One of the guys that was at the pull up jam posted some footage he shot with his phone on FB. It just happened to be while I was doing my pull up set. You can get a good sense of the crowd that was gathered and why it was cool to have them cheering you on.
There were a bunch of professional looking videographers there that seemed to be filming everything. I hope to find that footage at some point. If you want to see the video this still was taken from, click here.
It seems hard to believe that October is here already. That means that Halloween will be here in a blink with Thanksgiving and Christmas arriving shortly thereafter. (as long as the world doesn’t end)
I am dreading this holiday season for obvious reasons. It will literally be the first Christmas I have not been in an active relationship with someone in something like 28 years. Talk about a blue Christmas…
I forgot to mention the one annoying happening at the Barstarzz event on Saturday. About half way through it some guy showed up at the beach whom was obviously chemically altered. I’m not sure if it was alcohol or something else.
Anyway this guy was stumbling around the area, being loud and obnoxious. He kept throwing his big bellied body up on the bars as guys were doing the competition. A couple times some of the Barstarzz guys tried to get the guy to take a hint and cool it. This guy was too f’d up to take heed. He thought it was cool that he could act like a moron with a big crowd watching.
I felt like I should do something, maybe try to talk reasonably with the drunk, ask him nicely to move along, although I highly doubt it would have been effective. Trying to drag him out of the area would have probably escalated into something worse.
Eventually the guy staggered away, thankfully.
Yesterday I ordered some chia seeds.One of my bar buddies had posted info about this super food and it caught my interest. Yes these are the same chia seeds made infamous by Chia Pets, one of the tackiest gift items ever made.
Chia seeds have huge nutritional benefits. They are high in omega 3’s fiber, calcium, protein and more. If you would like to read about them, take a peek here.
Chia seeds act like a sponge when exposed to liquid, absorbing up to 12 times their weight in water, turning into a gel-like substance. There are lots of good ways to consume them. My buddy at work mixes them with almond milk, hemp seeds and blueberries. He said it is really good.
I will be using chia seeds instead of the flax seed tablets I have been taking for awhile. Taking flax in capsule form is probably the least effective method anyway. I hope to grab some hemp seeds and quinoa as well, some other great super foods that will help fuel my body without incurring a death sentence on another animal.
Last night I was back on the healthy dinner band wagon. I was given an avocado from a co-worker which I utilized in my wrap. This was the first time I tried the larger, green avocados instead of smaller black variety. I found the taste and texture very similar.
I caught episode 2 of season 1 of Homeland last night. I will be suspending my 24 viewing in order to get up to speed on Homeland.
So as I explained on Friday, my game plan to attend the pull up event in South Beach, despite my dog sitting for the weekend, was to leave around noon and hopefully get back around 8, rolling the dice that there would be no excrement waiting for me when I got home.
I was surprised when Friday night I got a call from my mom. She said she wouldn’t mind driving out to the house after she was done working on Saturday so the dogs would be ok. I hadn’t even bothered pitching this idea to her since I assumed she would not want to do it. Of course I was thrilled with the offer, it will eliminate the poop potential. Mom said she would just stay the night and get up early Sunday to head to work. Sounds good to me.
Saturday morning I was up and working early. I had the girls ride with me in the van to Ali’s place to go pick up the Camry. Ali mentioned it was due for an oil change so I told her I would do it while she was gone. I left the van there and took the Camry back out to the house to do the work. In addition to changing the oil and filter I added coolant and air to the tires. The car really could use a bath but that is an extra cost service.
I spent the rest of the morning getting as much done as I could before I was to leave for South Beach. When I have the dogs I don’t even bother worry about cleaning until after they are gone, especially now. Very recently, seemingly to me since Nicki started on some thyroid medicine a month ago, her coat has rapidly transformed. It has made her fur very long, much longer than ever before. In addition, her shedding is non-stop. In no time at all the carpet had various black spots where Nicki had been laying down, her hair just falls out.
I also noticed that Nicki’s level of thirst since being on the thyroid medicine is drastically increased. She was constantly at the water bowl. I really think this is all related to the meds. I haven’t seen positive signs from the meds, Nicki still is moving slow and obviously has joint related pain.
So I got ready to pull out for South Beach. I packed a small bag with various items, unsure exactly what I would be doing once I got there. I included a towel, some water, a rubber resistance band, a change of clothes, my Flip camera and some deodorant. That should cover most foreseeable circumstances.
I fired up the SSR, dropped the top and after filling the gas tank was off to South Beach. I had the top down for the majority of the drive. I actually drove through a period of significant rain with the top down. I was on a section of highway with no real place to pull off to put the roof up. Actually, as long as you are moving at a decent speed, the wind rushing on top of the truck shields the cabin from getting soaked too badly.
I had asked Luis, one of the Barstarzz members that invited me to the event about where the best place was to park. He said the parking garage at the building which includes a Publix, Best Buy and Staples was a good choice if you don’t mind walking a bit. The first two hours are free and the hourly rate after that is very cheap. Cheap parking in South Beach is non-existent normally. Since I only had the small bag to carry I didn’t mind the walk.
