So much

Wow for three days, there seemed to be two weeks of things going on.  Friday after work I stopped at Home Depot to pick up 14 more landscape timbers to redo the back border around the pool.  Saturday morning I started in on my day’s work early.  First up was fixing/raising the sprinkler heads that were buried from the grading.  Earlier in the week I fired up the sprinklers and noticed one of them had the top knocked off and was shooting water straight up like a geyser.  Another one was so buried that you only saw a pool of water appearing at the surface.  The other sprinkler heads were able to bust through and spray, although they were still too low.

  I tackled the real deep one first.  It was almost a foot down.  I had to run the system on several small cycles until I could locate it.  Each time I ran it, I filled the hole I was digging with water, making it more difficult to mark it’s exact location.  So I stick the shovel into the ground, in what I thought was a safe distance from the sprinkler head.  The CRACK I heard, let me know I miscalculated badly, I snapped the sprinkler head at the inlet on the bottom, damn it!  Well I had one spare sprinkler left over from the install but now I had two broken sprinklers.  I used my super genius to realize that I could take the top section of the one I just snapped and put it’s guts into the other geyser sprinkler to fix it.  I located the poly tubing that was attached to the head I snapped, however it was jammed full of wet sand.  I had Ali come out and kneel down in the wet sand to point the tube out of the hole while I ran the zone once again to flush the line.  After that, installing the replacement sprinkler went well.  I had enough give in the poly tubing to raise the head up to the surface.  I’m so glad I used poly instead of hard connections to the pvc.

Replacing the guts of the geyser went fine as well.  The other sprinkler heads were pretty easy fixes.  The most difficult part was trying to remember which way the sprinkler was getting fed from so I didn’t dig through the poly line.  After that I just dug around the sprinkler head and pried a  little to loosen it.  Then I raised each one a bit so it was flush with he surface, back filled and viola.  Now all the heads are 100% functional again although all they are doing is spraying water on bare dirt at this point.

After the sprinkler repair I tackled replacing the back border.  That went very smooth.  Instead of driving in tons of 5 foot rebar, I only dropped in three shorter pieces spread out along the length.  The border is two landscape timbers high. I staggered the timbers and then secured them to each other with multiple screws.  I had the entire thing done in less than an hour.  I need to replace the side sections as well now, it looks dumb to have only one section new.

I rigged the tractor to act as a smoothing device for the dirt.  I attached a cable to a piece of old wire shelving (didn’t have spare fencing), put a cinder block on it and then drove around to smooth out the bumps and tractor tire tracks.  It was sort of like smoothing the infield of a baseball diamond.  It worked pretty well.  As I was in the middle of that a guy pulled up to give us a fencing estimate.  Ali had called around earlier in the day trying to get some people to come out.  It was cool that this guy came out the same day.

So we explained what we wanted, we Ali and I gave different accounts of what we wanted.  At first Ali was thinking she wanted a big high fence, higher than the 4 foot fence we have around Nicki’s area.  She also wanted to have the fence come off the front corners of the house, out to the edge of the property and then extend towards the back, almost to the fill pit.  I wanted to keep the 4 foot fence.  I don’t want our property to look like a prison yard.  I also prefer to use wood posts with “field fencing” as opposed to chain link with metal poles.  Field fence creates much less of a visual barrier.  I also would prefer to have the fence extend to the front of the property as opposed to having gates we would need to go through to access the front yard from the back.  I could tell the installer was a bit confused by our conflicting ideas.  Well regardless, he had to take some measurements so he used his measuring wheel to walk it off.  He got the numbers and then went back in his car to work out the figures.

After about 15 minutes or so he came out with the estimate.  Woah.  To do the back section deal, coming off the sides of the house would be 6k.  If I wanted to include the front section, that would be another $2500.  If I wanted the front section along the road to be the nicer black vinyl coated stuff, add another $550.  Jesus, that was way higher than I expected.  I did my best to hide my sticker shock and thanked the guy for coming out and told him we would let him know if we wanted to continue.

