Archives May 2011

I decided to skip the group run on Saturday morning.  I had decided that instead I was going to attempt a monster brick on Sunday.  Not running at 6am allowed me to actually relax a bit on a Saturday morning, something I don’t seem to do much anymore.

Saturday in general was used to knock out chores.  I weed whacked the property and Ali followed with mowing with our freshly repaired mower deck.  She reported the tractor performed quite well.  I also knocked out pretty much all of the regular weekend chores on Saturday.

Sunday was brick day.  My plan was to ride my bike to the water park, a roughly 16 mile ride, then run the 7 mile monster square and wrap it up with 1600 meters in the pool.  It was a pretty ambitious plan.

I left our house a little after 8am for the ride.  I had favorable wind conditions for a good portion of the ride.  I averaged 20-21 mph on the long Immokalee Road segment of the trip.  I pushed hard for the entire ride and as a result put in probably my best 16 miles on two wheels, averaging 19.6 mph.  Yes, it was on my $300 Dawes road bike.

I pulled into the parking lot and met Ali who drove there.  Her plan was to to do some practice bike drills while I run.

So I changed into my running gear, sucked down a chocolate Goo and a bunch of water and took off.  By the time I started running it was a little after 9.  It felt  quite warm and getting warmer all the time.

I didn’t try to go out super fast since I knew I had a long hot run ahead AFTER doing a strenuous bike ride.  The battery on my GPS was almost dead so I used Ali’s newer Garmin.  I found her watch annoying.  Not only  does it beep at every 1/4 mile (which my older model does) it also vibrates.  I found this vibration to be like a little pinching reminder of how far I had to run yet.  The beeps I tend to ignore.

Physically I didn’t feel too bad for maybe the first 2.5 miles of the run.  I was keeping a decent low 9’s pace.  However after that things started to go downhill.  Even though my breathing was calm and regulated, my legs just didn’t feel good.  Then mentally I started to lose it.

Because of the dumb vibrating watch I knew at all times how far I had to go yet.  I started having those evil internal conversations that want you to just stop.  I argued back, reminding them that I never, ever stop if I have a set distance in mind, especially if it is a distance I have run previously.

I was approaching the end of the Oakes Blvd section of the run, one of the last bastions of shade on the route.  All of a sudden I stopped.  It was like the evil quitters in my head seized control of my body and made me stop without a vote.  I was pissed.  I never stop.

I gave myself a mulligan, figuring that during the club run we always stop halfway for water.  I’ll just count this as my water break, sans water.  I looked at my watch and saw I was almost exactly halfway, 3.55 miles.

After stretching for a few seconds I started running again.  I felt awful.  It felt uncomfortable to try to start moving.  I felt like stopping again after only a couple hundred yards at the Vanderbilt Road intersection.  I didn’t stop there but I did relent farther down the road.

Now I was really pissed.  I knew exactly why I didn’t want to stop in the first place, it makes each subsequent stop even easier to allow yourself.  Once I stopped a second time, all legitimacy was gone from the run.  In total I stopped 4 times during the run and I didn’t even bother to go the full 7 miles I originally intended, stopping after 6.19 miles.

Ali tried to encourage me back at the park but I told her I didn’t need any “rah rah” sessions.  I was both angry for stopping and exhausted at the same time.  In retrospect I think I just basically gassed.  It was very warm and humid, by the time I got back my eyes were burning from the salts I was sweating out.  My legs just ran out of go juice.  I still shouldn’t have stopped.

I hopped in the pool and trudged through my 4×400 meter swims.  The one encouraging part of that session was my first 400 was my slowest.  I emerged from the pool as a very tired individual.

After eating lunch we headed out in the parking lot to pack up.  I ran into one of my least favorite people in the world, the parking spot monger.  We had a lot of stuff to do before we were ready to leave including loading up both bikes.  This lazy ass just sat there with their turn signal on for at least 5 or 6 minutes while we loaded everything up.  She could have easily parked farther away, walked some of the cottage cheese off her ass and been inside the water park with as long as she waited.  I despise mongers.

We headed over to mom’s place to pick her up for her Memorial Day visit.  She agreed to stay over so she could watch the dogs while we timed a race Monday morning.

When Mom got to her house she didn’t notice the box I had on the dresser in her bedroom.  It was a Kindle.  I bought mom the Kindle a few days prior via a good deal on Woot.

I had already anticipated mom being very negative about the gift.  I had suggested it to her at Christmas and she dissed it.  Despite knowing what I would be facing I got her one anyway for a couple reasons.

Mom reads constantly, it is her main hobby in life if you don’t count cigarettes as a hobby.  She has literally read thousands of books in her lifetime.  The Kindle brings an infinite amount of reading material to your lap.

