11:40 alarm, whacked, worst ever, off road, WeMo World, high note, 2000

1724328_1105743312772255_3519606005419244573_nSo this was definitely one of the most memorable New Year’s Eve celebrations I can remember for quite awhile.  When I got home from work I changed into the same suit I have owned for something like 25 years.  You would think a suit of this age would be in poor shape but since I wear a suit so infrequently it is still in pristine condition.

We arrived on site for the wedding at the Ritz, a place I never visited, about 15 minutes before the 7:30 wedding was scheduled to start.  My hatred of valet parking made me try to seek out a spot myself until a valet flagged me down and said it is valet only.  He addressed my dislike by letting us know there was no extra charge for valet for wedding guests.  I unparked myself and then had to wait in a lengthy line for a valet to be handed our keys.

Once we went inside I instantly admired the beautiful hotel interior, made even better by the lavish Christmas decorations.  We quickly saw a bunch of familiar faces since a large portion of the guests are local members of the running club.  After a short wait we were escorted out to beach where the ceremony was being held.  There was a beautiful lighted stage that the ceremony was going to take place on along with seating for 200-300 people.  I couldn’t even begin to imagine the costs involved in putting on such an event.

Despite a beautiful ceremony I managed to find myself feeling annoyed and angry.  The anger was from people a short distance down the beach that did not have the common sense or courtesy to stop firing off their fcking fireworks during the ceremony.  I mean really, how is it possible for people to be that inconsiderate?  I really felt like sprinting over there, suit and all and inserting a bottle rocket down their throat.  I mean wtf, is it really that much to ask them to wait 20 minutes until they fire off their shitty fireworks?

The much warmer than normal December weather made for some sweaty conditions during both the ceremony and the cocktail hour afterward, both of which were held outdoors.  Once alcohol was available I didn’t waste any time downing a couple beers in quick succession to help take the edge off my normal social anxiety.  Cindy drank early on but was our designated driver so she stopped early in the night.

We were then lead into the main reception hall which was exquisite.  There were a couple cool high tech spots.  One was a digital picture wall where wedding guests could draw their own wedding wishes and have them saved.  There also was a digital photo booth which had increasingly funnier pictures as more alcohol was consumed during the night.

I was drinking pretty steadily all night, mixing alcohol types, never a great idea.  I had Bud Light, white wine, champagne, and some of Cindy’s vodka and cranberry cocktails.  I was drunk for sure but not incapacitated.  Of course as is often the case when I drink, Cindy drug me onto the dance floor where I make a fool out of myself but care very little about it.

Before I knew it, midnight had arrived which Cindy and I rung in with the traditional kiss along with popping a number of the balloons that were dropped from above.  Normally after the ball drops NYE parties start to dissipate but when they are combined with wedding receptions that wasn’t the case.  We were probably there until close to 2AM.  Not only did Cindy get to drive me home we also dropped off another couple that were on the way home, they were both pretty hammered.

Like I said I was drunk but not smashed, but much like last year after the Oktoberfest, I had a very bad reaction once I got put in the passenger seat of the car.  It wasn’t Cindy’s driving but for whatever reason I seem to get acute car sickness once I drink a significant amount of alcohol anymore.  A couple times I had her stop the car so I could potentially “purge”, but I never did.  Instead I managed to get home intact by laying the seat back while Cindy drove with my window open.  The fresh air seemed to help subdue the nausea.

We didn’t actually fall asleep until something ridiculous like 4:30AM which is my latest bedtime in maybe forever.  The record setting late bedtime resulted in an equally record setting late wake up.  After letting the chickens out of the coop about 8AM I collapsed back in bed and did not rise again until 11:40AM.  I could not believe I slept half of the day away.  It was not a feeling I enjoyed and I immediately wondered how some “party people” do this sort of thing regularly and enjoy it.  I felt like death.  Even so, I was thankful for Jake and Colby allowing us to be part of their beautiful wedding ceremony.  It was certainly a night to remember.

Even though I was dehydrated and groggy I had to be somewhat productive on Friday.  I hated that I slept so late.  During the afternoon I drug myself outside and did some yard work.  Cindy and I headed out to run some errands as well.  One of the places we planned to stop was Costco.  We were surprised to see they were closed New Years Day.  No big deal, we figured we would just stop at Sam’s instead.  I was even more surprised to see it was closed as well, considering the Wal-mart right up the street was open.  Oh well.

On Saturday I still was feeling like crap.  I actually danced around like an idiot enough at the wedding that my knees hurt, ruling out any endurance training.  Instead I decided to knock another item off my winter project list, weed whacking the entire fence line.  Before I tackled this project I did the normal weed whacking which takes an hour alone.  By the time I tacked on the fence line I was out there a ridiculous 3 hours.  I had to refill the spool three times along the way, fence whacking chews up line like mad.  Since I do the fence line so infrequently it was very slow going in spots as I beat down thick and high growth of unwanted weeds.  Some areas took tons of back and forth passes as I knocked down the shit in stages.  It was miserable and did a good job of adding to the stiffness and inflammation I was already feeling in my lower body.

