Archives 2012

So last night I finally began officially on the master bedroom painting project.  This project has literally been on the books for YEARS.  When Ali was still living out at the house we used our inability to decide on a color as a reason to back burner painting the room for a long time.  That and the fact that I view painting as a major pain in the ass.

Well I decided to finally just bite the bullet, take a couple days off this upcoming weekend and like Nike says, just do it.

I eliminated the color debate by deciding to just use the warm, neutral sandy tan color that I used in the master bathroom and that is utilized in most of the main living area.  No it isn’t splashy or daring but I think it will look good.

So last night after dinner I started the prep process.  I removed smaller items from the bedroom and utilized furniture sliders to get the bigger things far enough away from the wall so I could work behind them.

I removed the outlet and switch covers.  Every time I have painted other rooms in the house I get annoyed during this part of the process with the builder.  Evidently whomever they contracted to do the painting in the house were lazy assholes.  When they applied finishing touches to the paint they didn’t bother to remove these plates to do so.  As a result a lot of them are stuck on the wall, requiring some work with an exacto knife to remove them.  I mean how f’ing lazy can you be, just remove the one or two screws….

I was wishing I wouldn’t have to bother with the walk in closet.  I know sometimes when a room is repainted people don’t even bother doing the closet. However since the door to my walk in closet is open all the time it would look like shit if I left it builders white.  I slowly worked on the tedious process of first removing all the items in it before disassembling the two layers of wire shelving.

When I was done I was surprised how big the space was since I had not seen it with bare walls since the house was built in 2001.

I found the process a bit depressing as well on several levels.  As I was cleaning stuff out of course I came across Ali items that have not yet found their way to her condo.  I piled them up in a box.  It is unavoidable that this triggered  feelings of sadness about the death of what once was, regardless of it’s necessity.

Plus the idea that I was going to be painting and doing all the associated ancillary work in this big f’ing area myself was nothing that excited me in the least.  I am just going to keep my head down and keep plowing forward until I emerge from the other side.

Ali picks up her new Volt today, I am excited for her.

You can follow all the pictures from the paint project here.

Last night after work I headed out back to my bars and set a new PR in pull up reps, netting 27 reps, two more than my prior best.  It sort of came out of nowhere, I had not done more than 23 reps since I managed to get 25 reps a few months ago.

I also messed around with another pole hold that I saw done before but never tried myself.  I was surprised that I was able to hold it pretty cleanly the first time out.

I caught the tail end of the debate before hopping in the shower.  I felt uncomfortable having the two candidates so close to each other on the table, it was sort of odd. I missed Obama’s zinger where he reminded Mitt the military doesn’t use bayonets and horses any longer.  I did catch some of Mitt’s overuse of the word “tumult”.

If you were relying on the results of the last debate to make up your mind on who to vote for I suggest you go do some more research.

For instance, if you are one of those that thinks Mitt knows all about building businesses and making money, so he must be good for the economy,  I suggest you take a look at this article.  It is written by David Stockman, who was Ronald Reagan’s budget director.  You will get a thorough understanding of exactly what Bain really did to make it’s billions and why it is no blueprint for any sort of future economic plan.  Equating “building” a leverage buyout firm with a sound economic plan makes as much sense as declaring the US is going to start exporting diabetes.

Saturday morning I timed a regional cross country meet, the third year I have timed this particular event.  This was the largest event to date with 33 teams and 857 kids signed up.  Before the race some of the kids that were assigned to help out were given a task.

There were big envelopes made up for each team.  Inside each packet was that team’s roster along with the chip numbers assigned to them.  To make this process easier, I sorted the teams so each team had a contiguous block of numbers assigned to them.  I thought this couldn’t get much easier, you look at the first name and last name on the teams list and the numbers they are assigned, you then simply pull out all of the chips in between those numbers and drop them in the envelope.

Well despite explaining this process pretty thoroughly, even though I don’t think it warranted a thorough explanation, it somehow got messed up.  When I looked over at the table a few minutes later it was covered with chips strewn about.  I walked over and asked what happened.  The one girl said that someone was “confused” and messed up what I thought was a fool proof procedure.

I was pretty worried about the wrong chips getting into the wrong hands and the timing headaches it would cause.  Luckily they eventually got it all sorted out.

The finish line for this race is in the school’s football stadium which is always kind of cool.  The only thing that isn’t cool is the real turf that it is made out of has millions of tiny little rubber pellets which quickly fill your sneakers and adhere to anything placed on the ground when the field is damp with morning dew.  The good thing about real turf is I had zero issues with kids tripping on the finish mats since it is short and uniform in height.

I had a bit of a scare during the girls varsity race which was the first of four.  About half way into it the timing box started beeping continuously.  I looked at the indicator leds and saw there was an issue with one of the two timing mats.  I was really surprised because I was actually using two of the brand new timing mats I had received a a few weeks ago.

