Archives 2012

So yesterday in email I saw a Groupon offer come in.  It said that I could get a half price movie ticket or so I thought.  I had jumped on a half price movie ticket deal via Groupon before so I was happy to pick up two more tickets at half price.

So I get the confirmation in email.

“Your Groupon for 2 Tickets to “One for the Money” (up to a $30 value) is ready to print!”

WTF?  I quickly realized these tickets were to go see One for the Money, a movie I have less than zero interest in seeing. Shit, my reading comprehension bites me in the ass once again.

I have this tendency to speed read, picking out what I determine as key words on a page and often skipping others, confident I got the gist of it.

Well time and again this has bitten me in the ass in various situations.  I suppose I’m lucky it only cost me $12 this time around.  The movie is something Ali might enjoy, she said she might see if Christy wants to go with her.

So I made my second attempt at hard mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge which is 5 sets of max rep body weight dips with a 45 second break between sets.

The first time I made an attempt I had to disqualify myself because I wasn’t happy with my form, I was cutting my extension short at the top. Well this time I really concentrated on my form and it was much better. Unfortunately I somehow lost my ability to tell time, messing up the break duration three out of four times.

I was annoyed when I watched the video back and saw my mistake, meaning I once again had to disqualify myself.  I am not sure why I lost the ability to do math.  In my head I was adding 45 seconds to the time I hopped off the bars and subtracting 5 from that as the time I needed to start getting back on to give me a pad, or so I thought.  Oh well it was still a good clean set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC4ngROmgok

Yesterday the chrome items I ordered for the SSR showed up.  One item is a chrome cover for the water pump pulley and the other is a chrome cover for the license plate area.  Well Ali is not a fan of the license plate cover, she thinks it will look tacky.

I assured her it will look cool when I have it installed but now she has planted a seed in my head.  I don’t want my truck to look like it should have a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror.

Last night I posted a picture of my juiced dinner prior to my stirring it with a spoon.  There is absolutely no denying it looks downright gross.

The concoction included spinach, apple, celery, kale, broccoli, beets, carrots and a tomato from our garden. It was the first time I used the carrots we bought at the farmers market which had been residing in the garage fridge.

The carrots were rubbery for some reason, about the consistency of a hot dog.  It made no sense, there is no way they should be bad.  They didn’t look spoiled otherwise so I just cleaned them up and used them anyway.  Maybe that is what happens to carrots if you don’t have them in the crisper portion of a fridge?

I have all the stuff I need to clean the IAC valve on the Tacoma.  Now I just have to find the time and courage to do it.  The job will performed while the Tacoma is in it’s normal parking location just in case I run into complications that could leave the truck immobile as a result.

Yesterday after work I decided to try a move that I have worked off and on for a few months, a one arm static hold with a chin up grip.  You basically pull yourself up with a chin up grip over the bar and release one hand and try to keep yourself up there.  In my prior attempts at this the move the best I could muster was a brief split second pause before I would drop down.  I just could not hold it.

Well I threw the Iron Gym up last night and grabbed on.  I released my left hand and was amazed I was still up on the bar 3 or 4 seconds later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS46lycNzjE

I tried the move with my left arm and was not able to duplicate it yet.  Still, the progress is encouraging.

Jeremy and I talk a lot of politics in our endless IM conversations, probably more than we should since we have some core differences that we don’t seem able to bridge.  Jeremy has become a staunch Ron Paul supporter.  I have liked Ron as well, even longer than Jeremy, dating back to the 2008 presidential campaign.  Hell I had planned to even throw Ron a vote in Florida’s primary, which would be my first for a republican presidential candidate in 20 years.

Ron Paul has some stances on certain issues which I really like.  I agree that we have wasted epic amounts of money in Iraq and Afghanistan which has served little more purpose than to stuff the pockets of war profiteers while costing us the unnecessary death of thousands of brave American soldiers.  Ron would get us out of there, pronto.

I am a little less enthusiastic about Ron’s plans to pretty much pull out of everywhere else in the world and exclusively worry about what is going on inside our borders.  That guy named Hitler (and many others up to and including present day) kind of demonstrated why you can’t just turn the other cheek.

I like how Ron has called out the Fed as being basically a bunch of crooks all in on the secret handshake deals with the corrupt financial system in place in our country.

I like that Ron is into cutting costs in a serious manner.  I do not like his “cut off your nose to spite your face” approach.  His proposals to abolish several federal agencies whose tasks are to regulate various aspects of our existence, some of which are pretty damn important seems downright reckless. Sure there are tons of unnecessary regulatory bullshit out there that does not not serve the greater good.  However there are also crucial things that have to be regulated.  Ron’s all or nothing approach to this does not seem well thought out.

His deregulation stance is probably what I find the most disturbing.  If you watched Inside Job like I did you got a front and center view of exactly what happens when big business is allowed to write their own rules.  Ron’s apparent trust for everything to just work itself out just is not logical and certainly is not based on history.

Then there are the other little quotes I read from Ron like he doesn’t believe in recycling, thinks the over population of the planet has no effect on global warming, that public education is socialism,  anti Roe vs Wade stance,  and his answer to health care is wishing more hospitals were run by churches. (not his real answer which is here but still not a good one)

Anyway these warts and a few others have made me decide to not even bother throwing a vote to Ron in the Florida primary.  In the big picture, Ron has no shot because he doesn’t have the support of big money corporations/lobbyists (which is a positive to me).  Unfortunately he is basically the 2012 version of Ralph Nader.

