XC, Cake Boss, Escape, Bandits, 1 year and counting, tree tops, 7 of them

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.