Archives December 2010

It seems impossible that a year has passed since the last time I did one of these recaps.  The speed which time passes at this point in my life is pretty staggering.  Well whether I like it or not, the calendar says it is time to wrap up yet another year.

Ok looking at my 2010 goals I did a pretty piss poor job of hitting them, wow.  Probably the worst job I have done with this since I have been blogging.  Let’s look at the 2010 goals one by one.

Finish painting the interior of the house – nope, our bedroom and bathroom remain stark white.

Paint the exterior of the house – nope.  It really needs it.  It seems like such a big job, I am having a hard time kick starting myself to do it.

Screen in the front entrance of the house – yes, sort of.  Instead of going through the hassle and expense of screening in the entire landing I instead installed a $150 retractable screen door that still allows us to have the front door wide open to allow cool breezes to flow through the house.  The dogs love it.

Replace the water equipment – no.  I managed to fix some of the problems that I had with our water equipment.  It is performing better but our water is still not great.

Camaro – nope.  My insistence that the Camry gets paid off first has continued to delay any Camaro purchase.  The delay has also caused my eye to shift upward to the convertible model that will be available during 2011.  I still am trying to figure out how I can get one with out causing undue financial strain to the budget. I did actually test drive a 6 speed SS back in January.

Muscle up – No.  I had several physical hurdles to achieving this feat of strength including surgery on my shoulder to remove skin cancer and tendinitis that was borderline debilitating at times. In recent months I have been making some steady progress but a muscle up still has not happened.

Road trip – YES.  We had a fantastic trip out west in June even with the mechanical problems that threatened to derail us more than once.  We saw and experienced so many awesome things.  It makes me yearn to have a life that has that sort of diversity in it instead of the one I exist in where the weeks just melt into one big blob of sameness.

State of mind – No.  I won’t be starting any motivational speaking tours any time soon.

Kid – No.  Ali and I have had a couple discussions about this.  Ali hears the clock ticking and I have on a pair of noise canceling earphones.   It is subject matter that continues to be a source of anxiety on both sides.

So if you are keeping score, I failed on 7 out of 10 “goals”, the .300 average wouldn’t be bad if I was batting 6th for the Phillies but in the game of life it is pretty disappointing.

Let’s recap what I DID do in 2010.

2010 was a year filled with memorable physical events as well as the accompanying videos documenting them.

Who can forget the EPIC 300 challenge between Jeremy and Randall at the end of January?  I used my pull up / jump station that I constructed quite a bit, using it for many work outs including my self coined 50-50-50.

I dead lifted 310 pounds and did a pull up with an extra 60 pounds hanging from my body in 2010.

Jeremy and I had an unexpected solid performance at a volleyball tournament where we managed to take second place.  On our march to the finals we handed Randall an embarrassing loss that will be the subject of stories for years to come.

I had a number of personal firsts/bests this year.  I competed in my first triathlon which turned out to be one of the more grueling physical challenges I ever endured.  It was quite satisfying to see my ability to bike and swim get better as I trained.

I set two running distance bests in 2010, first running a 10K in October and then running 10 miles just last weekend.  Neither of these attempts were made with much forethought.  I just sort of decided on those days I wanted to see if I could do it.

Ali had a huge year with her running and triathlons.  She completed several half marathons and triathlons.  She keeps aiming higher on the endurance events ladder.  I am very proud of the effort she has put in.

Although I missed on the majority of home improvement goals, we did have some upgrades.  We took advantage of government incentive programs twice, first replacing our washer,dryer and dishwasher and then replacing our home HVAC system in September.  We spent HUGE money between the two upgrades but we are seeing some payback with significantly lower electricity bills.

I did do some old fashioned construction as well, resurfacing the dog deck with Trex composite lumber as well as building a ramp for the smaller shed. I also cleaned out the garage to make room for the Camaro that isn’t there, including installing shelving on the cinder block wall.

I had some personal wins with my Mr Fixit business fixing an O2 sensor in the Tacoma, several timing clocks,  the air compressor, various tractor problems, serpentine belts, idler pulleys, broken scoobas and more.

I got involved with Lost in 2010.  I digested 5 season of the show via Netflix in a month and a half and just finished season 6 last week.  It was a great show but I am glad I waited to watch it in that condensed time period, it made the storyline much more compelling and fresh. I also digested Firefly in the same manner, another great show.

I did a lot of broadcasting in 2010.  I broadcasted many work outs, but later in the year, after discovering the wonders of justin.tv, broadcasted things like making the dogs dinner, fixing time clocks, driving to work, a yard sale, playing WoW and more.  You name the stupid, mundane thing and I probably broadcast it.  Some people may say that this interest I have with broadcasting many aspects of my life is an indication of some sort of personality disorder.  I wouldn’t argue against that.

I have really become quite good at timing races.  It is a blend of IT knowledge and athletic events which I find I really enjoy.  I timed my first cross country meet in 2010.  I also invested a lot of time and effort in creating a store for the running club that we have been “selling” memberships and races out of for a couple months.

I joined a new gym in 2010, Retro Fitness.  It allowed me to escape the plethora of stupid rules and the dreaded LUNK ALARM at Planet Fitness.  I really like the new place and have no major complaints.

I acheived my 4th Windows server certification in 2010.  It joins my MCSE on NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows 2003.

I cut cable in 2010.  I finally got sick enough of getting $150 bills each month from Comcast for internet and basic HD service, to do something about it.  I installed a huge HD antenna by the small shed and have been using it to grab HD over the air for free.  I supplemented this with streaming content from the internet.  I really haven’t missed cable tv at all.

I snagged a normal amount of techno goodies in 2010.  Some of the highlights were the new Iphone 4, a 32 inch LCD tv for the bedroom, a Tivo Premiere, an Ipad for Ali, and an Xbox 360 to name a few.

I had a nice Trek road bike given to me by a gym buddy.  After a tune up at the bike shop it was almost as good as new.

I ended my brief ownership of my dad’s Moto Guzzi motorcycle in 2010, selling it to a dealer in the midwest.  The bike needed a lot of TLC and I wasn’t interested enough in motorcycle riding to spend the money to provide it.