So I quickly cycled power on the timing box, hoping it was just some sort of weird glitch.  No dice.  I looked up at the clock and saw I was at about 12 or 13 minutes.  I was considering if I wanted to try to quickly replace the mat.  I imagined a nightmare scenario where a girl would be streaking towards the finish line I was still f’ing around with the mats so I decided to just let it go and rely on the one mat that was up and running.

Luckily it seemed to work out.  After the first race I swapped in another mat and it worked fine, confirming that my brand new mat was indeed dead.

After that excitement to start the day the rest of my timing duties went down pretty smoothly.  Despite the huge volume of kids I had relatively few problems.  The biggest problem was the roughly dozen timing chips I did not get back that we have to now try to get back with threats of a bill of $20 per chip.

I didn’t get off site until after 11:30.  I had to rush home and quickly post the results before heading right back out.  I was supposed to go pick up Ali to go look at cars, specifically a Chevy Volt.

Ali has been concerned that the Camry was getting up there in both years and mileage (it crossed 100k miles a few months ago).  The idea of getting smacked with unplanned repair bills wasn’t something she was real keen on.

I had been following the Volt for a long time.  It is a techolover’s dream car.  It takes what I think is an ideal approach to green travel, upping what the Camry does to an impressive degree.  Although the Camry is also a gas/electric hybrid, it utilizes both pretty equally to squeeze out it’s mileage numbers of 35/40 mpg, quite good for a sedan.  The Camry actually can be driven short distances in pure electric mode at speeds of up to 42 mph which we always thought was kind of cool.

Well the Volt can go around 40 miles of normal driving using nothing but battery power which is awesome.  If you are going on a long trip there is a gas engine that can be utilized as well so you don’t have to worry about being stranded if the juice runs out like you would if you had something like a Nissan Leaf.    The Volt potentially can avoid all use of gas for long periods of time if your daily driving requirements are not huge but is flexible enough to be used for long road trips as well.

Toyota actually makes a plug in Prius now but it only can go a maximum of 6 miles on pure electric mode which seems kind of silly.

I was the one that pitched the idea of a Volt to Ali since I saw they were offering huge incentives on the car since sales have been far less than hoped for.  She asked that I accompany her to the dealership since I worked as a slimy car salesman for 16 months in my early 20’s.

I called ahead to the local Chevy dealer to verify they had a Volt to test drive.  The sales guy executed sales 101, telling me he wasn’t sure if they had one (he knew they did), but he would check and call me back if I gave him my number.  Now, innocently he has obtained a contact number where he can hound me incessantly if he chooses to.  After probably reading a magazine for a few minutes, he called me back with the good news, they had one on the lot we could drive.

As we pulled into the dealership we were greeted by Jason, a friendly younger guy.  When I was looking at Camaros I had stopped in there and the place seemed to be populated with nothing but old stereotypical car sales guys.  I was glad we didn’t get one of them.

Jason grabbed the keys to the car and handed them to Ali.  I told her there was no reason for me to drive it even though I certainly would have liked to.  It is a geek’s dream.  Sitting behind the wheel reminds me of sitting in the one of those wrap around cabinet video games, there are just bells and whistles everywhere.

The test drive went fine, you couldn’t really tell you weren’t consuming any gasoline although the lack of typical engine noise was a good clue.  Ali liked the car.  There was one issue though, Ali didn’t want the options on this particular Volt.  Most Volts are equipped with leather seats, something Ali would never go for.  This Volt also had upgraded chrome wheels and a couple other things Ali didn’t care about.

The sales guy said he would go inside to do a search of other dealers inventory for something that was what Ali was interested in.  While he did that Ali got to look over more of the interior of the car in detail.  Luckily Ali approved of the cup holders, one of the most important things when it comes to buying a vehicle.

So we went inside and Jason showed us what he found.  The two cars that had the exact options Ali wanted were in two colors Ali did not want, red and blue.  Ali much prefers neutral colors like tan or the silver of the car she drove.  There was a silver Volt that had what Ali wanted minus the navigation system.

At first this seemed like a big negative to Ali but when Jason said the car comes with 3 years of free Onstar service which included turn by turn directions (minus a map on the screen) it seemed like less of a negative.  I told Ali she uses the NAV in the Camry very rarely and if she needed a map it already will reside on her Iphone. Jason said he also expects there will be a 3rd party smart phone app, similar to what is out for the Camaro that allows her phone to basically replace an in car system, displaying Iphone map data on the car’s AV screen.

Ok, so now we were landed on a vehicle that Ali would like.  Jason asked if we could get numbers that we were happy with if Ali would buy the car.  She said yes, although it would be a big stretch.  When Jason was running back and forth checking on things, he had left the print outs of the prospective vehicle on the desk.  I took a look at it and had to laugh a bit when I saw the print out included the dealer invoice.  I already knew approximately what the invoice was but I don’t think he intended for me to have it quite so accessible.

Ok so now they had to take a look at the Camry to see what it’s worth.  The Camry is still in great shape, it’s biggest wart is the high mileage.  I had run wholesale numbers on it’s worth prior to coming to the dealership so I had realistic expectations. Well Jason’s initial number did not come close to meeting those expectations.  They were obviously trying to “steal” the trade initially, another very common tactic.  They never expect a person to accept the first offer but if they are dumb enough to do so they make a killing on the trade so they always start very low.

