Archives October 2013

So I read the Red Sox won the World Series last night.  Not only did they win it, they won it at home, the first time that has happened since 1918. I was happy for both Shane Victorino (ex-Phillie) and the city of Boston as a whole after the tragedy that went down at the marathon earlier this year.

However this World Series and most recent playoff seasons that did not involve the Phillies confirmed that I am just really not a baseball fan anymore.  I did not watch one pitch, not one second of the World Series or any of this years playoff games for that matter.  I just don’t have interest in major league baseball for whatever reason.  It’s an odd thing since much of my childhood revolved around baseball and my dream to make it to the big leagues some day.

Although I missed the game, I did see the highlights from it which spotlighted a recent trend that annoys the shit out of me, ski goggles in baseball.  David Ortiz had his largely branded Oakely helmet and ski goggles on before the game was even over.  He is out there on the field hugging everyone looking like he is ready for the Winter Olympics, it was stupid as hell.

Then in the post game locker room celebration every person in the room is handed Oakley ski goggles/helmets as well to “protect” themselves from the horrible, acidic champagne that is splashed around the room.  I mean what the fck?  How did professional athletes from the past 75 years manage to have champagne celebrations without Oakley ski goggles? What a hardship that must have been….

Of course this is all just a sell out to Oakley who surely has thrown down a nice pile of cash in order to have their equipment used in this unnecessary and unconventional manner.  It certainly doesn’t make me want to run out and buy any of their gear and makes my alienation from baseball an even smaller bump in the road than it already is.

I think that they need to include a surgeon general style warning next to the Vine app. – VINE MAY BE EXTREMELY ADDICTIVE AND COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH

Last night was crazy.  After doing an in costume, BB challenge attempt, the majority of my evening was entangled in Vine, both making my own and watching others.  I now have 20+ Vines, all created in less than 48 hours.  By the end of the night I had a headache and eyestrain. I ended my evening watching YouTube Vine compilations through the new tv’s built in YouTube app.

I even took the time to make my first compilation video. Unfortunately there are another 5 or 6 Vines that have already been produced since it’s creation. Warning, there is some extreme and random strangeness included.

I remember when I first started seeing Vines come out months ago and clearly thinking, what a stupid, stupid idea.  Six second videos, I mean yea I know we live in an increasingly ADD world but what exactly can you get out of a 6 six second video?  Well as has been the case many times in my life, I was wrong.  It turns out 6 seconds is plenty of time to pull out many, many laughs.  With a video that short there is no time for boredom, it’s straight to the punch line.

What is truly addicting is when you tie a bunch of Vines together, instead of a long set up you are getting jolted with one funny scene after another.  When I watch a Vine compilation on YouTube I use viewing habits opposite of the norm.  Typically the longer a YouTube video is, the less likely I am to want to view it.  However with Vine comps, I want them long, the longer the better.

The phone app for Vine is equally addicting.  From the touch/release – start/stop recording UI to the scroll to play viewing window the app makes it ridiculously easy to get lost in an endless stream of 6 second fixes.   And it really is fix, last night I literally felt like an addict, putting off various chores until late in the night just so I could watch/make just one more Vine.

Generally speaking, I have a routine oriented but not addictive personality.  When something grabs me hard I am typically aware of it and will always work my way back towards a more balanced state.  However right now, it’s all Vine, all the time.

Today/tonight is Halloween.  I have my bag of candy that noone will get by the door on the remote chance a trick or treater happens to shuffle up my driveway.  The odds are very slim.  I think the last time it happened I was in my 30’s.  At least I was thinking ahead, buying mini-bags of MM’s that can be utilized for future movie theater sessions.

Tonight I am acting like it is Friday, stopping for groceries after work and attending to other matters typically reserved for a Friday, like Vines…..

In the span of 24 hours I have created 14 Vines.  For whatever reason Vine ideas seem to flow pretty freely into my brain.  As Jeremy accurately pointed out, I am definitely far outside the age range for a normal Vine content producer, whom typically would be 20-30 years behind me in birthdays.  This may be one of those situations where my inner 13 year old that refuses to die serves me well.  The easiest way for you to check out my growing collection is on Twitter or by following me on the Vine app, if you are an iPerson.  I dare you not to laugh.

I typically am looking to monetize any internet content I can.  Although I can not directly monetize individual Vine videos, I certainly can monetize the Vine compilation videos that are sure to be forthcoming.