We actually got neighbors again in 2010.  The house to the right of ours was for sale and then vacant for a long time.  Finally it was purchased via a short sale by a nice woman who has two kids.  We get along with them just fine.

I discovered the joys of shaving my own head in 2010.

We actually hired a service to clean our house once a month.  I am still in the process of evaluating if it is worth the money or not.

We bought family memberships to the water park.  We went there almost weekly for a period of time doing endless laps in the pool.  I really enjoyed it.

Mom got back on her feet in 2010, getting her job back albeit on a part time basis.  She also got knocked back off them when she had knee surgery and a groin pull.  She has been finding out just how ridiculous the rules governing social security are.

The most memorable event of 2010 for me was our road trip out west.  It was a full two weeks of seeing the country one mile at a time.  With stops at Mt Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, Craters of the Moon, Aspen and White Sands among others, it was just fantastic.  We overcame some potentially huge negatives when the van left us stuck twice.  Who can forget my “L sitting across America” series?  Watching Old Faithful, in the snow, in mid-June is a memory I will never forget.  I love road trips.

As far as world events there are a few that stick out for me.  The health care fiasco was such a mess.  What got passed was so watered down it hardly seemed worth it.  The right wingers succeeded in making the name “Obama” synonymous with anything negative.  Now anything and everything is his fault.  I think I heard a guy that got a flat tire the other day blame it on Obama.  So many people have such short memories and are such light thinkers.

Florida actually elected a crook for Governor, capitalizing on the wave of anti-Obama sentiment.  That sentiment was actually powerful enough to vote in a guy whose company he ran was fined 1.4 billion dollars for Medicare fraud.  He ran the most disgusting smear campaign I can ever recall.  He spent something like $60 million of his own money to brainwash the headline only readers and more or less purchased the election. It was very sad.

Of course the biggest story was the Gulf Oil spill.  It was an epic display of failure in every conceivable way.  I feel fortunate that no oil actually washed up on Naples beaches but I am quite sure that there will be tons of repercussions down the road after having millions of gallons of oil pouring into the Gulf for a couple months.  Hell the Gulf of Mexico was already a mess before the spill.

Ok this is long enough, I am sure I let out some highlights but oh well. Let’s quickly set some new goals for 2011.

A lot of the fails for last year are carry overs.

Painting – Finish painting the inside of the house and paint the exterior. Yea that’s a lot of painting.

Camaro – maybe THIS will be the year

Muscle up – despite a physique that is totally not made for this movement, I want to get one

Road trip – well we are supposedly going to Ireland with my dad in late 2011 but I am also thinking about another June road trip, maybe this time to the far northeast.

Fitness goals – I plan to continue my triathlon training.  I’d like to do more events next year.  I enjoy the challenge and sense of accomplishment.

Home tech – I need to upgrade my home server. It is getting long in the tooth.  We depend on it quite heavily.  I am also WAY overdo in replacing my personal computer.  Hell I bet I have had it for at least 5 years.  I used to upgrade my puter every couple years.  A Pentium D just doesn’t cut it.

Head – I have been feeling like I have been in a rut for a long ass time.  It feels like I am way overdue for something BIG to happen. (positive or negative I am not sure)  When you read this blog you get a sense that I do have a lot of things going on on a daily basis, which I do.  However in the big picture I have been grinding through the same routine more or less for a decade.  It seems like a fork in the road has to be coming.

In some ways I feel like I have become the pit crew for Ali’s life where my main role is to support the homestead while she pursues her interests.  It isn’t a role I desired when Ali started her consultant business a few years back.  Even Ali somewhat recognizes this and has encouraged me to venture out more on my own to do things that fulfill me.  Who will let out the dogs?

New Years this year will likely be spent at home.  I may ask Ali if she wants to go to the casino to watch the ball drop but I don’t know how receptive she will be to it.  It will be mobbed.  It may just be me and stroked-out Dick once again.

I hit the ground running when I got home last night.  I didn’t even change out of my work clothes before I headed outside, daylight was at a premium. I had Ali pull the various cold protection off the plants in the morning but I told her I would put it all away.  So I gathered up the empty pots, weight plates, comforters, blankets and pond underlayment. I folded, stacked and organized it all and put it away.

It looked like for the most part the stuff that got covered survived the bitter cold although I did see some additional damage on a few things.  I really hope that this early burst of arctic weather we have had the last month or so is the last of it for the winter.  I don’t think I will be that lucky.

Later I was doing some more testing with the timing system.  After work I picked up some electronic components at Radio Shack. Oh by the way, if you are looking for a fantastic deal on an Iphone 4, go to Radio Shack by tomorrow.  You can get one for as low as $125.

The stuff I got was for two different timing situations.  First thing I attempted was to fashion a remote trigger for my timing box.  I have a proposal to time an adult track meet in April.  In order to get accurate times a remote trigger for the timing box would be ideal.  In theory you hit a button that is connected via a long wire to the timing box at the start of the race.  The button will capture the current time as the start time, pretty simple.

I wired a momentary contact switch to a 1/4″ male phono plug which is all I should need based on some research I did.  I inserted the plug and hit the button and got no response.  I tried several times with no success.  Just to make sure my switch wasn’t the problem I desoldered it and then touched the two wires together to simulate a switch and still got no response.  Back to the drawing board on that one.

The other stuff I got was to allow me to utilize my old DC power supply I bought years ago for my RC plane hobby to function as a power supply for the timing box.  The timing box has an internal battery that is supposed to power it for 4 or 5 hours.  However batteries can fail.

If you try to run the box off the included AC charger the box will beep loudly and incessantly in protest.  The only way to do it is to use DC power.

I am timing our most prestigious race of the year, the Naples Daily News Half Marathon, in a couple weeks.  I wanted to make sure I was protected against an unexpected battery failure.

I also was playing around with the latest version of the software I use to time races.  It has some new features.  One I found particularly cool was the ability to send a text message to any cell phone when a runner crosses the finish line.   So if you wanted to let your wife/friend/relative know how you did, they would get a text as soon as you crossed.