I told Jason that number was way low based on the numbers I saw.  Of course he disagreed with my numbers and asked if he could bump the trade a grand if we could do a deal.  I told him that I had already been in contact with another dealership in Estero that was very interested in selling us a car.  I also said we were considering taking a look at a new Prius.

Basically, the most important thing you can do in a car sales negotiation is establish that you are not married to buying a car and are willing to walk away.  So, after some more staged back and forth talk about the numbers we arrived at a trade number $2500 above what we were initially offered.  It was higher than the black book values I found.  I backed this up by quickly checking retail prices of high mileage Camry Hybrids on AutoTrader which were not good.  It was a decent trade offer.

What made up for the median trade offer were the amazing incentives they are offering on the Volt.  2013’s have a $2000 rebate AND 60 month zero percent financing, wow.  If that was not enough to knock your socks off, come tax time, Ali will be receiving an ADDITIONAL $7500 back from Uncle Sam for the Volt purchase.  So basically you are getting a $10k spiff and free financing, it is pretty crazy.

So it was easy to figure payment numbers no interest to worry about.  The numbers still came in a bit high so Ali and I did some quick on the spot discussions related to divorce financial issues where we would utilize the majority of the remaining joint funds to help her knock down her monthly payment.  I agreed to do so in good faith, trusting that it will be accounted for cleanly when the time arrives to do so.  Even now, I was excited to help Ali to get into cool, new wheels.

So after confirming with me that I thought it was a good deal, Ali shook Jason’s hand and became the proud owner of a new Volt.  She should be picking it up tomorrow once it arrives from the dealership where it is currently housed.  Ali is hoping to employ my tech savy to get the Volt dialed in once she takes possession.

I walked away from the deal with the odd feeling of being jealous of both Ali’s living arrangements and future transportation accommodations.  She will probably save $100 + a month in gas at the current prices and can use the $7500 government spiff to fund her car payment budget column for quite a long time if she needs to.

When she posted about her Volt purchase on Facebook, her brother, whom has been on an anti-Obama jihad for some time now, immediately jumped all over the Volt.  He accurately pointed out that the Volt is HEAVILY government subsidized.  Not only will Ali get that huge spiff for buying a Volt, GM gets a spiff for making it, a big one.  He finds this egregious.

I don’t look at it in quite the same way.  I think the world needs to be pushed, pulled and dragged into a life where fossil fuels become a consistently smaller piece of the energy pie.  I think the Volt is the perfect compromise of both worlds.  Now the problem is, this tech can not yet be made available to the public at a price point where it will be widely adopted.  These government incentives are an effort to do this.  I think it is a big picture idea that is going to take time.  Unfortunately we live in a very short term, me first, fck you world where so many people care about themselves and themselves alone.

The Volt is also an effort to kick start domestic production of the massive battery packs that are used to power the car.  The last two decades have seen these type of technologies consistently farmed out overseas where they can be built cheaper.  I love that GM is relying on an American company to make these battery packs.  Ali’s brother was more concerned about the recent story that the battery plant has been nearly idle because of the slow Volt sales.  Again, big picture versus little picture.

The hope is that with the government footing a large portion of the Volt bill, this car, and others like it will become more and more mainstream.  The more mainstream they become, the less expensive they become as the technology is more widely adopted.  It’s a seed that was planted.  The government is watering it daily right now until it grows large enough to be self sustaining.  Will the plan ultimately be successful?  I certainly hope so but even if it would ultimately fail, I think it is a fight worth fighting.

I am a real fan of the greater good concept.  It is in everyone’s best interest to get away from fossil fuels both for economic and environmental reasons. (unless you are a fan of Exxon)  If you don’t agree with that basic premise and that in order to do so is going to take a massive financial effort to drag us away from the slimy tentacles of big oil, I would suggest you are sadly mistaken.

Saturday night I  headed downtown to meet up at a post race party for an 80 mile relay run that was held during the day.  I had a good time getting relatively drunk and hanging out with good people.  I got home just before midnight.

I had plans to run Sunday.  When I woke up right before 8am I almost immediately dismissed them, I felt shitty. Immediately the internal discussions start up, the taskmaster reminding me that if I blow off the exercise I will be annoyed with myself.

After I had my Pop Tart breakfast I felt a little more human so I started leaning back towards grabbing my sneakers.  My mind was made up when I saw it was a very comfortable 66 degrees outside, a temp I have not had the pleasure of running in for probably 7 or 8 months.

I drove down to the water park and decided to do the big 10K Oakes loop.  The first half mile or so I felt pretty shitty, questioning if I wanted to continue running for almost an hour straight.  Eventually things settled down and felt better.  I completed the 10K with no stops for water or a breather in what felt like a decent pace, I didn’t even bother to bring my GPS.  Mentally, I felt better for making myself get out there and do the work, even when I really didn’t feel up to it.