12401919_10154211146307841_5351400082809979777_oDuring the afternoon we decided to try Costco again.  It was open but it was also obliterated with people.  The store has a HUGE parking lot and there were actually people mongering for parking spaces.  I had NEVER seen the lot this full.  Despite knowing what I was in store for, a frustrating sea of humanity, we parked and headed inside.  It was so bad that there were hardly any shopping carts by the front of the store.  Cindy and I grabbed one of the last few available, once they were gone the flock of people descended on the parking lot cart attendant who was pushing another dozen in like hungry vultures.  It was awful.

Of course trying to push the cart through the store was miserable as well.  I actually did very little verbal complaining during the ordeal.  I knew damn well it was going to be a mess the second I pulled onto the lot.  If I decided to subject myself to the madness I had no real basis to complain.  The grand frustrating finale was trying to get checked out.  There was a river of people trying to do the same, so many that they back filled one of the main shopping aisles, further clogging the flow of traffic through the store.

As I stood in line I tried to create a theory as to why it was THIS horrible.  Most of the time I come to Costco it is a bad shopping experience but this set the bar to an entirely new level.  I decided what we were experiencing was the rush of snowbirds that flock back into the area as soon as the holidays over for their 3-4 month nesting season.  They are in dire need of large amounts of toilet paper, paper towels, and other bulk items and all choose Costco as THE source to fulfill those needs.  After maybe 20 minutes of waiting we finally got the fck out of there.  I will never shop at Costco on January 2nd again, bet on it.

When we got back home I decided to tackle installing one of the two WeMo smart light switches I received for Christmas.  Despite not being officially supported in a 3 way switch configuration like I have in the kitchen, I decided to put one there anyway.  The switch will function correctly as long as we don’t touch the second switch to control the light.  I was surprised when I discovered there is no way to just kill the circuit for the kitchen light without killing power to the entire house.  After shutting down my home network server I pulled the plug.

Installing the WeMo switch was not all that difficult.  After about 10-15 minutes I was ready to flip the power back on and test it out.  I was very pleased when I was able to turn the large overhead kitchen light with my iPhone and then a few minutes later with my voice using our Amazon Echo.   Later on Sunday I installed the second switch in our bedroom giving us voice control over a good portion of the lighting in our house.  The geek factor is high within our walls.

On Saturday night we both felt beat, still feeling side effects from the NYE gala.  We veg’d out and watched Ted 2 on demand.  It had enough dirty humor to keep the rating at a B+ level.

On Sunday we wanted to do a bike ride however the skies looked menacing, it was windy, and a bit chilly with temps in the mid 60’s.  I proposed an alternative ride to Cindy where I would ride my new mountain bike along with Cindy on her road bike over to the nearby bird rookery swamp.  I just wanted to see how it felt.  Pedaling a 40+ pound mountain bike with big fat tires and regular pedals requires a lot more effort to achieve 15-16 mph than it does on a road bike.  The last section of road before the swamp turns into a combo of asphalt and lime rock.  Cindy was hesitant to traverse it on her Cervelo but managed to do so without popping a tire.  Once Cindy gets her mountain bike we will ride back there and do some real off road riding.  The round trip to the swamp entrance is 6 miles so if you combine it with the roughly 12 miles you can ride inside the swamp you have a very tough potential 18 mile ride.

1924202_1107083649304888_5316351381476053443_nSunday afternoon we multitasked, preparing race bibs as we watched the Eagles win their last game of the year.  We plowed through 2000 bibs, a huge number for two people.  The Eagles offense played well, the defense did not but came up big at the end to secure the win.  I found it interesting that the first game without Chip Kelly resulted in the Eagles having a number of long scoring drives, the longest of the year.  The win cost the Eagles 7 spots in draft position so they may have actually been better off losing the game but with their recent history of draft performances I don’t know it matters much anyway.  It will be quite interesting to see who the Eagles entrust the coaching duties to in 2016.  Sean Payton or Bill Cowher would make me pee my pants in joy which is exactly why it will never happen.

The weather during the day turned wet and raw with the temps dropping into the 60’s.  When I went out to do afternoon chicken duties it was a wet and goosebump inciting experience.  Last night we mostly chilled out with me catching up on some virtual WoW to do’s.

12402183_1106567369356516_1006997152835127632_oOver the weekend Cindy got a chance to try out another out of the blue Xmas gift I bought her, a camping hammock.  We set it up between one of the palm and pine trees.  Cindy really liked just chilling in the nylon hammock for a little while.  I hope she takes more time to use it more regularly.