I have had a surprisingly quick recovery from my 10 mile jaunt on Sunday.  As of yesterday I felt pretty much back to normal.  In fact I plan to run at the gym today, a good thing.

Hey the Stern show is now available on the official Sirirus XM Iphone app.  I guess I don’t need to use Pocket Tunes to hijack it anymore.

I am so frustrated by that Eagles performance on so many levels.  Obviously the pathetic defensive performance and lack of offensive production except scoring by Vick doomed my chance to steal the top spot in my fantasy league championship which I wound up losing by 23 points.

Let me not be a pessimist and list both the positives and negatives.

Positive – Howdy Doody finally pulled out Dimitri Patterson after he got burned once again by the Vikings 3rd string QB.  Why it took this long I have no idea.

Negative – everything else.

Ok, everything was lined up for this to be a dominating Eagles win.  Hell they were favored by something like two touchdowns, a HUGE margin for a NFL game.  The weak decision to move the game to Tuesday so the teams wouldn’t have to play in a couple inches of snow should benefit the Eagles on paper.

The Vikings defense was ripped to SHREDS the week before in bad conditions against the Bears, allowing 44 points!  Just imagine what the vaunted Eagles offense will do against such a unit?

On top of that, Brett Farve failed his concussion test and wasn’t going to play.  Instead the Vikings were forced to start Joe Webb, their 3rd string QB that was actually drafted as a WIDE RECEIVER.  This should be a cake walk right?

Well Andy Reid has a fabled history of blowing games where the Eagles are huge favorites.  Who can forget the tie against the lousy Bengals or the loss to the horrendous Raiders a couple years ago?  Well add last night’s game to that list of atrocities.

Right from the start you got the sense the Eagles thought the Vikings would just lay down.  Instead the Vikings defense came out aggressively and literally blitzed almost every single down.  For some reason the Eagles had no answer to the blitz and allowed the Vikings to hit Vick again and again and again.  Another thing Andy Reid teams are historically bad at is making offensive adjustments if their initial game plan fails.

Even though the Eagles appeared to be going into half time with a small 7-0 lead I still had to think it would only be a matter of time until they put the Vikings away.  Well then just before the half Vick committed one of his three turn overs (could have easily been 6 or 7 if Viking DB’s didn’t have hands of stone) fumbling away the ball which was scooped up and run in for a TD.  WTF?

Instead of coming out in the second half with fire in their belly for allowing the stinking Vikings to hang around the Birds instead allowed the Vikings to march right down the field for an easy touchdown.  The Birds were continuing yet another incredibly aggravating trend they excel at, making scrub QB’s look like All Pro’s.  They hardly touched Joe Webb who looked more like Joe Montana as he lead the Vikings up and down the field.  It was downright pathetic.

The futility continued till the embarrassing and disappointing end of the 24-14 debacle.  Once again the Eagles blew a game as a huge favorite.  It almost serves them right for pushing to cancel the snow game, stupid pussies.  The game crammed enough uninspired, sloppy play into it to fill a season.

The loss meant the Eagles, just like last year, lost a chance to set themselves up for a 1st round playoff bye.  They will be the 3 seed, no matter what the outcome of the game against the Cowboys is.

I have a concern about Michael Vick.  Yea he still managed to run for one TD and throw for another (which killed me in fantasy) but overall his play wasn’t good at all.  Like I mentioned, he fumbled twice, should have been picked off 4 times and he flat out missed a number of throws.

I remember from his days as a Falcon, one of the raps on him was he HATED playing in the cold.  I clearly recall pictures of him looking absolutely miserable on the sidelines years ago in playoff games against both the Eagles and the Bears, both of which he played terribly in.

Last night was the coldest air he played in this year for the Eagles and look at the result.

I forgot to mention how odd it was that the NFL decided to postpone the Eagles/Vikings game.  Yea there was a snow storm, so what?  NFL games are played in blizzards every year, it is some of the most entertaining football around in my opinion.  I thought it was rather lame personally that they postponed the game.

The Eagles just happened to wrap up the division title yesterday when the Giants got smashed by the Packers.  This game tonight still is important as the final two games will decide the Eagles seeding in the playoffs.  We certainly don’t want to go limping in like we did last year when we got bitch slapped by the Cowboys.

This game has HUGE implications for our fantasy football championship game.  Both my team and my opponent haven’t been lighting it up.  I got screwed royally when the Texans decided to sit Andre Johnson so I wound up with a big fat ZERO from my one WR spot.  My opponent has had some very poor performances as well with his two running backs AND defense/st only getting him a total of 8 points, pathetic.

Right now I am behind 53-32 but I have 4 players left to play and he has one.  Ironically all of these players are Eagles.  Unfortunately the Eagle he has is Mike Vick.  I have Brent Celek, DeSean Jackson, David Akers and the Eagles defense.  It is going to be a very odd situation tonight as far as my rooting interest.  If Vick throws any touchdowns I want them to be to Celek or Jackson.

The Eagles winning 15-0 on the back of 5 David Akers field goals would be just about perfect.  There is probably a $400-$500 difference between 1st and 2nd in our league.  I am crossing my fingers that my fairytale playoff run has a happy ending.

My last day off yesterday was pretty tame.  I actually did my blog entry from home and broadcast the process on justin.tv.  You can get a sense of how tedious it can become.

I also made another attempt at the 6 pack challenge.  I did better but was a bit frustrated that I wound up with 99 reps.  I lose count while I am in the midst of the workout.  If I knew I was 1 rep short of 100 I would have found a way to squeeze out one more rep somewhere.

My legs were pretty sore from my unexpected run of 10 miles on Sunday but I wasn’t debilitated.  Hell I am not even walking with a limp, yet.

I went out and covered everything I could yesterday afternoon.  It’s a good thing I did, this morning we had TONS of frost, it looked like freaking PA.

I did little chores around the house and split the rest of the time between the Xbox 360 and my PC.  After playing some Peggle online against other people I discovered that I officially SUCK at Peggle.

Speaking of Xbox,  I finally got around to trying to sell my old original Xbox on Craigslist.  The 360 can do everything my old one can and more.  Well, everything but play copied games.  As far as original Xbox’s go, mine is pretty bad ass.

