A lot to cover

So we decided Friday afternoon we would go to the second Tarpons game of the season.  We dropped Sadie off at Ali’s on the way there so I was worried we might get to the arena late.  When I pulled into the parking lot, despite it being 10 minutes before kickoff the parking lot was dramatically less full than it was for the first game.  I’m not sure why there was such a big drop off.  Maybe those week one fans realized that arena football at this level is sort of sad.  It was ironic, despite the terrible attendance they had double the amount of food stands open as they normally do.  There was absolutely no waiting for your food or beverage items.

For the second time this season the visiting team had on generic uniforms with plain black helmets.  Most of their players were dramatically undersized compared to their Tarpon counterparts.  The tiniest of them all was number 26 that you would have sworn was 12 years old.  The guy was barely over five feet tall and couldn’t have weighed more than 120 pounds.  He also was their kicker and was absolutely awful at it, kicking spinning tops that would travel no more than 15 feet in the air.  It was a joke.

As you would expect, the Tarpons absolutely steam rolled their opposition, winning something like 70-24.  It very well may be the last game we attend this season as of the two remaining games one is a Sunday afternoon and another is a Monday night, neither time slot excites me.  I will likely have better things to do than watch the Tarpons beat up on whatever bush league team comes in next.

I got some very annoying news on Friday.  Cindy, who teaches a few classes at my gym, got a call from the fitness director that the gym was closing it’s doors, again.  Regular blog readers may remember that my gym closed once before for about six months when the prior owners, who did a terrible job of running the place stopped paying rent.

Well guess what, this new owner evidently stopped paying rent as well.  He also stopped paying employees recently as several paychecks have bounced.  The employees had no idea this was coming.  As recently as a week or two ago the manager was claiming there was soon going to be a lot of money coming into the business, not sure what he meant by that, maybe he meant the money they weren’t going to pay the employees.

I stopped by on Saturday and verified the closure which is supposed to officially happen today.  This scenario creates a large hole in my lunchtime workout plans. I basically have two options, do bodyweight workouts outdoors or go back to the hated and crowded Planet Fitness, where they have pulled out much of the free weight equipment I like to use. Neither option is great.  We will see what happens.

On Saturday morning I was in the yard a good portion of the morning attending to a number of things as Cindy was not home.  Late morning I loaded Elsa up in the truck with me to get coffee and run the truck through a touch free car wash.  As I was waiting in line to enter the wash I thought how she may react since Elsa can be VERY skittish and is easily scared.  I tried to remain optimistic.

So as the wash started with the low pressure pre-wash process Elsa seemed curious about what was going on but not scared.  However that changed once the high pressure water started hitting the truck.  She immediately jumped over into my lap.  I held onto her tight and reassured her everything was ok.  She wasn’t a fan of the the high power drying blowers either.

Mid-afternoon I ran out to do some errands as well as do some more backwards EUC practice.  I decided I would use the Sugden Park parking lot to do so.  I had a lot of struggles early on but then suddenly something clicked.  I was doing consistently long backwards rides and at the end I even did more advanced moves like mounting the wheel in the backwards direction as well as doing “pendulums” where you reverse direction on the wheel without stepping off.  I was very encouraged by the rapid progress.

Our Saturday night was quiet as we caught up on some of our backlogged DVR content while enjoying a tasty vegetable lasagna Cindy made.

Sunday the 6AM alarm gave me an unwelcome jolt out of bed, I felt like I could have slept longer.  I quietly got my running garb on and gear together for my run at the track.  It used to be I would always be joined later in my run by some walkers around the track.  Since I rebooted my running a month or so ago that has no longer been the case.  I end my run as I begin it, alone.

I was surprised when I saw the numbers my old GPS gave me, my average pace seemed slower than it felt. When I reviewed the lap times I saw it had one of my laps showing an 11:45 pace which is impossible and the likely reason my numbers were inflated.  The GPS hardware in my old Garmin is first gen, newer units definitely are more accurate.  I was almost annoyed enough to consider the prospect of plunking down a couple hundred bucks for a new watch,  That was until I realized that my current level of running has no real need for accurate speed measurement, it’s all slow.

I went right from running into chicken coop cleaning at home.  Cindy always acts like she feels guilty when I do the coop work but I really don’t mind it.  I love the chickens and they seem equally fond of me.  I have mastered the art of mouth breathing so cleaning the excrement coated rubber mats isn’t as bad for me as it could be for others.

So mid-morning Cindy and I headed out with our wheels to North Collier Park.  As we entered the park we saw something very unusual.  A bald man was walking slowly through the park with his guitar around his neck.  As he strolled along he was playing the instrument while singing quite enthusiastically.   I’m not sure what the deal was but it certainly was a first for me.

So my hope was Cindy would get some more one wheel practice while riding with me and I also could get some more backwards practice in.  As we were riding around the back loop in the park I decided I wanted to start the backwards practice early.  I did a reversal from going forward to backward which went well.  However as I tried to stop and step off I lost my balance and went rolling backwards off the side of the path.  I didn’t hit the ground that hard but I did land one a bunch of rocks that left various bruises/scrapes on my back.  I also somehow wound up with a small branch wedged inside my helmet.  It’s too bad the GoPro wasn’t rolling, it had to look ridiculous.

Cindy continued to do well with her riding.  Even though she was very resistant to the entire idea of trying to learn an EUC again I can tell that she is now proud of her accomplishment which makes me happy.

My backwards training went pretty well, I rode backwards a couple tenths of a mile in one shot and did a number of free standing reverse mounts and pendulums.  My control in all aspects of backwards riding is still very shaky and needs a lot of cleaning up and practice but the fact that I have at least a base level of backwards proficiency after only a week of focused practice makes me feel good, nearly as good as when I learned to go forwards.

On our way home from riding we decided to stop at our brand new Publix which opened up last week.  This store has actually been built since November but problems with the water hook up has delayed it’s opening until now which is sort of crazy.  The store is located less than three miles from our door which is awesome.

It’s funny, back in 2001 when we bought our land one of the things our realtor told us was how a Publix was going to be built there “very soon”.  Sixteen years isn’t very soon in my book but regardless, I am very happy it’s finally here.

The store was packed, just like the parking lot.  Unfortunately the parking lot is undersized for the amount of use the store will get.  Some people were parking in the shoulder across the road and walking across traffic to get inside, it is kind of crazy.

The store itself was bright, clean and beautiful.  Cindy and I walked the aisles to get a general lay out idea but it seemed to follow the same blueprint as most Publix stores built in the last 10 years.   We waited at the deli probably 20 minutes to get a couple subs for lunch.  I am hoping as a little time passes shopping at the store won’t be such a consistently congested experience.

Last night as we were watching TV I decided to soak my feet for a pretty disgusting reason.  Back when I built the fence around the chicken coop I somehow damaged the toenail on my left big toe from being in my work boots with thick socks all weekend long.  The nail has gone through various color changes since then but lately has looked more cadaver like.

Well it also has recently started to feel loose.  When I would put on socks sometimes it would snag on the nail and I could feel it pulling upward which was not a pleasant sensation.  Clearly the nail was going to come off sooner or later.  I decided I would rather get it done sooner so after soaking the toe for awhile I started the nauseating task of rocking the nail up and down.  I did this while the toe was still submerged in the foot bath and obscured from view, to minimize the disgusting visual.  I finally was able to break the old nail free.  It wasn’t really painful, it just felt really strange in a gross way.  Under the dead nail I could see the tiny beginning of a new nail forming which I am sure will take months and months.  It was a stomach turning way to end my weekend.