The new work at home program, IM 2, Assassinated
Once again I managed to find enough stuff around the house to populate most waking hours of the weekend with labor. Even with mowing the grass Thursday night I found myself buried with things to do.
Saturday included these items in no particular order, weeding, weed whacking, pool maintenance, pool deck sweeping (courtesy of the Dirt Dog), washing the bed sheets / comforter, filling the bird feeders, changing the blades / repairing the mower deck and more that has escaped my brain at the moment.
The mower deck is on it’s last legs. I have repaired the hole in the deck no less than 4 times. The last time I did it I pop riveted sheet metal over the hole. The pop rivets held but there was a hole blown right through the center of the sheet metal. After pressure washing all the cement-like grass off the deck I once again grabbed my sheet metal and pop rivet gun. This time I layered the hole with three sheets of metal and used a couple dozen pop rivets to hold it all together. The repaired area felt quite strong after I was done but rocks and branches at high speed can do some amazing things.
There also was another strip of metal that was loose and bent under the deck. Surely this was a big reason that the mower has been mowing unevenly for awhile. I fixed this with a generous amount of pop rivets as well. I only discovered the wonders of pop riveting within the last year or so. How did I go through my adult life without them?
Ali was gone for most of Saturday at some meeting. I try to not get annoyed as I bust ass around the house all day, thinking it would somehow be easier if Ali was home. The reality is most of the stuff I was doing she wouldn’t be able to help with much anyway.
Saturday night we finally got to check out Iron Man 2. Before going to the movie I needed to make a pit stop at Wal-Mart to get supplies for Sunday’s list of automotive maintenance. I really dislike going to Wal-Mart in general. It makes me feel dirty, knowing that I am contributing to the evil conglomerate that whores us out to shitty Chinese made goods like it’s candy. Some of the people you see there just send chills up my spine. It’s terrifying realizng these are the people that are reproducing at the highest rate.
As I was walking in from the parking lot I saw some redneck looking dude wearing a backwards baseball hat stomping about 30 feet ahead of what I assumed was his son. The boy was young, no older than 12. He was chubby, wore a mullet and flip flops. The father seemed annoyed that his son was not keeping up. I heard the son say “.. you are walking way ahead of me…” The redneck looked over his shoulder without slowing down a bit and said “… you have two f’ing legs don’t ya?” and continued forward.
By the time we got up to the movie theater we didn’t have the time to sit down at a restaurant to eat. The movie was at 7:30 and by the time we got there it was after 6:30. I didn’t want to jam down a meal and then have to rush into the theater at 7:30 and have my choice a few select shitty seats.
We decided on a less than ideal movie theater food dinner. I ordered the 5 mini-hot dog special and Ali got a greasy pizza, yum. We figured we would go into the theater and sit down to eat. Well lucky for us the theater crew was slow cleaning the theater. We stood outside for a good 15 minutes holding our fine cuisine.
Finally we got the all clear to head in. We were the first bodies in the theater and got our choice of seats, top row, dead center. By the time I got the 5th mini-dog down I had enough, it was sort of gross. By the time the previews started the theater was quite full, even with the film being in it’s third week of release.
I loved the first Iron Man except for the ending. I thought the ending was stupid. I think Iron Man 2 was consistently good through out. I liked the ending more as well although the final confrontation with Mickey Rourke was sort of quick. The action was great, the special effects were killer and Robert Downey Jr was excellent as expected. Sure there are the typical moments where you have to ignore how ridiculous it is that Tony Stark could whip up a new element in the span of 5 minutes, I mean hell it is a comic book movie after all.
Just like the first flick, at the end of the credits was a small scene that gave hints of what was to come next. I was surprised that more people didn’t stick around for it. Besides Ali and I, there may have been a half dozen that hung in there to see it. I’d give the flick a solid A.
Sunday was vehicle maintenance day. I changed the oil and filter on the Tacoma (check engine light still out) and party van. I also used some Meguiars Scratch X to clear some of the haze off the headlights in the Tacoma. You can see in the picture the results when I was halfway done. The van received more attention in preparation for the trip west. I checked the freon level in the AC system, topped off the washer fluid and washed and waxed it. I had never waxed the new van yet. It is a big vehicle with a lot of area to clean. By the time I was done, all of the rubbing in circles had done a nice job of aggravating my already painful elbows.
Originally I had ideas of also cleaning out the inside of the van on Sunday but I raised the white flag. I had already been out in hot sun and humidity for 6 hours, I had enough. I figured I can work on the inside of the van after work this week.
I watched my second dvd-in-the-mail Netflix movie, Assassins. This Stallone flick came out in 1995. I don’t think I saw it in it’s entirety since it came out 15 years ago. I always thought it was great entertainment with Antonio Banderas and Stallone going at it as two top hired killers. The scene where Banderas is up in the tower all day in the blazing heat losing his mind always has been a favorite of mine. Maybe I am crazy but I really like this movie.
As I was sitting around with Ali Sunday evening I decided to soak both elbows in a big Tupperware container filled with ice water. It was VERY cold. When the water is that cold you have to endure several minutes of pretty intense pain until the area goes numb. It’s the sort of pain that made the rest of my body sweat. It’s the type of pain that when Ali tried to talk to me I snapped at her, instantly becoming irritated with the idea of trying to communicate while my elbow was burning in the icy water.
Like I mentioned last week, since the volleyball tournament I have instantly gone to being in pretty overall good shape to having multiple areas breaking down at once. A couple times over the weekend I jumped on the pull up bar to see if I could do a rep without pain in the elbow. I was unable to do so. My right elbow hurts on the inside of the joint, my left elbow hurts on the outside. The sharp, stabbing pain in my right knee has become dull so hopefully that is healing. I plan to do nothing at the gym this week except ab/core work and boring, non-impact cardio. What a drag.
As I was weeding over the weekend I got to survey some of the cool stuff that is coming to fruit. The two blueberry bushes we got last year, which I though were dead, actually have what look to be the start of berries on them. We have some full size tomatoes growing that are looking good. I covered them with left over pool screen to keep birds from destroying them.
Our apple tree has a bunch of good looking apples on it, the lemon tree is producing and the tangerine tree that has been fruitless for years looks to be spawning fruit once again. We harvested a ton of carrots, peas and beets out of the garden as well. We need to start giving some carrots away. One massive carrot will be enough for a week’s worth of salad, we will never eat them all.