Because of doing the Tough Mudder on Saturday, my normal week routine needs to get shifted around a bit.  Cindy and I are driving up the night before since the race location this year is so far away.  That means tonight I will find myself doing fun things like cleaning Tuki’s cage and writing out a grocery list.

Speaking of the Mudder, I took my first look at this years race course, it is not looking fun.  It appears to be just shy of 12 miles long with lots of long runs in between obstacles.  The order of certain things is a lot different, including not hitting the dreaded Arctic Enema until mile 8.  In my first two years this obstacle always was in the first 3rd of the race.  There are several new obstacles I never did before as well.  I am sure it will add up to quite a challenging Saturday morning.

My spinning application of WD-40 on the Tacoma driveshaft was an epic fail.  It is back to full on squeal mode.  I want to drop the shaft and take a closer look.  There has to be some sort of visible evidence of the nails on a chalkboard noise somewhere.

You may recall my funny, embarrassing incident a couple weeks back where I got stung in the face after telling Cindy how harmless the wasp nest was that was hanging in front of the garage.  Despite the attack, I left the nest in place. Some odd part of me just felt guilty knocking down the nest I have watched the wasps construct for months. The nest had continued to grow in size after I was attacked.  It was probably the size of a baseball cut in half and populated by at least a dozen wasps.

When I got home Friday I immediately noticed the nest had disappeared. Wow, my first thought was it got too heavy and had fallen down.  I surveyed the ground, assuming I would see it pretty easily.  Nothing was there.  I increased my search area to a 10 foot circle even though it would make no sense for the nest to wind up so far away.  Still, no sign of the wasp nest.

I asked Cindy if she knocked down the nest, she swore she did not, although she wanted to. Well where the F did it go?

Yes I realize it is an odd thing to be so concerned with the absence of a wasp nest, especially one that was home to wasps that sting your face.  Still I wonder where it is.  Could a dozen wasps fly away with a nest? Maybe.

So last night I created my first Vine.

What is a Vine you ask?  It is a video clip no longer than 6 seconds that is designed to make you laugh.  I have watched a number of Vine compilation videos and they make me LOL every time.

Anyway I didn’t expect to create a Vine when I shot a video of me zapping my face but once I played it back the light bulb went on, “Hey this could make a good Vine”   Unfortunately I had to rig that first Vine as it is intended to be created entirely on your Iphone through a pretty slick touch/release start/stop interface. I had to chop my minute long video down, edit it in Movie Maker and then shoot video of the video playing on my PC.

However this morning I was off to the races.  A number of ideas popped into my head, 6 seconds at a time.  If you want to see the 6 I have made so far or follow me on Vine – load the app and click here – vine://user/1000547825983348736

Or just watch my Twitter feed and grab them there.  If you don’t laugh at least once I will eat my hat, for 6 seconds.

I also happened to shoot two more BB challenge videos last night, you can check them out on my YT channel.

So Friday after work was one of those lotsa stops nights.  After work I stopped at 4 different places before getting home.   One of those places was Sam’s.   As I was passing through the front of the store I saw one of those LG sound bars that I noticed a few weeks prior.    They had it on special, $30 off it’s normal already discounted SC price.  I had thoughts of adding a sound bar to my new kick ass bedroom LG 3D tv.  I submitted to the impulse and threw it in my cart.  I guess I will write it off as my first ever self Halloween gift to myself.

I got around to setting it up late that night.  It’s a pretty awesome set up.  Not only do you get the sound bar which includes 6 small speakers you also get a remote subwoofer that connects to the bar via Bluetooth, meaning you can stick it anywhere.  I opted to put it in the corner next to the laundry unit with the opening facing the side wall, allowing thumping bass to bounce off the wall and back into the room. The bar has two optical inputs, a conventional audio headphone input jack, a usb port and the ability to connect to your phone via BT to stream audio.  It also integrates directly with the TV, meaning when I hit the volume on the original TV remote it automatically controls the sound bar instead. It’s pretty awesome.

The one thing that is not awesome is how crowded the top of my dresser is getting.  With the tv, cable box, Xbox 360, sound bar, white noise fan, and Blu-Ray player I have now consumed pretty much all available space.  I am considering if I want to take on wall mounting the TV.  The sound bar can be wall mounted as well.  It would really clean up the look and let me reclaim some dresser real estate.  I always get a bit nervous cutting into walls but I am sure with a “measure twice cut once” attitude I could get the stuff on the wall and looking good.

