top of some rugs), and kissed it goodbye until next spring.  Abby helped.

Saturday evening, my parents came up to visit.  We went to CiCi’s and then came back for a game of cards and visiting.  They left around 12:30AM.

Now, it’s Sunday.  Abby cooked me my weekly cream of wheat, and we’re watching some TruTv and football.  Browns, FTL!

Currently Tri-Polar By Sick Puppies You're going down see related

“Define your meaning of fun
To me it's when we're gettin' it done
I feel the heat comin' off of the blacktop
So get ready for another one
Let's take a trip down memory lane
The words circle in my brain
You can treat this like another all the same
But don't cry like a bitch when you feel the pain

It's been a long time coming
And the tables' turned around
Cause one of us is goin'
One of us is goin' down
I'm not runnin', it's a little different now
Cause one of us is goin'
ONE OF US IS GOIN' DOWN!!”

Welp.  I don’t have a lot.  This week was pretty much – go to work, workout, come home.  I did find out that I’m not going to be getting a G8 GXP because I can’t find one that I want, either because they don’t exist, or because the dealers that have them aren’t willing to sell them at my price (GMS pricing).  So, maybe I'll look at a CTS or a Camaro or maybe even a Cobalt just as a small econo-car to beat the crap out of.  We'll see.

So, Axelrod Pontiac refunded my deposit and while I’m a little disappointed, they did what they could when I gave them the go ahead to go pick me up a car.  They were pleasant to work with.  I’ll just chalk it up to that’s how it goes sometimes.

Workout wise, I wanted to note that I set a new PR on Monday of 44:55 for my 10k, because I didn't want Abby to even outrun me - there's the bar.  So, that’s hoofing my 207lbs body at a pace of the following (not important other than for my personal documentation purposes):  8 mph for 10 min, 8.2 mph for 10 min, 8.4 mph for 10 min, 8.5 mph for 10 min, 8.6 mph for 4 min, then 8.7 mph for the balance of the run.

I mowed the yard on Wednesday – hopefully for one of the last times this season.  Not that I enjoy the winter, since that means no riding the bikes, but not having to mow the yard is one of the perks of the season.

Back to my work out, I also tried to set a PR for my 5k on Friday, but only ended up posting a 21:08, which is about 15 sec slower than my PR.  That was the first mile at 8.5 mph, the second at 8.8 mph, and then the third mile started at 9.1 mph, and I increased it up 0.1mph for every quarter mile complete, ending on 9.5 mph for the part above 3 miles to actually meet the 5k distance.  The plan was to just jog an additional 5k, and I started doing it at around 7.5 mph, but as I got closer to finishing, it looked like even at this slow pace I might be able to set a 10k PR just by hauling ass on the 5k, so I cranked it up to 8.6 mph for the last 5 minutes – just missing the 10k PR, and ending up with a 45:25 10k.  I suppose if I hadn’t taken those two- minute long breaks at 4.3 mph I would’ve had another sub-45 min 10k.

I was sick the rest of the afternoon, I think I overdid it.  It was one of the rare times that I came home, showered, and went right to bed.  I woke up around 9:30PM and kept Abby company for Friday night.

Saturday, the plan was to go to the park for a picnic, but everyone cancelled on Abby, so we decided to get lunch at Chipotle, run errands, and go look for Halloween costumes for me.  I hate to be a party pooper, but I don’t see the point of spending $40 on something I’ll only wear once, then have to chip in money for parties, etc. etc.  I can find better uses for $60-$100.  I haven’t settled on anything yet, but I can get off for as little as $8 if I just want to use Abby’s idea.  She’s already spent $12 on her costume, and I think that’s all she needs – so she’s good to go.

After errands, Abby went to the gym and I contacted a guy on Craigslist to buy some motorcycle stands (speaking of better things to spend $60-$100 on).  When Abby got home, we headed out to Parma to look at the stands and make an offer on them.  The guy was pretty cool – older guy that had a 2003 S10 ZR2 in his garage and used to have a 2003 SV1000S.  So, I know he’s got good taste in things .  He told a few stories about his bikes.  Turns out, about a year ago he had a fleet of 8 bikes stolen out of his garage (hence why he used to have an SV) by some thugs down the street – about $100k worth.  From what he was telling me, the guys were stealing bikes and getting salvage titles out of Detroit (which is easier on Suzuki bikes because they stamp the frame only, not the frame AND the engine).  He decided he wasn’t going through that again to have his collection of bikes stolen, so he only has one bike now and it’s chained to his garage.  He keeps the rest of his toys offsite from his property.  Craziness.  Funny thing was, the neighborhood was a pretty nice one. 

I ended up buying the stands off him.  I just need to get them sanded and painted.  The front was a Pitbull, so I know it's quality.  I'm not sure what brand the rear stand could be? 

Saturday night, we went out to Aces Grille in North Ridgeville, OH to watch Tuesdaze Crush.  A bunch of our friends met us out there – Chuck and Teresa, Katie and Brandon, Abby’s friend Brooke and her boyfriend.  Abby and I split a Chicken BBQ pizza (even though we ordered a BUFFALO chicken pizza – I didn’t bother saying anything because I wanted to eventually try the BBQ one anyway), it was good, but too sweet.  It had a lot of cinnamon apple sauce flavor in the BBQ.  I don’t think I’ll get another.  We had a few drinks and ended up lasting the entire night – 8PM to 2AM.  Chuck and Teresa were the only ones that lasted with us.  Best neighbors ever.  We came home and crashed.

Today, I woke up around 11:30 – Abby headed off to the gym to do her new Jillian Michaels tapes then came home to make me some Cream of Wheat.  I called a guy to get another cycle stand out of Akron (so I could have a Pitbull REAR stand to match the Pitbull front stand I picked up yesterday), but he had already sold it.  So I spent my afternoon next to Abby watching football.

Is it Thanksgiving week yet?  I need more break time.  On the bright side, I think my basketball league starts up next week - I can't wait to embarrass myself doing that.  I'm not horrible, but probably not up to the level my teammates play.  I'm in it just to get some running in anyway, rebound and set picks.  I'm good at those.