Archives June 2010

It has been sweltering hot and humid the past couple weeks.  I went outside before 9 am on Saturday to start working outside and was covered in sweat in no time.  Despite the heat I stayed out there working on various things.  I am trying to get things in order so when we get back from our trip things will be alive/intact for the most part.

One of the items I attended to was the Moto Guzzi.  I haven’t looked further into why the new battery I bought doesn’t appear to power the bike.  I thought it would be a good idea to drain the remaining gas from the bike since the ethanol laced gas appears to wreak havoc on the carbs.  When I dropped the bowls on both carbs the floats on each side were a sticky mess once again.  I had to pull them down so gas would start to flow.  Once the gas tank was full drained I put everything back together.  It will be sitting that way for awhile until I figure out where to sell the damn thing. 

I’ll tell ya, adding ethanol to gas is more trouble than it’s worth.  If you have gas in something that sits for prolonged periods of time like generators, yard equipment over the winter or 83 Moto Guzzi’s, the ethanol will destroy seals and rubber components in the fuel system as it separates from the gas.  The only way to prevent this is to either drain the gas or add a stabilizer that prevents the separation.  However in the Moto Guzzi’s case it seems to hate ethanol supplemented gas no matter what it’s age is, lucky me.

I kept busy almost all day Saturday running through the various checklist of items in my head that need to be addressed before we leave.  I put off mowing the grass.  I want to mow it right before we leave so it stays looking as nice as possible as long as possible.

Sunday morning Ali was doing a team triathlon in Naples.  Originally it was supposed to be a 3 person team with Christy swimming, Michelle biking, and Ali running.  Late last week Michelle came down with a nasty illness so she had to drop out.  Instead of picking up a replacement Ali just said she would do the run and bike.

We got on site very early, before 6am.  Even arriving at that time we wound up parking a long way from the registration area for the 7:30 start time race.  When we got to the check in area I instantly recognized the ankle mounted timing chips as Ipico, the same company I use to time the running races.  I was very interested in seeing how they implemented the system for a triathlon.

Even at 6AM it was very warm and muggy.  By the time the race started at 7:30 I was sweated through my shirt and I was just walking around.  This triathlon does things in reverse of normal tri order which is swim, bike, run.  In the Naples Tri you run a 5k, bike a 15k and finish with a 1/4 mile swim. 

Ali had a good 5k run and made a quick transition to her bike.  She seemed to be out on the bike course longer than I would have expected, by the time she got back in the clock was at around 1:12.  Later I discovered that Ali didn’t realize she was in 7th gear instead of 14th, no wonder she had issues. 

As we waited for Ali to arrive we saw a number of accidents in the transition.  People would come screaming around the corner on their bikes and then slam on the brakes, often causing others behind them to have problems.  We saw a number of riders fall and even one guy go over the handlebars.

 Christy took over for the swim and did a fantastic job.  The transition to the swim was not laid out well, they had to run close to a half mile, barefoot, until they hit the water.  Even so Christy managed to put in a great swim, crossing the finish line at 1:26 and some change.

After the finish we hung out in a courtyard for a little while.  They had a nice spread of food for the participants.  I was getting a bit antsy eventually and was ready to head out.  I told Ali I like going to her races and supporting her but when it is that hot and that humid, once the race is done I don’t want hang forever.  I can understand her wanting to savor the accomplishment. However since I didn’t accomplish anything I have nothing to savor. Maybe I need to start doing these with her.

I was busy making more videos this weekend as well.  On Saturday I shot a brief clip of my improved L sit technique, a major improvement from first video.  I also shot my 2nd attempt at the 50-50-50 workout as well as some footage from Ali’s triathlon.

In the 50-50-50 video there is a pretty funny moment right around the 4:50 mark.  I was annoyed that people kept pulling up in the foreclosed house driveway while I was trying to do something important like shoot pull up videos. 

All weekend there was a nearly non-stop flood of cars checking out the house next door.  Evidently the sales contract on it fell through so it is back on the open market.  Based on the car volume I would say that the interest in the house has greatly escalated.

I still have been plowing through season 2 of Lost.  At this point I only have one more episode to go.  It’s a weird thing being able to take in so much storyline in such a brief period of time as opposed to one week at a time.  I am still very much into it.

Saw a teaser about an upcoming news story on MSNBC titled “How dangerous is oil to birds and wildlife in the gulf?”

I mean really, do we need a story to determine this?  Are there going to people arguing the pro-oil in the gulf side of the issue? 