The weather on Saturday morning was GLORIOUS with temps in the low 60’s and not a hint of humidity.  It was actually enjoyable to go out and weed the property in the crisp air.  It makes me think that eventually I will land in some place where this kind of weather is more prevalent.  90/90 for 6 months a year gets to be a drag.

After I got done with that I turned my attention to my two trucks.  First I wanted to try to isolate where in the driveshaft my Tacoma was squeaking.  My method for doing so looked a bit dangerous.  I backed the truck down to the flat portion of the driveway.  I then drug down my big floor jack and the rubber tire stop.  After putting the stop in front of the driver side tire I put the floor jack under the rear differential and jacked the back end of the truck into the air.  I then reached into the truck and put it in DRIVE so the rear wheels (and driveshaft) would spin.

Yes, I realized this had some potential danger.  I had already envisioned my course of action if the truck somehow came down with the wheels spinning and the wheel stop didn’t hold.  The truck was facing towards the house, meaning any forward movement would be slowed by the hill.  I also left the driver door open for quick access to the brake pedal.

So I engaged the shifter with some trepidation.  The rear wheels started to turn and the truck seemed stable.  I got down beside the Tacoma and looked/ listened.  I could not see or hear anything unusual of course.  I had Cindy tap the gas while I was down low observing to see if I could get any trace of the maddening squeal, nothing.

I turned the truck off and brought down my jackstands.  I thought that maybe if I supported the rear end with jack stands on the rear end instead of the differential it could yield different results.  It didn’t, I still heard nothing unusual.    I did use the spinning wheels as an opportunity to shoot the spinning driveshaft with copious amounts of WD-40 on the joints, hoping this would do at least something to relieve the symptoms.

I then turned my attention to the SSR.  For quite awhile there has been a noticeable clunk in the front end, especially noticeable when making left turns at a decent speed.  I sort of ignored it and sort of babied the truck when turning left.  I have very little experience with suspension/steering issues but it didn’t stop me from jacking up the front end and peeking around.

Just jacking the truck up is a bit of a chore.  Because of it’s lowered profile, I can’t get my heavy duty floor jack under the frame.  I actually have to put my light weight floor jack under there first.  It has a slightly lower profile. I used it to get the truck up an inch or two and then switched back to the 7500 pound Big Red jack.

So I first did a visual inspection, nothing looked particularly unusual or damaged.  I then started tugging on things, tight, tight, tight, loose….  Hmmm, I found a short rod that I later saw identified as a “stabilizer bar”  The bottom nut on this was loose, loose enough that I could easily move the bar back and forth.  I went to the passenger side and pulled on the same bar, rock solid.   Hmmmm, did I just find the problem?

I thought back to when Cindy and I took the SSR up to Seaworld.  During the trip I hit a MONSTER pothole on the way to Universal.  I remember thinking at the time “that had to screw something up”, well I think I just confirmed it did.

The fitting that was loose was an odd set up.  The bolt the nut was threaded onto had an allen wrench fitting inside of it.  I assume it was to allow for adjustment.  I didn’t really adjust anything, I just held the bolt in place with an allen wrench and tightened up the nut with a 7/8″ crescent wrench.  As I lowered the SSR back to the ground I thought I could not possibly get this lucky, could that be all that was wrong?

I took the truck out for a quick road test which included several hard left turns, no clunks! I pulled back into the garage quite pleased that I appeared to at least have addressed a problem with one of the two trucks.

Saturday afternoon Cindy and I attended the running clubs Oktoberfest.  I was technically “working” the event as I was stationed at the registration table checking guests in and working the Ipad to take credit card payments from walk up guests.

As mentioned Friday, I was not expecting to have a great time at the event.  I am not a big fan of anything German, especially Germans blabbing away when I am hiking the grand Canyon. 🙂  Well I was wrong, I had a great time.

Now of course this experience was greatly enhanced by the free refills I was receiving in my Oktoberfest beer stein.  I am not quite sure how many Michelob Ultras I had but it was enough to certainly keep me smiling all afternoon long.

The event had poor pre-registration numbers but a strong walk up crowd.  I would estimate in total there were 200 people that attended the event.  I am pretty sure everyone that showed up had a good time.