I picked up the dogs on the way back home since Ali was going to work and I was going to be home doing chores.  Since the Eagles were on bye this week I had all day to buzz around.  The lion share of my time was consumed by mowing, I spent well over four hours on the tractor since I mowed the back yard as well.

The weekend was over in a blink of an eye.

I doubled the time of this upcoming weekend thanks to the use of some of my vacation days.  By this time next Monday rolls around I hope to have the bedroom painted and the Pioneer stereo installed in the Tacoma.

I have talked a few times about my efficient and fast laundry technique.  Last night I documented the process for those out there that are looking to spend less time each week washing clothes.

I got my used radio for the Tacoma this week.  Included in the box was the radio and a brand new mic, gps antenna and USB/Iphone cable.  However there was one thing missing, the power/wiring harness that is used to connect the stereo to the trucks wiring.  I had already bought the adapter harness to connect the radio harness to the truck harness.

I double checked the auction listing to see if it mentioned the wire harness as being included or not.  It was not listed as being included so I had no tangible gripe with the seller.  Instead I had to hop back online and buy the harness I assumed was included, damn it.

I have yet another busy weekend in the forecast.  I am timing another cross country meet tomorrow which will easily consume over half of my Saturday.  The grass is due to be mowed along with my normal assortment of weekly to do’s. I have taken off the two days sandwiching next weekend with the intention of getting the bedroom finally painted, something I had hoped to knock out months ago.

Not that I had any intentions of shopping Abercrombie & Fitch anytime in the near future but this story will ensure I never will.  What a fcking tool.

I was very, very tired yesterday.  So tired that I was considering just blowing off yoga class.  I had already missed the past two weeks so I felt like I really should go.  Class doesn’t start till 6 so I drove there right after work and just reclined the seat in the Tacoma and closed my eyes for a half hour.

For whatever reason the class was lightly attended, I think there were only a total of six people there, including myself.  I was the only male in the room.

This class usually starts and ends with things like chanting, meditation and reading.   This is something I didn’t look for when I started yoga.  I was more interested in the tangible benefits like greater flexibility and strength.  However I have come to enjoy the non-physical aspects of the class as well, not because it has offered me any dramatic spiritual awakening, it just feels good.

I really like the woman that runs this particular class, she is also the owner of the studio.  She has such a good and positive energy, it’s nearly impossible to walk out of the class not feeling better then when you walked  in.

In most yoga poses, especially anything that involves hip, shoulder or knee flexibility I am woefully behind everyone else in the class but it is no big deal. The only stuff I can hold my own at are hand balancing/strength holds. I am making slow progress in the other stuff which is all I am looking for.

When I got home I fought the urge to just nuke a quick dinner, instead baking tilipia in the oven and backing that up with some broccoli made on the stove top.

I was thinking I am going to need to get instructions from either my mom or Ali on how to make my favorite chocolate cake.  If someone bakes me chocolate cake I get to enjoy it for a week.  If I learn how to bake it myself I get to enjoy it for a lifetime.

As disappointed as I have been with the last two Eagle losses which in the end came down to the defense coming up small, I was pretty surprised that Andy fired Juan Castillo yesterday.  I guess I was surprised because although in the very end, the defense failed, throughout the games there were equally bad issues on the other side of the ball.

I have never been a fan of Castillo as the defensive coordinator.  Many times last year I was asking for this very thing (his firing). I never understood why Andy thought it was a wise move to insert a guy that has coached nothing but offense in the NFL as the defensive coordinator.  To me it seemed like Juan’s strong points were enthusiasm and cheer leading.  Unfortunately crafting an effective, consistent defense was something that was missing from the list.

Supposedly the guy Andy promoted, who was the interim Dolphins head coach last year, is a no nonsense kind of guy.  Hopefully he can somehow insert a toughness into the defense that has been missing for a long time.

Last night I finally got around to seeing Looper.  It was not quite as good as I hoped/heard but I enjoyed it.  I sure hope they invent time travel before I die so a younger version of myself can close the loop.  I’d give the flick a B+.

I missed the debate last night and could care less.

If you are a regular blog reader you know I have had issues the last several months with my battery warning light in the Tacoma coming on.  It has been a hit and miss thing.  Well yesterday when I went to the gym the light came on and stayed on solid.  In addition I could smell a slight electrical burn.  I was worried that the alternator had completely died.

When I got to the gym I opened the hood and saw the alternator looked normal but I still could smell the burn.  My concern was it wasn’t charging at all which would quickly result in the truck dying in the middle of the road somewhere.  I was just hoping I would be able to get the truck to Autozone after work before it died.

I was relieved when I made it there.

I had the guy come out and test the alternator.  I had it tested once before when the light started coming off and on. At that time it tested as ok.  This time it did not.  The alternator was still outputting juice but less then it is supposed to, it failed the test.  It was good to know it was still putting out power, it meant I should be able to make it back home without having to call AAA.