Once the guy left I expressed my dismay to Ali about the sky high number we had been presented with.  Of course when it comes to stuff like this, money means nothing to Ali.  She has visions in her head of Nicki being able to roam free around the yard and dollars are only a formality in her mind.  Me being the more prudent (cheap) one, weighed out in my head the sanity of spending that much money basically for the benefit of the dog.  I mean cripes, I could buy TWO 5 speed Mustangs for that cash.  Yea I guess having a fenced in yard helps property value.  Then we have the issue of exactly what type of fence and how far it would extend.  Like I said, I would rather have the front area enclosed as well.  Ali doesn’t like the idea of having a gate we would have to get out and open to enter and leave the house.  To be honest I don’t like that part of it either.  The good news is, you can get what is akin to a garage door opener for a gate.  The bad news is they would throw another 2-3 grand on top of the price!  Unreal.  So I don’t know what will happen.  We will get a few more estimates but I expect them all to be in the same ballpark.  I am leaning towards committing to the bust ass job of installing the fence myself.  I would just buy the materials and spend countless hours digging holes and stringing fence.  It can’t be any more extensive than the sprinkler project. 

So after the fence guy left we didn’t have long until we had to get ready to head up to Fort Myers to run in the Festival of Light 5k.  It stressed in the pamphlet to come early because they shut down streets so access into the city can be very tough.  Well the race was at 5:45, we pulled into Fort Myers a few minutes after 4 and they already had closed down some streets.  We asked a police lady that was directing traffic if we could still get to the parking garage that the pamphlet told us to park in.  She said we could and gave us quick directions to get there.  So we weaved around and arrived at the garage which was very close to the parade route.  We pull in and the lady says it will be 5 bucks.  She also told us that if we parked there, we would be stuck until AFTER the parade since they close the street down.  Well after a quick convo with Ali, we both decided we didn’t want to be stuck there until 9 or 10 pm.  We told the woman we would find somewhere else to park.  I felt like a boob as the woman had to tell the car behind us to back up so we could get out.  Getting out of the parking garage vicinity took quite awhile, there were cars backed up everywhere.  It seemed they all wanted to know the same thing, where to park.  It was stupid for the race pamphlet to direct people to a garage where you would be trapped in until after the parade, in my opinion.

So Ali and I cruised around looking for a spot to park.  All of the free looking spots were already jammed full of cars.  We saw some guy putting up a “Parking $10” sign in front of the parking lot of some place.  I quickly checked with Ali, we both agreed 10 bucks was worth saving the frustration of driving around and around so we pulled in, paid our 10 dollars and that was that.

So now we walked the 4 blocks or so up the race registration tent.  The Festival of Lights is a big deal.  The parade route was already lined with empty chairs of people reserving their spot for the big event.  We checked in to the race quickly.  We attached our bib to our shirts and our timing device to our ankle.  It felt weird for me to be back at a race as an active participant since I hadn’t been one in over a year and a half.  It felt good as well.  We walked and took our race handout bag back to the car for safe keeping.  They stepped up this year and handed out nice, dri-fit shirts.  When I ran it 2 years ago, we got shit brown t-shirts with a very bland logo on it.  That shirt was long since handed out to a local charity.  I might actually wear this new one.

When we got back to the race area we still had at least a half hour to race time.  We mulled about and checked out the constant buzz of activity that was going on all around us.  We made our way up to the start line which was a few blocks away from the finish line.  When we got down to 15 minutes to go we did some stretching along with a quick jog around the block to get loose.  As race time drew near the huge crowd amassed at the start.  About 5 minutes before the official race, they started the lone wheel chair participant.  All of the runners cheered her on as she wheeled away at a very quick pace.

So the big moment comes, Ali and I were pretty far back in the pack, probably in the rear third.  The gun sounds and we just stand there.  It took a good 20 seconds until there was enough movement in the horde ahead of us that we could actually move.  Even when we did start moving it was a crawl for quite awhile.  The first couple minutes of a huge race like that are a mess.  You are just trying to not trip as you are wedged down the street like cattle in a shoot.  You try to find narrow passing lanes to get by the people dragging ass in front of you but many times you just have be stuck behind slow pokes until the field starts to spread out a bit.  Ali actually did a better job of navigating the crowd than I did early on as she was 20 yards ahead of me for a bit.