I have always thought the Kindle was kind of cool but what really tipped me over the edge was when I found just how many books you can get for it for free.  Just Google Free Kindle Books to see a sampling.  Zero cost books is a good thing for someone on a limited, fixed budget such as mom.

The other cool thing is the Kindle includes 3G wireless service for FREE.  Yes, no monthly data plan costs, that is extremely awesome.  Mom can be almost anywhere and be able to grab a new book if she wants to over the airwaves.

I had played around with the Kindle a bunch before giving it to mom so I could get the hang of how it works.  Doing so made me even more confident that Mom would like the device after her initial grexxing, it’s extremely simple to use.

I took the time to familiarize mom with the Kindle.  She realized it wasn’t complicated or scary to use.  She said she would give it a try, we downloaded 5 or 6 free books onto it from the Amazon web site.  I told my mom that my boss’s 85 year old mother has and loves her Kindle.  If she can handle it, mom can handle it.

After my dinner plans to go on the Naples Princess were foiled, we decided to go to the Snook Inn at Marco Island, a place we hadn’t been to for quite awhile.  We weren’t sure what to expect crowd wise but were pleasantly surprised by the ample parking spaces at 5:45.  Eating early seemed to pay off, we were able to sit right down.

We had a small high top table under one of the TV sets.  At first we were worried it was too small to accommodate the three of us  but it worked out ok.  We were also right in front of the live musical entertainment, some middle aged guy singing covers.

He was actually quite a good singer, at least to me.  I was annoyed that nobody else was clapping for him after each song besides Ali and I.

We loaded up at the salad bar as part of our meals.  The salad bar was as I remembered it, some parts of the experience were not.

One of the things missing was many of the myriad of funny signs and license plates that used to be hung around the bar, including my favorite , “Only Morons Stand Here” sign.

The menu changed as well, it seemed much larger than I recall.  Ironically the food portions have become smaller.  Mom ordered a grouper sandwich that I had gotten before.  I warned her how large it was in the past.  My warning turned out to be false as her sandwich was totally normal size.

I ordered grouper fingers.  I again was underwhelmed with what I got, three or four fingers and a tiny container of tartar sauce. The food tasted fine, it just seemed like they were skimping on you a bit.

We enjoyed looking out over the water while enjoying our open air meal.  It felt nice to get out to the Snook again, it had been too long.

By the time we got home it wasn’t very long until we hit bed, everyone was tired and we had to get up at 4:15 the next morning.

We took two vehicles to the race since my truck was loaded down with the four new shelters.  The registration area looked great with the new tents up, it helps make the event look more professional.

The race went very smoothly all the way around.  We were cleaned up and back on the road at 9:00 am.

When we got home I went right into my post race duties.  Ali took a little nap that lasted until I started the food prep for lunch.

I made burgers on the grill.  It was sort of a big deal.  The last two times I had burgers off our grill I suffered through some pretty brutal side effects that seemed like food poisoning.  As a result I haven’t made burgers on the grill since, at least 2-3 months.  Just to be safe I bought a pack of new burgers to make sure it wasn’t tainted meat.  I’m happy to report I survived the meal with no complications this time.

After lunch we packed mom up and piled her and the dogs in the van to take her home.  On the way back I grabbed my second Dunkin Donuts coffee of the day to help combat some severe drowsiness.  You see we were supposed to still go to the running club cookout.

Ali had to rush to get a pineapple upside down cake baked.  We wound up not even leaving the house until 4:15 for a party that was starting at 4.  I had Ali drive because I was so damn tired.  I really didn’t feel like going but I knew it was the right thing to do. We wound up parking about a block away form the the beautiful party location, a small beach park for the affluent residents of Port Royale.

A few minutes after we arrived it started to pour down rain which lasted for a good 15 minutes.  Everyone huddled under the tiki hut.  There were a lot of familiar faces at the picnic and a lot of food to chow down on which I washed down with four Miller Lites.

I latched on to  a few different conversations, I generally function pretty poorly in these type of situations.  The beers went through me pretty quickly and I had to take a leak.  Evidently the port o potty that was supposed to be there for the event was not for some reason.  This left people on their own to find creative ways to relieve themselves.  I wound up walking across the street and hiding behind a large banyan tree.  It felt sort of bizarre to be doing so in the middle of Port Royale where people flip out if your grass is a 1/4 inch too high.

Late in the picnic I was given a bag of left over onions as a “prize”.  I made the best of it by putting on a brief onion juggling exhibition which the crowd seemed to enjoy.  I never regret teaching myself to juggle, it comes in handy.

We left the picnic a little before 7. I actually felt more awake for the drive back.  I was glad Ali drug my sleepy ass along, I had a decent time.

Once we got home the two days totally caught up to me, I was out cold by 9pm, no lie.