I did exercise some caution with my wallet. I opted to leave it in the truck and just carry some cash and my credit card in a velcro pocket. I had some concerns about some shady person snatching my bag when I wasn’t paying attention at the beach. I figured if I kept my money, credit card and truck keys on me at all times that would be the safest bet.
The walk to the beach was pretty lengthy, maybe 6 or 7 blocks. In my flip flops it took me about 15 minutes to get to the event, which was scheduled to start around 2PM.
By the time I got there it was probably close to 2:45. There was a big crowd gathered around the bars watching people take turns on the 15 foot tall pole mounted in the sand.
The first thing I did was look for Luis. Luis is an older guy like me that got into bar work outs late in life. He is the one that invited me to attend the event. I spotted him and introduced myself. It was cool to finally meet someone I only knew virtually up until that point. He kind of gave me the lay of the land as far as the event goes. Mixed in with the casual exhibitions there was going to be a pull up, muscle up, dip and free style competition, cool. I figured I should at least give the pull ups a shot.
I wore my Bar-barians shirt to the event after verifying with Luis ahead of time that it wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t know if it would be weird to be wearing Bar-barians clothing at a Barstarzz event. Luis assured me it was fine. I actually didn’t leave the shirt on for very long. 95% of the guys there were shirtless so I decided to join them. If there is ever a place to show of the fruits of your calisthenics labor, it is South Beach.
As I was walking around I saw someone I recognized. I knew I saw a video about him on YouTube a little while ago. He goes by the name Raven (real name Ray)
I went up to him and introduced myself. Raven is a very unique individual and not a very young man, he recently turned 62 years old. To say Raven believes in regimens would be an understatement. For the last 42 YEARS, he has run 8 miles, everyday, on the beach.
He started doing this in January of 1975. From what I saw on his website, he originally made a New Years resolution to run 8 miles a day for an entire year. Well, he never stopped from that point on. About 5 years into his running regimen he added pull ups and other body weight exercises into his daily routine as well.
To date he has run a total of over 100,000 miles in total, just an incredible feat. However what is really amazing is when you think in detail about the reality of what this man has done. He LITERALLY has run that 8 miles every single day since 1975. He has run through injuries, illness, horrible weather and just about any other adversity you can imagine.
As I talked to him I asked what was his biggest injury issue. He said it was his back, at certain points he could barely get out of bed but he still put his 8 miles in.
Raven actually invited me to join him, a lot of people now run with him, at 5:30 at the 5th street lifeguard station. If I knew about it ahead of time I may have packed some running gear and done it. Instead I took a rain check and filed it away under the “to do’s” the next time I am in South Beach.
Raven was there because he wanted to take part of the pull up competition.
So the pull up contest eventually started. As others made their attempt I tried my best to get loose. Raven went before I did and knocked out 21 pull ups although his elbows were at 90 degrees at the bottom of his reps, a less than ideal range of motion. There were varying degrees of correctness in the form many people used. Some even used chin up grip for some reps. No one made a big stink though since they weren’t doing enough reps to win anyway.
Finally it was my turn to go, I might have been the 8th or 9th person to get on the bar. At that point the most amount of reps was 22, which I knew on a good day was within my wheel house since my PR is 25. I grabbed on to the highest of the three bars and started pulling.
I tried to keep my form very clean with my legs straight, feet together and using good extension at the bottom while making sure I was getting chin high at the top. My pace was pretty quick and explosive early on, I got to rep 18 before I had to pause. I managed to squeeze out 5 more reps to become the temporary leader with 23 reps. It was kind of cool to have a big crowd cheering me on as I squeezed out the last few reps. I wish I gave someone my Flip to shoot video of the reps. There was someone filming the entire event so I know my set is on film somewhere. Hopefully I can find it.
As I was there a tall young guy came up to me and said hi. His name is Max. Max reminded me that a couple years ago he and I were communicating back and forth about exercise stuff. Once he described the communication I remembered him but I still would have blanked on his name.
Max is almost the exact same height as I am, he is also 22 or 23 years younger than me. Despite his long build he has been able to really do some high level stuff as far as body weight movements go, much more advanced than I have gotten.
Unfortunately Max also has had a ton of injuries along the way, despite his young age. He actually was currently suffering from what sounds like a pretty serious shoulder injury. In addition, during our talks he described a myriad of other injuries he has gone through. Max is real focused and intense when it comes to achieving a goal once he sets it in his mind.
I talked to Max quite a bit, he seems like a real cool kid. He lives in the Miami area, we exchanged email and phone numbers. We agreed we should get together and work out once he heals up.
One of the other people I was looking for at the event was a woman I know primarily as “Low Bar”. She is one of the few women that are actively involved in bar exercise. She is from NYC and is familiar with the various bar groups there, including the Bar-barians. She had flown down for the event.
I was periodically scanning the crowd for her but she was nowhere to be seen. She showed up a little later. I gave her a hug and welcomed her to Florida. From the picture you can see why she is nick named Low Bar as she is less than 5 feet tall.
I sat next to her while the freestyle competition was going on. I shot most of the video I took during the freestyle part of the competition. You can see it below.