Another spin off of the political discussions I have with Jeremy is the talk about the tremendous federal deficit.  I find these discussions both with him and the debate in the media extremely frustrating because some very simple facts are being tossed in the trash, despite being one of the core reasons we are in this ever growing hole.

Before I present my case let me be clear that of course I believe the government needs to practice much more fiscally sound policies, there is abuse everywhere.  However to me it is hypocritical that an American public that for the most part does a piss poor job of minding their own fiscal house (record credit card debt, immediate gratification mentality, rampant consumerism) to be ultra focused on the deficit. It’s like saying “YEA WE SHOULD EAT HEALTHY” as you sit in Burger King inhaling a Double Whopper with cheese.

I also deplore lazy people that give public assistance programs a bad rap by unfairly tapping their resources, using them as their primary support mechanism.  I want people to take responsibility for their own well being.  At the same time I temper this with the knowledge that there are many more people that have a legitimate need for help.

Iit would be quite easy for me to simply adopt the attitude that “Hey, I can pay my bills, I have health insurance, I have a job.  What the f do I care if you don’t?  You must be lazy”  That is an ignorant, me first attitude in my opinion that I find nearly as disturbing as the free loading mindset.

Ok so anyway back to my point.  People have become so mindless that when they hear “raise taxes” they use absolutely no perspective in forming that opinion based on history.  I read this article yesterday that outlined the history of federal taxation rates from Eisenhower to present day.  Let me give some Cliff Notes numbers in case you don’t want to read the entire thing.

Back when Eisenhower was president the tax rate on the rich (over $400,000 income) was an incredible 91-92%.  Yes that is not a typo. The rate on capital gains (investment income) was 25%

Let’s fast forward to the Godfather of Republican presidents, Ron Reagan.  During his administration the tax rate for individuals earning more than $215,000 was 69%.  Even though the percentage rate was less the dollar figure it kicked in at was lowered dramatically. Capital gains taxes actually ROSE under Reagan, starting at 20% and increasing to 28% by the end of his term.

The rich started their push when Bush Sr. took the reins (surprise, surprise), who dropped the very high rate on the big earners and instead increasing the rate on middle earners, this was the beginning of the very deliberate redistribution of wealth. Under Old Bush the rate was dropped all the way down to 31% but the income level it affected was dropped to include those making $86.500 and more.  Bush did keep capital gain taxes more or less steady at least, ending at just under 29%.

So then we got to Clinton whom we can all agree was the last president to serve during what was a time period of economic prosperity.  Things were good on most accounts. Remember, we actually had a federal budget SURPLUS during Bill’s term.  It’s amazing we managed to do that despite a raise in the base tax rate for the rich.  He upped the tax rate on the rich to almost 40% but moved the income level to trigger that rate higher starting at around 300k at first and then 350k later.  He did throw the rich a bone by lowering the capital gains tax from 29% to 21%. Remember, this was a very good time for our economy.

Next up comes the infamous George W. Bush, the guy that somehow bamboozled America into actually reelecting him to a second term. ( a testament to the state of over all American awareness or lack there of) One of his first moves was to take that surplus in the social security fund and redistribute it as tax breaks, (benefited the rich the most) what a brilliant stroke of genius!

W also thought that the answer to a post 911 economy (besides using it to enlist in a war of false pretense) was to lower the taxes for everyone but especially for the rich.  After all, if the rich are doing well that means everyone is doing well right?  Trickle down economics are the bomb!

W dropped the top tier tax rate by 4 percent down to 35% while increasing the income level for the rate up to $357,000.  However his biggest gift to the rich was dropping the tax rate on capital gains, the way most of the ultra-rich get richer, to a bargain basement 15%.  Rich people LOVED George W Bush. Oh do you know that good old W, the republican “conservative” borrowed more money than all presidents prior to him COMBINED? Yep.

So in addition to being handed an economy in free fall which included a failing financial industry, automobile industry, high unemployment and two wars that bleed cash like an open wound, Obama was also handed the lowest taxation rates in history to pay for all of it. These rates have stayed intact during the Obama administration but through no desire of his own to do so.  The republicans have basically been holding the the country hostage to keep these rates intact, refusing to act on important legislation if any talk of restoring Clinton levels of taxation to the system is included.

So to me, this does not take a rocket scientist to figure out.  People that exclusively rail on government spending as THE sole source of this mess are turning a blind eye to history.   These people act like the country has prospered under the Bush Tax cut decade, nothing could be farther from the truth.  All those cuts did was succeed in enlarging the wealth disparity in our nation to historic levels while handcuffing our ability to pay the bills because of the decrease in revenue.

The money in this country has done a masterful job of making people forget what taxes were when the country was last truly successful and prosperous, before the assault on the middle class began.  Before you form your political opinions I would only ask that you look at the big picture instead of the one titillating headline at a time that is fed to you by the media.

What a swell guy.

Late yesterday afternoon Ali emailed me and asked if I wanted to run with her after work.  She was supposed to do a 45 minute run with negative splits, meaning the second half of the run is faster than the first.  I was still a bit sore from my 10 mile PR on Saturday but I told Ali I would go with her. I try to never miss an opportunity to encourage exercising together.

Ali originally suggested we go run the trail at the Bird Rookery but I told her I thought it was too late.  Running there in the pitch dark is not my idea of a good time, there are many nocturnal creatures that roam the swamp after all.

Instead we went to the track at the near by middle school, a place we ran quite often when we started our Florida running hobby 5 or 6 years ago. As a bonus the stadium lights at the track were on because of some kid’s soccer thing that was going on.