Today is the last day of May so it means it is the last day I can do an official Bender attempt.  My goal is to get 10 reps on normal mode.  I will hang on that bar as long as it takes to get there.

Just got around to watching Biggest Loser finale on Tivo.  Grats on all the people that did well.

Hannah and Olivia looked great. Olivia’s husband was just as inspiring as Olivia with his weight loss since he did it 100% on his own.  So many times you see people come on the show lose an assload of weight and then you see their spouse that is still big as a house.  I just don’t get it. How is that dynamic ever supposed to work out long term?  “Honey you go lose 150 pounds and I will cheer you from the couch holding my bag of Doritos while chugging my 2 liters of soda!”

The twin brothers surprised the hell out of me.  When they left I was sure they would fall off the wagon.  Instead they both dropped a ton of weight, good for them.

The woman that won the at home prize was hardly recognizeable.  To do that at 58 or 59 years old is pretty amazing.

The two blondes had Dancing With the Stars type make up on but it sure made them look better.

But as always, there were some epic fails.

Q and his wife?  They still will be asking for seatbelt extensions on the way home.

Kalee and Moses GAINED weight since they left the show, epic fail. Way to represent Tonga.

Big Arthur and his dad, a little less celebration and a little more time on the treadmill.

Cara’s dress looked horrible.  She looked pregnant.

They are replacing Jillian with Anna Kornikova????   WTF?  I assumed having Brett and Cara this season meant one if not both of them would be back next season.  Nope, instead they are axing them totally and inserting a tennis player in there.  I think it is a big step down.

Yea for the first show or two it will be fun to look at Anna since she is young and fit but I think her age and lack of any training credentials will make the show jump the shark.  They would have been better off bringing back the blonde that substituted for Jillian for a couple seasons.

And finally, no mention of why Rulon wasn’t there.  Yea he quit the show on his own but I thought we would see him at the finale. Read later NBC invited him but he didn’t call them back, whatever.

For the most part, the majority of the cast did very well, let’s hope they actually get it.  It always disturbs me when they pan the audience for the prior seasons cast members.  The majority of them have bounced backwards to a noticeable degree.

Man Dexter season 4 is getting incredibly good.  I only have 2 episodes left and I can hardly wait.  I was up till 11:30 last night watching an episode and a half.

Yesterday I had what I thought was a good idea.  I was going to make reservations for Ali, Mom and I to have dinner aboard the Naples Princess.  The Princess is a small cruise ship that offers daily trips out to the gulf that last around two hours.  Besides the beautiful view of the sunset you also get a nice meal for the price of the ticket.

After verifying there were still spots available for Saturday I called Ali to confirm she was up for it, which she was.  I then called mom but got her answering machine.  After waiting about a half hour I called mom back, evidently she was in the shower when I called the first time.

I asked her if she was interested in the dinner cruise.  After offering up some concerns about weather, she agreed.  While she was on the phone I loaded the site to buy the tickets.  All of a sudden the status for the Saturday trip was SOLD OUT.  Mother f….  Evidently the last few spots were reserved during that half hour lag.  Shit. Sunday was sold out too.

We reformulated our plan.  Now we will be picking mom up on Sunday and we will go out to dinner at the Snook Inn in Marco.  Mom will stay over Sunday night and then be able to watch the dogs while we go time the Memorial Day Race.  I figured we can wrap up her visit with a lunchtime Memorial Day “picnic” on the pool deck.

Of course the weekend will have additional chore items included as well.

Last night we went out riding around our area so Ali could do some more practice on her tri bike.  Still she is paranoid about doing much at all on the bike, she keeps flashing back to the crash.  She even uttered something about the possibility of selling the tri bike which vaulted over the line of sanity for me considering all the BS that led up to it’s purchase in the first place.

Ali said something about digging out her old mountain bike to ride on a bit.  I rode back to the house and dug it out of the shed.  The bike has not been ridden since the Muddy Buddy two or three years ago.  After throwing some air in the tires it was ready to go.

The mountain bike was what I taught Ali to ride bike on in her early 20’s.  Compared to her tri bike it probably felt like a full size SUV.  We went back down the side street and Ali was able to do some simple things that she was afraid to do on her tri bike like a 180 turn and pulling one hand off the handlebars.   Sure the old bike has a more neutral riding position with bigger, less inflated tires but I think the biggest difference was in Ali’s head.  It wasn’t the tri bike.

The hope is if Ali can once again gain some confidence on the mountain bike it will carry over to the tri bike.  I emphasized to her that the only way to overcome the fear of the new bike is to ride the new bike, a lot. Right now she has a Steve Sax complex going on.