I had it chipped so it is able to play/copy games.  It has a 200 gig hard drive that is 10 times larger than the original and it comes with a bunch of other accessories. It has like 35 games on the hard drive and I have another half dozen legit games as well.  I listed this all on Craigslist for the bargain price of $150, figuring someone would offer me $100 or $125, which I would take.  I haven’t received a single nibble.

It’s funny I read reports on Facebook of various people immediately taking down all of their Xmas decorations the day after Christmas.  Yea, that is even weird to me, someone who isn’t a big Christmas enthusiast.  I would recommend these individuals up their dosage of OCD meds. 🙂

So my mom came out to our place around 11 on Christmas eve.  Before she arrived I had been out and about with a stop at Home Depot and the grocery store.  Ali had to work on Friday so it was just mom, the dogs and I.  I decided to make burgers on the grill for us for lunch.  After we ate I got busy on mom’s Rav 4, I told her I would wash and wax it for her.

While I was outside doing that mom was inside keeping busy, cooking up some potatoes we had lying around for the dogs as well as baking a couple batches of cookies.  Mom’s car was pretty dirty since the last time it was washed was probably last Christmas when she came over.  Mom must be afraid to go through those complicated automatic car wash places.

I diligently scrubbed, sprayed and wiped until I had the 1996 Toyota looking about as good as it can.  The coating of wax made the white paint shine brightly.

Mom had laid down for a nap.  The dogs were laying with her as well.  I started feeling tired with a hint of nausea.  I told my mom I was going to lay down as well.  Well I laid in bed for a good two hours but I didn’t sleep for2 seconds.  Instead, I laid there feeling more and more sick to my stomach.  It almost felt like an instant replay of my food poisoning episode.  How can it be?

Eventually it got to the point where I found myself bent over the toilet, feeling like it was time again to barf.  Well the vomit never came but instead I was greeted with a rash of explosive diarhea that was not enjoyable at all.  As I sat there I could not believe I once again felt sick after eating a burger.  I cooked them well.  Mom didn’t get sick, the dogs didn’t get sick but there I was once again feeling like my guts were tied in knots.

When Ali got home we gave her the news that I apparently had another adverse food reaction.  I had no appetite and missed out on our Christmas Eve dinner of vegetable lasagna.  Instead I had two pieces of plain toast and sipped some Diet Sprite.  By the end of the night I did feel well enough to eat a few Christmas cookies.

We watched our first (and last) Christmas special of 2010, Home Alone 2.  Ali has been so busy with work and other stuff that we just have not sat down and watched any Christmas shows this year.  It has helped contribute to a holiday season that didn’t feel very holidayish.

So I was very tired from my stomach ailment and so were mom and Ali.  We retired to bed early although I wound up staying awake till midnight watching Lost episodes.

I awoke Christmas morning at 6:30 to no fanfare,  just me and the dogs.  I ate my pop tarts and played WoW until mom and Ali came out.  We probably didn’t start opening presents until after 8.  Hell there were years when present opening began at 6am, I used to be so excited about it.

Although we don’t have kids, the dogs do their best to fill that role on Christmas morning. They genuinely get excited as we open their presents and have a blast playing with them.  Despite the normal pledge to not buy much for each other, Ali and once again had plenty under the tree.

I got a number of cool things, the most noteworthy being the Kinect for the 360 along with some additional games.  We got my mom a number of smaller things.  My sister stole the gift I was planning to get for my mom, a starter e-cigarette pack.

Ironically out of everything mom got it seemed the thing that intrigued her the most was the negative ion bracelet we picked up as  stocking stuffer.  We know some people that have them. The reports we heard were that their owners have been surprised that they actually have felt better since wearing the simple rubberized bracelet.  Mom is constantly complaining about one physical ailment or another so I thought it would be worth a shot.

I got Ali some cool things, the highlights being a nice Kodak camera with  26x zoom and more features than you know to do with as well as a gift cert that will allow her to upgrade her phone to an Iphone 4 in mid-January when her contract runs out. I even surprised her with a pink Snuggie, the gift that I have publicly mocked forever.

After everything was torn open we ate our traditional french toast breakfast that mom prepares.  Then the never fun clean up / organizing process began.  As we were picking up we got calls from the rest of our family where we exchanged holiday wishes.  When I was talking to my brother Pat he mentioned a hilarious picture they took of my dad the other day.  He was nice enough to send it to me.  Wow Dad, time for some personal grooming…

Luckily for me, I look much more like my mom than my dad. 🙂

I didn’t waste much time before I hooked up the Kinect to give it a try.  I had no idea that the camera was robotic and moved to track you.  I thought it was stationary.  In a few minutes I was in front of the tv, gesturing and jumping, interacting with the 360 with no controller.  It was really cool. Later on in the day I got Ali in front of it as well to play some games with me.  It’s really a lot of fun.

Mom headed out a little after 1pm for her drive home.  She had a dinner she was going to at her friend’s house.  We spent the rest of the day playing with our stuff mostly.  It was a nice relaxing way to spend our Christmas day, a far cry from the days where Christmas was filled with stops at 3 or 4 different places.

As I mentioned, before in this post and for many years prior,  Christmas is a pretty pale holiday now in comparison to the glory years.  Yea I still put up the lights and the tree but there isn’t all that much more to it for me.  Christmas comes and goes very quickly as a 43 year old adult and in the process all of the old anticipation and excitement that accompanied it goes along with it.

On Christmas night I finally finished up Lost, watching the controversial series finale.  I, like everyone else had tons of questions after it was all over.  Some stuff just didn’t make much sense at all to me.  I tried to fill in some gaps by reading some informed opinions on the web.  I also watched the 12 minute post finale webisode that answered a few of the questions.  Despite the holes in the story, I enjoyed the finale and loved the show in general.  When Jack laid there in his final moments and Vincent, the lab settled in next to him, it choked me up. I have no doubt if I was about ready to check out my dogs would be my side as well.