So I didn’t waste much time until I got to work, knowing daylight was at a premium.  I pulled the SSR out of the garage and pulled the Tacoma part of the way in so the engine bay was under the light, just in case the job took longer than expected.  Of course, it did.

So I had done some loose research on alternator replacement, it didn’t seem too involved, a couple bolts, disconnect the electrical connections, loosen the belt and then reverse the process.  Well I hit a road block almost immediately.

I found two mounting points, a pivot bolt up top and a nut down below.  I removed the pivot bolt and loosened the nut below, thinking that would be enough to allow the alternator to move downward so I could remove the belt.  It did not want to budge at all.  Hell I even tapped it with a hammer to see if it moved, it didn’t.

So I went inside and looked for quick reference on the internet.  However as I was sitting there I realized I have my Chilton’s manual in the truck, I should be using it.  I am just so conditioned to using the internet as my sole reference point.

When I looked at the book I confirmed those two bolts were the only ones that held the alternator in place.  However the book also mentioned that with the V-6 models, it is recommended you remove the skid plate on the bottom to get better access to the alternator.

By this time daylight was gone, I was utilizing a flashlight and one of my fluorescent lanterns we use for the running club to provide additional lighting where needed.  As I was crawling around under the truck, trying to get the skid plate off, with the lantern next to me, a flaw in my plan to work at night with the garage door open was revealed, fucking bugs.

Working at night, in Florida, at the tail end of wet season with an open door and bright light source is like a big welcome sign for any insect within a couple hundred yards to come on in.   As I am pinned under the truck with limited movement area I had all sorts of things buzzing around me, including mosquitoes.  I was getting extremely agitated at this point.

Once I got the skid plate off I did have much better access to the bottom of the alternator.  I realized I needed to back off the tensioner bolt to allow the bottom of it to swing.  Once I did that I was finally able to get the belt off.

So now with both bolts totally off the alternator you would expect it would just fall right out.  Nope, it was still held in place just because the pivot bolt area is a really tight fit into the mounting area.  I left the it suspended in place while I turned my attention to removing the two electrical connections.

The first connector wasn’t too bad.  I had to pop off a plastic cover and then remove a nut.  The second connector SUCKED.  At first I tried to get it removed while the alternator was still in it’s mounted position.  Supposedly you just had to press down on a tab and the connector should release.  Well it didn’t.

I then popped the alternator out of the mounting bracket so I would have full access to the connector to manipulate it.  Even in this position I was unable to get the damn thing off.  I fought with it for a good 15 minuted trying various tools to help me.  I was getting nervous because some of my work with a pliers was damaging the plastic connector a bit.

Finally I got the damn thing to release.  When I looked at the connector I saw why I was having issues, it looked like it was a bit warped from heat.  I was worried that it might not work on the new alternator.

Installing the new alternator was not nearly as aggravating as removing the old one since I knew what was involved.  The bitched up connector did still snap in to the new unit, thankfully.  The most difficult part of putting the new alternator in was getting the pivot bolt portion back into it’s bracket with the bolt hole lined up.  It was SUPER tight, I had to use some light tapping with a hammer to get it into position.

Finally, after 2 hours of nasty labor I was ready to turn the key to see if my alternator surgery was successful.  I held my breath, turned the key and was pleased when the truck started right up and the battery warning light remained dark.  Sweet success.

The new alternator cost me about $140 after returning the old core.  I am pretty sure if I went to a garage to have the same work done I would have easily been out $400 or more.

I did wind up getting incredibly dirty.  My engine area is a greasy, oily mess.  The valve cover gaskets need to be replaced. I had black all over my arms, hands, head and legs.  It was a long shower that involved tons of scrubbing with my loofa brush thing.

Despite being worn out from the late night mechanic session I was up until almost midnight catching episode 1 of this season of Walking Dead.  As expected, it delivered.

I started off my weekend at 4:30 am, dragging my tired ass out of bed to go run with the club.  If I didn’t have the Tough Mudder coming up on the calendar I would remained firmly in bed.  In my mind I felt like at some point before the race I needed to get the “long” course under my belt which is about nine and a half miles.  I figure if I can run that distance continuously, running the roughly 12 mile Mudder course shouldn’t be a problem since there are tons of breaks for the obstacles thrown in there.

I wasn’t really planning to do the long course yet, especially since my knee was bothering me just running 6 miles the week before.  I told Matt I would see how I feel once we hit the water stop at 3.5 miles and make my decision then.

We headed out at a pretty quick pace, something like 8:15 miles, faster than I would prefer if I was going for the long haul.  Eventually we throttled it back a bit.

Saturday was the first morning where it actually felt somewhat “cool” .  The temperature was right around 70 which is still high for 6am, but the humidity level felt much more tolerable.  I definitely could feel the difference when running.

When we reached the water stop I did a quick knee assessment.  It actually felt pretty good so I told Matt I was down for doing the long run.  So instead of turning right and heading back towards our starting point, we went left and ran another mile and a half to the end of Gordon drive before heading back.