I am planning on foregoing the club run tomorrow.  I would like to not have to get up at 4:45 am more than necessary.  Instead I am planning a monster brick for Sunday morning.  I am thinking about riding my bike to the water park (16-17 miles), running the 7 mile monster square and then swimming 1200-1600 meters.

Monday I get to enjoy a hellishly early wake up call to time the race.  One of those a weekend is enough.

Last night after work I really did not feel like doing a Bar-barian forum challenge attempt but I forced myself to do one anyway. I elected to take my second crack at hard mode.  On my first attempt I managed to get 6 reps, this time I got 8 although again I struggled mightily with the stiff leg raise portion of the movement.

I decided to also finally shoot the squat video Jeremy has been bugging me for.  Even though I have told him that I thought my squat form was pretty respectable he wanted to see it on video to confirm.  I have never seen myself squat on video before either.  I did 10 reps with only 135 pounds on the bar.  The video seems to confirm that my squat form is indeed decent.

Finally I shot another quick video of my doing a couple more negative muscle ups.  When I shot my parallel bars demo reel I was able to pull off my best negative muscle up ever.  I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

I figured out that part of my problem when performing the movement in the past was elbow position.  As I was passing the point of no return my elbows were still out at my sides.  With my elbows flared out like that I had no way to support my body weight.  I realized that as I hit that point my elbows needed to be rotating downward so I could engage my back to control the descent.  I pulled off the two clean negatives.  Just doing two of them was enough for me to feel it in my back for the rest of the evening.

I had another small project scheduled for last night, reworking our laundry center.  Our laundry center is actually a reworked dresser.  Years ago I pulled the guts out of it and installed 4 wire shelves inside that allow us to house a total of 6 laundry baskets inside.  Ali likes to seperate out the laundry into many sub-categories.

Although it has been in use for many years there was always an annoying flaw in my design.  The small plastic brackets that I used to support the wire shelves didn’t fit real well.  As a result some some of the shelves would pop off the brackets from time to time.  One of the brackets actually totally pulled out of the wood a couple weeks ago.

I bought some small metal L brackets at Home Depot last night and replaced the crappy plastic connectors.  Ali had actually requested this awhile back and I dismissed it as something I didn’t really feel like doing.  Well for whatever reason the motivation hit me.  When she got home from her after work biking and running I was almost done.  I had not told her ahead of time I was going to upgrade the brackets so she was pleasantly surprised.

I was again in bed early, drilling through Dexter episodes.  I have about 3 or 4 more episodes to go in season 4.  After that I will get a little break until I manage to score season 5 from Randall.  I could use the break.

After work last night my project was to put the Cub Cadet mower deck back together.  The first step of the project was to insert two snap rings inside my new $50 pulley.  This turned out to be the most challenging part of the entire job.

Luckily I had snap ring pliers, but even so it was quite tough to compress these large rings.  I had a close call when the pliers popped out of the ring while it was compressed inside the pulley.  The ring rocketed out of the pulley, just missing my face.  It ricocheted around the garage like a stray bullet.  After that I grabbed my safety glasses. Eventually after a lot of fuss I finally got the two rings in place.

After that the rest of the pulley rebuild was straight forward.  I installed the two new ball bearings and reattached the pulley to the deck.  I also decided to replace the blades while I had the deck off.  The blades that were on there lasted all of last years mowing season, it was time to swap them out.

I then slid the deck back under the mower and hooked everything back up.  I gave the mower an extended test run, mowing the front mound and then mowing some high grass in the back yard.  The cut was clean and true.  The rattle was gone.

Hopefully this will be the last repair for 2011.  If anything else major comes up I think it will finally be time to retire the tractor.  I was checking out the 20+ horsepower models at Home Depot over the weekend. When purchase time comes I think I actually will be grabbing a Craftsman tractor.  They seem to offer some of the best bang for the buck.

Tonight I may try another Bender attempt although I have a nice little slice on the gripping side of one of my fingers that could complicate matters.

I logged on to xtranormal.com to create the overdue next episode in Jmo’s World.  I was surprised to see they refreshed the site.  Not only does the site look different but they added a TON of additional options with the cartoons.  I have about triple the amount of characters to choose from and there are a bunch of additional actions they can perform.  There are also additional backgrounds.

The one downside is if you want to use much of the new content they charge you extra xtranormal points which will drain my account faster.  They also changed the model on my character, turning him into a bloody mess for some reason.

This latest episode has a bit of an abrupt ending because I ran out of time.  Still worth 2 minutes of your life IMO.  Soon I will have enough episodes to create a full length feature film.

After work yesterday I met up with Ali  to do some after work running.  The combo of my hard run Saturday followed up with the biking and swimming on Sunday had left my legs feeling pretty spent.  Although the 3 mile run at a reasonable pace didn’t have me breathing real hard, my legs protested pretty much every stride.  It just didn’t feel very comfortable at all.