It was a strong run.  During the second half we were pacing what I did on Saturday and even faster for periods of the run.  Ali was there with me stride for stride. She probably ran the fastest 25 minutes she ever has.  I’d say I was surprised but I’m really not.  I have seen Ali run strongly before.  She did very well.

It’s this knowledge of her true inner speed that makes me critical of her when she settles for less.  I have more confidence in her ability than she does sometimes.

Yesterday I got an unexpected call.  It was from one of the members of SSRFanatics, named Roger.  He asked me for my phone number earlier in the day.  Roger said he was one of the Florida “Ambassadors” for the forum.  Roger is retired, has an SSR with a custom paint job and just loves the forum.  As an ambassador he goes out of his way trying to be helpful to other SSR owners.

Well when I ordered those parts for the SSR last week I never received any sort of confirmation of the order from the place that sells the parts besides the automated Paypal receipt, which I thought was odd.  A few days went by and I still never heard anything.  I hopped on the forum and asked if anyone else had ordered from this place lately, wondering if maybe they were out of business?

Well Roger was one of the people that responded back to me on the forum, saying the guy was reputable and he has known him a long time.  Well it turns out I think my post was the reason for Roger’s call.  He told me he actually called the guy that sells the parts and asked what was up.  Evidently he has had computer problems recently and was disconnected from his email.

I thanked Roger for taking that step for me.  His point seemed to be that my post could have been seen as others as red flag potentially even though I certainly wasn’t harsh, I was just seeing if I was alone or not in not hearing anything back.  Roger said he has a long list of reputable places to get SSR stuff from and he would send it to me.

This started what had to be at least a 20-25 minute phone conversation.  Well it was mostly Roger speaking, man did he like to talk. In a way he reminded me of my dad who ironically is his namesake. He told me various SSR related stories and how he has forged personal relationships with many people on the forums.  He said how he much prefers to have a phone conversation with someone as opposed to pecking on a keyboard.  I had to laugh out loud when I told him I am the polar opposite, preferring electronic versus phone communications by a large margin.

Well eventually we hung up.  I thanked Roger for making the effort to call me.  The forum is just filled with individuals like this, it is really a nice community, even if most of them are six decades old or older.

We had our most complex juiced meal to date last night.  I am not even sure if I can recall everything that was in it.  The combo included beets, kale, spinach, apple, carrots, broccoli, celery, and tomato.  I can’t recall if we threw an orange in there as well.  Anyway it wasn’t bad and I was able to down it quickly.   Ali isn’t able to drink the vegetable juice as quickly as I can, in fact she often doesn’t finish it. She much prefers when we do the fruit based juices.  Too bad because the veggie juice is where it’s at.

Juicing makes quite the mess.  Despite my best effort to cover the chute as I add ingredients there always is blow back that explodes up and outside the juicer.  The counter is getting wiped down twice a day right now.

Last night I started on the latest season of Dexter.  It was interesting catching up on the plot shifts since the last season.  I have no doubt I will enjoy this season as well as Breaking Bad.  But you can also be sure that the moment I am done with those I will be right back on the 24 bandwagon.

Man juicing takes some dedication.  Tuesdays are one of the days Ali gets up hella early (4:15 am) to go to swim training with her T2 group.  Well I told Ali I would get up with her to make a fruit juice for both of us to have later.  I have been using the juice as a post gym recovery drink.

So I made up a batch of orange, strawberry, blueberry, apple, blackberry juice.  Yea it was weird being up and about almost a full three hours before I normally leave the house.  Oh well, the juice isn’t going to make itself.  Staying healthy is hard work.

So when I got home Friday evening Ali was on the phone.  It didn’t take me long to figure out she was on the phone with the woman that runs the cleaning business we have come out once every 4-8 weeks.  Evidently the woman told Ali earlier in the day the crew would show up around 4:30.  Well it was close to 6 pm when I arrived home.

Well of course Ali had to call the woman, nobody called Ali to say they weren’t coming.  Ali was frustrated, she went through the house and picked stuff up in anticipation of their arrival.  It was par for the course as far as our overall experience has been with the cleaning crew, frustration.

Yes when they are actually inside the house they overall do a nice job of cleaning the place, attending to details we normally wouldn’t do ourselves.  They also have done so with a rather rough touch, breaking/damaging a couple sets of venetian blinds, a screen and breaking a broom.

However the biggest frustration is the lack of organization.  Ali has asked repeatedly if it would be possible to schedule a set day for cleaning to occur, like for example, the second Friday of every month.  Well this appears impossible for the woman to do.  Each and every time Ali tries to schedule her it requires far too much effort to get it all coordinated.

When Ali told me that once again Vanessa’s crew didn’t follow through I told her it wasn’t a big deal, I’ll help Ali clean, we can knock it out in an hour and keep the money in our pocket.  I know Ali likes not having to clean but if we both do it together it really doesn’t require extraordinary amounts of time/effort.

So Saturday morning Ali and I pulled ourselves out of bed at 4:30 AM to go to the GCR club run.  Ali had talked about running with me since neither Michelle or Christy were going to be there.  She thought it would be good to see if she could keep up with the faster pace I generally prefer to run at. Well it turned out that Christy was able to make it so Ali decided to run with her instead.

I decided to push out solo with the intention of doing 10 miles at whatever pace I could manage.  Early on I passed a number of people.  I then came up upon a group with Matt, the trumpeteer/race director extraordinaire whom also is a strong runner.  He decided to break from the pack he was in and come with me.