So on Sunday Ali had committed to go do the Bagel Run, an informal run sponsored by the running store.  It is meant to be part of the training program for the half marathon in mid-January.  I told Ali I would come with her and run since I wanted to help battle the holiday bulge that affects us all from eating too much.

When I stepped outside Sunday morning before we left (oh did I mention the run started at 6:30 am?), I was smacked in the face by a nasty wind.  Running long distances in windy conditions is not fun at all.  The temps were in the low 60’s.  I brought long pants and shirt but I intended to run in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt.

We got on site early and had a chilly half hour waiting for the running to start.  Ali had loose plans to run 10 miles.  Christy was there as well and she planned to run less than that, maybe 5 or 6 miles.  They both asked me what I planned to run and I said I had no idea.

We took off at a very sustainable pace.  I had a little gremlin inside my head that was telling me that whatever Ali was going to run, I should run.  After all, I am a man.  When I verbalized the possibility of running with Ali the entire way Ali said it wasn’t very smart, something I already knew.  You see the farthest I have EVER run in my life is a 10k which is 6.25 miles.  I had only done that once and that was a few months ago.  I generally don’t do long distance running because it feels like a crap shoot with my knees.  Well Sunday I felt like rolling the dice.

Christy turned around at the 3 mile mark to head back leaving just Ali and I to plow ahead.  My body didn’t feel too bad for the first half of the run, the second half was a different story.  I had various things hurt along the way.  Some of them came and went like a pain in my left hip, some came and amplified over time like my hamstrings.

During the return run a friend of ours that we hadn’t seen since she moved to DC caught us from behind and talked to us.  Before I knew it we had covered two miles during the conversation which was great.  Keeping your mind from thinking about the effort of running is a big help.

The last 3 miles or so were pretty tough.  My legs started feeling like they were filled with cement.  The wind was now in our face which made things less enjoyable. We kept moving. As we ran I said to Ali I remembered very clearly the days when we started running together at the middle school track.  I recalled how Ali would struggle mightily just to complete a mile or two.  And now here she was doing a 10 mile training run.

Finally the end was in sight.  I made sure to not stop my GPS until it had clicked over to the 10 mile mark.   It was an odd sensation when you try to stop your legs after running that long, they want to keep on running, almost via muscle memory.

I was quite happy with my accomplishment.  Inside I had pride as we enjoyed our post race coffee and bagels.  I had just increased my running distance max by 66% in one shot, something unheard of and unadvised as well.  The weird thing is it was just a spur of the moment decision.  I had no plans or goal to run 10 miles in my lifetime.  If anything it was more of my ego kicking me in the ass saying if Ali can do it, you can do it.

The rest of our Sunday was very productive even with a reasonable amount of relaxation thrown in there.  We got everything down around the house that needed to get handled even with allowances for Ali’s naps and my goofing off with electronic diversions.

I am home today yet for the last day of my 4 day weekend.  I have no huge plans.  I shot one brief pull up video to be used in next month’s Bar-barian challenge and I think I am going to give the ass busting 6 pack challenge another go here shortly.

Christmas has come and gone.  Although my personal connection to Christmas has faded, my hope is the general kindness and good that is cultivated during this season can extend beyond just the last two weeks of December.  If you want to see all the pictures I took at Christmas go here.

Yesterday after work I had to make some more stops to pick up birthday supplies, namely a cake.  Ali requested some sort of vanilla creme cake which I managed to track down after a little searching.  I also grabbed a cool looking plant that had flowers that looked like mini-roses.

The next stop was Hungry Howie’s to pick up Ali’s requested birthday meal, pizza.  They have a nice deal when you pick it up yourself, 5 bucks and change.

When I got home I immediately noticed Ali looked like she had been crying so I asked her what was wrong.  She said on her way home from work she drove past a women by the side of the road whom was visibly upset.  At her feet was what appeared to be a dead cat, Ali assumes it was the woman’s dead cat.  As Ali drove by she watched as the woman tearfully was bending down to pick up the animal’s now lifeless body.  I understood Ali’s emotional reaction to it.

So I brought in all my stuff and after making the dog’s dinner we settled in for pizza while watching the season finale of the Biggest Loser.  Ali had a couple birthday calls throughout the evening from her brother, her mom, my mom and my dad.

I gave Ali her gifts from both me and remote locations after we ate.  I felt dumb when I realized that I mistakenly  bought two xmas cards for Ali instead of a birthday and Christmas card.  However the one card had a message in it that was equally appropriate for a birthday, I just crossed the Merry Christmas out.

My gift for Ali was a gift certificate to a local spa that she likes to frequent.  I figured it would be a nice thing for Ali to unwind with once she gets through this brutal patch of work she is mired in lately.  Getting the gift cert was a bit of an ordeal.

I called the place last week and paid for it with a CC on the phone.  I asked them to just mail it to my work address so Ali wouldn’t see it.  That was last Friday.  Well it should have only taken a day to get here, even with the holiday rush considering it is 5 miles away.  Well I called Tuesday and told them I still hadn’t seen it.  They assured me that it should show up, it didn’t.

So I called back yesterday and informed them that I still don’t have the gift certificate and I need it TODAY.  I asked them if they would be able to fax or scan me a certificate and get it to me that way.  I believe the guy on the phone was an owner.  He asked where I worked.  I told him.  He said he gets off at 1pm and would just drop the gift cert off to me.  Wow, that’s nice.  I told him that wasn’t really necessary but he said it was not a problem.  So I had the GC handed to me personally Wednesday afternoon.

So anyway, despite my efforts to make Ali’s birthday enjoyable, she spent much of the evening sad.  I asked her what was wrong.  Like I mentioned, she has been feeling stressed out at work since she offered to take over the responsibilities of the kitchen manager since he is out on medical leave.

Initially her thought process was electing to do this would translate into a lot of extra money which always comes in handy.  Unfortunately it also has translated into a lot of extra hours and stress that in retrospect may not be worth the bulge in the checking account.

Ali also said she was feeling old.  I told her to join the club, I clearly recall not being thrilled with my 37th birthday either.  Of course I didn’t really like any birthday that started with the number 3 or higher.

