Keep plugging away, it just takes two, HBD

So most of my Saturday wound up being consumed by yard work which consisted of weeding, weed whacking, and mowing.  I worked into mid-afternoon trying to get the yard looking nicely manicured.  I am hoping as we transition into dry season the need for me to invest so much time each weekend on routine grass maintenance can instead be used for other projects.

After I finished up we did a late Rural King and Home Depot run.  When we got home I immediately spread the 20 bags of mulch we bought as well as throwing a dozen castle stones around the avocado tree up front.  We also lost another tree on Saturday, intentionally.  Well over a decade ago Ali and I bought a tree at a nearby home show that we planted near one of the front corners of the property near the road.  I have no recollection of what type of tree it was or why exactly it appealed to us. Well the tree hardly grew since it was put in the ground.  Perhaps it didn’t like sandy soil.  The tree was not attractive with a sort of gnarled appearance with spike covered branches that did nothing but tear at the canopy of the tractor when you drove close to the tree.

Irma had pushed a westward lean into the tree, making it even less attractive than it was before.  For years Cindy has expressed her dislike of the tree which I didn’t fundamentally disagree with, yet sentiment prevented me from taking it down.  For some reason as I was mowing on Saturday that sentiment lifted and I told Cindy if she wanted to cut the tree down she had my blessing.  She wasted no time, grabbing the battery powered Sawz-all and cutting the ugly tree down to ground level in a few minutes.  She tossed the pieces into the huge debris pile on the other side of the road.  I can’t say I have had much remorse since the tree was removed from the landscape, unlike much of the other landscape that bit the dust in the hurricane.

Saturday night Cindy went with Katie to some Halloween corn maze. (that they bailed on when they saw how long the line was)  While they were out I went into hardcore geek mode, participating in a funny event in WoW.  It was a “race” where you run on foot from one location in game to another which are far apart.  The gimmick was people were encouraged to do this run as a gnome, an ethnicity that most people don’t have so like many others, I made one just for the run.

So to cover the distance on foot took a long time, probably 45 minutes.  I died 7 or 8 times along the way as horde players looked at this as a perfect opportunity to “troll” the event, stepping on level 1 or 2 gnomes like ants.  After I completed the course on my gnome I went back and did it again as one of my high level characters at a walking pace which took much, much longer.  Not only did it allow me to take in the scenery and remember just how the game felt when I first got involved a dozen years ago, I also served as a body guard to other low level gnomes that were still running the course.  If I saw horde nearby I did my best to kill them off before they could squash others.  It was silly, stupid fun.  Walking the course took MUCH longer, I bet damn close to 90 minutes.

Sunday morning I drug myself out of bed to go run the track.  Cindy got up too but not to run with me, she was planning to run a nearby 5K with a friend of hers.  As I was close to completing my planned 12 laps I saw Cindy’s car pull into the lot.  I figured maybe she wanted to run a warm up lap with me or something.  Instead she said her friend backed out last minute on the race so she figured she would just run the track.

I told her I was literally starting my last lap but Cindy started running with me.  Well it didn’t take long for me to feel badly about not running longer with her so I told Cindy I would do an extra lap or two.  That turned into a full extra mile which of course I had no expectation of doing.  I am pretty sure it was the first time I ran four miles in 2017.  It’s funny, if I was by myself for the entire run, the idea of tacking an extra mile on the end would have seemed close to ridiculous.  However when you add another person to the mix those barriers get fuzzy.  Sure I was tired as I kept pressing on but it didn’t kill me.  It was a reminder how so many personal boundaries are self inflicted and why having others share your pain somehow makes it more bearable.  I guess that is why running clubs were invented.

Cindy and I went for a wheel ride near Vanderbilt Beach late in the morning.  It was fun as always but very warm.  I had a steady stream of sweat running down my back most of the time.

During the afternoon I worked on several things, including more futzing with the CR-10 printer.  I have a clear path to resolving my issue, I just have not worked out all of the logistics on how to get there.

Sunday evening we went out for an early birthday dinner celebration for Cindy.  We met up with Katie, Daniel, Cindy’s mom and two nieces at Outback.  It was funny that we got the exact same table that we had last time we were at the restaurant a year or two ago.  We had a very enjoyable dinner followed up with ice cream cake at Cindy’s mom’s place afterward.  We didn’t get home till after 9 which normally I would not be a fan of on a Sunday night however Cindy had a lot of fun which made it well worth it.

Oh I forgot to mention on Saturday the roof guy from Home Depot came out to look at the house.  Their quote on shingles was in the same ballpark as the first quote I got.  One option he presented which was interesting was “architectural shingles” which have a lot more overlap which makes them more durable than standard three tab shingles.  They also have “cool” varieties of this shingle which supposedly reflects heat much more effectively. Their quote for metal roofing was sky high.  Part of that gap with my other metal roof quote was the HD quote was for more expensive hidden fastener roofing while my first estimate had exposed fasteners.  But even so, over 30k for metal seemed a little outrageous.  I am hoping to get a firm answer from my home owners insurance today.

I have an odd week ahead with me taking off tomorrow, mostly to make the special chocolate birthday cake for Cindy.  It will be cool to break the week into a one and three day chunk.