Matt is great to run with, not only can he help push my pace, he is an accomplished talker whose conversations help the miles pass without much fuss at all.  By the time we completed the 10 mile run I CRUSHED my 10 mile best which I had only set a few weeks ago on Christmas Eve of roughly 90 minutes.  I covered the same distance in 1:26:59, knocking a full 3 minutes off my previous best.

My average pace of 8:42 was well under what I will need to break 2 hours in a half marathon.  The training run gave me a good shot of confidence that I could grit out those last 3 miles at a similar pace.

On the way back from the run we stopped at a local farmer’s market Ali and I both had heard about.  There were a ton of produce stands there, most of them organic in nature.  We figured this would be a great spot to grab juicing supplies.

As expected there was a great selection of fresh fruit and vegetables.  We filled up three reusable shopping bags with fruit and veggies.  We definitely will be stopping there more often.  You are getting fresher, local produce and in most cases paying less for it than you would at the grocery store.

When we got home Ali retreated for a nap.  I wanted to head outside and tend to the yard.  Ali originally said we could eat lunch after her nap.  Around 11:30 I was feeling weak and low on gas, probably from the 1000 or so calories I expended during the run.  Well Ali had only gone back to nap a little after 10:30 so I just went inside, ate a quick PB and headed back out.

I gave the yard the full treatment weed whacking and mowing it all.  I hadn’t run the whacker in probably close to two months.  All in all I spent close to 3 hours out there busting ass.  Well probably about a half hour before I was done Ali, whom I found out later had been up for about 45 minutes, came outside and asked if I wanted to eat.  I told her I did already.  Ali made a frustrated gesture and marched inside.

Well this pissed me off.  I decide to allow you to continue sleeping while I labor outside and you are going to be pissy with me? Uh no.  When I came inside Ali vocalized that she was annoyed because I should have left her a note or something telling her I ate.  She said how she was up for 45 minutes and was patiently waiting for me to tell her I was ready to eat.

I told her I thought it was pretty stupid to be giving me shit for busting ass outside while she napped and if she was that hungry she could have came out and asked me when she woke up.  So if I wasn’t tweaked enough already I became more tweaked when instead of starting on the cleaning when she woke up she was doing some other organizing around her desk.  I expressed it would be nice, since I was outside doing stuff if Ali had started on the cleaning so I didn’t have to spend as much time doing that as well.

Well as you can imagine it was a disagreement that was not going to have any solid resolution.  I wound up assisting on the interior cleaning, handling the dusting, counter cleaning and vacuuming portion of the project.  During the course of cleaning both of our resentment levels subsided.

Saturday evening we decided to use our two complimentary passes to Sweet Tomatoes.  We had a very nice meal as always there.  Ali just LOVES the place.  On the way home we made a stop at Target.  We wanted to pick up a decent inflatable bed.  We figured it could be an option for either Jeremy or Randall this upcoming weekend since they refuse to sleep together in the same bed for some odd reason.  It also would come in handy in a month or two when my brother Pat and his girlfriend potentially could be stopping by along with my dad and step mom.

We have two old blow up twin size air mattresses that don’t hold air very well and require manual inflation.  The new bed we got is a double high queen size bed with a built in inflator, a nice upgrade.

Saturday night I was up till 12:30 am finishing up season one of 24. The ending was pretty shocking.  So shocking that I forced myself to stay awake to watch part of episode 1 of season two to get an idea of what happens next.  I could honestly dive right into season two but instead I am going to digest the seasons of Dexter and Breaking Bad that Randall so kindly lent to me.

Originally Ali had talked about maybe going on a bike ride with me Sunday morning and then later in the day heading back to the swamp with the dogs for another hike.  Well she awoke Sunday morning proclaiming how she wanted Sunday to be a rest day since she has a hectic week on tap with her race going down this upcoming weekend.

I jabbed her a bit about it although I really didn’t care, my legs were quite sore from my run the day before anyway.  Well as I was waiting for the pool store to open I was browsing my phone and saw Ali decided to gripe on FB about my not jumping up for joy to embrace her day of rest.  That is her passive aggressive thing.  I decided to be the good troll and posted “Blah. Blah. Blah. Rest when you die.”

So when I got back we headed right back out to the swamp.  The dogs could hardly believe their good fortune.  First they get to go on a DD run and then right back out to the swamp??!!

When we arrived we were greeted once again by the huge gator out front. He was just sunning himself on the bank.  That sucker is massive.

It didn’t take long for the dogs to do what is becoming a traditional swamp dump.  Hell, Sadie was so excited she dumped twice.

We had a nice walk but we actually cut it a bit short compared to the week before.  Despite it being in the brisk 50’s early in the morning, by the time we hit the trail a few hours later it was heating up.  The dogs were definitely getting pooped.  So after eating lunch at the picnic table we headed back.

During the walk we came across another guy and his dog.  As we were talking he mentioned how he heard of some dummies that actually let their dogs off leash in the swamp.  He said he heard in some cases the dogs were actually killed by gators.

I had talked to my dad about going to the swamp with his dogs, the problem is he hates keeping the dogs leashed.  Well I will have to tell him if he doesn’t agree to keep them leashed in this situation we aren’t going.  A gator can take a dog down in a split second and you won’t even know it’s there.

Sunday afternoon I headed out for an extended session on my bar park.  I set up my gymnast rings as well.  I had a couple firsts during the session, my first back to back ring muscle ups and my first slow muscle up where I don’t use my forearm as a lever to pull myself up.  I broke the session into 4 different videos including my long awaited Muscle Ups for Dummies tutorial. Here are the links, slow muscle up, muscle ups for dummies, lever training, ring muscle ups.