So the event started winding down around 6:30. I was planning to simply walk back to the SSR and start the 2 plus hour drive home. Low Bar asked me if I wanted to grab food with her cousin and her. Since I had mom in place to tend to the dogs I said sure.
Before I left I found Luis and thanked him again for inviting me to the event. It was a lot of fun to be around that kind of positive energy. I should invite the Barstarzz guys to hit my backyard bar park, that would be quite the scene.
I got in on the group picture before I left.
So we walked towards Ocean Drive and picked a spot to eat, thinking we would just eat out in the sidewalk seating area. Instead the hostess directed us inside to eat, um ok. Well this place, called Mangos, evidently is also a night/dance club. We were seated directly underneath a speaker that was blaring loud dance music. It didn’t take long until I got up and asked the hostess if we could eat outside instead because of the noise. She accommodated us but let me know there was a certain line in the sidewalk that I had to keep my chair behind. No problem.
We had a good dinner. Even with being outside it was still kind of loud, I had a hard time making out what Low Bar’s cousin was saying at times because of the noise and her strong Fillipino accent.
One thing that is nice eating outside is you get a nonstop stream of “interesting” people to look at. Some of the fashion decisions that were on display were pretty mind blowing. After our meal we walked back towards the hotel they were staying at. Once we hit 5th street I peeled off and started the long walk to the parking garage after giving them both hugs goodbye.
The drive back across the alley was a bit treacherous at times with some torrential downpours, including one I walked through to get to the front door of the rest stop. You can see my level of drenching in the picture.
I pulled into the driveway about 10:30. After letting the dogs out (mom was already in bed), I took a shower and crashed into bed. I was quite tired.
You can imagine the joy I felt when at 2:20 am I hear Nicki crying by the door. I assumed that meant she had to go to the bathroom. Well at least she is letting me know. Well the funny thing was the first thing she did when I opened the bedroom door was go lay in front of my mom’s door. I called her over and went out back. She did a number two and a one so I despite my being delirious with exhaustion, I preferred that to waking up at 7am to the smell of shit on the floor. Unfortunately afterward I had a very difficult time falling back asleep.
Mom was up early, crazy early to get ready for work. She wanted her alarm set at 5AM. Well it didn’t take long for the dogs to realize there was something going on in the main living area. They decided to wake me up a little after 6am, oh well.
So I told mom about my time on the east coast. As we were talking I realized this was the first time mom has set foot in the house since Ali and I separated. In fact, mom said it was the first time she has been at the house since last CHRISTMAS. When she first said that I was sure she was wrong but as I thought about it I couldn’t remember any other visits. It seemed impossible that so much time had passed so quickly. My life does feel like a bit of a blur the last 6 months or so.
Mom was the first person to sleep in the bed Jeremy donated to me. She said the bed was comfortable although she said she slept terribly. I wouldn’t credit that to the bed though, almost every time mom stays at the house she reports poor sleeping results. The deviation from her routine must through her for a loop.
So mom got ready and headed out around seven for work. I thanked her again for her dog sitting, it was nice to not have to be constantly checking my watch when I was over in South Beach.
So despite a severe lack of sleep I decided I needed to get some running in for Mudder training. I drove to the now closed for the season water park to run around. My initial hope was to do four laps around the outside of the park which would add up to 8 miles.
The skies were overcast which made running early on pretty bearable. As I got to the halfway point my right knee was feeling pretty shitty. Each stride had an accompanying ping of soreness associated with it. I decided to only do 3 laps instead of 4, finishing the 6 miles in 55 minutes and change, not a great pace but ok. I figured running the last 2 miles wasn’t worth it if I was really hurting. When I got home I iced the knee and it actually doesn’t feel too bad today.
Well that Eagles game was a bummer. I actually was so tired I was half asleep for nearly 3 quarters of the game. I was awake when Vick fumbled another two times. His turnover problems are a real big deal. Obviously opposing teams realize that the best way to beat the Eagles is to pressure Vick. When this happens he makes a lot of poor decisions and he’s not good at protecting the ball.
Despite the turnovers the Eagles actually grabbed their first lead late in the game. The drive that got them the lead had the opportunity to be a HUGE fail for Andy. For some reason he decided to go completely against the book and go for it on 4th down with over 10 minutes left in the game on his OWN 30 yard line, a huge risk. Luckily the Eagles converted by a few inches but man, he would have been crucified if they didn’t.
So anyway, the drive was very long, covering 17 plays resulting in a 14-13 lead. All that was left was for the defense to hold the Steelers with a couple minutes left on the clock and the game could be secured. Well obviously it didn’t happen. The biggest fail was when the Eagles had the Steelers pinned back on their side of the field facing a 3rd and 12. Instead of dealing the knockout blow, they played a soft zone that allowed a 20 yard completion. Once that happened I knew they were done.
The Steelers proceeded to march down the field easily and kicked a game winning field goal with three seconds left.