However with Ali the age thing also ties into her recent feelings about having a kid.  She has been bringing the subject up pretty regularly for awhile now.    I have been ducking and weaving on a regular basis as well as I am unable to embrace the idea.

Ali has gotten advice from many people that are happy to offer up their opinion that we should have kids.  I’m glad it is so easy for them to chime in so easily on something that is such a life altering event. This isn’t like asking for a recommendation on what type of toilet paper you should use.

Anyway the kid/age thing put a cloud over Ali’s mood for the night which sort of sucked.  It’s something we will need to address further in the future but not last night.

At least the dogs were in the birthday spirit.  they were quite happy to gobble down a small piece of Ali’s birthday cake as you can see here.

Hey did you see the Iphone now offers a Find your Phone thing?  I just set it up this morning.  It is pretty sweet.

Basically you configure your Iphone to turn this feature on which takes all of a minute or two.  Once you do this you can load me.com and find your phone!  Not only can you see where your phone is, you can send a message to it, lock it, or even wipe it clean if you think it has fallen into dirty hands.

Of course this also has the capability to be the ultimate big brother.  If I knew your Apple sign on information I could track your whereabouts at all times, or at least your phone’s whereabouts.  People that suspect their spouses of some monkey business will be big fans of this tool.

I have a lot of virtual WoW work to do since the latest expansion is now live.  I have 10 characters that I eventually will want to level to the new level cap of 85.  However lately I have been playing a more economic game.

You see when an expansion hits there is a huge push by the WoW addicts to want to reach the new max level for everything as quickly as possible.  This doesn’t apply to just the overall level of their character but also to the professions their character is trained in.

To level a profession you need raw materials which you use to create items that in turn raise you profession skill level.  I am currently in the raw material supply business.  These raw materials need to be gathered which takes time.  Well the people that are crazed with leveling FAST don’t want to bother to go out and collect these materials themselves.  Instead they will overpay dramatically to simply buy what they want off the virtual auction house.

I am using my warrior to mine minerals that have been selling for huge cash.  Now is THE time to make big money off the hard core nerds.  I plan to milk this cow as long as the milk is flowing.  Just as in real life, having a lot of gold in the WoW bank brings about a sense of well being.

This will probably be my last entry until after my extended 4 day weekend.  I hope anyone that takes the few minutes a day to digest my various strange thoughts has a great Christmas.  I’ll try my best to do the same.

Three or four years ago I bought a 15 or 20 gallon air compressor off Ebay.  I was pretty pumped because I got a decent deal on it.  I had visions of using it to drive air tools to assist in my automotive maintenance chores.  I had visions of zipping lug nuts off and on with ease.

When I received the compressor I noticed it acted sort of weird.  It seemed to be running all the time to try to maintain it’s maximum pressure of 125 PSI.  Even when it did stop running, it sounded like air was escaping from somewhere, causing the pressure to immediately drop.  This mystery leak limited the performance of the compressor.  Trying to run the air wrench on it was an epic fail.  I only got a few seconds of decent torque before the pressure dropped off.

I was disappointed that my new compressor wasn’t useful for what I hoped it would be but I resigned myself to just using it for the last few years for stuff like inflation and blowing out the inside of dusty, hairy Roombas.

Well for some reason over this past weekend, after 4 years of apathy, I decided to see if I could fix this problem that existed from the get go.  I took the cover off of the motor assembly and turned the unit on.  I could feel air escaping underneath but I could not identify where it was coming from, perhaps one of the brass fittings was loose.  After dicking around with it for awhile I left it disassembled with the source of leakage still unidentified.

Last night I decided to resume my trouble shooting.  I did some more disassembly, removing the single circuit board that controls everything.  Once I popped it off my eyes widened.  There were two circular opening that had O-rings in them.  Evidently they seal against a portion of the circuit board that monitors and regulates the pressure.  Well one of the O-rings was not seated and instead hanging halfway into the opening.  I’ll be damned.

I massaged the rubber a bit so it would sit better in it’s designated spot and then put the circuit board back on.  I turned the compressor back on and brought it up to full pressure. Then the magic happened.  It turned off and I heard, silence.  No more hissing, no more steadily decreasing numbers on the pressure gauge, no more constantly running compressor pump. It was a beautiful thing.

I was kicking myself mentally for not ripping the thing apart years ago to take a look.  Hell I was even considering spending the money to get ANOTHER compressor since this one was defective. Instead all it took was a little initiative.  In my home maintenance history I have been rewarded time and again for “cracking the case” myself yet for some reason I never took that step with this particular problem.

It was such a simple fix.  Much like the tightening the valve cover bolts.  You just have to not be afraid to try.

Today is Ali’s birthday.  Be sure to wish her a happy one whether it be in person or virtually.  She appreciates either equally.

Like I mentioned yesterday, I had a pretty comfortable lead over my fantasy football semi-final opponent going into last night.  I was ahead 83-51.  He only had the Bears defense left to play and I had the Bears tight end.

My fantasy football team was pretty much a disaster for most of the season.  I started 0-4 and then managed to win 5 of my last 9 games to limp into the playoffs at 5-8.  After my bad start I paid very little attention to my fantasy team.  Sure I would check my line up each week to make sure I didn’t have a player on a BYE week starting but other than that I paid very little attention to it other than seeing if I won or lost each week.  Despite my apathy, I somehow found myself on the cusp of the championship game last night. (and guaranteed money)

I decided I would go against my apathetic strategy that “worked” all year, and chose to watch the Viking/Bears game (on my laptop connected to the bedroom tv) to ensure I was victorious.  The game held interest for me even without the fantasy tie in since it was being held outdoors in frigid, snowy conditions, one of my favorite things to watch.

I was encouraged when I saw that Brett Farve was actually starting.  Having Farve out there meant the Vikes had a better chance to score points which would equate to less points for my opponent.  I was bummed though to see Adrian Peterson wasn’t playing.

The game started out well with Farve marching the Vikings right down the field for a touchdown, perfect.  I was feeling pretty secure in my victory. Then the wheels came off.