“Sure oil is a bit messy but throw a pelican in the bathtub and he is good as new” 

“A little oil in your fish helps the complexion.”

“We have too much wildlife anyway”

In related exciting news, oil has officially washed up on the Florida panhandle.  The same network had a reporter hold up her gloved hands that were covered in black goo to prove it. 

I was reading about the latest BP fail in the local newspaper.  At the bottom of the article the paper allows readers to comment on the story.  By the time I got down scanning the 50 or 60 comments I was disgusted. 85% of the comments were “it’s the Democrats fault, it’s the Republicans fault”  back and forth bullshit.   

It’s ridiculous.  The political lines that divide this country are getting to be Confederate War style deep.  Are the Democrats and Republicans going to be creating their own version of the flag shortly as well?

Those of you that don’t read the comments on the blog will have missed an appearance by Missie herself.  She was kind enough to offer up her version of the engagement that I have no recollection of.  I have to admit, even with her claims of the event it has not triggered any memory of me actually being engaged to her.  I may have blocked it out of my memory although it’s odd that neither of my parents recall this either.  Anyway, here you go in case you missed it.

“In the future, when you’re writing your lame entries, do not use my name. A few mutual friends told me you were writing about me. They were right!

For your reference, you bought me a diamond solitaire. We never set a date, but we were engaged. Funny thing you don’t remember the ring. You purchased it when I was a senior in high school.

As a matter of fact, I still have the ring. Want it back?

Stop blaming me for you dropping out of college too. You were a big boy. If you didn’t want to quit, you wouldn’t have. Stop using me as your excuse for all the stupid things you’ve done.

It’s about time you learn to own up your mistakes and stop blaming everyone else.”

She’s such a sweetheart, thanks for attempting to clear that up!

This weekend we need to get prep going for our big adventure out west.  There are a number of things that need to get addressed to prepare the homestead for our absence. Ali is doing a team triathlon in Naples.  She will be doing the running portion.  It’s funny, I get the feeling that she almost would like to do the entire thing herself.  She has really been working hard on her swimming.

It looks like the latest BP attempt to control the oil leak is yet another epic phail.  The level of incompetency on display here is historical.

I was talking to my mom on the phone last night.  I brought up the old articles with my name in the Reading Eagle.  My mom said she had no recollection of my being engaged to Missie either.  Now I am wondering, were we really engaged?  Is it possible that the engagement announcement was sent to the paper without my knowledge?  Based on events that transpired during the relationship I would say that is a distinct possibility.

In addition to my various pull up routines I also have been working on static holds, specifically the L sit.  I expected the hold to be real tough on the abs, what I didn’t expect was how much it torques your triceps.  I have been practicing for awhile both on the floor and hanging off the pull up bar. 

Finally last night I was able to do the move with my legs more or less straight.  Up until this point I couldn’t do the move without bent legs.  The geometry of my body dimensions makes the hold quite tough since I have ostrich legs with two big boats at the end. I hope to progress into even more advanced moves like body levers (both front and back).

I am now into episode 11 in season 2 of Lost.  The couple episode lull was temporary.  I enjoyed the 2.5 shows I watched last night.

At the gym I saw a story about how BP is basically creating indentured servants of many of the people in the region hit hardest by the oil spill.  Many of the fisherman are now officially BP employees??!!!!  Of course part of their new employment requirements is signing a gag order.  How special is that?

Want to get really mad about the oil spill?  Well I guess only people that care about wildlife will get mad about it.  The drill baby drill, blow away animals for good clean fun crowd won’t give two shits.  Anyway, here is the article.

I’ve railed for awhile about how ridiculous Comcast rates are.  I currently pay $120 a month for basic digital tv service and internet which is like legalized financial rape in my opinion.

Cell phone carriers are cut from the same cloth, they overcharge customers to a ridiculous degree adding a fee here, a surcharge there until you wind up paying close to $100 a month for a stupid cell phone. It’s maddening.  ATT evidently can’t stuff enough dollars into their exploding pockets so they are coming up with yet another way to screw customers. 

Instead of using some of the billions of dollars that they have generated from their Iphone monopoly to expand the performance of their wireless network, they decided to take the easy route and gimp their data plan instead.  They are doing away with their unlimited data plan and instead offering two capped plans, one with a 200 meg limit and one with a 2 gig limit.  If you don’t monitor your usage closely you will be dinged very happily with surcharges for extra usage. 

It’s an obvious money grab attempt by ATT as well as a way to lessen future usage on their already poorly performing wireless network.  More and more content, specifically streaming content is available on the internet everyday.  ATT obviously knows that putting in ceiling on data usage will translate into huge dollars down the line as the amount of that bandwidth chewing content continues to increase. 