It was a disappointing ending for sure but I think the bigger news is Mike Vick’s torrid turnover pace. The amount of times he has turned the ball over thus far this season is staggering. He will obliterate the league record at this pace. Hopefully Andy is smart enough to eventually realize that either Vick has to take care of the ball better or someone else has to start taking the snaps.
Ali ran the Chicago Marathon yesterday, the reason I was watching the dogs for the weekend. She had much cooler temps to run in this year, hovering around 50 which for me, would be ideal. Ali prefers warmer air. She managed to finish a couple minutes ahead of last year’s time but had a lot of struggles, especially the last 10 miles of the race. She said her entire lower body was just in severe pain.
The good news or bad news, depending on how you look at it, is she gets to take another whack at the marathon distance in a month as she is signed up for the NYC marathon.
After the Eagle game I had enough daylight left to go out and hop on the tractor. Once again it was not running smoothly, acting like there is still some ethanol slime in the fuel system. I will need to find some additive that will dissolve the shit. I never like doing chores at the tail end of the weekend but it felt good to get the grass done.
You know when I run, at least when I run by myself, lots of random thoughts go through my head. As I was running Sunday my mind drifted to to the topic of people that spend a lot of energy screaming about “entitlements” and how they are ruining the country. I then thought about the hypocrisy that many of these exact same people are responsible for parenting the most “entitled” generation in US history.
These people that are so eager to cut seniors medical or social security benefits are the same people that think it necessary to equip their child with a one digit age with the latest and greatest iDevice. They feel it is important that they have some sort of video screen stimulation in front of their child’s face most waking moments of the day. Their child should not be made to suffer the cruel punishment of having to actually look out a window during a road trip and look at scenery.
These are the people that see nothing wrong with their child receiving a medal when their soccer team gets last place. After all, children should be taught early on that no matter how hard they do or don’t work, they will be rewarded. I mean wtf, how can parents complain about an entitled society when they parent in such a manner that does nothing but encourage that mentality?
I literally laugh out loud when I see bumper stickers were parents proclaim their child had a perfect dental check up. Good job Sally, way to go Petey!
Their children are being raised in a bubble. No one is allowed to yell at them, nobody should ever treat them unfairly, they are not allowed to endure hardship or struggle to attain a goal. It is just handed to them.
You see, as much as failure hurts, it is an absolutely essential part of life. If you are never allowed to fail you don’t ever appreciate or even know what true success is.
Maybe more people in the country need to go on solo runs so they can come to these type of revelations on their own. Don’t talk it if you don’t walk it.
I saw this quote floating around Facebook and it struck me as so true.
So after leaving work early I headed to the site of the race. When I got there I unloaded and set up what I could and once the club’s truck arrived we dug into setting up everything else. I fully expected a lot of headaches with this race on my end based on history. History did indeed repeat itself.
The registration area got very chaotic, very quickly. We had problems with teams coming up with email confirmations showing they registered for the race yet for some reason I did not have them in the system. We also had teams that supposedly mailed in entries with checks that were MIA. There was a long period of time where Ali and I were just slammed non-stop with problems. We did the only thing we could do, handle them one at a time.
I had to leave Ali alone to handle the mess for the last 15 minutes before the start of the race so I could set up the timing equipment at the start and finish lines. This was the first time I used the four new timing mats the club bought for the start line, they seemed to do a better job at detecting the huge volume of runners at the start than the 5 year old mats they replaced.
The actual timing of the race went smoothly after getting past the hectic pre-race scene. I found myself developing a rather large headache towards the end. I am not sure of it was from the race or from being dehydrated, I was sweating my ass off.
I worked on all of the post race duties right up to bedtime, I wanted it all done and put away.
So yesterday I was browsing Facebook and I saw mention of a pull up event in South Beach on Saturday held by Bar Starzz. Bar Starrz is another body weight enthusiast group, like the Bar-barians. When I looked closer I saw that I actually had been invited to the event awhile back by Luis, a fellow 40 + year old that is part of their group. I somehow missed the invite.
Well anyway, I saw the event actually has people coming from quite a distance to attend, including some people from NYC that I am FB friends with. Wow it would be cool to meet all these people. I saw Luis on FB chat and told him I was going to try to make it over there.
Later in the day I realized there was a complication. I totally forgot that Ali was gone this weekend. She is doing the Chicago Marathon again. That means I have dog duty.
Well after initially thinking it would cause me to miss this opportunity I reconsidered. It doesn’t start until 2pm which means I can leave around noon, spend 3-4 hours there and get back around 8-9. Worst case scenario is I have a smelly welcome home present and I will have the Spot Bot on hand in that event. The dogs would be given a free poop pass in that situation.
My left wrist and elbow are both injured to varying degrees but I think I am willing to just pop some Advil and deal with it. It should be a fun time. The SSR will be utilized for the coast to coast and back again trip, adding to the fun quotient.
I am sure the rest of the weekend will have plenty of more mundane items to consume what is left of it.
Ali forwarded this to me. It seems that the general consensus is that Mitt was the winner of the first debate based on his aggressive attitude and one liners that seemed locked and loaded almost before Obama would even stop speaking. Now what would you think if I told you that part of reason was because Mitt had a cheat sheet in front of him?
