Zotime Site of the Month

A new feature for this blog is to bring you a new site each month that I find interesting. The inaugural site is zillow.com.

Have you ever wondered what your house was worth. Zillow.com is an online real estate service dedicated to helping you get an edge in real estate by providing you with valuable tools and information. Moreover, it shows how your house has depreciated over the last few years. There are many cool features on this site such as providing an oversight of the neighborhood that you are searching for and identifying houses that are for sale. When you click on the house it will bring up a detailed description of the house as well as comparables. Go check it out... Zotime said so.

Rommel

The Road had a guest post from Felka. She's a very intelligent dog that has mastered calculus and is a good judge of morals and character. Apparently, she caught the big man doing something repulsive to her watering hole.

When I read that, I recalled a similar event that happened to me when I was just newly married. Norm and I decided to get a dog. You know most newly weds will get an animal to test out prior to actually having kids. I mean, this is a relatively short-term situation to childcare. If you can’t take of a dog or a cat, how on Earth will you take care of child? Anyways, I’m digressing.

We got our first dog just the winter of our first year of marriage. Norm and I had different opinions as to what kind of dog to get, the only thing that we did agree was that it was going to be a larger breed. We thought that if you’re going to get a small dog, you might as well get a cat. We eventually agreed on a Rottweiler. We thought this breed was perfect for us, as the breed is known as a “calm and self-confident dog, which has an inherent desire to protect home and family. He is an intelligent and highly trainable dog. Because of his size and strength, it is imperative that he receive proper socialization and obedience training from an early age.”

We eventually bought a dog from a breeder and were very pleased with him. Now you need to know that Rottweilers were originally bread by the Roman army as cattle dogs. They were also known as tremendous guard dogs and loyal companions. Therefore, Von Becks Rommel’s Blitz (or better known as Rommel) had a habit of trying to “herd” Norm and me into the same room. If we were apart, he would come to one of us and nudge us so that we would be together.

It just so happened that on one occasion, I went to the bathroom to relieve myself. There I stood unzipping my fly when Rommel pushed the bathroom door opened and was watching me. I tried to shoe him out but he wasn’t going anywhere… in fact he walked over and stood next to me trying to herd me back together with my wife. I (obviously wasn’t going anywhere) so I started to relieve myself. He looked up at me, then down into the bowl, and stuck his head into the bowl. He wasn’t trying to drink from it, but I had no clear shot passed his head so the back of his head I hit. I hurt myself stopping… you men know what I mean, and laughed out load and Rommel raised his head and realized that his head was wet started shaking his head violently trying to dry it.

Needless to say, he got a bath that day and the bathroom got a cleaning.

When Norm’s Away…

Norm told me last week that Scratchy (see I can spell it right) had an overnight birthday party planned for Thursday. They were going to go to some indoor water park and weren’t going to be back home until sometime in the afternoon on Friday.

Norm called me at work to let me know that she was not planning on making dinner, as there were plenty of leftovers in the fridge. She also said that Itchy was going to stay home with me. She asked me what I had planned… I gave her my standard answer of I don’t know. She suggested that maybe we could go up to the club so that Itchy could do some rock climbing and if we were bored later we could go up to blockbuster and get a movie or a new game for the PS3.

I said that we might do that … Yesterday afternoon; I was feeling kind of bored and asked the guys at work if they wanted to get together and play poker. Most of the guys had other plans but I did get Dan to say that he didn’t have plans and could do it as long as it was after eight. I called up Eduardo and asked him if he was up to it… he said sure (when is Eduardo never up to playing poker) and that he would make a few calls so that we would have enough to play.

As the afternoon progressed, the poker game was taking shape but I didn’t feel like going up to the club as my knee was still bugging me and I was still at work at 5:30 and would never make the spin class. I got home well after six and was tired. Itchy asked to go rock climbing. I asked, “when are you going to come home and will you be hungry?” Itchy said about eight and asked if we could get pizza. I said fine...

The house was clean… I wasn’t hungry… and I was tired, so I sat on the couch and flipped the channels of the TV until I found a game from the NCAA tournament. I don’t remember who was playing or what the score was, but the house was quiet. I sat there for about two hours until the phone rang and it was Itchy asking to stay at the club until ten. I reluctantly said yes… Itchy called me again no more then two minutes later and said that they were coming home.

At about eight thirty Eduardo, Robo and big Dan came over. I asked Eduardo who was coming… he said that he made several calls but only got one confirmation (Tarik). Tarik is never late and as it was 8:45… this might have been a bad idea. I was thinking about plan B… maybe pizza and a movie. So, I asked Itchy to call and order the pizza.