My legs were feeling it pretty severely for the last couple miles, they had not been pushed to do this distance at this pace since I ran the Hooters Half in March.    My overall pace actually was almost exactly what I did in that half, no wonder I was tired. It felt good to get the long run under my belt. I would say the run combined with the 200 pull up lunch break qualifies me as being officially ready for the Mudder.

I took the SSR to the run, something I don’t normally do.  With the top down and the wind whipping around I was actually on the cool side, I had the heat blowing on my legs.

So when I got home I had a long list of things I wanted to get done.  I had already tried to get a head start by weeding the property on Friday night.  The first thing I wanted to get done was spraying Weed B Gone on the entire yard, at least everything that is close to the house.

I have had an uphill battle with weeds in the yard forever.  There are three weeds that like take over my lawn, two of the three I don’t know the name of, the third is dollar weed, or Creeping Charlie as I like to call it. I have been trying to keep the weeds under control by applying granular weed and feed in bag on a semi-regular basis.  That stuff is VERY expensive and overall I have not been pleased with the results.  It will normally hold back the dollar weed for a bit but it always returns.  The stuff doesn’t seem to touch the other two weeds that dominate the lawn.

Weed B Gone is a more direct approach.  You attach it to a hose end sprayer and blast away.  Unlike the bagged weed and feed, this stuff is designed to work fast, killing the weeds in a matter of days instead of weeks while leaving the grass intact.

Not only is this stuff more direct, it is also more dangerous.  When you read the directions there are a number of warnings, like don’t apply on a windy day, don’t apply within 25 feet of stuff you don’t want to die, don’t let pets on the grass until it is thoroughly dry, don’t let it run off into sewer systems, etc…

Well I didn’t pay much attention to one of the warnings which says to apply while wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt.  If some of it gets on your skin, you are advised to wash the skin for 15-20 MINUTES with water which sounds ridiculous.  I applied the solution with a steady breeze wearing shorts and a t-shirt, I definitely got some of it on my legs, arms and hands.  I rinsed myself at the end but only for a few seconds, hopefully I don’t drop over dead.

I am hoping the mass extermination of weeds combined with our going into dry season soon will allow real grass to fill these spots in a density enough to choke weeds out in the future. Time will tell.

I then grabbed by loppers and shears and got busy trimming and pruning a few things around the house.  This is a nice warm up for the hellish, November cabbage palm mass pruning that I will have to do.  You have no idea how little I am looking forward to that miserable job.

Next up was some tractor work.  The blades on the tractor, although only a couple months old had already dulled.  The cutting performance while mowing was pretty awful.  I decided to pull them off and try to sharpen them.

Luckily with the Craftsman mower, removing the blades with the deck on the tractor is much more doable than it was with the Cub Cadet which required me to yank the deck to pull the blades.

The blades were still more or less intact although the cutting edge was very, very dull.  I could saw away on my arm with one and not draw a drop of blood.  I decided to use my dremel for the job after locking each blade up in my table vice.

I have never tried sharpening with the dremel, the few times I did it in the past I used a grinding wheel attachment for my cordless drill.  I couldn’t find that attachment.

The dremel actually seemed to work pretty well.  The smaller grinding head gave me better control as I worked the cutting surfaces.  By the time I was done at least I could feel and edge on the blades.  It will be interesting to see how long my sharpening holds up.  I did a brief test cut and there was a definite improvement.

While I had the blades off I drug up the pressure washer and blasted the organic crud off the underside of the mower deck.  In the process I wound up splashing the wet, green/brown sludge all over me.

Finally I needed to give the SSR a bath.  The trip to and from SoBe last week had left the truck with a bug facial that needed to be cleaned up. After finishing up all the outdoor work, heading inside offered me no rest as there was cleaning and laundry to do.

By the time I was done it was after 3.  I was beat.  So beat that my original idea of going out to see Looper Saturday night got shelved, I was just too tired.  Instead I stayed home and threw in a Netflix dvd I had sitting around the house so long that it had dust on the cover, Underworld : Awakenings.

I have seen a number of Underworld movies.  They have a simple formula that works, vampires, werewolves, gruesome violence and Kate Beckinsale in tight leather body suits.  They stuck to the formula and once again it delivered a solid 75-80 minutes of brainless entertainment, B+.

So I woke up Sunday and was debating if I wanted to go for a bike ride or not.  Surprisingly, my right knee felt pretty solid despite running nearly 10 miles the day before.  Then once I decided I was going to get on the bike I was debating what ride I wanted to do.  I settled on doing the 17.25 mile Publix ride.

I pulled down the Dawes for the ride, thinking the aero bars would come in handy if I hit the sustained wind that normally is part of this route.  Despite it’s added weight, the riding geometry the Dawes offers is actually more comfortable than my lighter, higher end Trek 2.1.

For the first half of the ride I was hauling ass. I was over 21 mph for almost the entire time.  Of course I knew this meant I had a wind behind me, helping to push me along.  I knew this same wind would be my adversary on the ride home, I just didn’t realize how big of one.

