Archives October 2013

Last night I took Cindy out for dinner for her birthday to Seasons 52, one of my new favorite restaurants.  Not only is it a beautiful place, they serve healthy, seasonal meals.  Supposedly nothing on the menu is over 500 calories.   We actually ordered the same meal, some grilled shrimp thing that was quite good.  I washed it down with two Miller Lites. 

When Cindy was in the bathroom I mentioned to the waitress that it was her birthday and asked if Seasons 52 does anything for birthdays.  The waitress said YES, but she couldn’t tell me what it was.  Haha, ok, fine.

So the waitress comes back with the mini-desert tray along with a cup with what looked like brown sugar and a candle in it. She told Cindy to make a wish and blow it out.  Cindy then was allowed to pick out her own desert which was free and I grabbed one as well.  Then the waitress comes back over and takes a picture of us with a camera and a few minutes later comes back with a 4″ x 6″ print already mounted in a Seasons 52 fold out frame.  Wow, I’m glad I asked.

Cindy had a great time which was my goal.

So I have done the Tough Mudder for the last 2 years and am once again signed up to do it in less than a month. However I have to tell you, this might be my last time, for several reasons.

When I did my first Tough Mudder, mud racing was still sort of a new thing and the Tough Mudder was seen as the king of them all, being the longest and most grueling of them.  It did not take long for others to try to cash in on the mud racing craze.  The event popularity sky rocketed with thousands of people showing up, all shelling out huge entry fees to get muddy, frozen and shocked.  Today, doing the Tough Mudder doesn’t have quite the badge of honor as it once did.  It’s become a “me too” event with a bandwagon that is quite large.  I never feel great about being part of that crowd.

I also have an issue with the way the race misrepresents it’s commitment to the Wounded Warrior Project, a great charity that benefits wounded members of the military.  To the casual web site visitor, you would assume a portion, a large portion, of the race proceeds goes directly to this noble charity.  The reality is not one dollar of the HUGE $100 plus registration fee goes to the charity.  The only money that goes to the charity is that which is raised by the participants outside of their race fee.  The race itself is totally a for profit enterprise and that profit is MASSIVE.   I think it is pretty shitty to prey upon the sympathy of participants that assume part of the reason they should pay the sky high race fees is because it is going to a good cause.

Finally there is the email I received yesterday from the race.  The email said you had three options for parking this year, all of which will cost you money.   They have always had a flat 10 dollar fee for parking which I found to be annoying considering what they charge you to do the race.  On top of that, the money you spent on parking certainly wasn’t used to plan for an efficient traffic control/parking system.  Last year there were participants that sat in 5 hours of gridlock, trying to get into the event.  It was utter chaos.

So this year to make amends for the horrible parking situation in the past they are now offering you, more EXPENSIVE parking options!  If you pay $25 you get PREMIUM parking which supposedly is less than 1/4 mile from the main area.  If you drop a 20 dollar bill you get select parking which is about a third of a mile away.  If you are a tightwad and only pay the $10 they have charged in the past you are rewarded with at least a 1 mile walk to the event after you park your vehicle.

To me it is utter bullshit to charge NFL stadium parking rates to attend a mud race you already spent triple digits on the entry fee.  Despite the huge steaming pile of annoyance I opted to get the premium parking because I don’t want to have to do a 5K if I need to run back out to the vehicle before the race starts.  Greedy bastards.

Plus there is the injury factor.  Who can forgot the horrible swelling in my right knee after running last year’s extremely treacherous course?

Anyway the combo of things listed above might be enough to make this year the last that I participate in the Tough Mudder.  Let them make their tens of millions on the backs of others in the future.  I proved my point already.

This weekend I am timing the same cross country meet I have done the last 3 years.  Timing a CC meet is a lot different than a 5K.  It also takes a lot longer since it is actually 4 different events.  I probably won’t get off site until lunch time.

So I have to wedge in other weekend work into that condensed time frame which is going to include mowing the front yard and other fun stuff.  I also am planning to make my chocolate cake as a belated birthday treat for Cindy on Saturday afternoon.  I am hoping to avoid a repeat of this situation.

When I got home last night I got busy.  First I jumped on the tractor and finished mowing the back half of the back half of the yard, giving it a much more uniform cut than the first time.  I am hoping it is the last time I have to do it in quite awhile as the wet season weather pattern seems to officially be behind us.  Cutting the grass that late in the day is actually a good thing.  The grass is completely dry so all the clippings that pile up on top of the mower deck could be blown away with some brief work with my leaf blower.

While I was out front I pulled out the WD-40 and sprayed a couple points on the Tacoma driveshaft.  You see ever since I bought the truck back in 2000 it had an off and on problem with a horrible sounding metallic squeal that I determined was the driveshaft after much investigation.  During that investigation I found out that my truck was in a pretty serious accident while being driven by the prior owners 16 year old son.  That accident I assumed caused the driveshaft problem and is also the cause of the ugly section of the exterior of the truck where it was repainted poorly.

