Chiggers are Evil

As much as I love the outdoors, there are a few nasties I have to keep my guard up for. Mosquitoes are quite the annoyance; there is nothing worse than getting bitten on a part of the body that is constantly rubbed by a backpack, sling, a seam in the pants, etc. Down in the Hill Country, the issue becomes imported fire ants. Crawling underneath a vehicle to fix something, grabbing firewood off the bottom of the pile, raking the yard, or any other task that yields the possibility of close contact with the ground and exposed skin is a risky proposition. Those bites do feel like fire! But there is a more noxious pest that results in nothing good when they come in close contact with me. It is something the world might be better off without even if it does have some minuscule part in the food chain; it is the chigger.

This nasty little critter and I just don't get along. Somehow, someway I inherited my Dad's allergic reaction to being bit by these nearly invisible mites. Granted, it isn't anything on the order of severe anaphylactic shock but it still is elevated slightly above nuisance. Most folks after being bit get a welt similar to a mosquito bite. I get this huge red welt that is about the size of a quarter. Add it several bites in close proximity to each other and my ankles now look like I took a 99 MPH Nolan Ryan fastball right at the shoe-line (minus the purple from the bruise). But that isn't the worst part.

The worst part is the itching. The incessant itching that never stop. It is a vicious cycle that the great comic strip Calvin and Hobbes illustrates perfectly from The Days are Just Packed on page 135. You refuse to scratch but then it feels as if ants are crawling all over you, as if you are walking through fire so you relent and scratch. The relief is wonderful, as if the flames are out and the ants are gone. BUT...before you take the next step, the itch comes back with a stronger vengeance. And the cycle continues. My screwed up immune system doesn't help either as the allergic reaction resulting in the red monstrosities around my ankles amplifies the need for a good scratch even more. Again, the slightest bump or brush with an object kicks the reaction into overdrive. Roll over in bed and the sheets moving over the bite sites make them scream "SCRATCH ME!" Running this morning was even worse; the rim of the running shoes were right where the bites are. Agony. Sheer agony. Hot shower afterwords...bad news. Hot water and insect bites that continue to ITCH result in a twenty-fold increase in the itch signal to the neurons in the brain.

I know what you are going to say next: "Why didn't you put on insect repellent?" That is what irks me the most; I DID spray down with Off. Apparently a 7.5% concentration by volume of DEET wasn't enough to kill those little critters or keep them off my skin. There is also a high likelihood that the ankle socks slipped a little bit and exposed the tiniest sliver of skin that they felt they could munch on without concern. Now I'm paying the price. The 7.5% DEET will be used for mosquitoes around the upper-half of the body but the next time I'm heading out to the softball fields I'm taking the big gun: Off! DeepWoods Sportsmen 1 ounce spray bottle. 98.5% DEET by volume baby. This stuff burns the skin when you put it on but it has yet to fail me in the battle against crawling/flying biting insects. I'll likely spray this down before putting on the socks and cleats hoping to prevent another round of red-lumped itching madness.

So I am off to the grocery store now. Part of the trip is to stock up on food for my upcoming work week but to also hunt down whatever ointment has the highest concentration of hydrocortizone to see if it will relieve the maddening itch. Last time it didn't help but I'll remain hopeful. Here is to hoping I can make it through the next seven days or so without tearing off my skin around the bites with my fingernails...

An Open Letter to the US National Soccer Team

Dear US National Soccer Team,

After watching yet another "typical" US National Team performance in World Cup qualification match against Mexico yesterday, I would like to share three points with you.

1) Having one of your star players, Landon Donovan, tell the press "This wasn't a live-or-die game for us. It was for them." after a game is not a good sign. Every game you play is live-or-die especially at the international level. In every organized sport I have participated in throughout my life, my coaches would have firmly planted my rear end on the wooden plank or aluminum known as the bench if I didn't give EVERY game my all, and then more. Assuming that one game is not more important over another breeds apathy. Apparently, there is plenty of apathy on the United States National Team. This apathy better disappear soon or else Team USA will be watching the 2010 World Cup here in the states as opposed to South Africa!

1a) I cannot help but wonder if this apathy comes from the head coach. At times, Bradley has looked brilliant (against Brazil in the Confederations Cup) but at other times his player selection and overall leadership seems to be lacking...which then trickles down to the players.

2) You had an opportunity to make a statement and say that the Gold Cup spanking was an isolated incident, that the 5-0 Mexico win was an off-day. Instead, everyone on that team shows that USA soccer is still relegated to a second or third-tier sport at the "Major League" and international level. You were so close to taking the "big-step" after an amazing performance against Brazil but that level of performance seems to have disappeared. Yet another opportunity to show the world that we continue to improve and will be a force to be reckoned with in international futbol competitions that has been farted away.

3) My final plea is to state that "prevent defense" has yet to work for Team USA. The saying "the best offense is a good defense" doesn't seem to apply to your team and is likely a poor posture in any competitive sport. In both the Brazil and Mexico losses, Team USA had the lead but stopped consistently attacking the opponents half of the field. Your team would fall back and hope that Howard could pick up whatever shots were not blocked by most of the team falling back into a defensive stance. Playing this style of soccer has yet to do the national team any favors and it visually appears as if the players revert back to a grade-school level of performance: lack of sharp passes, clears down-field to nobody, dangerous tackles, etc. etc. Perhaps the lack of physical endurance has something to do with that as not all of the national team players come into matches at game-level performance and the defensive stance means less running and an opportunity to regain some level of stamina. Stay in an offensive posture and take the game to the opponent; don't let them force you to play on their terms.