Farve got slammed down to the frozen turf in the 2nd quarter and was out of the game, in comes Joe Stinking Webb.  I was now very worried.  I had glanced at the score of my game and I saw that now I was only 5 or 6 points ahead.  I needed the Vikings to get some yards and some points, badly.

Well things went from bad to worse when Hester scored a TD on a punt return which added to the Bears defensive total.  Webb did manage to scramble for a TD but I figured I was toast.  He was taking sacks, throwing int’s and fumbling like mad.  I turned off the game at 11:20 with the assumption that my huge lead was gone and I was going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  As I dozed off I tried to console myself, remembering that the fact I was even in the semi-finals after my horrible start was a minor miracle.

So I wake up to the alarm this morning and instead of laying there for 10-15 minutes slowly waking up I instead shot out of bed and went right to the computer.  I had to see the crushing final score to cement my defeat.  I hit the refresh button and held my breath.

Holy shit, I actually held on for the win.  The Bears Defense actually scored the 31 points needed to tie our game, the only thing that saved me was the 28 receiving yards Greg Olson managed to squeak out, giving me two more crucial points.  Wow.

So my fairytale march through the fantasy football playoffs now continues.  I have a chance to win the whole damn thing which seemed beyond impossible 6 weeks ago.  Oh did I mention the team I am playing has Vick as their QB?  Yep I am going to be pulling for McCoy to be scoring a lot of td’s on the ground this week.  It would suck to go down in flames courtesy of an Eagles QB.

Last night I was playing around some more with my new web cam and posted some quick silly videos here, here and here. I obviously enjoy some of the built in effects the camera supports.

Here is a 2010 version of the story of Jesus.  Social networking would have made the immaculate conception thing so much easier to mange.

Saturday we had our 2nd race in as many weeks to time.  This one was in Marco Island.  It is a small race, about 250 people signed up for it.   We managed to have some trouble even with the small size.  One of the people that was handing out numbers was evidently transposing some numbers.

The task is not too tough.  Someone walks up, tells you their name, you find their name on a list and then give them the number next to their name.  Well this process was messed up multiple times which resulted in a lot of fires for me to put out both before and after the race.

Speaking of fire, it would have been rather tough to start an actual fire at the race site.  The weather turned miserable about halfway into the race when a cold, steady rain started coming down.  Doing the results and cleaning up the race in those soggy conditions was not very pleasant.

I did manage to get in the local paper due to the race.  There was a reporter from the Naples News there shooting pictures and covering the event.  I didn’t even know he took the picture.  He of course managed to misspell both my first and last names in the caption.  🙂

When we got home I worked on post race clean up while Ali retired to the bedroom.  Not only was she tired from getting up with me to work the race, she ran the 5 mile hilly course as well.

During the afternoon we worked on knocking out stuff around the house.  Saturday night we had pegged as date night/Ali birthday dinner.  We planned to go see the latest Harry Potter movie.

Before we ate we stopped at the local Super Target to try to knock out the majority of our remaining Xmas shopping chores.  We decided to have dinner at the Chili’s that was an out parcel in the same shopping area.  Ali and I both had vegetarian black bean burgers.  They were HUGE.

We decided to watch the movie at one of our favorite spots, Coconut Point.  As I have mentioned many times, the theater there is NEVER full.  Saturday night was no different.  We walked into the theater 10 minutes before show time and were greeted by exactly ONE other person in the venue, awesome.

We went to the 6:45 movie, we actually entertained going to the 8:50 showing at Silverspot.  Considering the movie is close to two and a half hours long, I am glad we didn’t go there.  You see, I was f’ing exhausted.

I had no nap and was up since 4:45 am.  I had tried to be proactive in my battle against sleep deprivation by getting a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee on the way there. Oh by the way, did you know DD has a happy hour?  If you order a beverage during happy hour you get a free donut! Anyway, despite trying to inject myself with caffeine, I knew drowsiness would be a problem.

The movie didn’t help the situation that much.  It was rather slow at parts.  I actually remember feeling much the same during the last Harry Potter film where I dozed off more than once.  I wouldn’t say I dozed off this time but I did catch myself with my eyes closed a couple of times.

It seems the more Harry Potter I see the less interested I am.  I only read the first two books so I don’t have a strong understanding of the background of the story at this point.  Plus this movie was filled with lots of mostly boring dialogue between Harry, Hermoine and Ron, most of which I didn’t give a damn about.  There were few shots of adrenalin when they showed the scenes that would pop out at you if you saw the 3D version of the movie, which we didn’t.

When the Harry Potter films started they were FILLED with tons of diverse characters, locations and plot lines.  It was fascinating to see the magical world described in the books brought to life on the screen.  Now, most of that has been all stripped away and the story is ultra-focused on just Harry and to be honest it isn’t holding up, at least for me.  To make things worse, it is just weird watching the actors portray characters that are 10 years younger than their actual age.  I’d give the film a B. Oh, how about the creepy scene where CGI created naked Harry and Hermoine get it on?  Weird.

On Sunday we initially had talked about visiting the water park since it is open during the school Christmas break.  Temps in the 60’s and a long list of things to do scuttled those plans.  I had also talked about doing a bike to the park/run thing but my hamstrings felt like they were 6 inches too short from dead lifting on Friday.  It would have been a joke to try to push through that.

In addition to getting presents wrapped I had some other stuff to attend to.  One of those was getting my new tri bars mounted on my bike.  Tri bars are designed to help you get down in an aerodynamic position while allowing you to distribute some of your weight on to your elbows so it isn’t quite so uncomfortable.

Installing the bars took some trial and error but it wasn’t tough.  I had to remove the mount I had on the bike for my gps to install the bars.  I was bummed about losing my GPS mount but I later figured out that I can simply strap it around the handle bars in a manner that is secure enough to work.

I took the bike out on the road a little bit once the bars were on.  It felt a bit odd to be down that low but I definitely could see how it will help dramatically when battling wind drag.  I look forward to taking a real test ride.

I also needed to do some work on the Tacoma.  Over the past couple months I started noticing a burning oil smell after parking the truck.  A peak under the hood revealed that the probable cause was some oil leaking from the valve covers on to the exhaust manifold.