I watched a portion of the two conference championship games.  Both games games were real nail biters.  The Ravens suffered a crushing loss when Billy Cundiff pulled a short field goal that would have tied the game, sending the Patriots to the Super Bowl. I commented to Ali that I can only imagine just how awful Cundiff must feel.  He just let the air out of a couple million Raven fans sails all at once.  I hope they have him on suicide watch.

I fell asleep at the end of regulation of the Niner/Giants game but read it was decided by a field goal in overtime, winning the game for the Giants.  It set up a rematch of the 2007/08 Super Bowl where the Giants shocked the world, ending the Patriots quest for a perfect season.  I guess it should make for an interesting game but of course since the Eagles aren’t involved my interest level will never be more than mild at best.

I was somewhat shocked to hear that Joe Paterno died.  But then when I thought about it some more I really wasn’t.  I always had the feeling that Joe lived to coach and if he ever stopped coaching his reason for living would be gone.  It’s sad that my thoughts turned out to be true but the real tragedy is what transpired in the few months preceding his death which will forever tarnish his 50 + years of accomplishments.

So last night I had yet another juiced dinner, using the same combination as the night before.  I actually doubled up the quantity of each item so I had another serving for Ali when she got home.   I now have had almost a solid week of liquid dinners and it really hasn’t been bad.

I am glad I decided to take a more balanced approach to the juicing, if I tried to do exclusively juice it would have been a logistic head ache as well as probably not a great thing for me overall. Although an all juice fast will fill my body with a ton of hard core nutrition that is absorbed quickly and would promote weight loss if I was carrying a bunch of flab, it won’t provide much fuel for the strenuous exercise I regularly participate in.

Last night I finished up with episode 20 of season one of 24.  If I allow myself to ponder the possibility of one individual going through as much as Jack Bauer has so far in a 20 hour period it would begin to approach laughable.  However I just strap in, disengage the brain and enjoy the ride.  It’s good stuff.

We get a one weekend breather from race timing this week before ramping back up for Ali’s race next weekend which always proves to be very stressful.  The web site for the race has been suffering from some outdated styling/functionality for a couple years.  Ali and I have talked about cleaning it up but neither of us have been able to get around to it.

Well with my recent positive experience using wordpress.com to hold Dufisthenics, I thought a similar approach would be a good fit for the race site.  Lots of web sites are built with a WordPress back end.  Well with minimal work I was able to set up what I think is a much cleaner and appealing site.  WordPress makes it possible to do so without even touching an HTML editor.  It is too close to the race date to flip things over now but once I give Ali a tutorial on how to get around the UI we will probably run with it.

This weekend I would like to give the property a quick manicure with the weed whacker and tractor.  It should be the last time it needs to be touched in a month or two.  Since Randall and Jeremy are scheduled to arrive next week I don’t want things looking ratty.

Saturday morning we are planning to do the club run.  I’d like to extend my run to the 10 mile route to start in earnest my half marathon training.  It may be a daunting task based on how sore my lower body is today, a carryover from Wednesday’s squat/run combo.

I may or may not be doing my first 99 Tacoma Idle Air Control Valve work depending on the arrival of the impact screw driver and gaskets I ordered.  Of course the regular home chores will be wedged in there as well.

I ordered a couple new bling pieces for the SSR.  One item is a replacement for the frame that surrounds the license plate.  It is a sharp chrome piece with SSR badging. When you back up the logo gets illuminated which looks super sharp.

The second item is a chrome cover for the water pump pulley.  This pulley is a bit of an eyesore as the exposed nut has a tendency to rust.  The cover blings things up quite a bit.

Ali has been complaining about our bed for quite awhile.  It is a probably 7 or 8 years old at this point.  It is a pillow top bed.  Well evidently a downfall of a pillow top mattress is it will develop “ditches” where your body normally lays.  If you lay on our bed right now you will quickly find the valleys where we sleep.  Even with semi-regular flipping and turning of the mattress we haven’t been able to alleviate the problem.

Ali has been having episodes of waking up with back pain for a few months and has been bugging me to get a new mattress.  Well I got an email from Sam’s about a special on a Serta firm mattress set.  It was an internet only special.  I looked up the reviews on the bed and they were very good, averaging 4.7 out of a possible 5.

Now going to a firm bed from our bowled out pillow top is going to be quite a change.  I am banking on the two toppers that we have to take some of the firm edge off, I don’t like a rock hard bed.  I told Ali if I don’t like the new bed I’ll just sleep in the other room. 🙂

I had another juiced dinner last night.  It was a combination that sounds pretty odd, tomatoes, celery, carrots, spinach and a naval orange.  Ali and I discovered that celery can quickly take over the taste of a juice so we have been using it sparingly.  Well last night I put 4 or 5 stalks of it in the drink. I threw the orange in just on a whim because we have a big bag of them.

Well it turns out the orange did a good job of balancing out the celery taste.  The concoction went down without issue.

I also have been trying out almond milk with my lunch instead of the skim milk I normally drink.  Almond milk has much fewer calories, no sugars and higher amounts of calcium than regular milk. It also lacks the chemicals that can be found in cow’s milk due to the hormones they are injected with to increase milk production.

Almond milk’s taste and consistency is different but not awful.  The only drawback is it lacks the protein you get in regular milk. With as much exercise as I do I really need to keep my protein intake to proper levels.