One of the rules of these debates are candidates are not allowed any aids in front of them. They are given a blank sheet of paper to make notes on once the debate begins, that’s it. Otherwise they are supposed to rely simply on their command of the issues.
Well the video makes it clear as day that Mitt pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket as he approached the podium, perhaps thinking that all of the cameras in the room were facing him and would not be able to catch his trickery.
I find this funny and pathetic at the same time. Wonder if he will fess up to this one or not?
So last night I was working on putting entries in for the race I am timing today and my cell phone rings. I see it is my neighbor from across the street. He told me he was on the road but had just gotten a call from his wife that their one rear sliding door exploded. She was freaked out and was scared somebody shot at her or something. He asked if I could run over there until he got home. I said of course, and headed right over.
I was a bit nervous when I knocked on the front door and no one answered. I then went around the back onto their lanai when Carol came out. I saw the shattered glass, it sure look like it had been shot. However a quick inspection of the screen around the pool cage showed no rips or tears where a projectile could have entered. Also the curtain behind the slider was intact.
Carol said when it happened she was literally sitting right next to the slider, it understandably scared her to death. She had already called the police. The police showed up, a full three cars worth, a minute or two before my neighbor got back home. When we described what happened the first thing they did was ask how old the house was. (16 years old)
They said this actually is something they have seen multiple times, especially with older construction. The single pane glass eventually fatigues. This process is amplified by the difference in outdoor Florida heat and humidity and the chilly indoor temps many people keep their AC cranked down to. Having one side of the glass hot and the other cold, over time, with older glass, can result in the implosion like my neighbor saw last night.
I asked my neighbor if he wanted any help with the clean up process or sealing the hole temporarily, there was glass everywhere. He said he would be fine so I headed back across the street to continue my race prep.
Last night in addition to my salad and veggie wrap, I decided to cook some broccoli. My cooking abilities are extremely handicapped. Not because I can’t do it, just because I never had to do it.
I had prepared some broccoli a couple times recently by nuking it in the microwave. It was edible but not much beyond that. Well on the way home I called my mom to ask for broccoli stove top prep instructions. After all the less nuking of food I do, the better.
Mom said prep was pretty straightforward. You basically dump some water in a pot with the broccoli, add some salt and bring it to a boil. Once it boils you turn off the burner and cover the pot, letting the broccoli cook in the steam/hot water.
I was quite pleased with the end result, broccoli came out much better than my previous nuked attempts. Broccoli is the second item that I discovered comes out much better when cooked conventionally. Gortons grilled tilapia was the first. Gordon Ramsey better look out.
After I finished all the prep for the race I am timing this evening it was almost 9pm. I decided to flip on the debate as I was folding laundry in the bedroom, despite my intentions to not even bother watching it as I knew all it would do is deepen my disappointment in the American political system.
The actual words that came out of the two men’s mouths were pretty predictable, with a lot of “you did this”, “you said that” and lots of loose “facts” that were meant to discredit the other. However I focused more on other aspects of the debate, a lot of non-verbal things.
Mitt’s eyes looked like he came off the set of Walking Dead, bloodshot and tired. It was interesting how Mitt chose to direct his comments towards Obama as opposed to the camera. Likewise it was interesting how Obama for the most part spent the majority of the time Mitt was speaking with his head down, taking notes. Conversely, most of the time Obama was talking Mitt had a ridiculous looking grin on his face that to me, came off as very disrespectful. I have little doubt that both candidates had planned this body language ahead of time.
I felt bad for the moderator for whom the most part got stomped on by both men who repeatedly ignored the efforts to keep their answers within the time constraints laid out for the debate. He would ask them to stop talking and the candidates rambled on, acting like there was a ghost in the room.
Tonight I have an oddball Thursday evening. I go straight from work to time the club’s only evening run of the year. This race is typically a bit of a mess since there are tons of exercise novices and children that participate. They aren’t familiar with a race environment so typically there are tons of human related errors that pop up for the event.
I watched episode one of this season of Dexter last night. Damn, I have no idea where the story can go from here, the way it ended you would think it was a season finale, not a premiere. It’s awesome to be able to watch shows like this in real time courtesy of Xfinity online. Shows like this (Showtime) can’t stream through the Xbox though, I need to watch them on my laptop or pc.
My property has once again transformed into swamplands after a day of rain that included several periods of intense downpours. Yeah it’s annoying but dry season is right around the corner where we can flip pages on the calendar without seeing hardly a drop.
Last night I also got on the Homeland bandwagon, another show that people rave about. I only watched the first episode but I can already see I will be into the show big time.
Yesterday I migrated my fitness blog, Dufisthenics off of WordPress.com onto my private hosting space. Hosting the site on WordPress.com is convenient but it also is somewhat limiting. You aren’t able to do much customization as plug ins aren’t allowed. They also want to charge you to allow certain things to be done which can be done for free if you host it yourself. They also do not allow you to run Google ads on their site.
In addition to the move, I installed a new theme. I find the new lay out more visually appealing.
