480, 1200, 499, 12, 68
480 is the amount of paper entries that Ali and I have entered so far for the race that is coming up. Out of those 480 I would estimate at least 75% of them were new people that we didn’t have in the database. New entries take much longer to enter into the system. In between Ali and I, I would estimate that we spent a total of 7 or 8 man hours on the project.
Ali was out of town in Orlando for a conference Friday and Saturday. It was probably not a bad thing after the hair color caper and the associated fireworks. I filled almost of that time exclusively with work.
Friday night I spent a couple hours plugging in more paper entries. Then Saturday morning I woke up at 5:45 am on my own and within 20 minutes I was back to more data entry. Once the sun came out I headed outside to start the physical labor.
In addition to weeding the garden I also ripped out the now mostly dead corn plants. I felt a twinge of sadness as I pulled them out, broke them over my knee and stuffed them into the compost bin. In reality we are just getting ready to enter into prime growing season in our area so I shouldn’t feel down about it.
I then got out the weed whacker and trimmed the property, something I hadn’t done in at least three weeks due to time and water logged land issues. It took me quite awhile to chop through the weeds which were quite dense in certain spots.
When I was done I got a message from my neighbors that they were on the way home from their cruise. They picked up Zoe and then I was right back outside to mow the property. Again it was slow going due to high spots that weren’t mowed for awhile because they were underwater.
About halfway into the job the blades stopped turning, great. I pulled over to the shade and crawled onto the ground to take a look. The good news is it was nothing major, the tension spring on the idler pulley broke. The bad news is I just had bought that spring a couple months ago. It’s odd the first spring would last 7 years and the second one would last 7 weeks.
Well since I had this happen once before I knew I could McGyver the broken spring into something usable with my needle nose pliers. After 5 minutes of work I was back up and mowing. It was nice to have the property totally groomed for the first time in awhile.
Mowing wrapped up the outside work, it was about 2 o’clock. Now I had a list of indoor things I wanted to get done. That list included cleaning the counters, washing all of the bedding, sweeping the house, scoobatizing the kitchen/laundry room and then finally running the steam cleaner in the house. Zoe sheds more than our dogs so I wanted to give everything a once over. FINALLY between 5 and 6 my day full of labor was over.
One of my reasons for busting my ass on Saturday was I wanted to once again free up my Sunday. This is something I have been doing for a few weeks. I enjoy having one full day to do whatever I want even if it means I have to bust my ass on Saturday to do so.
Ali got up early to go run with her girlfriends. After she was done I met her at the water park to do a bike/swim. During the first part of my ride I was getting frustrated because Alison wasn’t making much of an effort to keep up with me even though I was doing less than 16 mph for most of it.
Around the halfway point I said something to her. I said that the entire purpose of doing tandem bike training is to do it together. She was 50 yards behind me most of the time. I encouraged her to stay close to me and draft to both push her pace and allow her to work a little easier since she just ran. On the ride back she stayed with me most of the way.
On the last half mile segment I told Ali I was going to do a sprint since I had gas in the tank. I managed to maintain 27-28 mph for that brief distance. I was sucking major wind once I got to the light to go back into the park.
After the ride we headed into the park. Ali wasn’t feeling like doing major lap swimming. I however was almost looking forward to swimming. It’s odd how in the span of a couple months I went from dreading the act of swimming to almost enjoying it. I did three 400 meter sessions for a total of 1200 meters, the farthest I have ever swam. I also was very consistent with my pace, each 400 was a little under 9 minutes long.
After the swim we ate lunch and just hung out under an oversized umbrella. Ali was exhausted and actually was sound asleep when I woke her up around 1:30 to head home. I told Ali I wanted to stop at Sam’s club to grab dehydrated chicken dog treats. She said she would head home awhile.
While I was in Sam’s I had an idea pop into my head. Ali and my anniversary is coming up in less than a week. I thought I would surprise her with an Ipad. I thought maybe Sam’s would sell them since they sold Ipods and Ipod Touches. Sam’s did not sell them so I decided to add a Best Buy stop to my route home.
I had heard that Best Buy was selling Ipads although I didn’t know what their stock was like. I went in there and was pleased to see they had plenty of them. I snagged the $499, 16gb, non-3G model which would be more than sufficient for what Ali will use it for.