I went to pick up the pizza… (They lost the order… great; the night was not getting worse.) I got home and there was still no one else there. I asked Eduardo and Dan if they were up to a little three-handed poker. Itchy said that Simon from down the block could play. We were getting desperate, but four-handed poker is much more interesting than three-handed so we agreed.

As we were waiting for Simon, Bruce and Heart Brake knocked on the front door and the Jackal called to say that he was on the way. After ten o’clock, the game finally started with seven of us. Simon took a big chunk of Eduardo’s money early in the game and seemed like a player. He slow played K7 (top two pair on the flop) into a full house on the river. He took the early lead and I got a good read of him after about an hour of watching him… I never got a chance to bust him. I got my top pair cracked by Heart Brake in the middle of the game as she had a better kicker and I went all in on her. It seemed like the next hand she took another huge chunk of my stack. After this, I just tried to play conservative. The first game Eduardo took the prize and we started the second game right about 1 am. I asked the group if they wanted anything to drink and even offered to make them a pitcher of Strawberry Daiquiri. They liked them so much that I made some Irish Coffee’s and Bruce got a chance to taste one of my Apple Martini. I guess I put a little too much Vodka in it. Second game was a quick game and I don’t remember any memorable hands… Heart Brake won. Third game started at 3 am and I Eduardo won again. The last game it was only Eduardo, Bruce and I that played. We started at 4:30 and Eduardo won as he took top honors for the night. When we finally emerged from the game room, Robo was playing Need for Speed on the PS3. Itchy was out on the couch.

The guys headed out of the house right before six am as I told them if they waited another half hour they would get caught up in rush hour. That would have stunk playing poker all night… all tired out and stuck in traffic.

I got up this morning and cleaned the house up. The house was quiet again and I got a good chance to veg out. I finally woke up Itchy just before Norm got home after three this afternoon.

Useless Knowlege of the Day (plus a story)

The Opossum is noted for its reaction to threats, which is to feign death. This is the genesis of the term "playing possum,” which is used to describe an attempt to pretend to be dead or injured.

In the case of the opossum, the reaction is involuntary, as it is triggered by extreme fear.

The Opossum should is not a docile animal as it will respond ferociously, hissing, screeching, and showing its teeth. However, with enough stimulation, the opossum will enter a near coma, which can last up to four hours. It lies on its side, mouth and eyes open, tongue hanging out, emitting both a green fluid from its anus and an odor putrid to most predators. Besides discouraging animals who eat live prey, playing possum also convinces some large animals that the opossum is no threat to their young.

This is not only a useless knowledge of the day post but also the backdrop for a story I'm about to unfold.

Scratchy has a friend and our two families have become close. We will call the mother of Scratchy's friend Mrs. C. Now Mrs. C is your typical Midwestern mom that takes care of the house while the husband is away on business.

Their home like ours backs up to an undeveloped land and there is plenty of fauna that inhabits these areas. Now, Mrs. C's family has a pet dog that we will call Lucky. One evening a few years back while the husband was away Mrs. C hears Lucky outside barking violently.

Mrs. C eventually goes out to see what's going on with Lucky and to shut him up so that the neighbors don't call the cops. Mrs. C can't easily find Lucky but eventually she hears him again and tracks him down. Apparently, Lucky is under the rear porch barking like his life depends on it and even after several attempts she can't get Lucky to get out from under the porch. She goes inside to get a flashlight and heads back outside.

Lucky is still barking and she opens the trap door and heads under the porch. She hears Lucky at the far end of the porch and shines a light at him while yelling at him to get out from under the porch. She shines the light around and lo and behold; the light hits the eyes of an opossum that is now staring right at her and is showing its fangs and hissing violently. She turns right around and heads out yelling as she does this. Of course, now Lucky has to try to save the day so he chases out the opossum right after Mrs. C. The poor beast is being chased by Lucky and heads for any possible sign of freedom, which of course means to head into the house right after Mrs. C who has left the door wall open.

Lucky now is in hot pursuit of the opossum. Mrs. C seeing that she is being chassed heads for high ground and is screaming at the top of her lungs. The opossum tries to flee but is cornered and its only course of action is to "play possum.” As you may have read right above when an opossum is cornered, it lies on its side, emitting both a green fluid from its anus and a putrid odor. This of course does not stop our hero Lucky. Lucky seeing that this is the moment to pounce latches on to the poor possum and starts to shake the beast as hard as he can.