Last night I installed the new round toilet seat that I exchanged for the elongated model.  It is one of the fancy, no slam models.  When you let the lid go it drops at a slow and constant rate.  Even though I have never had an issue with inadvertently dropping the seat on my fingers I always yearned for one of these models.  That dream has been realized.

I took the dogs out towards the end of sunset.  I sat out there on the dog deck for a good 15-20 minutes with them.  As I sat in the chair enjoying the views and sounds of our back yard (chihuahuas didn’t see me), Sadie was laying on the deck with me and Nicki was sprawled out on the grass next to the deck.  It was one of those rare times when I just enjoyed a moment. Dogs rule.

I was really tired and had to turn Dexter off mid-episode around 9:30.  I was out like a light until the Dash fired off at 5:30 this morning.

I left work early on Friday to meet up with guy installing our new water equipment.  I was surprised when he told me it normally doesn’t take him more than hour to do so.  Hey told me he was 15 minutes away.  By the time I got home 30 minutes later he already had all the old stuff on it’s side in the yard and the new stuff on the concrete pad.

The installers name was Danny and he has been doing water related work pretty much his entire adult life.  I hung out there with him as he worked.

The new system does not have a large holding tank like our old system did.  Instead it just has a sulfur removal unit and a softener unit, both of which look very similar.  It also does not require it’s own pump like the old stuff did, instead it relies on the pressure from the well pump.

Remember I said I might try to resell the old equipment?  Well that plan was out the window when I saw the old softener in pieces in the yard.  Danny just assumed the old stuff was going to be trashed.  I told him it was no big deal and I pulled out a couple key components from the system that I was going to offer to my Michigan neighbor since he has the same old water equipment as we did.

True to his word, Danny was done in about an hour.  He gave me very brief instructions on the equipment which was basically how to set the clocks.  If I wouldn’t have asked him for a manual I don’t think I would have gotten one.

So far our initial experience with the new equipment has been positive.  Our water looks as good as I can ever remember it looking before.  I partially filled the tub and was pleased to have it not look like I just took a leak into it.

By the time he left it was still only between 3 and 4 so I jumped right into knocking out some stuff with Ali.  I helped her in the garden and then moved onto weeding the property.  I raked the old softener resin into the grass.  Danny assured me the rain would dissolve it quickly.  He also told me that the old rusty tank that he drug out to the road would be gone shortly, as someone will grab it to recycle as scrap for a few bucks.  He was right, the tank was gone within the hour.

My Saturday followed a very similar template to a week ago.  I again got up at 4:45 am to meet up for the 6:00 am group run.  This time I again wound up running with someone that is significantly faster than I am and I again set a new personal best, averaging an 8:45 pace over the 7 mile run.

I then once again headed into work to redo the second rack of servers.  Luckily going through the same process the week before allowed us to work a bit more efficiently this time around, we had everything wrapped up about 1:30.

When I got home I jumped into several more household chores.  Ali was not feeling great and was sick of the 90 degree heat, rather hot for this time of year.  One of the things I wanted to do was set up the new running club shelters.  This basically meant unboxing each one, expanding the frame and then attaching the cover to the frame.

Initially I planned to do it out on the driveway.  I asked Ali if she could help me set them up.  The idea of sweating out in the sun some more was not appealing to her.  She asked if we could try to set the tents up indoors in the AC.  Initially I told Ali they would not fit in the great room without rearranging a bunch of furniture.  She still asked if we could at least try it.  Even though I knew it wouldn’t work, I agreed to try.

When I brought the frame inside Ali had moved the recliner and ottoman out of the way, clearing a nice big square on the floor.  Imagine my surprise when we were able to actually fully extend the frame.  I had to admit I was wrong much to Ali’s enjoyment.  We set up the other 3 tents in the same manner in the cool AC.

Unfortunately there was no AC involved when I then had the mundane task of cutting up the mountains of cardboard so it fit in the recycle bin.  By the time I was done hacking and slashing with my utility knife I was a sweaty mess.  Sadie was happy this resulted in my jumping in the pool and granting her a splashy splash session.

Saturday during the day I found myself getting yapped at as usual by the annoying chihuahuas next door.  I decided to do some of my own “training”.  I walked over to my sonic bark arresting birdhouse and “woofed” at it each time the dumb dogs screeched at me, firing off the device.  Within a couple minutes the dogs stopped their barking and actually retreated to their little area within the garage.  It frustrated me because it shows that sonic correction would work if the the bark from the dogs wasn’t so high pitched.

This frustration led to me doing some more searching on the internet, I was curious if someone made a sonic bark arrestor with a REMOTE CONTROL.  Having a remote control would allow me to administer correction with a simple press of the thumb, regardless of the pitch level of the bark.  Imagine my excitement when I found such a thing exists.