So finally we get out into the open and can run without constant fear of bumping into someone else.  Our pace wasn’t all that fast, somewhere around 10 minute miles, maybe a little less.  Ali did a good job of keeping up with me for awhile.  Somewhere around the mile and a half mark we came up on the water stop.  Ali and I normally never stop for water and I swung wide around it.  I looked to my side to see where Ali was and she was stopped at the water stop getting a drink.  I know I threw her a “WTF are you stopping for?” look.  I couldn’t help it, it was a reflex.  So I stopped and waited for her to start again.  I hate stopping.  Stopping almost invalidates a run for me. So anyway, after that, Ali was laboring.  She was constantly running behind me, slowly losing ground.  Several times I would stop and wait for her to catch up.  I looked at the GPS watch and saw we were not running very fast, the pace slowed to around 10:30.  I was getting annoyed even though I knew I shouldn’t be.  Finally after stopping again briefly to let Ali catch up at about 2 and 1/4 miles I told her I was just going to take off and go.  Ali encouraged me to do so, as having me constantly stop and slow down for her wasn’t doing anything to make her feel any better. 

So I stepped on the gas.  I lengthened my stride and moved my legs with some authority.  The built up frustration I was feeling from slowing down fueled me ahead, the governor was off.  I flew by people ahead of me, I bet I passed at least 50 people in that distance of less than a mile, probably closer to 100.  Nobody passed me during my sprint to the finish except one young woman that went by me briefly only to run out of gas herself and slow down.  It felt good to pass her a second time.

Once I made the final turn and saw the finish line straight ahead I accelerated a bit more.  Most everyone else was finishing hard so I only passed a couple on the way into the line.  I crossed in something like 30:23.  It wasn’t a bad time at all considering the first 30 seconds we were standing still and I ran the first 2 miles plus at a much slower pace. I checked the GPS watch and at one point I ran a 1/4 mile at a 7:41 pace which is pretty fast for me.  I waited at the end of the finish chute for Ali who came through about 2 minutes later, she was spent.  We each grabbed a bottle of water and headed off to the side.

After a few minutes we walked over to the tent where all the food was.  We were not happy to see what appeared to be a long line.  Evidently someone thought it would be a good idea to funnel 1000 runner plus single file in front of the food tables.  Wow, is that dumb.  Neither Ali or I felt like waiting to get food so we initially said we could just grab fair food.  However when we got to the fair food, Ali said nothing looked good.  We decided to head back up to the race tent, hoping that the ridiculous line had died down.  Nope, if anything it was longer than ever.  It was the worst food set up I had ever seen at a race.  Ali and I said f it, and decided we would just grab something on the way home.

We walked back to the car and got out of town and back on I-75 heading south towards Naples.  We had just passed the last exit before ours when after cresting a hill I saw a long line of brake lights.  Son of a bitch.  We got stuck in a horrendous traffic jam.  It took us over an hour to travel the last 4 miles before our exit.  There was an accident that closed one of the lanes.  Ali scolded me when in the height of frustration I said “There better be a dead body across the road..” 

While we were waiting in the traffic snafu, Ali complained of not feeling good.  Her vision felt a bit blurry and then she said she was having some numbness in her fingers.  I immediately suggested to her it could be a low blood sugar thing.  She said how she never felt that way before.  Well we ALWAYS eat something after a race.  Not doing so, combined with waiting in the damn traffic forever amplified the problem.  By the time we got to Tijuana Flats Ali was really feeling shitty.

We had a nice friendly girl at the counter who saw us wearing our race shirts and was anxious to chat it up about how she was a runner as well.  Eventually we got around to placing our order.  Ali had a hard time doing so.  She felt confused and disoriented from her low blood sugar.  She also was freezing in the AC inside.  We sat at one of their outdoor tables.  When the food came Ali dove into it.  After eating she said she felt somewhat better but not good.  On the way home she developed a bad headache.  Once we got home she showered and almost immediately went to bed.  I was pissed off that this was basically brought about by the race planners lack of planning in regards to post-race food.  I sent off an angry email to the only contact I could find on the Ft Myers running club site.  I asked the person to forward the email to whomever it should be in front of.  Who knows if it will be.

Sunday morning luckily Ali was feeling better.  She slept in instead of getting up for spinning class.  I still had a bunch of little things I wanted to get done around the house before going to pick up my mom.   I ripped apart my one Roomba and replaced the brush motor in it.  I had replaced the same part in my other Roomba a few weeks back.  Unfortunately this time, the repair was not successful.  The Roomba still isn’t roombaing. 