Unfortunately my exercise routines have been a bit sidetracked lately due to injury. In addition to my right knee being always problematic to some degree, my left wrist is becoming a long term problem.
A wrist is a hard thing to let heal since it is used in so many ways and so often. For now I am trying to avoid things that blatantly cause pain but at least thus far I am not seeing/feeling any significant healing taking place.
Speaking of blog facelifts, I think I will be bolting a new skin onto this blog as well. The skin that is in place is admittedly boring and was hurriedly put in place when my site was hacked awhile back. There are bunch of good looking free alternatives out there.
Tonight is the first presidential debate. I really have no need to watch the debates as I don’t need to be convinced either way. Even if I did need convincing, if I thought that anything either candidate SAYS in a debate really means that much in the end I would be sadly mistaken. If a candidates debate performance is the deal breaker for you I would suggest you do more research.
So after a ridiculous amount of waiting, unanswered phone calls, and emails, I finally got the paperwork for the extended warranty on the SSR sent to me. After receiving them I was reading through the plan outline. One thing that caught my eye was the “Maintenance Requirements” . It said in there that you had to have receipts for certain maintenance items (like an oil change) and the receipts had to include the date and VIN number of the vehicle.
Well I have changed my own oil for years, not only to save money but also so I know it is done right after I had a Quick Lube place try to get away with not replacing the filter. Plus who knows what type of oil they dump in your vehicle in a place like that, they dispense it from giant vats, it can’t be very good.
Anyway, I wanted to clarify that if I changed my own oil, I could be setting myself up for a fight if I submit a claim, so I called the customer service number for the warranty company. I explained to the guy that I typically change my own oil. I asked if I kept the receipts for the oil/filter if that would be sufficient to indicate proper maintenance was performed.
The answer I got back was annoying. He basically said it may or may not be. He said that it would only become an issue if they asked for proof of oil changes if an engine related problem was submitted. It sounded like he was saying if I change my own oil I am rolling the dice as far as coverage goes, great.
So now for my next oil change I hope to find a place that will do the work for me and provide the proper documentation if I provide them with the oil and filter. It’s an annoying hoop to have to jump through.
So since I went through all the time and effort to reestablish an AdSense account for my mom and a new channel on YouTube I was hoping my ad dollar side business would be ramping up quickly. I finished up the migration of my YouTube channel last week and had all my videos turned on for monetization. All that was left to do was wait for the ad views to start adding up. There was one problem, it wasn’t happening. Despite almost 4000 views of my new channel, when I looked in the Ad Sense account I saw very sporadic activity which was odd. Some days there would be no ad money at all generated which didn’t make any sense. Before I always had at least some money generated each day.
So yesterday I was digging around in my YouTube settings and got to a page regarding the AdSense connection. It looked like although my account was turned on for monetization it did not automatically connect it to my AdSense account. This seemed odd to me that this connection was not established when I turned on video monetization. So I explicitly told YT to use the AdSense account under the same Google account name.
Later in the day I started to see the pennies start flowing into the account as they should be. I am glad I figured out the missing link sooner rather than later. I’m sure my mom is as well.
Last night my dad called me. He actually called me Friday night while I was eating dinner. I told him I would call him back later in the weekend and it totally slipped my mind.
It had been a little while since I talked to dad. We talked about various topics, we were on the phone for close to 45 minutes, an eternity for me when it comes to phone conversations.
Few people that read the blog know me well enough to know the rocky history I had with my dad growing up, especially once my parents split up when I was 12. The 6 or 7 years after that were filled with many tough times for both myself and him. We butted heads many, many times. There was a stretch of roughly 6 months where we totally excommunicated each other after I dropped out of college after one trimester.
For a good portion of that time I thought he was basically a jerk and I am sure he thought I was being a stupid kid, which in retrospect, I was in many ways.
Anyway at some point when I was a young adult we reconciled and to be honest I never looked back. Although those years were painful for all involved they were also water under the bridge. I made a conscious decision at that moment to deal with the present instead of dwelling on the past.
From that point on my relationship with dad has been much better. As I aged myself, my perspective on what happened during that time period changed based on what I found myself dealing with as an adult. I guess that is what is supposed to happen right? When you become an adult you are supposed stop looking at things in a childish manner.
Make no doubt about it, dad is a flawed individual, just as we all are. The incidents over the years where you wonder what the hell he was thinking approach legendary status at times. Yet, I think we both have a better understanding and appreciation of each other at this point.
The path dad and I have traveled to get to this point has been long, winding and littered with obstacles. Despite our differences I know my dad is proud of how I turned out, with at least some degree of sanity, stability, and common sense. I managed to find my way despite my many quirks and lack of college education, I am the only one of his five kids that is missing a degree.
I hope to get up to his place with the dogs sometime over the winter.
I was up in the air regarding if I should go run again with the club Saturday morning. All week my right knee had some degree of soreness deep inside as a result of my 7 mile run the week before. So although Friday I still was not free of this sensation I decided I was going to push ahead and hit the pavement once again. The driving force behind the decision in the end is the Tough Mudder which is about 2 months away. I feel like I need to be able to do a few 10 mile jaunts to be in Mudder cardio shape.