Man once I turned back east it was miserable.  I knew there was wind, I didn’t think it would suck that bad.  I dropped a couple gears and got down on my aero bars, but only briefly.  I realized the elbow rest on the left side had shifted downward which made the position awkward and annoying.  Instead I grabbed onto the drops in my handlebars and stayed there for the majority of the ride home.

I struggled to keep my speed above 16 mph for most of the 8+ miles back.  My legs were totally gassed by the end of the ride where my overall average speed dropped to 17.7 mph.  I jumped into the pool with my bike pants and top still on to cool off.

After changing I hopped in the van to go pick up the dogs so they could hang out at the house with me.  I had cleared the slate of the majority of the chore list so I was looking forward to a day of relaxing, as much as I can relax.

Watching that Eagles game certainly did not relax me.

For the second week in a row the defense had the opportunity to win the game and for the second week in a row they failed to do so, in an even grander collapse.  However the blame for this performance certainly does not rest on the back of the defense alone.

Ok if you look at stats alone, you may think that Vick had a great game, well if you take away the blown coverage that allowed Maclin to run for a 70 yard td, Vick’s game was not good at all.  After making stupid predictions of next to no turnovers by himself the rest of the season, he was involved in 3 more turnovers.  Luckily for the Eagles, the Lions offense was awful for the majority of the game, was unable to turn any of those turnovers into points.

I addition to their stumbling offense, the Lions were playing horrible sloppy ball, committing an amazing 16 penalties.  If I told you a team had 16 penalties and failed three times to score any points off turnovers you would assume they lost the game.  You would be assuming correctly, unless that team happens to be playing the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Eagles scored a TD late in the 4th quarter to go up 23-13 with just over 5 minutes left in the game.  A good team does not lose a game when playing a team that has sputtered all day in that situation.  Well of course as well all should now realize, the Eagles are not that good of a team.  Instead they allowed themselves to be gashed up and down the field.  They actually tried to allow the Lions win in regulation after committing pass interference in the end zone.  Instead the Lions had to settle for a game tying field goal as time expired.

Overtime  was a total joke.  After Vick took back to back sacks the Eagles had to punt out of the back of their end zone, giving the Lions great field position.  The Lions easily gained the yardage needed to kick the game ending field goal.  What a fcking mess.

Let’s point out a few names since Andy refuses to do so, preferring to just take blanket blame for everything once again.

Let’s talk Mike Vick, whom at this point might be the most overpaid QB in the league.  Outside of his great 8 game run in 2010, his stats since have been mediocre at best.  His new found love of turning the ball over has made his presence behind the center a liability.  I have never seen someone that turns over the ball this much be allowed to keep his job.

Vick gets hit more than anyone else I can remember in recent history.  It literally seems that more plays than not, he is on his back.  The blame for this lies both with him taking too long to get rid of the ball and an offensive line that seems to generally suck.  They appear to be out classed each and every game.  Andy always seemed to understand the importance of a good o-line in the past.  Granted they have had injuries that have forced some not so qualified players to step into starting roles, but again, good teams are able to rise above injuries.

Ok let’s turn to the special teams.  They suck.  I can’t tell you how long it has been since there was a punt or kick off return that was anything significant.  Hell they even threw Desean Jackson back there for one punt and he promptly lost a couple yards.

Ok how about that defense that has collapsed when the game was on the line?  Well the most obvious flaw is the dramatic difference in sacks this year when compared to last.  It seemed like Stafford was basically untouched, it was like we had four Mike Mamulas on the D-line, always one step away from making an actual play. Jason Babin and Trent Cole are totally ineffective all of a sudden.

Who the F is number 27 and why the F is he allowed on the field?  He was involved in almost every big passing play during the Lions come back, blowing coverage repeatedly.

I mean maybe all of this bitching is because of the false sense of how good the team was after the Eagles built a 3-1 record to start.  If you looked at how they squeezed out those wins it was obvious this team was far from dominant.  Now they are following last years blueprint where they lose games that could have been wrapped up if the team was able to perform when it matters.

If this team stumbles it’s way to another .500 year I think it will be the rubber stamp that Andy’s methods of managing the team have finally run it’s course.

Oh during halftime I went out and hung on the bar with one hand.

I was feeling pretty funked Sunday night.  Maybe it was a hangover from the shitty Eagles loss, maybe it was a combo of other things on my mind.  I just know that the world did not feel very bright and shiny.

Even though I went through a hellish installation process in doing it, I really like the Pioneer radio I have in the SSR.  The touch screen interface, integrated GPS, Iphone support and Bluetooth connectivity are all things I really like.  There is one problem, I hardly drive the SSR, once or twice a week is typical. 90% of my driving time is spent behind the wheel of my 99 Tacoma which has the functional, but boring factory stereo system.

I found a cheap, used Pioneer 310BT on Ebay.  The 310 isn’t as fancy as the 930BT that is in the SSR.  It has a smaller screen and not as many subfeatures but the core is there, integrated GPS, touchscreen, Iphone support and Bluetooth.