Remember the part about the green fluid from the anus... well this coupled with the now bleeding possum start to be sprayed all around the house caused by the shaking that Lucky is causing. Lucky eventually relinquishes its vice like grip on the opossum as the neighbors come charging into the house thinking that there must be some sort of violent crime going on.

The opossum now is lying still on the ground but no one knows if it is alive or dead. The heroic neighbor goes into the garage and gets a snow shovel and a garbage can to scoop up the vermin and relocate him to the nature preserve. The house is a mess from the blood, guts and green anus stuff. They said to us that they had to get the carpeting steam cleaned, as they could not get them cleaned and smelling as if they used to any other way. By the way, Lucky also had to get a good cleaning as he had opossum stuff and mud from under the house all in his coat.

So, the moral of the story is if your faced by something playing possum be careful as they may cause a big stink in your life.

Signs of Spring

How many more weeks of winter did that furry rodent say it was going to be?

Well, in this part of the world a clear sign of spring is when the migration of deer come stampeding through the neighborhood and do a little pruning of the bushes, grass, trees and just about anything else that is sticking out of the snow and isn't frozen.

This year the bucks and does where treated to nice somewhat fresh blanket of leaves that were not picked up last year. I know... but there is a story behind that.

S. P. I. T. N.

Stupid people in the news is back. It's only going to be a matter of time....

In December, even after the widely reported tiger attack on a visitor at the San Francisco Zoo, the Houston Zoo was still allowing its visitors to play "tug of war" with its own lions and tigers. A 20-pound slab of meat, attached to a long rope, is tossed into the enclosure, and visitors are encouraged to toy with the cats by yanking on it as the animal lunges for it. Said a Houston zookeeper, the game keeps the animals from getting bored. Besides, a zoo official said, "(The lion or tiger) kind of lets us know when he wants to play, and we go along with that."

[KVUE-TV (Austin, Tx), 1-9-08]

Useless Knowledge of the Day

So... some of you may recognize the coat of arms to the right as the Australian Coat of Arms and you would be correct. Now that is unusual in itself, but the useless knowledge part of this post is that the coat of arms has a Kangaroo and an Emu on it.

Why are these fine creatures on the coat of arms? If you were to guess that, the Emu and Kangaroo are creatures that are native to Australia. Therefore, that is the reason they are on the coat of arms. You would be half-right, but that is not the reason they are on the coat of arms.

These two creatures are also the only two animals that can not walk backwards. This was the original reason why they used these creatures. The coat of arms also used to have a scroll with the motto Advance Australia. As the Emu and Kangaroo could only advance and not go back, these two animals became synonymous with the unusual coat of arms.

By the way the six badges on the shield represent each of the six states of Australia... left to right top are New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. In the bottom half, from left to right: South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania.

Who's Hotter Winner

Sorry about the long layoff, but the city Fire Marshal told us that we had to put up a new sprinkler system if we were going to keep posting these firestarters.

This weeks landslide winner is Salma Hayek....

Follow up Visit

I went to my orthopedic surgeon on Thursday to get an evaluation on my knee. I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and was going to have him check out my shoulder at the same time. My shoulder has been bugging me for about 4 years. The last time I got it checked, my doctor said that I had premature onset of rheumatoid arthritisin the rotator cuff. This sounds a lot worse then it really is (I hope). Well anyways, he gave me a few options (surgery, cortisone shot) I choose physical therapy instead. Sure physical therapy takes longer and may not work, but I didn’t want to go under knife and wasn’t too crazy about taking the shot which doesn’t do anything except numb the pain.

So the doctor took a look at my knee and asked how I did it. I told him, and also let him know that it had gotten a whole lot better since the fall. He said that he wanted to take a few more x-rays of the knee. I then told him about how my shoulder had gotten worse again. He checked the shoulder and said that he was going to take another battery of x-rays on it as well. (At this rate, I thought I might be glowing when I left the place.)

I got four more x-rays on my knee and six more on my shoulder.

After a few minutes of waiting in the examination room, the doctor walked in. He said good news, bad news to me. The good news (he went on to say) was that my knee was structurally sound and that what I was doing was good enough for now. He said that I should not do any running, but did suggest that I increase my range of motion by biking.

The bad news was that my arthritic shoulder now had bone spurs growing on it. I said what does this mean and he went on to say that in some cases of arthritis, bone spurs may form as a result of this. He said that if my shoulder was causing me to sleep depravation. I fibbed by telling him that it did not. Honestly, I cannot sleep in my favorite position and I have not been sleeping well for months.