Now supposedly, ATT is grandfathering in existing ATT customers, saying they will be allowed to maintain their unlimited data plans.  The changes only will apply to new customers.  Yea, let’s see how long that promise holds.

AT&T sucks.

Yesterday I stumbled across a bizarre video on YouTube from some guy named Frank Yang.  If you take a look at some of the other videos he has up there, he has a bunch you will find yourself both laughing at his borderline insanity and amazed at his feats of strength/power.  Watch the video linked above and then check out some of his other stuff, it is just nuts.  I am a big fan of the 20 banana / gallon of milk / running suicides clip.

I am still in denial that oil is still pouring out into the gulf, a month and a half after the rig blew up.  I don’t think words can describe just how monumental of cluster f this is.  It seems incredible to me that the same technology that enables companies to drill wells 5000 feet deep is unable to cap wells at that same depth. 

Even though the spill is in the headlines almost everyday, the outrage and anger hasn’t reached it’s full potential yet because the oil has only had a limited interaction with the shoreline at this point.  Once the oil starts spreading like cancer, blackening/killing beaches all around the gulf and potentially the eastern seaboard people will be insane with rage. 

I have heard conspiracy theories where BP was not aggressive in “killing” the well because doing so would make that plot of ocean floor unavailable to them for future drilling.  Basically meaning BP dawdled around, trying to come up with a way to control the flow without killing the well so they could still use it in the future.  Who knows if this is true or not but I doubt that anything is too sleazy for big oil.

I heard that the Russians have solved similar leaks in the past by nuking the site under water. Supposedly they did this 5 or 6 times.  Of course in Russia, they don’t worry about political ramifications or the environment all that much, they just do it without telling anyone ahead of time.  At this point, you have to wonder if detonating a nuke 5000 feet deep would be any more damaging than millions of gallons of oil churning about in the gulf? 

The outcry for the government to DO SOMETHING ring loudly day after day.  I just don’t know what they can do about it.  They are at the mercy of the oil/drilling contractors that do this stuff for a living.  I am sure the repercussions from this mess will go on for months if not years.

The check engine light on my Tacoma has remained out.  I am officially annoucing the problem as fixed.

I am 6 or 7 episodes deep into Season 2 of Lost.  The last few episodes haven’t been stellar.

A couple weeks ago when I was on my way to Jeremy’s place I got a call from my dad.  He told me how he was looking up his name in some old archives of the Reading Eagle, my old hometown paper.  He was stunned to see an engagement announcement to the girl I was seeing in high school. Missie.  The same one that I foolishly dropped out of college for.

Dad said he never knew I was engaged to Missie.  Believe it or not I was equally surprised, I had no recollection that we actually got engaged.  This must have occurred during the 6 month hiatus my dad and I had in speaking after I dropped out of school.  Needless to say he was not happy with me, and looking back I can’t say I blame him all that much, I was really stupid.

Anyway, he said he would send me a copy of the announcement in the mail which I got last week.  There it was in black and white.  Damn, so I have actually been engaged three times in my life.  News to me.

So I looked at the URL at the bottom of the print out.  I saw that the page was generated by Google.  Evidently this is yet another amazing thing that Google can do.  They have imaged and OCR’d millions of old newspapers which you can search by any keyword you want. Check it out for yourself here!

Anyway I had to punch in my name to see what came back.  I was pretty amazed at what I found.  I found my three engagement notices, my two wedding announcements, my name mentioned in a baseball game recap, my name in a story about a spelling bee I was in during 8th grade,  and mention (and picture) of me receiving a baseball scholarship from the Hot Stovers.

It was pretty incredible being able to bring back these memories from years ago and to see them in print just like you were opening the paper today.  Punch your name in and see what comes back.  You may be surprised.

So we had a three day weekend lined up.  We had a race to time on Memorial Day so it didn’t quite feel like what a 3 day weekend should feel like knowing I had to get up at 4:15 am on Memorial Day.

On Friday Ali made efforts to cut down on the amount of weekend labor I would have to do by mowing the grass Friday afternoon which I greatly appreciated.  She wasn’t very happy when Saturday I just found a new set of things to keep me busy.  I spent a good portion of the morning trimming, trimming the palmetto bush, pygmy palms, oak trees, hibiscus bush and more.  Hey, it needed to be done.