When I got home I covertly brought the box inside and put it on the counter under a towel. I asked Ali, who was in the office, what the box was on the counter. She said she didn’t know there was a box. She came out lifted the towel and was very surprised.
I told her it was her anniversary gift. Typically we don’t spend that kind of money on anniversaries. I knew she wanted one and I thought it would be nice to give her a surprise. In a few minutes it was unboxed and connected to Itunes. The set up routine was slick, it automatically grabbed all of the music and apps that are already on her Iphone.
Ali spent a lot of time playing with the device. The screen is really high quality, everything on it looks good. Having substantially more screen real estate makes a huge difference. Web browsing is a much more pleasurable experience on the Ipad since constant scrolling is not necessary. Ali so far gives the device two thumbs up for sure.
The one thing that we need to get yet for it is some sort of case/protection. There were several options available at Best Buy but I wanted Ali to be the one to decide what she would prefer. I am sure she will grab something this week.
Wow was that Eagles game ugly on so many levels. They start the game giving up a quick 14 points after allowing a big punt return and then a big pass after the Eagles blew a defensive assignment. Things went from bad to worse when Vick was in the middle of a Malachi Crunch (Happy Days fans will know what I mean). They said he had a rib/chest injury but the way he was hit and what he was holding makes me think he broke his collarbone. Vick’s injury left Kevin Colb in charge.
The rest of the game was filled with ineptitude on both sides of the ball. This game was big since it was Donovan’s return to Philly. I was happy to see the fans gave him a warm pre-game welcome. After that he got the boo’s many expected.
Donovan was decidedly unspectacular in his return. Other then the one long pass he had a miserable day with a QB rating in the 60’s. I have to admit it felt nice being on the other side of his overthrows and worm burners, I didn’t miss those at all.
We had our own problems at QB. If you look at Kolb’s numbers they are solid. What the stats don’t show is just how tentative he was. Almost all of his passes were very short. I don’t know if Morningweg was calling all of these dump offs or if Kolb was just opting for the safe throw because he is now paranoid to make a mistake. I think the side effect of the Michael Vick rebirth was a thorough trashing of Kevin Kolb’s confidence.
Mike Vick is able to hide some of the warts of this team. His elusiveness makes a shitty offensive line less of a problem. It also buys him time to find receivers down field. Kolb is not elusive and at times he looked very indecisive.
The Eagles have leaks all over the place. Their defense once again reverted to sucking. Any decent team would have put up many more points against the Eagles yesterday. The Redskins who were ranked nearly last in the league in rushing ran with authority. The special teams hurt the Eagles once again giving up the huge return to set up a Redskin touchdown.
The Eagles did dominate in one area, penalties. For several years the team has been consistently one of the most penalized in the league. I don’t really know where else you can point the finger other than the coaching staff. Andy evidently preaches discipline on the field as much as he does at the dinner table.
The coaching issues hurt the team again in the bizarre series of events at the end of the half where the Eagles blew an opportunity for a TD and instead had to settle for a field goal. There was some sort of confusion over the spot and somehow the Eagles managed to get a delay of game penalty after a timeout, pretty hard to do. Don’t get me wrong, I think the officials were part of the problem, in fact I think the crew yesterday sucked, especially the head umpire who spent 15 reviewing each instant replay call.
So 12 was the magic number of points the team scored. It was almost 19. Miraculously as poorly as the team played they actually had an opportunity to still win on the last play of the game. Kolb threw the ball into the end zone. Jason Avant was able to outleap everyone else and get both hands cleanly on the ball. Unfortunately the ball also bounced cleanly off his rock-like mitts and into the hands of a Redskin to end the game.
It was an awful game to watch. If Vick’s injury proves to be as serious as I think it may be we have a bunch of ugly football to watch the next few months.
This morning the thermometer dropped down into the 60’s for the first time in many months. The unmistakable coolness felt great and is a preview of the nice weather to come. It’s so nice being able to look forward to winter.
I went to the doctor on Friday and was told I have an ear infection. I was given a script for some antibiotic ear drops. I think we got it before it got too bad. It feels pretty decent right now.
I also finally made an appointment to see someone about my elbow. I am seeing the same guy that did one of knee surgeries. If nothing else it will be nice to get a professional evaluation on it.