The internet was going crazy about the proposed SOPA regulation that was being jammed through congress. In a nutshell it is legislation that is intended to give the government power to regulate something that was created on the premise of being totally open, the internet.  This is being pushed primarily by the entertainment industry as a tool to curb piracy of their content.

Sure it isn’t nice to “steal” movies/music.  This legislation however has wording that could cause all sorts of collateral damage that is totally unacceptable.  It seems as though the tidal wave of dissent regarding SOPA has had an effect on the lunkheads in Washington.  The latest I heard was they are backing off the legislation, at least in it’s current form.  I have no doubt they will still try to wedge this through in a slightly altered form perhaps attached to some other bullshit sounding legislation.

If you would like a 4 minute lesson on what SOPA is and why it sucks, watch the video below.

I heard some interesting conversation regarding the current political climate.  The discussion was regarding the republican party really not wanting to win the election, evidenced by the joke the primary has been thus far.  Mitt Romney certainly is shaping up to be the latest Bob Dole or John Kerry.

The thought process goes like this, as long as republicans have enough of a foothold in congress to prevent democrats from gaining a super majority they can simply stalemate any legislation their rich puppeteers don’t like, preserving the current environment where the rich get richer and any and all problems can be cleanly laid on the back of Obama.  It’s a win/win for them.

Well the horrible idle with a warm engine start problem has been getting worse and worse with my Tacoma.  When it happens (when restarting the truck with a warm engine), I basically have to two foot the truck with one foot on the gas and brake to keep it running.  It can sputter and surge like mad when it is in this state.

I have done a lot of research on this and it seems like the culprit is pretty clear, the idle air control valve.  Evidently it is a very common issue for this to stick due to carbon build up after a number of years.  There are two options, remove it and clean the valve thoroughly or replace it.  From what I have read, simply cleaning the valve normally fixes the problem and buying another one will cost roughly $200 so I plan to go the former route.

Getting to the IAC valve requires removing the throttle body from the intake of the truck.  The procedure isn’t hard besides removal of some brass screws that I read are very easy to strip.  The best solution to avoid stripping screws is to use an impact screw driver, which I don’t have.  I plan on getting one, they are less than $30.  That is a small price to pay to avoid the hassle stripped screws can bring.

I had another juiced dinner last night.  It consisted of two roma tomatoes, two celery stalks, 3 good sized carrots, some left over lettuce from our garden and a good handful of spinach.  Ali also made us salads.  I was good to go.  The taste is fine, removing ginger from the mix was a large improvement.  I’ll probably do something similar tonight, it just isn’t that bad.

Last night after work I made an attempt at setting a new PR for a wall handstand hold.  The longest I ever held was 70 seconds and that was done a long time ago, probably early 2010.  I haven’t been working handstands recently at all since my focus is the BBR’s.  Well I figured my low body weight might allow me to increase the hold time.  I stayed on my hands for more than 75 seconds and to be honest I might have been able to squeeze out 5 or 6 seconds more. Sweet.

I smiled when I saw a Ron Paul political sign was placed at the end of our street.  The slogan on the poster was “Why change the dealer when you can change the game?”  There is no doubt the game needs to change.

I heard last night that this current congress has gotten the least done of any congress in history, despite being in session as much if not more than past years congress.  Of course this is the end result of the crippling polarization between the two political parties.  In the big picture the winner in this quagmire of course is the rich, since no movement means the policies in place that have helped the disgustingly wealthy get obscenely wealthier for the past decade + remain firmly in place.

So I received our new Breville juicer late last week.  We did a small test run with it, first juicing some oranges and then apples.  Both fruit juices came out very tasty with an almost creamy like texture from the high speed juicing process.  Cleaning up the juicer afterward was pretty straightforward and easy to do.  The biggest hassle is making sure the stainless steel strainer basket with it’s tiny, tiny holes is clean.  On Friday evening during my Sam’s trip I bought some juicing supplies, picking up large containers of apples, blackberries, carrots, tomatoes and celery.

Over the course of the 3 day weekend we had varying degrees of success with our juicing efforts.  It will take some trial and error to determine what we do and don’t like.  For example I put a piece of ginger root, something that is included with many juicing recipes, about the size of my thumb into the juicer.  It made the juice that also included tomato, celery, and carrots taste absolutely awful.  I choked down all but the last sip or two but I was literally gagging on it at the end.

When Ali and I first discussed getting a juicer it was with the intent of trying a 10 day juice fast.  Well after three days of juicing I think we are adjusting our goal based on what we have run into.

Despite being relatively easy to clean, the entire juicing process is very time consuming.  In addition to the juicing and juicer cleaning process you also have to prepare the raw materials before juicing them by either washing them, trimming, skinning or any combination of the three.

To make appreciable amounts of juice requires large amounts of raw materials.  I bet in total we spent $70-$80 just on fruits and veggies for juicing over the weekend.  If you were doing nothing but juice 24/7 you are looking at huge dollars.

So anyway I think our current adjusted plan will be a mixture of juicing with conventional healthy eating.  I had juice for dinner the past two nights and it didn’t bother me much.  If I mix in juice as my “meal” on weeknights where I otherwise would be popping a processed frozen meal in the microwave I think that is a very solid trade off.

It is still very much a work in progress but regardless I think it is a very positive step towards better nutrition.  I even packed almond milk in my lunch box instead of my normal skim milk.

On Friday I mentioned how I realized that my SSR had been lowered from it’s stock height.  I also said I was going to see if I could track down Eye Ball Customs, the place that evidently did the customizations.  I did a quick search for them but did not turn up anything that looked like what I expected.