Not only does this thing have a remote control, it has a longer range and uses a variety of ultrasonic sounds guaranteed to annoy a dog.  It even has an option to run off AC to ensure that it’s sound is always delivered at full strength.

Ali was initially not thrilled when I showed it to her since we already dropped close to $80 on the sonic birdhouse.  This new find costs $100.  Although I agreed with her that is indeed ridiculous to spend another $100 on a problem that is entirely the neighbor’s creation, it was a small price to pay for my sanity.

The neighbor has proven to me that her words are basically meaningless.  Through out this dog drama she has told me a number of remediation items she was going to do and she hasn’t completed a single one.  So my choice is either continued to be annoyed until I go Dexter on her ass or invest in the device that will keep a blast of dog silencing sonic goodness only a thumb press away.

I ended any further financial discussion on the purchase by transferring “MY” money to pay for it.  I am anxiously awaiting it’s arrival.

On Sunday we went to the water park early.  While I went out on a bike ride Ali ran and then met up with Christy for some bike drills.  Ali again fell during the balance drills.  To minimize future injury she had me dig out her old volleyball knee pads later in the day.

I took my Dawes out on the ride.  Despite the Dawes being much heavier and having significantly lower end equipment than my free Trek it has one thing the Trek doesn’t, a frame that fits me more or less.

Earlier in the week I had attached my aero bars to the Dawes to see how they felt.  When I would use the bars on my Trek it was very uncomfortable as it felt like I had to bend down much lower than I should need to. On the ride Sunday I was into a headwind the entire way back.  I was on my aero bars the entire time and felt comfortable there, something I would never be able to do for that amount of distance on the Trek.  Despite the wind I put in a solid ride, averaging 18 mph.

I then headed into the pool to do some swim training.  I felt pretty weak in the swim despite putting in a total of 1600 meters.  My 400 times were slow, closer to the 9 minute mark instead of the 8:15’s I can do with consistent work.

After swimming we ate lunch and then hung under one of the big umbrellas for awhile.  I didn’t read or play with my phone, I was pooped and just laid there with my eyes closed.  I may have dozed off a little bit here and there but was more like deep resting, there is just too much noise to really sleep.  I found myself constantly tuning in to some annoying Brit behind us that was complaining about various things, like he thought it was ridiculous that the bathrooms had a smell when he had to pay 10 whole dollars to get into the park.  Oh yea, how dare they not outlaw people from taking shits at the water park…. Dumb ass.

When we got back Ali suggested that we take the girls out for one of their favorite things, a ride in the party van.  I told her there was some stuff I could get at Home Depot so that was a good excuse.  I grabbed a few items there, one of which was a toilet seat.

Although I have spent many hours on the toilets over our decade in the house, I evidently did not have a firm grasp of what type of seats they are.  I was SURE that our bowl was elongated as opposed to the other option, circular.  Well when I attempted to attach the new seat Ali immediately noticed it was extending several inches over the end of the bowl.  I cursed myself as I realized my mistake.  The bowl really looks more oval than anything to me. I suppose I have a return trip to the store in my future.

Ali made two really good dinners both Saturday and Sunday night.  Saturday she found a recipe to use our brussel sprouts, on Sunday she used our onions and tomatoes as part of a sauce for pasta.  She has really been on a hot streak with meal preparation lately.

I dotted my Sunday with a few chores here and there but overall it wasn’t anything extreme.

One of the things I did was play some more Mortal Kombat in story mode.  Although I find story mode fun, there is one extremely annoying aspect to it.  Story mode mixes in lengthy cinematics with the actual fighting action.  There is no on demand save option for story mode.  Basically whenever you win a fight, it saves at that point.  You have no say in it.  Well after each victory is typically a cinematic, some of these are very, very long.

I was stuck in a fight that I had a difficult time winning, I got frustrated so I turned it off and came back to it later.  Well this fight came after a long cinematic, at least 5 minutes long.  Well when I came back to the game I had to sit through this entire cinematic again before I got to fight again, there was absolutely no way to skip it, even though I seen it before.  This is just plain dumb.  Fix it please.

I guess The Rapture was a bust huh?  Sucks to be one of those people that wholesaled their entire lives betting on this fictional event.  Sucks to be you.

Yesterday we had the screen installer guy I met last weekend come out to replace a screen panel.  It was a panel that was beyond the scope of what I was willing to tackle.  The panel was on the top of the cage and covered a 90 degree corner of the roof.  Ali said the guy actually showed up early and was done in less than an hour.  Wow, two examples of good customer service in one week, hard to believe.