So men's USA national soccer team, I bid you farewell and good luck. I will still watch your matches, I will still keep my fingers crossed that somehow, someway we can eventually move away from the laughing stock of international soccer to an active, competitive, and highly skilled team feared by opponents as you run onto the pitch. Until then, I will keep my expectations low to keep from being crushed as we continue to languish in mediocrity at the international level of soccer competition.

Sincerely,
-Der Wetteransager

It's Here! It's Here! Read all about it...

Upon arrival at my unnamed employer's office a couple of weeks ago, there was a package waiting in my mailbox. One that I had eagerly awaited for 5 days.

My new iPhone 3GS had arrived.

I opened the box like a lost Christmas present that had been found, wrapped and unopened, awaiting my eagerness to unearth whatever lies beneath. A careful slice of the packing tape with my Leatherman and behold! There it was! My first reaction:

"Is this it?"

You see, the iPhone comes in the typical nifty Apple "minimized" packaging. No frills, no excessive waste on a huge box with such small, precious cargo inside. I was amazed at how small the box truly was. My retired BlackBerry didn't come in nearly such a small, neat box. After wiping the drool off my chin and getting the shift-change briefing, I finally read through the instructions to get the phone activated so I could start playing with all the features.

I was prepared to wait amongst the throngs of people flooding the AT&T support lines to activate the plethora of iPhones that seem to be flying off the shelf. Sure enough, I get on the phone, enter my customer number, and the automated voice stated "All our operators are busy serving other customers. We apologize for this and your estimated wait time is........20 minutes." Eh, not too bad so I was preparing to put the call on speakerphone so I wouldn't have to hold my neck sideways for that amount of time. HOWEVER, a series of beeps occurred and then a new voice came on the line.

"Welcome to the AT&T Premier activation system. Please choose from the following menu." Whaaaaaaaaaaa? Sure enough, the privilege of having a corporate discount came to the rescue and I was able to bypass the 20 minute wait and activate my phone all within 5 minutes. Sweeeeeet. After taking one long last look at the BlackBerry that had served my friend and I well for 3 1/2 years, I switched it off and took the leap into the iPhone era.

The 5 minutes after switching the phone off seemed to take forever. After 5 minutes and 3 seconds (had to be SURE we had passed 5 minutes), I hit the button on the iPhone and the familiar Apple logo popped up. I then synced to my laptop to register the phone with Apple, an all too easy process. The only issue that came up was trying to sync my music as it resides on an external hard drive I typically keep on my desktop. A quick cancellation of the sync and we were off and running.

As for the phone itself, the learning curve and transition from a BlackBerry to the iPhone was quite seamless. My biggest worry was changing from a positive-response keyboard like the blackberry has to the iPhone touch screen but this wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it would be. Especially nice is the landscape mode which provides some extra real estate and allows for larger "keys". The screen is nice and bright but not quite as bright as one of my co-worker's BlackBerry Bold, and the width and depth feel a bit narrow compared to the 8820. Controls took a bit of getting used to; the volume controls were in a slightly different location, the ring/vibrate switch is a change, and my hands-free headsets will no longer work (note: I'm not keen on using Bluetooth headsets both from a security point of view and high-frequency radio waves transmitting awefully close to my gray matter...regardless of how fast the power decays once it leaves the antenna).

The biggest draw to the iPhone was the plethora of applications available which blow away anything available on the BlackBerry. The first apps I downloaded were RadarScope, Bejeweled, Facebook, Lightsaber (hey, you never know when you will run into a Dark Sith), and MotionX GPS. By far, RadarScope has been the most used app as I can finally get (relatively) high-resolution radar data out and about. Whenever family calls, I can finally be able to tell them whether or not to batten down the hatches or be free to roam about without being hammered by mother nature with better accuracy than other radar sites available. MotionX GPS was handy on a recent trip to Colorado by providing elevation information while off-roading in the mountains and will come in handy with future stormchasing and damage surveys. I'm sure there are a few more gems of applications but you have to wade through hundreds, if not thousands, of rifraf applications to find them.

Unfortunately I do have a few gripes. Battery life S T I N K S. Only recently have I had the phone last for about two and a half days as opposed to needing a nightly recharge. A few days on vacation I had to charge it twice a day. Call sound quality is also highly variable with some calls barely audible while others coming in as if they were being fed through an amplifier. Using the included earbuds helped mainly while on the road but has come in handy when at the house and needing to put the phone down to type or look something up. The phone also gets a bit warmer than I thought it would when being used for a long period of time (playing Bejeweled). Preferring to see if it overheats, I did get the white iPhone as a couple of blogs indicate the plastic can turn purple if it does indeed get too hot.

However, I'm quite pleased with the iPhone over all (not to mention the $$ I'm saving on not having a tethered data plan...for now). If Beejive would hurry up and get Jabber chat rooms working, if someone would develop a programmable app to plot weather data/satellite data, and XM/Sirius would decide to allow current customers to listen to their account as opposed to paying extra, I would have almost all of the apps I'd need. The phone is also wrapped in it's Otterbox Defender case to protect it from falls (already happened once), the elements (NOTE: it's not waterPROOF, but weather RESISTANT), and has a nifty belt attachment that fits on my hip like the old BlackBerry holster preventing me from going off-balance.

If anything else changes or a new app comes along, I'll be sure to share. And yes, I'm slowly falling to the Apple dark side...