My boss has a Tacoma like mine as well, only it’s a year older.  She had a problem with leaking oil from the valve cover gaskets as well.  She took it to the garage where they charged her a fortune to replace the gaskets since it is pretty labor intensive.

I had recently corrected a similar oil leakage problem on the tractor by simply re-torquing the bolts that had worked their way loose due to vibration.  I wondered if a a similar simple fix would be all I would need for the truck.

I got out my 10mm socket and slapped it on one of the bolts.  It was loose, really loose, wow.  I repeated the process on every bolt and every single one of them was loose.  I torqued them so they were snug but made sure not to go too nuts as to crush the gaskets.  Only time will tell if my fix works but I think it will.  Nice way to save myself $500.

So it was now time for the Eagles game.  This was a pretty big game since the Giants and Eagles had identical 9-4 records.  Whoever won the game would sit alone on top of the division.  The Eagles have had good success againt the Giants recently, winning the last 5 games in a row.

It clearly looked like the Eagles luck had run out.  For 3/4 of the game the Giants pretty much dominated the Eagles.  The defense was awful, once again allowing Dimitri Patterson to get exposed as a huge liability in the secondary.  He got burned repeatedly and made Mario Manningham look like Lynn Swann.

The offense was inept as well, unable to get out of it’s own way.  By the time the score got to 31-10 in the fourth quarter I was at my computer reading email while the game was on in the background as noise.  I wrote the game off as an ugly, ugly loss.

Then IT happened.  IT was the greatest comeback of my 30+ years as an Eagles fan.  EVERYTHING went the Eagles way and everything blew up on the Giants side of the ball.  When the Birds caught the Giants napping and easily completed an onside kick I actually thought there was a chance.

After scoring rather easily to tie the game I was rather concerned that the Eagles left way too much time on the clock, nearly two minutes, for the Giants to easily march down the field and kick a game winning field goal.  I had no faith in the defense to hold back a hurry up offense.

Well after sacking Manning to force a punt my faith in the defense was restored.  However since there were only 14 seconds left I figured we were heading for overtime where more suspense would surely follow.

I figured, along with everyone else watching the game that the Giants rookie punter would simply kick the ball out of bounds so DeSean Jackson would not have a chance for a run back.  Well the punter did the exact opposite.  Not only did he kick the ball right to Jackson, he kicked a low line drive which didn’t allow the Giants coverage team to get downfield.

I winced when Jackson initially fumbled the ball.  However he scooped it up quickly and headed up field.  All of a sudden the sea of Giant defenders parted, Jackson squeezed through and was off to the races.  Once the stupid punter whiffed I knew he was going to score.

I held my breath twice though, once until they announcers indicated there were no flags on the play and a second time when Jackson demonstrated the cocky, taunting part of his personality that I can’t stand, when he made a 90 degree left turn right at the goal line to rub it the Giant’s face, a totally low class move.

I also saw the Giant defender behind him to his blindside.  I had a quick nightmare scenario flash through my head where the defender sneaks up behind DeSean and knocks the ball out in the middle of his show boating.  Luckily the defender didn’t expect the left turn either and Jackson finally crossed the goal line.

Since Ali was at the movie with her girlfriend, she missed all of this.  I celebrated silently with both fists raised above my head in disbelief, realizing I think I just saw the greatest come back in Eagles history.  The scene afterward was as chaotic as you would imagine.  You could actually hear the Eagles fans at Giant stadium going nuts.  The video of Coughlin bitching out his clueless punter was classic.  I am SURE the kid will get his pink slip shortly, what a DOH! move.

I read that what we saw, a punt being returned on the final play of the game for a win has NEVER happened before in the history of the NFL.  Wow, what a game.  I still am pinching myself.

You may recall that last week I had a not nearly as impressive but all the same miraculous fantasy football win, taking out the number one ranked team from the number 8 slot.  This week I fully expected my luck to run out in the semi-finals.  I may be wrong.  As things sit I have a tight end to play yet and my opponent has the Bears defense.

I have a 31 point lead.  A defense has to have an insane day to score 31 points.  I am crossing my fingers that I hold on for the win.  Getting to the NFFL Superbowl would be a minor miracle considering I started the year 0-4.

Both the NFL network and ESPN were running the big breaking news of the day at lunch. The Redskins have decided to bench Donovan McNabb and start Rex Grossman against the Cowboys this week, wow. Everyone knew things were less than rosey when McNabb got pulled during the Lions game but this leaves absolutely no doubt that his tenure in Washington is going to be a one year experiment.

You see, when they resigned him to that large sounding 78 million dollar contract extension they also wrote in a nice little trap door that allows the Redskins to blow Donovan out after this season and only be liable for 3 million and change.  Obviously this is their way of laying the ground work to exercise that option.

Statistically, McNabb is having a pretty horrible year, the worst of his career.  To be fair it surely isn’t entirely his fault.  I think what we are seeing is the result of him being injected into a system that did not cover up his gaping flaws as much as Andy Reid did.

In Philly, Donovan had decent completion percentages and a low amount of interceptions.  However a large reason for that were the huge amount of low risk, 5 yard and under passes he was asked to throw.  He managed to throw a bunch of those into the dirt too.

Well in Washington he has been assigned making tougher, longer throws that require a decent amount of accuracy, something Eagles fans always knew he was not good at but evidently the rest of the league didn’t realize it? Anyway, he has basically been very poor in fulfilling this role.

As I mentioned when he was pulled the first time, it is a little bitter sweet to see McNabb fall from grace like this.  After all he was a big part of a lot of successful seasons in Philadelphia, even with his bad cardio, worm burners and tendency to put his foot in his mouth at times.  It will be interesting to see where he winds up.

This is also testament to the uncanny knack the Eagles front office seems to have when it comes to knowing when to part ways with veterans.  I can’t tell you how many times they cut loose veteran players that I thought were still big parts of the team, only to see that based on the performance of those same players after they were cut/traded/not resigned, it was clearly time to move on.  I can’t really think of an example of one player they cut that I wished they would have kept in retrospect except MAYBE Brian Dawkins.