I left about 2:30 to go pick up mom.  I took the party van since it hadn’t been driven in quite awhile.  Nicki was happy to come along and sleep in the bed during the trip.  Mom wasn’t thrilled to see me pull the big beast into her driveway but by the time we got back to our house she admitted that it was at least comfortable to ride in.

I showed Mom our freshly graded land.  She thought it looked great.  Then we just hung out for a bit and talked about whatever.  Then I got around to showing my mom the Wii.  First we showed her the Mii that we made of her.  She was surprised it looked so much like her.  Then we spent some time showing her more stuff about Mii’s.  She wasn’t all that thrilled with it.  But then we popped in Wii Sports and did a demo game of tennis and then bowling.  Wow, mom actually thought it was cool and asked if she could try the bowling.  After some brief instruction she picked it up very quickly.  In her very first game she rolled 130 something.  She really liked it.  That started several hours of Wii’ing sandwiched around dinner.  By the time the night was done mom had bowled, played tennis, golf, baseball and boxing.  She even took a Wii Fitness test.  We laughed as she scored a Wii age of 80 but it wasn’t a very fair test as many of the things she was trying for the first time.  She really liked playing.  I don’t think I EVER played a video game with my mom in my life.  Behold, the power of Wii. 

Mom woke up Monday morning a bit sore from all of the unexpected Wii exercise.  After a couple hours we got ready to head up to the outlets, the point of Mom’s visit.  Shortly before we left Ali mentioned that people take dogs to the outlets all the time and we could probably take Nicki with.  I never even thought about taking her but once Ali mentioned it, it sounded like fun, Nicki could help entertain me while I waited for the women to come out of stores.  Nicki could tell we were discussing taking her along and started running around the house and bounding up and down excitedly.  However when we mentioned the idea to mom she rained on the parade.  She said she didn’t think it would be a good idea because she thought the outlets would be very full and it would cause problems.  Well even though Ali and I would have been happy to deal with the added duties of dog watching while shopping, we didn’t want my mom stressing out the entire time so we didn’t take Nicki.  It’s amazing how disappointed a dog can look.

Our shopping trip went fine.  Mom got a lot of stuff, I got new sneakers and a couple shirts.  Ali came in last, only spending like $35 at the Jockey outlet.  I could tell she was a bit disappointed not walking away with more.  She tried on a few clothes but I didn’t think any of them looked great which I relayed to her.  It feels like she gets mad at me if I say something doesn’t look good on her.  I wonder why she even asks me if she doesn’t want an honest answer.  I’m not a fashion guru but I know what looks good and what doesn’t, at least from a man’s perspective.

So anyway, we left there about 2pm.  The traffic around the mall was near gridlock at this point, we were lucky to be getting out when we did.  We dropped off mom.  She thanked us for everything and we headed home.  When I pulled in the driveway I was happily surprised to see a large box by the front door.  It was my new air compressor.  The one I got for Christmas was too underpowered and had too small of a reserve tank to drive an air wrench. I unboxed it and gave it a quick test.  It seemed to work much better.  Now the one I got for Christmas goes up on ebay.  Someone will get a nice deal.

Even though we had a big meal Sunday night and a big lunch at the outlets, we had yet another big meal Monday night.  Ali had the ingredients to make manicotti and she didn’t want to stuff to go bad so she whipped it up.  Plus we had left over, super rich, chocolate vegan cake that she made the night before.  It wasn’t a good weekend as far as healthy eating goes. We stuffed carbs by the boatload.

The rest of our three day weekend was fine.  the new Indiana Jones movie comes out in a few months.  Ali had never seen any of the other ones, amazingly.  So I got a hold of all three of them so we could watch them so she is caught up on the storyline.  We watched Raiders of the Lost Ark last night.  Evene though I have seen it many times, I still enjoyed it.  Harrison Ford is great in this role.  Ali laughed at the sillyness of some of it but I think she liked it over all.  She said how a younger Harrison Ford reminded her of my brother.  I told her if she saw a picture of my dad when he was younger he almost looks just like Harrison Ford.  It’s weird.  Not coincidentally, my step mom’s favorite actor is Harrison Ford.