He took a closer look at my shoulder (prodding a joint manipulation), and checked the level of strength I had in my shoulder. He said that he wanted to do another MRI on my shoulder to get a better idea of where the bone spur was and also to see what else was going on in my shoulder. Therefore, it’s off the to the MRI lab next week to see if there is any other damage in my shoulder.

Bonehead

So I pulled a bonehead of a move a few hours ago. I was rushing to get to Itchy’s game on time… you remember, they don’t call me Zotime for nothing, and I was running to get there so that I could see most of the game.

I ran to a closest door and it was looked. I ran across the schools lawn to get to the other doors and ran through the snow. I got some snow in my shoes and was trying to shake the snow out them while running. I stomped my right foot a few times as I ran. I couldn’t get the snow out so I stomped real hard. The last stomp made my right knee buckle and I knew it immediately that there was something wrong. I stopped and felt my knee. It felt ok, but there was some pain in it. I walked to the gym and looked for Norm. She was up a half dozen rows and I stepped on the first riser trying to climb up.

I stopped and the woman that I nearly fell on asked if everything was ok. I said...that I may have just blown out my knee. She said that it didn’t look right that I would nearly fall on her, to which I tried to smile and laugh. The pain was searing like a knife to the top of my knee. I tried to gather my wits and looked up at Norm. She looked down at me and asked if I was ok. As I turned around to sit down I said to her that I was hurt. She asked if I was going to go up to her, to which I said… I don’t think so.

She climbed down to join me and asked what was going on… I told her that I hurt my knee. It’s not the first time that I blew out my knee, so I’m used to the pain. I don’t remember it hurting just this much.

After the game, we walked (waddled) out of the school and I was telling Norm how I did it while showing her. Yes... I did it again and hurt it again. What a bonehead I am.

As I lay here typing this, I am on the second bag of ice and I hope I only tweaked the knee. I hope the swelling is minimized and the hyperextension didn’t tear the ACL. More on that tomorrow after a night sleep.

Last Second Finish

Scartchy's season came to end yesterday as they faced the previous tournament champions in the championship game. Scartchy's team played well and they where leading most of the game but found themselves down by a point with less then a minute to go. They had several chances to take the lead, but they couldn't hit their free throws. With less then ten seconds to play they had another chance at the line and finally hit the go ahead foul shot. The other team rushed the ball down the court and threw up a wild shot that missed everything. They got the offensive rebound and a pass later the winning shot went in from the free throw line extended as time ran out. The team was crushed, and Scratchy was disappointed as she is arguably the best defensive player but was not on the court on the last play.

The Shamrocks had a great season going 17 - 5 and played much better the second half of the season. They won their division, won the preseason tournament, and took second in the Christmas and post season tournaments.

So it's off to the AAU team for Scratchy. It should be a change for Scratchy where most of the players are about the same size instead of a foot taller.

Freaky Friday

Ever since I was a young boy, I had the ability to see into the future via dreams that I have. I’m sure that this is not abnormal as some of us experience this via déjà vu. I know what you’re thinking… sure Zotime, we believe you. Let me give you an example of my other superpower. Friday in Orlando, and we decided to head off to Typhoon Lagoon.

We got the car packed and I noticed that there was a car in the street. Kind of unusual, as the rest of the week there was no one parked in that area. I didn’t think much of it and we started to head off to Disney. As we got to the end of the block, the recall started. We talked about what we were going to do and see, and the memories came back to me vividly. We made a few turns in the sub and where on the main artery out of the sub. At that point, a red corvette drove past us. I thought about this and didn’t say anything. (In my dream, I did say something, but at this point, I said nothing) We drove another half a block and I looked at Norm. She said what was wrong as I had a weird look on my face. I told her that I was having déjà vu she laughed and said sure you are. I said, really I am. I can prove it. She said how. I said that the car that just drove by us is a real estate agent. She said… "give it a break".

We were now almost out of the subdivision, and that is when I stopped the car. I turned the car around and headed back. Norm asked what I was doing and I said I could prove it. I said that the agent was showing a house right next door to ours. We drove a few blocks and the kids wondered if I forgot something. Norm told them that we were going back to see if the red corvette driver was parked next door to our house. After a few more turns, we were almost to our street that was ours. We pulled up to the stop sign and looked down our block. There at the end of the block right next door to the place we were staying was the red corvette (just as I dreamed of it). The kids went crazy with glee.

Norm looked at me in amazement, and I just looked at her with that look that I told you so look. She looked at me, laughed and said, “You couldn’t dream of the powerball numbers… could you.”