So just for the hell of it I threw the question out on the SSRFanatics forum, asking if anyone heard of the place. Within a few hours somebody responded back with a web site as well as a Facebook page.  On that page was a photo album titled 2005 SSR, LS2 6 Speed.

When I looked at the pictures it became pretty obvious this was my truck with the low profile and silver bars in the trunk which are non-stock.  I sent an email to the guy, hoping to hear back some history on the truck and exactly what was customized on it.

Over the weekend I put the SSR up on ramps to take a couple pictures of it’s belly so the forum members could possibly help me identify any other custom work that was done.  One of those pictures was called out by a forum member as a side effect of the lowering and a bad one at that.  Evidently the panhard bar has a slight bend in it.  Evidently when a vehicle is lowered this bar is normally replaced with an adjustable variety since the stock bar will be a bit too long.  Well this wasn’t done and the bent bar is the end result.  I don’t think it is something I have to rush out and fix tomorrow but it is on the list of to do’s.

So two of the three days of our long weekend were eaten up by a lot of half marathon duties.  Ali went down to the running store where early packet pick up was held Thursday, Friday and Saturday for most of the day.  I told Ali while she was there on Saturday I would bust ass around the house to get everything done.

Not only did all the chores get done but some axillary items did as well.  I finally took down the outside Christmas lights.  Taking them down myself isn’t nearly as bad as putting them up myself would be.  I worked diligently and had them all down in probably an hour or so.  The spools that the new LED lights come on make the storage chore much more organized and easier.  I sort of hated to take them down, I really liked having our house/trees/fence lit up, regardless of the date n the calendar.

The other chore involved fixing some dog damage.  For some reason Sadie decided to paw at the screen on the lanai, putting a rip in one of the lower panels.  Subsequently she discovered she fit her chubby 65 pound body through the rip, creating an impromptu dog door to the outside world.

So I spent another hour or so replacing that section with super screen, she won’t be ripping THAT section again although she has another 12-15 she could choose from.  Ali and I really scolded Sadie to try to make sure she understood that ripping screens was not an approved behavior.

I am getting pretty good at screen panel replacement.  The new section is tight as a drum.

So I headed down to the running store late Saturday afternoon to join Ali.  I brought the SSR with the top down even though the temps were quite cool, in the 60’s.  I found that putting the side windows up and turning the heat on made this situation very tolerable.

I brought a printer with so we could print the registration lists on the spot.  By the time I got there registration was winding down.  We wound up with 1980 people registered for the race, about 50 less than last year.

So Saturday night we got everything ready to go.  I was double and triple checking my mental check list to make sure I had everything done and packed.  This race is not one where I want to get caught with my pants down.

The half marathon starts very early because of the long distance.  The 7 AM start time translated to a 3:45 AM alarm for Ali and I so we got on site by 5.  It was cold Sunday morning, in the upper 40’s.  Ali had on three or four layers and was still cold.  I had on three and was ok but that was mostly because I was on the move leading up to the race setting up equipment.

This was the first race we were using our new inflatable finish line, it looked great.  There was one drawback, the fan/motor that is used to keep the arch inflated was loud, especially if you were set up right in front of it which my table originally was.  Moving my table about 10 feet past the finish line seemed to make the noise level more tolerable.

This race is the primary reason we bought the second set of timing equipment to allow us to provide a chip start time for runners.  The advantage of a chip start with a big race like this is runners are able to see both their gun time (time the race officially starts) and compare it to their chip time, the time it took them to get up across the start mats to the end of the race.  With this many people it could take someone as long as 1-2 minutes before they actually cross the start line.

I had all of the equipment set up well ahead of time and had it up and ready to go.  There was a power problem (more stupid timers that kill exterior outlet power) at the start line that killed the PA system about 2/3 of the way into the national anthem.  The runners improvised by singing the last couple verses themselves, it was cool.

We had the start mats right after some small islands that jutted out into the road, forcing the runners to condense before they crossed the mats.  The timing box was ringing non-stop as thousands of feet crossed the mats, everything seemed to be working as planned. However when I imported the file of start times I noticed something weird.

I only had around 1325 start times.  With almost 2000 runners registered it made no sense to be missing that many times, even with the normal 10-15% no show rate.  After the race I did some field testing at home with the start mats.  It seemed like the weakest field strength exists right along the left edge, the area that probably had the highest density of all from all of the runners getting merged at that spot.  Oh well live and learn.

I utilized the second set of timing gear at the finish line as well.  I laid one of the mats about 50-75 feet before the official finish line.  This was connected to a laptop that was in front of our race announcer.  It allowed him to instantly have the names of finishing runners pop up for him.  In years past we relied on a manual system where he used a two way radio with spotters to call out bib numbers that he then had to try to quickly key into the system to get the runner’s name.

With the old way when big waves of runners came in it was impossible to keep up with the names.  With this new system I don’t think he missed a single finisher, big improvement.

My 3 layers of clothing didn’t help me too much as I sat around at the finish line.  After awhile I felt chilled to the bone.  I snagged a cup of coffee to help combat the chill.

Ali ran the race as well despite being very negative about it going in.  In the past month she had not stuck to her original intentions of training well for the race, including running further than half marathon distance to make the actual race feel better.  I reminded her that going into a race with a negative attitude pretty much guarantees a negative outcome.

I have experience first hand with not being all that trained for something but still performing relatively well just because I decided I wanted to perform well.  Sometimes this simple truth is lost on Ali. Your head has to be right.