Saturday afternoon I did more van prep.  I started with some more maintenance items, topping off the coolant, replacing the air filter and finally the fuel filter.  I never replaced a fuel filter before.  It was a bit of a pain because you have to make sure to depressurize the fuel system before changing the filter, else risk being dowsed with gasoline under pressure.  After removing the gas cap I also had to pull the fuel pump relay which was tucked away under the hood in a not so easily accessible location.  After removing the relay you crank the motor a few times to depressurize the system.

Ali helped me in this procedure by being my tool girl.  As I was laying under the van she handed me tools.  It worked out well.   After completing the maintenance I turned to interior cleaning of the party van.  I wanted to really clean the van well so I brought out the heavy hitters, our Dyson vacuum and the steam cleaner.  The interior of the van was riddled with stains from years of  sloppy drinkers.  The rug, the upholstered side panels and the seats all had numerous stains on them, most of which looked to be of the soda/coffee variety.

I first used the Dyson and it’s super suction to vacuum the van thoroughly.  By the looks of the dust bin afterward, I don’t think the van was cleaned inside much at all.  However the real eye opener came once I started with the steam cleaner.  I dumped 5 loads of pitch black waste water.  Man that thing was dirty.  The steam cleaner did a nice job of getting up most of the staining.  Ali, who at first thought that my idea to run the steam cleaner in the van as a little over the top changed her mind once she saw what I was dumping in the sink.  If she would have seen the brown water that was getting sucked out of the seat upholstery….

I had the van running during the entire cleaning process with the AC cranked.  It was the only way to not die with the temp near 90 and the humidity close to the same number.  I spent at least two hours cleaning the inside of the vehicle.  During the process I also removed one of the rear captains chairs to make additional room for luggage/supplies for the trip.  I was pleasantly surprised I was able to remove the seat without a single tool.  I just had to push a lever down.  To remove the same seat in the old party van required a knuckle busting exercise with a box wrench wedged under the frame.

On Saturday I also decided to do my first Parkour training session.  WTF is Parkour you ask?  Parkour is a French word.  It is also called “free running”.  In a way it is sort of what I recall doing as a kid, running, climbing and jumping over things.  Parkour takes these activities to a new level.  Watching a skilled “traceur” run through an environment is pretty incredible.  Well of course I am neither skilled or young enough to do anything impressive but I still wanted to at least try some of the basics.

One of the primary goals in Parkour is to clear various obstacles without hurting yourself.  Search “parkour bails” on YouTube to see what happens when things go badly.  In order to minimize the chances to hurt yourself you need to learn how to perform the moves properly.  Now of course my only training has been watching parkour videos so that isn’t much to go on.  Regardless I started my impromptu session in the backyard.

 Sadie immediately was a big fan of parkour training.  As I took off she sprinted after me, zig zagging in front causing me to almost trip several times.  I went around the property looking for obstacles to clear.  The fence became my primary obstacle.  I ran and jumped over both the H posts and the various gates around the fence line.  I ran from area to area.  I was looking for something I could try to climb parkour style but really had nothing of note.  The closest thing I had was a running jump onto the pull up bar after which I flipped myself up on top of the bar.

I had ideas about possibly jumping from the top of the pull up station to the roof of the shed.  However after eyeballing the distance and measuring the high probability of damaging both the shed and my body I dismissed the idea.  I practiced some landings and landings with rolls off my sky high 2 foot jumping platform.  I have no doubt that it all looked quite ridiculous.

Ali got home from her swimming/lunch session in time to catch the tail end of my free running.  When she asked what the hell I was doing I told her it was Parkour training.  She was like “WTF?”  Well instead of trying to explain what it was, I thought it would be much simpler to have her look it up herself rather than I try to explain it in some confusing manner. In total my training session was maybe 10 minutes long.  I was panting by the end of it.  I need to head to one of the county parks and see what sort of trouble I can get into there.

I had been complaining about my various joint ailments from the last two weeks.  All of a sudden over the weekend I realized that I was feeling better.  On Sunday I felt good enough that I actually decided to do the May Bar-Barian challenge.  Up until I hurt myself I was training for the challenge regularly.  I was majorly annoyed that my injury derailed my official attempt.  I had not done a pull up for two weeks.   

After popping a couple Advil I hit the bar, not really knowing what to expect.  The challenge was to do as many pull ups in 5 sets with a minute rest in between sets.  I had seen people post totals of anywhere from 20 on the low side to 100 on the top end.  I wound up posting an unspectacular but respectable 42 reps which I was pleased with, one rep for each year on the planet.  I was even more pleased that my troublesome elbows felt better.