This time I had different running partners for each half of the 7 mile run, Matt heading out and Bob on the way back. The combo pushed my pace up a few notches to where I averaged 8:40 for the 7 miles, about the same pace I ran my 1:55 half marathon at last year. My knee didn’t feel particularly awful or good during the run.
Ali had something going on Saturday so she asked if I could pick up the dogs. I had plans to be busy around the house all day so I didn’t mind.
I handled the myriad of normal outdoor maintenance items and then worked on a couple other things. One of those things was to apply water sealant to my bar park and other wood items in the landscape like the ramp to the small shed and the frame of the dog deck. The deck and ramp only got one coat of sealant, the bar park got two as it gets a much higher priority in the yard.
I also set the live traps back up and baited them with sardines, trying to catch the lone remaining armadillo that has resumed his random excavation of the yard.
On Sunday morning I woke up in an absolutely awful mood. I opened my eyes, looked out the window and my first thought was (insert anything here) “sucks…..”
I was originally thinking about doing a biking/swimming brick but my knee was feeling pretty shitty at that point. I would be walking around and all of a sudden get a stab or two that instantly turned me into a limper. I instead decided to use the couple hours before the water park opened to do more chores and then go do some swimming since it was the last weekend the pool is open.
I arrived at the park a few minutes after it opened. The one woman there knows me well enough that she has my wrist band ready to hand over before I approach the window. She even took notice I wasn’t in my biking garb that day.
I set a mental goal of swimming 2000 yards, farther than I have gone this year. (only did 1200 so far) The goal was set for a couple reasons. First, since I didn’t pre-fatigue with a biking session, more distance in the pool seemed reasonable. Second, I was hoping that beating myself in the pool would help break up the mental cloud in my head.
The pool water had heated up a bit from last week, I would have liked it to be a few degrees cooler since I was swimming for close to 42 minutes. I broke the 2000 into five 400 segments, taking a brief break in between sets.
As I was in one of those breaks a guy jumped into the lane next to me. We talked for a bit. His accent lead me to ask where he was from. Turns out he was visiting from Romania, I think he said his name was Claudio or something that sounded similar.
Claudio was a good swimmer, much faster than I was. Just having him in the pool helped push my slower pace. I wound up averaging under 8:30 400’s for the entire 2000, which for me, is pretty good. I emerged from the pool pretty damn tired.
Ali was working on Sunday so I volunteered to pick up the dogs once again to hang with me.
I mentioned last week about Nicki’s drastic change in appearance of her coat, it has become long and shaggy. When I was outside with her I was petting her and was amazed at the amount of hair that she was shedding. I took both hands and started rubbing her back vigorously and in seconds I had piles of hair coming off, it was insane.
Nicki is also still acting like physically she is just breaking down. She won’t jog more than a few strides, despite Sadie’s best attempts to rile her up. It makes me sad.
One of the things I did during the afternoon was to spray the front yard with Weed B Gone. I have treated the weed infested trouble areas in the yard repeatedly with weed and feed in a bag. It would generally knock out dollar weed, at least temporarily, but leave a lot of the other nuisance weeds unscathed.
Weed B Gone is a more direct approach. You spray it on with a hose end attachment and the weeds bite the dust. Of course one of the things the directions say is to apply it on a day where no rain is expected. Of course on cue, it poured three or four hours after I applied it so I may be repeating the process shortly.
I installed Windows 8 on my work laptop on Friday, I have messed around with it a little bit. There is a moderately steep learning curve with the new tile based front end the OS uses. The absence of the START button and other items that have been in Windows operating systems for the last 20 years is pretty disorienting.
As I played around I figured out how to do many of the things I used to do intuitively. To be honest, although it may sound good on paper to roll out a user interface that is identical on phone, tablet and pc platforms, in practice I don’t think it is quite so rosy. Granted I need to spend more time in the OS to give it a fair shake. Right now it sort of feels like the tiles just get in the way.
So the Eagles played Sunday Night. I really dislike night games, I consistently have a hell of a time staying awake for them. Last night was no exception. I raised the white flag with about 10 minutes to go last night, I simply could not keep my eyelids open.
Up until that point the game was very tight with both defenses playing well. I was quite relieved when I flipped on the computer this morning to see the Eagles pulled out the game 19-17. It sounded like I missed an exciting finish with the game ending when a 54 yard Giants field goal attempt was short.
Not only was the game good in the NFC East real life standings, it helped my fantasy football outlook as well. Both Lesean McCoy and Desean Jackson pumped some big numbers into my point total. I have a 35 point lead with Tony Romo yet to play. My opponent has Jay Cutler and the Bears kicker. The win should be pretty secure but you never really know until the fat lady sings.
Jeremy turned me onto a new ABC drama called Last Resort which debuted last week. ( I watched the first episode online) It was a GREAT series premiere. It sucked me in almost immediately and has me anxious to see what happens next. I highly recommend you check it out. I also need to jump on the Homeland bandwagon. PLUS I should have an episode of Boardwalk Empire and Dexter ready to go via Xfinity on Demand.