Sunday was another 4:15 AM alarm, this time to go time a rare Sunday 8K.  The event was not well attended unfortunately but the costumed runners that did show up were quite entertaining to see.  Despite the small turnout there were news crews from two of the local network affiliates covering the race.  Must have been a slow news day. Cindy ran the race and did quite well, winning her age group.  I don’t know if I could currently maintain the 8:07 pace she did for the full 5 miles.

On the way home from the race we stopped at Ali’s place to pick up Nicki, Sadie and Zoe.  Who is Zoe you ask?  Zoe (a Jack Russel)is the dog of our old neighbor whom moved away and recently back to the Naples area.  Zoe was Nicki’s first dog friend years and years ago.  Zoe used to be a regular visitor to the house. Rick is away on a cruise so Ali has been dogsitting her.  We thought it would be nice to take Zoe back to where she lived for many years.

Unfortunately Zoe is not doing very well health-wise nowadays.  She is 13 or 14 years old and is nearly blind and deaf.  Despite these handicaps she still seemed quite interested in exploring the yard.  She was out there with Nicki and Sadie for a long time.  Of course we could not leave her unattended with her limited sight.  A couple times we had to redirect her but for the most part Zoe seemed to be quite content just walking unencumbered around the large fenced in area.

Even with her problems I found it funny that she still begs for treats.  She always used to do that by rubbing a cabinet with her paw accompanied with a tireless bark.  The barking has stopped and she sometimes winds up pawing a door, wall or dishwasher but you still get the idea.  Having all three dogs together in the back yard was like being in a 10 year ago time machine for a short while.  It was great just to see them all hanging out and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Well it appears the NFL has totally figured out Chip Kelly’s offense.  The Eagles limped to yet another home loss against the dreadful Giants.  The loss extended the clubs record setting consecutive streak of losses at home, yay! The team looked like shit, plain and simple.  Once again the defense played ok but the offense that seemed to be so dynamic and explosive early in the season, failed to produce a single touchdown for the second game in a row, ouch.

I was surprised when they took Vick out although his play was pretty awful.  Evidently when Vick can’t run, he can’t play.  I knew the game was done at that point although Matt Barkely is kind of fun to watch.  I like his fact pace and quick release.  He seems to really  put everything he has into every throw.  In fact his QB style remains me a little bit of Dan Marino, except for one thing, he turns the ball over like mad.  In his roughly three quarters of play I think he has turned the ball over 5 or 6 times?

Even better news is it looks like both Vick and Foles are questionable for next weeks game at Oakland so Barkley might be our new starter.  Yes, I think the season is pretty much done at this point.  Oh well, I really kind of expected it anyway.

Last night I watched the most recent Die Hard in the bedroom with the freshly installed sound bar.  The movie was ridiculously unbelievable but hey, it’s Die Hard it is supposed to be that way.  The movie was also non-stop action and destroyed more vehicles than ethanol gas.  It was also the perfect film to test the sound bar with.

The smaller enclosed space of the bedroom was a great fitt for the new system.  The endless gunfire and explosions rocked the walls of the bedroom.  It really felt like a theater experience.  Although I give the movie a solid B rating the LG sound bar gets a shiny A+!

This week I will be easing off the gas pedal in regards to my normal exercise routine.  This upcoming weekend is the Tough Mudder, I don’t want to do anything that could hinder my ability to survive it.

Last night was an atypical Thursday evening.  After work Cindy and I went to dinner at Snook Inn with a friend of ours.  I came up with the idea the day before out of nowhere.  I just realized that I hadn’t been to Snook Inn forever, probably at least two years and I felt like going.  I thought going on a weeknight would be a wise choice since weekends there can be a madhouse.

My plan was effective, the place was only half full.  While we waited for our friend to show up we had a couple beers at the bar to pass the time.

Cindy had never been to Snook Inn before which surprised me.  I told her it has always been a “go to” place for me to take guests of mine that visit.  It’s open air, right on the water venue has a Key West type of feel that is very relaxing. I had grouper fingers as my meal which were quite good.  Cindy and Alfred enjoyed what they ordered as well.

The only negative about Snook is it is a looooong ways from my house.  By the time I got home it was well after 9.

Recently you may have noticed a number of these type of cartoon strips showing up on Facebook.  They are produced with a FB app called Bitstrips.  Basically you go through about a 5 minute process where you design a cartoon version of yourself and then that avatar can be plugged into an endless array of situations where you control the dialogue and can tweak the scene.