Sunday evening I let the dogs out.  As I opened the lanai door I uttered my typical “Are there any BUN BUNS?!!”  This phrase gets the dogs very excited and they typically charge out the door and run to the shed where they excitedly look underneath for any sign of a rabbit.  Well this time was like all the others, Nicki and Sadie tore ass towards the corner of the shed.  Sadie, as she often does, plowed into Nicki as the rounded the corner however this time I heard Nicki start crying out in pain, loudly.  You would have seriously thought she was just stabbed. 

Instantly I came running out.  Nicki came over to me still crying, three legged.  It seemed like she did something to her paw/leg.   I knelt down and consoled her, she laid down next to me and let me touch her injured appendage.  Ali came running out when she heard the crying as well.  Ali moved her paw around to see if Nicki reacted which she didn’t.  Nicki laid there between us like a hurt child, just whimpering while having the most pathetic look on her face.

We stayed out there with her for awhile.  Once we were confident she didn’t break her leg we encouraged her to get up and come inside.  She could walk but was doing it with a severe limp.  Ali and I assumed she had the dog equivalent of a sprained ankle.  Luckily by the time the weekend was over Nicki’s injury and accompanying limp seemed better. 

Sunday afternoon Ali and I went on a bike ride.  We originally talked of trying to do the entire 17.25 mile Publix ride.  However about 5.5 miles in Ali was feeling really wiped out.  After resting by the side of the road for awhile we turned around and rode home.  She said she felt bad because she knew I wanted to do the entire distance.  I assured her it was no big deal.

We got up at 4:15am  Memorial Day morning to time the race.  This was an old race with a new location and date.  In the past this race was poorly attended.  The thought was making it a holiday race and moving it to a new venue would give the race a shot in the arm, it worked. 

They held the race at the North Collier Park,  which is also home to the water park.  It’s a beautiful park with great facilities, lots of parking and scenic views.  We had almost double the amount of runners as the year before, a huge gain.  Once again Ali was able to run in the race once I took over putting in the last minute entries.  I wasn’t jealous of running in the ultra-humid conditions.  Even at 7:30 in the morning I had sweat running down my back.

Timing the race went smoothly for the most part.  There were a few human errors that we just can’t seem to get away from.  I was a bit nervous when the person that finished second in the race came across the line with no name popping up meaning he wasn’t in the system.  Luckily I was able to enter him after the fact without any complications.  Once again we were very efficient getting out of there, we pulled out of the park at 8:50 am.

Once we got home I immediately dug into my post race work.  After making brownies for our mini-Memorial Day picnic Ali headed back to catch a few zzz’s.  After I was done with the race stuff I somehow had the desire to go out and shoot another challenge video.  I came up with a 50-50-50 challenge out of nowhere.  I would do 10 rounds of 5 reps of pull ups, push ups, and box jumps.  The goal would be to complete the 10 sets as quickly as possible.

I set up the camera and got to work.  It was late morning when I shot the video so the sun was high, hot and the air was humid.  In less than 12 minutes of exercise I was a sweaty mess.   The most challenging portion of the 50-50-50 is the pull ups for sure.   I kept a pretty steady pace and managed to complete the 150 reps in 11:49.  Now that I know I can complete the 50-50-50 I would like to try it several more times to try to shave time off.  It’s a  nice quick hitting challenge that works most of your body.

Sunday afternoon we had the neighbors across the street over for a quick Memorial Day thing.  They are going to be taking care of Tuki while we are on our trip out west so we wanted to have them over to give the lay of the land.  Ali and I over prepared.  We had way more food than needed.  Our neighbors only had a burger each and little else.  They were over for less than two hours.  We have a ton of left overs. It will be a huge help to have them take care of the bird in our absence.

In the late afternoon I felt myself crashing.  The combination of the early start combined with my 50-50-50 left me feeling like a zombie.  I actually broke my typical “no nap” edict and laid down for a couple hours back in the bedroom.  Once I got up I spent the rest of the evening watching Lost episodes on Netflix.

I am officially hooked on Lost, big time.  In the span of a week I have viewed 27 episodes, 42 minutes at a time.  I have completed season 1 and now am two deep into season 2.  I just find the show fascinating.  I always said that I am sure I would like Lost if I sat down and watched it.  I was right. 

Having Netflix makes hardcore Lost marathons a piece of cake, I just stream one after another.  Netflix is even smart enough to allow me to stop an episode on one Tivo and go back to the other one and pick up where I left off, love it.  At this rate I may have three seasons under my belt before we shove off for the wild west.