Dripping, Front row murder, Eli
We have not had any sort of break from the daily downpours out at our place. I decided it was best to just avoid a muddy, wet, blade dulling attempt to mow the grass altogether. My hope is to be able to mow it this week if we get a break in the wetness.
I really hate when our property gets waterlogged like this. The one bright spot is new wildlife enters our yard when it takes on a swamp like appearance. We had multiple egrets, ibis and even a couple ducks swimming around in the back yard.
On Saturday I once again wanted to get pretty much all house chores done so we could have a chore free Sunday. Ali went running with her girl friends Saturday morning and then napped for almost 3 hours Saturday afternoon so it was mostly a solo project. I didn’t really mind, what needed to be done yet was mostly things I do anyway.
Saturday evening we were invited over to the new neighbors house for a birthday party for Neal. We met some of their other friends which was cool. Ali and I both had a good time.
Sunday morning Ali and I decided to do a joint training brick. We would put our bikes in the truck and drive down to the water park. The plan was to bike, run and then head inside the park to swim. On the way to the park a very bad thing happened.
We were on Immokalee Road and there wasn’t very much traffic around us. I spotted ahead of me in the distance something moving across the road. It didn’t take me long to determine it was a turtle. There was only one car in front of me and nothing else really close I was planning to swing over to the side, put on my blinkers and take the turtle safely to the other side of the road.
I figured the Corolla in front of us would see the turtle as well since there was absolutely no traffic around it so it could easily change lanes and miss it. Well Ali and I watched in horror as the Corolla brake lights did not illuminate once, it’s direction or speed did not waver one bit as it exploded the turtle in it’s tracks. It was horrible to watch.
Well I was instantly enraged. I immediately caught up to the car and was surprised to see 4 clean cut kids all dressed up in shirts and ties. They were laughing and talking like they just didn’t obliterate an innocent animal a few seconds prior. I gestured angrily at the car, letting them know that I witnessed what just went down.
The Corolla dropped speed, falling way back. I dropped my speed as well until I was doing 5-10 mph under the speed limit so they had to get next to me. I was so furious that I really was entertaining running their vehicle into the curb as payback for their inhumane act. Instead as the car approached I slowly inched towards it, rolled down my window and pointed at them.
In a very angry dramatic fashion I pointed at them and then gave them an equally angry thumbs down. The finger would not have been appropriate. The kids were no longer laughing, no longer talking and instead just looking straight ahead. Luckily for them I was turning left and they were going straight.
Ali got the license plate of the vehicle. She wondered if there was any sort of law against willful roadkill. I told her I was pretty sure there wasn’t. I did say that I may be able to find out who owns the vehicle and at the very least send them (hopefully the kids parents) an anonymous letter letting them know what went down.
To me there are two possible scenarios. One is the driver was carrying on with the other other three guys in the car and paying absolutely zero attention to the road. The other is the kid is a total lowlife that thought it would be fun to run over a turtle. I guess I’ll never know. All we can hope is that karma is indeed a bitch.
Ali and I were both shaken up from the incident. Throughout the day yesterday I kept replaying that visual in my head. I thought to myself that it was literally a matter of a split seconds that determined that turtles fate. If it would have been a couple seconds earlier or later I would have been able to deliver it to safety instead of witnessing the poor animal get splattered across the road. Have I mentioned lately how much people suck?
Well I guess a tri-brick was a good way to keep our mind off the turtle massacre. First up we did a little more than a 12 mile bike ride. Ali struggled with the ride. She lead early on but when we couldn’t even maintain a 15 mph pace I pulled ahead. I asked her if something was wrong. She just was struggling pedaling against any sort of head wind. To be fair she also had run 6 miles the day before.
Once we got back to the parking lot we had her try out her new bike shoes with clips. A couple years ago Ali tried riding a bike with clips and promptly fell over while clipped in. That incident has scared her from trying bike shoes/clips since.
Well I gave her a brief lesson based on my bike clip experience. I held the bike upright so she could practice getting snapped in and out of the clips. After that we launched her out the parking lot so he she could get the hang of it. She did a good job and was able to snap herself in and out without falling. Ali also said she could immediately feel the difference being able to fully engage her legs. Hopefully she continues to get more comfortable with the clips. I think it will make a big difference in her bike performance.
So next up was a run. We ran around the park. By that time it was VERY warm. I told Ali I have not run outside in MONTHS. All of my running has been of the treadmill variety. I felt fine however. Ali peeled off at the 2 mile mark. I wanted to do a full 5k so I did another half lap around the park and finished just under 30 minutes.
Next we gathered up our stuff and headed inside to swim laps. Originally my goal was to do 400 meters which is 8 back and forths in the 25 meter pool. The first 50-100 meters did not feel good but after that my unconventional technique kicked in that at least allowed me to continue without feeling like I was hyperventilating.
I finished the 400 a minute or so ahead of Ali. She was timing herself. Her time was like 11:30 so that means I did the 400 in 10 minutes and change which is good for me. I was fine with doing 400, especially after biking and running. Well Ali said that she felt good in the pool and was going to swim some more. She said I could just chill out, yea right.
Of course I couldn’t allow Ali to do more than I did so I took off after her. By the time she had enough we had covered 1000 meters. She said that she could have swam even more probably. I told Ali that it was a good thing she was my training partner because if it was just me I would have stopped at 400. Thanks to her I pushed myself beyond what I thought I could do.
Needless to say we were both majorly pooped after that. We spent the next 2-3 hours hanging out at the water park. We didn’t do much water sliding at all, just two trips down the inner tube slide and a few loops around the lazy river. Other than that we just sat under on the big umbrellas and dozed off a bit in between eating lunch and an ice cream sandwich later. We both enjoyed just hanging out and people watching.
When we got back out to the truck I had a voice mail from a woman that saw my Craigs List ad for our eliptical machine. It has sat in our exercise unused for years. When I am doing at home cardio it is always on the treadmill. I figured it would be nice to reclaim that space and get a few bucks for it as well. Well we made arrangements for her to come out and look at it shortly after we got home.
She rung the doorbell no more than 15 minutes after we got back. She checked it out and said she liked it. She offered me the mandatory less than asking price which I accepted. There was one problem, transport. When I talked to her on the phone about it I had mentioned I would be willing to take it to her place if she bought it since she lived relatively close. Well since she pulled up in a CRV I knew there was no way she was going to be able to fit the eliptical in that.
I told her I would load it up on the truck. The cross trainer is very big and awkward to move. It was a chore just for me to get it out of the exercise room. I loaded the thing into the truck and followed the woman to the condos she lived in.
When she told me she lived on the second floor I panicked until she mentioned there was an elevator. Before we went inside she warned me that there was a a fully decorated Christmas tree in her living room. She said her daughters dared her to leave it up all year so she has. Um, ok.
Getting the machine into her bedroom was a bitch. I had to remove the foot pedals just to squeeze it in there, I needed every fraction of an inch. Once it was in the bedroom she pointed to where she wanted it, beside her bed. The bedroom was not large. I didn’t have space to lift the trainer up on end and spin it around. I wound up lifting the entire thing and somehow crawling over her bed at the same time to set it in place. I certainly hope she has no plans of moving it anytime soon. She thanked me for all the help. I surely went far above the normal Craigs List protocol for the transaction.
On Sunday night I watched Book of Eli. It wasn’t very good. In a nutshell Denzel Washington plays a bad ass god warrior that drops bad guys like Rambo. I thought the message of the movie was sort of stupid. Killing in the name of God is what terrorists do, right? I’d give it a C, not even worth a Netflix rental.
I plan to get an Iphone 4 over lunch today. My review will be upcoming.