Ali decided to run with Christy the entire race, helping Christy get her best half marathon time to date of 2:22 something.  Ali originally had talked of shooting for that 2 hour milestone.  After the race Ali found me and I congratulated her on the finish.  Later she commented that I didn’t seem as enthusiastic as I should be.  I tried to explain to her that I always support her running races but my view of what a race represents apparently is different from hers.

To me a race is THE time that you push, push as hard as your body allows you to push.  If you aren’t interested in doing that I don’t understand why you are even paying to do a race unless you are more interested in the swag than the actual act of racing.

Now of course everyone is entitled to their own viewpoint of what a race should be, I just expressed where I was coming from, and why that attitude prevents me from gushing over finishing versus racing.  It’s just the way I am wired. I am proud for Ali for being able to run 13.1 miles, even without solid training leading up to it.  I just am not going to pee down her back and tell her it’s raining, if you know what I mean.

Michelle, whom I didn’t even see before the race turned in a fantastic time for her, setting a PR, finishing just under the two hour mark.  According to Michelle she hadn’t been training all that hard either.  Ali and Christy thought she had to be doing some closet training.  I think she just decided she was going to do it. Michelle is sort of like me in that regard.

So the last timed runner came across at something like 3:34.  Post race I had several timing issues to work on, most of which were the result of human error which is unavoidable with a race of this size.  By the time we were packed up and out of there it was around 11 am.

When we got home I had a ton to do of course.  Ali helped me get the chips accounted for, we were missing roughly 7 or 8 of them. After eating lunch she headed back to the bedroom for a pretty much all afternoon nap, she was understandably beat.

I was busy with various race related duties for the majority of the afternoon, probably only finishing up around 4. I was so tired by the time Sunday evening rolled around, it was ridiculous.

The main reason I busted ass Saturday was so our Monday could be free.  It allowed us to take the dogs back to Bird Rookery Swamp.  I was excited for Ali to see it.  The dogs were so excited as we approached, Nicki was crying and jumping around the van.

Sadie didn’t wait long till she dropped a big deuce on the path leading to the boardwalk.  We didn’t bring bags since I knew there weren’t any trash cans on the trail and it is a swamp after all, there is poo.  Regardless I didn’t want to leave her pile of stink right by the path.  I found a stick and played an impromptu game of poo golf.  I would get the stick behind a turd and “golf” it into the water.  I had one shot that carried quite well. Ali thought it looked pretty funny, which I am sure it did.

It didn’t take long till Ali saw why I raved about how cool the place was.  The dogs were happy to lead the way, loving every moment of it, even with being tethered to their extend-a-leashes.  We stopped at the picnic table and ate our PB sandwiches while the girls sat under the table.  The cooler temps compared to the prior week made all that walking more bearable for them.  We went slightly deeper into the trail than when I went solo. We are hoping we can increase our distance slightly each time we go to get the dogs more exercise.

Ali took a bunch of great pictures along the way.  It is just so quiet and beautiful there.  We saw lots of birds but little else wildlife along the way, until we returned to the parking lot.  As we were getting back in the van I spotted a HUGE gator in the lettuce lake facing the lot. It may be the biggest gator I have seen in person in the wild since moving to Florida.

We left the swamp anxious to return on a regular basis, it’s so awesome.

During the afternoon I made my first normal mode attempt at this month’s Bar-barian forums challenge. It is 5 sets of maximum rep diamond push ups with no more than a minute break in between sets.

Diamond push ups are more difficult than conventional push ups, you put your hands together so they form a diamond between them.  Having your hands that tight means you are utilizing more of your triceps and less of your chest.  With my long monkey-like arms it is not a very easy exercise for me.  I managed to squeeze out 105 total reps across the 5 sets.  It was an average number that landed me in the bottom third of people in the contest so far.  I am hoping to give it another shot and bump up my reps a bit.

Ali and I then hopped in the SSR to go get dog food and more juicing supplies. It was my second stop at Sam’s of the weekend.  We are hoping to hit a local farmer’s market next weekend to compare variety, quality and pricing versus Sam’s Club.

Almost every night before bed I have been plowing through 1.5 to 2.5 episodes of 24.  I am really enjoying the show.  Just to put it in perspective, even though I have the most current seasons of Breaking Bad and Dexter on dvd (courtesy of Randall)  I have decided I am going to finish season 1 of 24 before cracking those open.  That is some high praise.

On days I bring the SSR I park it in the garage which is a good 150 yards from our office.  On the way out to the garage I was walking behind a woman that literally had her face in her smart phone the ENTIRE way.  I had to snicker when I got behind the exact same woman on the way back and once again she was locked into her phone, relying only on her peripheral vision to make sure she didn’t run into something.

I don’t know, as much of a tech lover as I am this sort of behavior really bugs me, almost as much as the fckin idiots I see blatantly texting while they are behind the vehicle of a moving vehicle.

I mean really, is it that important to remain connected to the matrix at every possible moment?  Sometimes progress and technological advances wind up being just the opposite when common courtesy, safety and sense is lost in their utilization.

I just realized at lunch that my SSR appears to have been lowered compared to a stock model.  This realization came to me when I compared the side profile of my truck to another county employee’s SSR which was parked right across from mine.

My car is badged as being from “Eye Ball Customs” but I thought the only customization that was done was the fancy pin stripe and maybe the chroming of the wheels.  Now I am wondering what other work was done on the car. (exhaust, cam?)

I think I am going to try to track down the place and see if they have any records of what exactly was done to my car.  I’d really like to know.  I know my car originated from Texas, I guess I’ll start there.