Shows like these (and WoW) are one of the escape mechanisms I use to detach from whatever is troubling me at that moment.
So last night I wanted to get the grass mowed, it hadn’t been touched in a solid two weeks so it was looking shitty. A quick walk around the property revealed I need to once again invest in very expensive weed and feed to combat weeds that are overtaking areas of the yard. This battle is straight uphill. It seems that no matter how much I spread it is only a matter of time until Creeping Charlie (dollarweed) and various other weeds reestablish a foothold.
So I have a hard time getting the tractor started, a real hard time. Once I do get it running the motor is reving up and down, almost sounding like it is out of gas. I quickly drove it over to the other shed to gas it up. After filling the tank I figured I was ready to roll. I had to hurry since daylight is a lot more sparse at this time of year than the middle of summer.
I turn the key and the tractor makes no hint of wanting to start, it just turned over and over, regardless of choke position. It almost seemed like it wasn’t getting any gas. I looked at the fuel filter, there was gas in it although it didn’t seem like it was as much as there should be. I disconnected the hose after the filter and gas flowed freely. Weird.
So the hose ran into some intermediate valve looking thing before another hose connected the valve to the carburetor. I pulled the hose for them valve end and saw yellow snot hanging out of it. I instantly knew what it was, the fcking by product of ethanol being added to gasoline.
This sludge is normally common when gas has been sitting unused in a fuel system for a period of time. However in this case the tractor had been used within a couple weeks. I couldn’t believe it. The fact that ethanol is even included in gas is controversial. It is more of a handout to corn growers than anything else. Ethanol is actually a pretty terrible fuel when you factor in the energy and dollars required to create it.
So anyway the way I fixed it was to grab my can of carb cleaner/starter fluid, jam the straw up into the valve and blast the shit out of it to dissolve the slime. After doing so the tractor ran normally. Unfortunately I had wasted probably a half hour of daylight screwing around. I hate ethanol gas.
Mowing was slow going because of the high grass, certain areas required multiple passes. It seems that my relatively new mower blades have already dulled significantly, yet another thing for me to address. So as I expected I ran out of light as I was finishing the third of the four quadrants I divide the grass into. Well I wasn’t going to let a little thing like darkness stop me. After all the tractor does have headlights.
Unfortunately the tractor also has a headlight problem. The driver side light has some sort of loose connection that makes the light flash on and off depending on how it gets jostled around. Not only did it make visibility next to impossible if I was turning left it was just plain annoying. I did the best I could under the limited visibility to knock everything down. I guess this weekend I will see how many spots I missed. I pulled the tractor into the shed around 8pm without a speck of light to be seen anywhere beside the full moon in the sky.
Last night I tried to bandage the spot on my back where the cancer was burned off. It is in a spot where I just can not reach effectively. Trying to apply a bandage while looking in a mirror proved to be entirely too aggravating so I just smeared some Neosporin on the area and called it good enough.
This weekend I have plenty to fill my plate. I would like to run at the club run tomorrow but my knee still is feeling side effects from last weeks 7 miler. I will probably not decide what I am doing until tonight.
On the way home from work the other day I saw an AC service truck driving around with this on it’s back window. (Send the Commie back to Kenya) I thought this was idiotic.
Not only did the guy immediately identify himself as one of the masses of “lightly informed” (my polite word for stupid) that prefer to make their political decisions on one liners and lemming mentality, he also identified himself as a very poor businessman.
I mean as someone that does business with the general public, why would you want to annoy and piss off at least half of your potential customer base with something like this on your work vehicle?
If I needed AC repair desperately and this guy lived right next door to me, I wouldn’t call him. If he is dumb enough to throw this on his window, I question his ability to fix my AC in an efficient manner.
Last night I returned to yoga and again I was teamed up with the only guy in the room on a partner stretch. I thought I adequately insulated myself from this occurring by positioning myself on the opposite side of the room that he was. However the instructor slapped us together because of height and the stretch we were doing.
This partner stretch was even worse than the last time. The bottom person was on their back with the soles of their feet together and hips spread so your legs formed a psuedo-diamond shape. The top person stood at the bottoms head and then leaned over the person, pressing their hands into the bottoms inner thighs while the bottom held the tops ankles.
Once ankle grip was established, the top person walked their legs back to stretch out the bottom. It was basically a 69 position with about a 18-24 inch buffer. I kept my eyes closed for most of it.
I also made the mistake of wearing one of my baggy XL cotton t-shirts to class last night. Not only was it falling over my face constantly, it also turned into a big, wet, smelly sweat sponge in short order. A form fitting dri-fit shirt is what I will be sticking with from here on out.
This morning I had the basal cell skin cancer burned and scraped off my back. In total the procedure literally took less than 5 minutes. Ironically, the most painful part of it is the injection of the pain numbing stuff which burns like a son of a bitch. So unless something new pops up on my skin I should be good to go for another 6 months.
One of the guys that was at the pull up jam posted some footage he shot with his phone on FB. It just happened to be while I was doing my pull up set. You can get a good sense of the crowd that was gathered and why it was cool to have them cheering you on.