Last night I made my second normal attempt at The Bender, improving on my previous attempt by two reps for a total of 9.  I also shot a video demonstrating some of the exercises I have been doing on my parallel bars.  I was most pleased with the negative muscle up I pulled off.  It was the most control I have ever been able to use on the exercise.

Today our water equipment gets replaced.  I am excited to hopefully have our less than stellar water quality issue finally addressed.  I will be heading home to meet the installers sometime during the day.  I am debating if I want to keep my old equipment (minus the rusted out tank) and try to resell it for a couple hundred bucks or just tell them to take all of the old stuff and have it be out of my hair.    I am leaning towards doing the former, I hate leaving money on the table.

I will be in the office tomorrow working on the second server rack.  I will probably once again put in a 7 mile run with the group prior to going in.  Nothing else concrete is planned but I will have no problem filling up the time, I never do.

Hey I heard that according to some bible thumpers, tomorrow is the rapture, aka. the end of the world.  Well at least I will have something to blog about on Monday.

So I had my testosterone blood test results emailed to me last night.  It took me a few seconds until I could find the pertinent info.  I had mixed feelings when I saw my number of 684 with a free count of 10.5.  It means that my testosterone numbers are in the good range which I was glad to see.  At the same time it means that my poor state of mind is not tied into my levels which just leads to more questions.

So my plan for last night was to repair the Cub Cadet mower deck and get the grass mowed since I was going to be working on Saturday.  The parts I needed had showed up a couple days ago.  The repair should have been pretty straight forward.  All I needed to do was replace two ball bearings on the center pulley and put everything back together.

The first ball bearing went into the pulley easily, the second one did not, the hole appeared too small.  When I looked closely at the hole I realized what happened.  This was the end of the pulley that had the bearing that disintegrated.  The guts of the bearing had fallen out into my hand when I first took it apart, however the outer casing of the bearing was still in place.

A quick tug on the casing did nothing so I brought out the hammer and screwdriver.  I hoped I could drive the casing out from behind.  Well I banged on that thing forever and it didn’t budge a millimeter.  Evidently as the bearing failed, the heat that was generated effectively welded the casing to the pulley.

I was extremely frustrated.  It seems pretty much anytime I take on a tractor repair it doesn’t go as planned.  Now I was shit out of luck until I ordered a new center pulley ($50).  Grrrr.

My neighbor across the street was out buzzing around his yard on his monster 60″ zero turn Gravely.  I asked him if I could borrow the mower to get my grass done.  I had used it once before.  He said , sure, no problem.

After a quick refresher on the operation of the mower I was off and cutting, quickly.  This thing is a beast.  The 26 HP motor doesn’t cut grass, it destroys it.  I would go through thick and tall St Augustine grass like nothing, the motor never slowed down one second.  The cut grass was catapulted out the exit chute a good 10-15 feet.

There are some dangers with using something this big and powerful in a yard that has a number of areas with slopes and various obstacles to be carefully navigated around.

The Gravely has two MASSIVE rear tires that look like they would be suitable for a top fuel dragster.  They way it turns is by independently changing the speeds on these two monster tires.  Well when you try to turn, especially on a hill it is extremely easy to rip up the ground under you.  I left a number of small divots in the yard as a result. The extra wide 60″ mowing deck also results in scalping problems as you go over small undulations in the lawn.

Steering on the Gravely is touchy as well.  Just like the first time I used it, I plowed into another landscape feature when I unintentionally surged forward instead of going right.  Even with these warts it didn’t take away from the enjoyment of being in control of massive amounts of grass annihilating power.  Mowing with this thing feels like trimming your nose hair with a  hedge trimmer.

So after finishing up I pulled the Gravely in front of the garage and turned it off.  I wanted to get out my leaf blower to blast all of the  grass clippings off it as well as gas it up, it was the least I could do.  When I was finished I hopped back on and turned the key and just got a “click”.   Hmm I figured I had one of the interlock’s not set right.  I verified the parking brake was on, deck was turned off and tried again, click…..  WTF, I thought to myself, did the battery just die?  I screwed with it for a good 10 minutes with no luck until I called my neighbor.

He was pretty sure it was just some interlock that wasn’t set right as I thought.  However after he double and triple checked everything and had the same results I did we were both baffled.  I brought my truck over and connected jumper cables to the tractor battery to see if the battery just happened to take a shit.  The Gravely still just clicked.

My neighbor and I were all over the thing, looking for some simple reason that the mower which had just finished 90 minutes of flawless mowing was now dead as a door nail.  We looked at it past sunset, using a flashlight to continue the examination.  It revealed nothing.

Initially we just pushed the tractor to the side of my driveway and left it there.  The neighbor said he would call the dealer and describe the problem the next day.  He said he wasn’t sure where his manual for the mower was.