Based on my experience with the 35 episodes of Jmo’s World I have produced, making 1 cell comic strips seems very easy.  I made a couple quick cartoons dealing with one of my favorite subjects, Jeremy.  I also used them to help promote his new blog which I am sure he appreciates.

This weekend is going to be rather fragmented.  Tomorrow afternoon I am attending/working an Oktoberfest that the running club is putting on.  I have never had a desire to attend an Oktoberfest and to be honest, that feeling has not changed.  However I am going to help support the cause (running club youth scholarship fund) and to accept credit cards at the door via our Ipad/Square CC account.

Sunday morning I have another race to time, a Halloween style race where participants are encouraged to run in costume.  You would think a themed race like this would draw a lot of people but this race has historically done poorly partially due to the venue, day and other factors.  By the time I get home and cleaned up from the race it will be time for the Eagles /Giants game.

Fall weekends for me typically fly by very, very quickly.

Yesterday I was treated to this image by my friend Jeremy.  You may wonder exactly wtf it is?  It is a cropped version of his Chrome browser, the top area to be exact, where the tabs are kept.    Once you realize this, you also realize that he had around 100 different internet pages open simultaneously. Wow.

I immediately formed my own ideas about what would drive someone to do something like this however I first posted the image to FB to get other opinions.  Some of the commentary that came back where things like ADDHD, hoarder, fear of commitment, spread too thin(inside joke) and even Illuminati, which made me laugh.  I would certainly throw OCD into that barrel of possible diagnosis as well.

When compared to my own personal surfing preference, once I hit 4 or 5 tabs, it means it’s time to close the ones I no longer need or perhaps open another browser window to separate and organize my internet activity.  The tab hoarder takes a different approach, instead opening tab after tab until he needs a magnifying glass to see what each window contains or Chrome crashes, whichever comes first.

Because of my generally organized tendencies and aversion to procrastination, I find tab hoarding as illogical and borderline manic behavior. However to the tab addict this behavior must feel totally normal and insignificant.  It’s all about perspective.

Last night after work I headed outside to make an attempt at hard mode of this month’s BB challenge, a one arm dead hang.  Holding all of your bodyweight with one hand gets pretty uncomfortable quickly.  I managed to hold on for 1:09, only 2 seconds less than I held last year when I weighed around 10 pounds less.  I was ok with the effort.

I went to bed early last night, I was tired, which is pretty much status quo for me most nights once the clock passes 9 pm. (love being old)  After taking my shower I barely made it through two articles in Wired before I was out like a light.

On my home last night I came to a sudden slow down of traffic on Pine Ridge Road.  Cars were stopping and swerving wide around the middle.  When I got closer I saw the source of the slow down, a live, scared and intact (thank goodness) turtle, trying to complete a suicide run across the very busy road.  Without thinking I whipped my Tacoma into the center median and jumped out to grab the turtle.  Luckily the vehicles behind me understood what I was doing and stopped.

Like I said this turtle appeared to be pumped up with adrenalin.  Even after picking him up he never full retracted into his shell.  I took him across the far lane and down by the tree line where he appeared to be heading.  As soon as I sat him down he was on the move.  I stuck around for a few seconds to make sure he was going the right way.

Today is Randall’s 40th birthday, I figured there was only way to properly celebrate it, with a birthday shout out.  I had wanted to do this at home but it had slipped my mind.  I made an impromptu camera rig by leaning my iPhone against the instrument cluster with a box of Tic Tacs behind it to adjust the camera angle.   I then “sung” the birthday shout out behind the wheel. No worries, both hands were solidly on the wheel and eyes forward. 🙂

So you may recall last March I had Rhinoshield repair and repaint my pool deck.  Back in 2008 I had them paint the house with their ceramic coating which has a 20 year warranty.  I have been very pleased with the product and how it covered up and eliminated any further hairline cracks from appearing on the walls of the house.  Based on that happiness I contracted them to do the pool deck, expecting similar results.

Well as documented here, getting the pool deck painted was extremely aggravating because of the person I was dealing with.  Repeatedly he would not follow through on work dates and often not bother to let me know.  The work was completed 2-3 weeks later than it was originally supposed to be.