Once I saw the used unit I did a mad scramble to verify the radio will work in my truck.  I was amazed how difficult it was to confirm this.  So tough that I never 100% confirmed it, despite my polished web searching skills.  The 310 BT is no longer in production and evidently not many people put these radios in a 13 year old truck.

However the Tacoma has a double din opening, the 310BT is a double din radio, and I found a wiring harness that is used to connect an aftermarket stereo to the factory harness.  So I pulled the trigger.

I again took to the web for some preliminary info regarding removing the radio in a 99 Tacoma and again I found this info very sparse and hard to find.  I guess when I dig into the project I will have the video camera in hand to fill the media void.  When I did finally find some documentation on the radio removal, it didn’t seem too severe, much less involved than what I went through with the SSR.

If I successfully get the radio installed I’ll be able to eliminate several pieces of tech I have scattered around the cab of the truck like the GPS stuck to the windshield, the hands free Bluetooth device on my visor and the awkward mount I have for my Sirius Xact radio.

My chia seeds showed up last night.  When I opened the bag and looked inside it looked like something I would put out in the bird feeders.  Chia seeds are tiny, and mostly black.

I had talked to my buddy at work ahead of time, looking for advice on how to use them.  I followed his outline.  In a cereal bowl I mixed two tablespoons of the seeds, 8 ounces of unsweetened almond milk, and some frozen blueberries.

After giving the mixture an initial stir I let it sit for around 20 minutes, allowing the seeds to absorb the liquid, stirring it a couple times along the way.  The final consistency was sort of like runny rice pudding.  I could have thickened it up by using more seeds or less almond milk I guess.  It was my first time so I didn’t expect it to be perfect.

I dipped in my spoon and took my first taste of chia.  Damn, it was good, it was really good.  The almond milk and blueberries combined nicely.  After I finished the bowl I felt full and no need to grab some sort of supplemental desert.

There are tons of ways you can utilize chia seeds.  My buddy likes to add hemp seeds and frozen black cherries to his mixture too.  You can tailor it to suit your tastes.

What a great discovery and addition to my diet, get your chia seeds now.  Great taste along with fiber, protein, calcium and omega 3’s.

With my mom’s tight financial situation, anything that I can do to help her out is always a good idea.  My latest target was her monthly bill from Century Link.  Mom pays for DSL internet and old fashioned home phone service.  Together they add up to a decent sized monthly bill.

Well I came up with the idea of replacing mom’s home phone with the Magic Jack Plus, which would utilize her internet connection for phone service which would at least cut that monthly bill in half.  You basically pay for the hardware (I would buy it of course) and then it is between $20-$30 a YEAR.  Yes, that is it.  That price includes completely free and unlimited local and long distance calling in the US.  Mom doesn’t even have any free long distance included on her current home line, she has to pay by the minute.

The Magic Jack Plus differs from the Magic Jack in that it does not require a computer to operate.  That feature comes at a price as it is about double the price of the basic adapter.  Everything I have read about the Plus has been good.  It does what it is supposed to, provide low cost, full feature phone service for a fraction of conventional dial up plans.  You even have the option to transfer your existing phone number over to your Magic Jack, another thing mom probably would like.

To be honest, if I get one for mom and it works as well as I expect it to, I will be targeting the phone at the house as well.  Years ago I switched over to Vonage, which is far less than regular phone service ($16-1$17) a month, but an expensive pig when compared to the Magic Jack.  Plus the Vonage plan is only for 500 minutes of monthly calling, not unlimited so it would be a win/win.

Jeremy uses a similar device in conjunction with Google Voice and encouraged me to do the same.  The biggest negative for me was that for whatever reason, Google Voice has absolutely no numbers in my 239 area code thus making a number transfer impossible.

When I emailed mom about it I could tell she was somewhat cautious, although I think the opportunity to shave more off her monthly expense nut will convince her to let me give it a try.

This weekend I don’t have any big events like a Pull Up Jam on the schedule.  I would kind of like to go out and see Loopers.  I have heard from multiple sources it is quite good.  Unfortunately I haven’t found anyone with a similar interest in seeing it so I might go at it solo.  At least it will be a cheap date.

Of course I have at least a half dozen potential home related maintenance projects always ready to go and on deck if find the motivation level is there.

This particular blog theme has some interesting abilities although I am not quite sure how they would be useful to me.

[button color=”red, blue, orange or green” url=”http://dufisthenics.com” size=”medium, small or default”]Dufisthenics[/button]  Like for instance cool little buttons that can take you to another URL.

Tabbed content

[tabs tab1=”Sex” tab2=”Drugs” tab3=”Rock and Roll”]

[tab]Sex is fun[/tab]
[tab]Drugs are cool[/tab]
[tab]Rock and Roll is life[/tab]

[/tabs]

And an accordian-like interface

[accordion]

[pane title=”RCI”]Sucks[/pane]
[pane title=”Sirius”]Blows[/pane]
[pane title=”Mitt”]http://roboromney.com[/pane]

If you press the button above and jump over to Dufisthenics I’ll have more to talk about.

[/accordion]