I apologized to him for returning a dead mower although I hadn’t knowingly done anything to cause the issue.  He knew it was just one of those things, shit happens.  I still felt bad regardless.  Later in the night I found the manual for the mower online which included instructions on how to release the transmissions so it can be easily be pushed.  I called my neighbor back and we pushed the mower inside his gated property.  At least we didn’t have to worry about a criminal landscaper trying to make off with it.

I am interested in what the final remedy is of course.

So I talked to a couple different water treatment companies and have gotten a wide range of numbers.  The first company sold whole house RO units for $4900 but they highly recommended getting on the monthly maintenance plan with that system which dings you for another $79 a month.  For that everything in the system is covered as long as you are paying that monthly ransom. I had another company come out today and they quoted me $6500 for the same system with similar monthly maintenance, sheesh.  However, the first company I talked to also offered me a second, much less expensive option.

They sell a non-RO sulfur removal system that is about half the cost of a RO unit.  They told me they have installed a TON of them out in our area and they work great.  They don’t have any steel tanks to rust out and they only utilize the well pump to push water through the system instead of the auxiliary, power sucking, air injection pump we currently have on our system.

I told the guy that the TOP concern we had was no longer having pale yellow water from tannins.  He assured me this system would absolutely address that problem.

The guys that came out to the house today and gave me the $6500 figure seemed like they stepped right off the set of Deliverance.  I could see why they chose a career in water equipment installation as opposed to anything involving communication skills.  I think I had to ask them four different times what it would cost before I actually got a number.

In contrast the rep from the other company was great.  He was friendly, knowledgeable and was recommended to me by my neighbor across the street who had his water system installed by them.

When I went over some of the numbers there was a huge contrast.  With either RO system when you add in monthly maintenance costs, in three years I will have spent either $8000 or as much as $9500 if I went with the higher estimate.  The sulfur removal system costs $2500 and has a three year warranty. (our current stuff only had 1 year)

So at the end of three years I could literally throw out my sulfur removal system, buy a new one and still be a minimum of three grand ahead.  The reality is the system will more than likely last at least double that amount of time.

After talking to Ali she agreed that financially it isn’t even in the same ballpark.  Her big thing is she wants to be able to take a bath and not feel like she is in a tub of diluted urine.

I called back the first place today and said we are going with the sulfur removal system.  It is scheduled to get installed Friday.  I am trusting that my gut feeling is right, the guy seemed totally on the level and not a bullshitter.  The fact that my neighbor recommended this place makes me feel even more secure.

A month or so ago I took responsibility for obtaining some new branded shelters for the running club.  We use these pop up tents at our events to cover the registration, chip and timing tables.  The tents we had were close to a decade old and looked like they were pulled out of a dumpster at this point.

I contacted EZ-Up and made arrangements to have four new custom shelters made.  Part of the requirements for the order was I had to provide them with a vectorized version of our logo to use.   I had to really jump through some hoops until I came up with a logo that met their requirements.  Evidently a vectorized graphic is able to be re-sized as large as you want without losing any clarity or resolution.

After sending him the logo we have just been patiently waiting for the shelters to arrive which they finally did yesterday.  I had 4 huge boxes and one smaller box stacked in front of our garage door.

After changing my clothes I wanted to open one up and set it up to take a picture.  As I opened up the first box I said “You have to be kidding me…”    The text that is embedded into the logo was all mutated and morphed.

From my work in getting the right logo I recognized this as what happens when you try to apply a “trace” function in Adobe Illustrator to a jpeg file.  Evidently whomever did the production work used the wrong file when creating the graphic for the tent.

I was frustrated and flabbergasted.  I didn’t understand how this could get through quality control.  It should be obvious to anyone that this isn’t how the logo was supposed to look.  Ali and I still went ahead and set one shelter up and took a picture of it to show the board of directors.  From a distance the f up was much less of an eyesore but it bothered me all the same.

I left a message for my sales rep via phone and email letting him know of the problem.  I also sent out an email to the board of directors.  As I saw it there were two possible resolutions.

One was we could just keep the shelters, deal with the mutant letters since they aren’t all that noticeable when the tent is up and ask for a sizable credit to the order for their mistake. Second, we send the covers back and wait for them to send us a new set with the correct logo in place.  This option would mean we would have to wait several more weeks for a finished product.

The response I got back from the board was pretty much 50/50, half saying get a discount and keep them, half saying we want it done right.  Well the answer I got back from my sales rep was better than either option in my book.

He said not only would he send us four tops with the correct logo, he said we should just keep the messed up ones.  He said we can use them temporarily until the good ones show up and after that keep them as spares for the future.  Well that sounded just about perfect to me.  I thanked him for handling it so well.  I went into it thinking I might have some sort of fight on my hands.

It is so rare nowadays to have a customer service issue handled beyond your level of expectation.