Part of the job was repairing the various cracks in the pool deck.  When I talked to them about the work they said they couldn’t use the same elastic primer they used on the house which is so good at hiding the cracks. However they said they would repair any existing cracks using other methods.  Well these other methods appeared to be just jamming some thinset mortar over them.  After that they just sprayed some clear “primer” over it and painted the deck using regular paint, not the ceramic coating that is on the walls. When the deck was done it looked nice.

Well within 60 days I started seeing the cracks reappear.  I didn’t contact them right away because I didn’t feel like dealing with the bullshit again to be honest with you.  However several weeks ago I finally got out there with the camera and took several pictures of the cracks that have already returned. I sent the images to the guy that did the actual work asking for information about how I get Rhinoshield to come back out and fix them once again.  I got no reply, what a surprise.

I then contacted the main office which is up in Jacksonville.  It took a couple days but I eventually got in contact with the owner, who is the father of the guy I dealt with when getting the house painted.  I explained to him my situation, including the problems I had getting Giovanni to do the work in the first place.  The owner understood my issue but said the 2 year warranty I have on the work is just the paint itself not the concrete work.

I did my best to hit him from different angles, pointing out how Giovanni indicated the concrete repair he did should last and how I felt he misrepresented the expectations I should have regarding the repairs.  I reiterated how I went with Rhinoshield for the deck because I had them do the house first, hoping maybe some customer loyalty might get me somewhere.

The owner said that actually they are getting out of the pool deck painting business because of these types of issues.  So my hopes of getting a free crack repair went down the drain.  Needless to say my opinion of Rhinoshield has been knocked down quite a few pegs.

Whenever I get around to pressure washing the pool area again perhaps I will try my hand at crack repair, I can’t do any worse than they did.

Last night I spent pretty much my entire evening doing running club/race related activities.  Create this race, update that one, put in paper entries, update the website, add this event, send out e-newsletters, put stuff on social media, somehow it all rolled into a several hours of futzing around.

I had my dentist appointment this morning.  As has been the case for the vast majority of my visits since moving to Florida, no cavities mom!

My Saturday morning was a bright and early one as I was doing my once a year timing of a cross country meet.  Timing a cross country meet is a different beast from what I normally do on a race day.  There are 4 races total in the meet, held one after the other.  It’s a fast paced day.

I like that I get to set up in the middle of the football stadium for this race.  I don’t like how my sneakers become stuffed with the little black rubber balls that cover the NexTurf playing surface.  Timing the event, despite it’s additional complexities went well.  The only problem I had was we didn’t get back about a dozen of the timing chips, despite written warnings ahead of time that we HAD to get them all back.

I got an unexpected treat while I was there, I got to fly a DJI Phantom, the high end quadcopter I eventually hope to get.  One of the coaches had his there to shoot some aerial video of the event.  I told him I had the smaller quads.  He immediately told me I should give his a try.

Wow, what a difference compared to the very twitchy, always on the stick flying experience my Blade MQX offers.  The Phantom was so stable.  If you took your hands off the controls it would keep itself nearly stationary in the air.  I asked Chris if he took the recommended path, buying a smaller quad first?  Nope, he went right to the Phantom and really hasn’t had any issue because it is so smooth.  This test flight just happens to coincide with my being made aware that the Phantoms have recently had $200 cut off their price tag, sweet.

Despite the smooth event I still was out there all morning, not getting off site until a little after 11:30 am.  By the time I got back home it was well after noon.

I had a lot to do Saturday afternoon since Cindy and I were supposed to go to a 7:20 movie that night.  After doing the post race processing I wanted to get the property weeded and mowed.  I also had promised Cindy I was going to make her a belated birthday cake, the magical chocolate variety that I was only partially successful at creating once before.  It was a lot to get done in a limited time window.

By the time I got the outdoor work done it was after 4PM.  Despite feeling very sleepy from my 4:30 alarm I had no time for drowsiness, there was cake to be made.

Cindy has made the chocolate cake a number of times but ran into several roadblocks.  She kept trying to tweak the recipe, making it “healthier” by substituting in some healthier options like Truvia for sugar, coconut flour for regular flour and a few other changes.  Her efforts were good but never quite hit the mark as the original that uses good old fashioned 100 year old ingredients.

I learned a few things from my first attempt at the cake like using the hand mixer instead of the platform mixer to make sure I wasn’t leaving a layer of unblended ingredients at the bottom.  Having the butter at the right softness level helps a lot too for the icing, if it is too hard or too melted the icing will suffer.  Of course I also made sure to not put the cake pan on top of a hot burner afterwards this time around.

I was very pleased with the end result, it was quite a good facsimile of the cake I have enjoyed for decades courtesy of both my mom and Ali.  Cindy agreed that my end product was outstanding.  I guess certain recipes are best left alone.  If I want to eat healthier I’ll chew on some celery, you can’t f with the cake. 🙂

Saturday night we went to see Escape Plan that featured two of my favorite action stars of all time, Stallone and Arnold.  Despite both of these guys being of social security receiving age they actually still managed to pull off an entertaining and enjoyable action movie.  Sure neither of them exposed anything beyond their forearms for the film but it really didn’t matter.  It was a good time. A- believe it or not.

On Saturday I suggested a different running plan to Cindy compared to out circles around the track the week before.  I said we could try to run 10 miles but do it starting at the waterpark, doing the Oakes loop 10K first and getting the last 4 miles inside the park courtesy of 2 laps.  However if I was going to attempt a double digit mileage run, the first since the half marathon in March, I said I had to start early, as in before the sun comes up early.  During last weeks track run the sun beating down on me really destroyed my motivation to continue on.  Plus, the forecast for Sunday was summer-like with lows only in the mid-70’s with high humidity.  Cindy agreed that starting early was a necessary evil.

So as we approached the entrance to the park around 6:30 Sunday morning I noticed there was a lot more traffic than normal for that time of day.  As I turned in and saw the park lights lit up and cones in the road it hit me, there is a 10 mile race going on that day that I totally forgot about, doh.  Oh well I wasn’t going to change the plan based on that.  The race didn’t officially start until 7 am.  We hit the pavement around 6:40.

Running in the early morning hours definitely brought me some relief compared to the week before.  However even without the sun hitting me the thick humidity had me dripping with seat in short order.  I was tired by the end of the 10K loop but not wrecked.

As we ran back to the truck to grab a quick Gu and water break we crossed the official race route.  We got a few strange looks from people that wondered if we were part of the race or not.  We headed back out and did the first lap clockwise, opposite the direction the runners were going. We didn’t run the exact race course but spent a good amount of time running head on into the stream of race participants which was kind of a pain.  At the end of lap 1 we spun around and ran with the flow.

Running amongst the racers actually was beneficial, it helped me keep my mind off the physical discomfort.  I always have found that running in a large group helps reduce the misery somewhat.   Cindy I finished the 10 miles pretty strongly although the overall pace was not fast, in the high 9’s.  Still just completing that distance was an accomplishment for me and the last mental hurdle in being officially prepared for the Tough Mudder in a couple weeks.

Wow that Eagles came didn’t quite go as planned.  Yes I expected them to lose but I expected it to be a high scoring game with the Cowboys running rough shod over the Eagles nearly last ranked in the NFL defense.  Instead the game for the most part was a defensive struggle.  The Eagles D played well, probably the best they played all year.  The offense was horrid.  Nick Foles fresh off his great game in Tampa looked totally lost yesterday.  He was just making a lot of poor throws, missing open receivers in crucial situations.  The receivers did their fair share of pouring gas on the fire, dropping several easy balls.

The game extended a pretty embarrassing streak, the Eagles have not won a home football game in more than a YEAR, a YEAR.  That is sad.

After the game I went outside with Cindy with my two mini-quad copters.  She had indicated she was interested in trying them out.  At first I gave her the controls for the Blade but power and twitchyness of it was a bit much.  After she “landed” it on top of a cabbage palm, requiring my extension ladder to retrieve, I gave her the controls of the X1 which is less aggressive.

For the most part Cindy did well considering it was her first time ever flying a RC quadcopter.  Other than a small incident where we had to retrieve the copter from the far side of the neighbors, she did fine.  I did my first considerable damage (required part) to the Blade when I came in hard at an angle, striking one of propellers and bending it.  Luckily the copter comes with 1 full set of replacement blades.

I reattached the winglet to my Tuffwing last night however I also determined I need to get a new radio/receiver for it.  The AM 3 channel receiver I am reusing from the Speedwing is glitching when power is applied.  All of a sudden the prop will start spinning or the servos will fire off without input.  Neither situation is acceptable.

Sunday night we watched my latest Netflix dvd, 7 Psychopaths.  It was an “interesting” film that mixed in some gore with various oddities.  It was half decent but nothing that made me stand up and take notice.  It gets a solid rental B rating.