Well the noise was quite annoying, annoying enough that I eventually bought a used driveshaft to silence the squeal years and years ago.  It worked, for awhile.  In the past couple years the noise has been gradually coming out of retirement, occurring more and more frequently.  Since it is a different driveshaft making the same noise I can only assume it is because something in the factory geometry of the drive train was altered in that accident which over time causes the driveshaft problems.

Now I am certainly not going to put another driveshaft on the truck.  I am however thinking about jacking up the back end, putting it in DRIVE and seeing if I can pinpoint exactly where on the shaft the noise is coming from.  If I can, I’ll see if I can take that area apart and lube the shit out of it.

So since I had a freshly mowed and completely dry flying field behind the house I figured it was a good time to take the Tuffwing out for it’s initial flight.   I eyeballed the ailerons to make sure they looked like they were even and at a small angle upwards so the wing would go up instead of down after launch.

My Speedwing had a small wooden frame/handle on the bottom which I would use to launch it.  The Tuffwing does not have this.  Instead the recommended launch technique is grabbing a wing and sort of flinging it Frisbee style.  I was a bit nervous about launching it in this manner.

I shelved my launch anxiety, powered up my transmitter and plugged the battery for the plane in.  After hearing the series of beeps that indicates you are ready to go, I held the right wing, applied enough throttle where I could feel the plane pulling strongly and gave it a little flick.  Within a half second the plane had barrel rolled left and was upside down.  A split second later it was nose first into the ground where it bounced high off the ground like a super ball.  I killed throttle before it came back down.

The good thing about EPP foam planes is they designed to crash, hard.  Besides some grass stuck to tape I didn’t see any noticeable damage although the prop adapter was a bit loose.  My non-expert flight crash analysis seemed to indicate the plane was trimmed too far left which caused the immediate roll.  I used the trim adapter on the transmitter to compensate right a little bit, hoping it would prevent a repeat impact.

So once again I found myself at launch time.  Again I throttled up, tossed the plane and before I could get both hands on the radio it again had barrel rolled and found it’s way into terra firma, this time impacting in such a way that sent the plane into a cartwheel knocking off one of the glued on wing tips, great.

Well I was annoyed.  I mean the plane was not even close to being stable or gaining altitude.  I will need to repair the wing tip and do some more tweaking of it’s set up.   I am hoping I will be able to get this thing in the air before I push the impact resistance of the EPP foam to it’s breaking point.

The majority of the rest of the night was spent attending to running club and race timing issues.  I did manage to find about 45 minutes to play a little Hearthstone.

Hey the government is open for business today again!  The republicans finally conceded that their ill advised hostage taking of the federal government was doing their cause more harm than good in the big picture.  I am glad the doors are open once again.  Do I wish that the federal government wasn’t 17 TRILLION dollars in debt? Of course.  Do I think I will ever see that debt eliminated in my lifetime? Not a chance.

The bottom line is massive federal debt is a deliberate act, masterminded by those deviously brilliant crooks at the Federal Reserve.  They want the government to owe money, lots of it, it’s good for (their) business.   Short of nuking the planet, I really don’t see any scenario where the corrupt system that is in place can be rebooted.

Today is Cindy’s birthday, wish her a happy one if you see her.

The theme for last night was late.  Good thing I grabbed a large coffee on my way to running club board meeting which I arrived for a few minutes late.  By the time the main meeting and follow up meeting was done it was almost 8:30PM.  Of course no board meeting would be complete without a trip to South Street afterwards.

I drank two high octane pumpkin beers back to back before throttling back by eating a small pizza while sipping a third.  The 2 beers on a thoroughly empty stomach hit me fast and hard.

I didn’t leave the premises until after 11 and my head didn’t hit the pillow until slightly after midnight, yawn….

No words of wisdom today, sorry.

Woot off today.

Yesterday Jeremy sent me this link, a page that visually represented the typical amount of groceries a family consumes in a week in various countries.  It was pretty fascinating comparing the diets around the world.  As you may expect, the American family food collection was head and shoulders above the rest in terms of junk/processed food with barely any fresh fruits or vegetables. I did find it fascinating that the typical Mexican family consumes 15 two liter bottles of Coke a week. 🙂

When I got home last night Cindy, whom was off yesterday was out washing her Miata.  She also had washed the SSR for good measure.  Earlier in the day she removed a to do item from my list by applying water seal to the bar park.  Cindy loves to keep busy.  Lucky for her I have a long list of things to fulfill that need. 😉

I went out back and hopped on the tractor.  First I headed out front and completely mowed down the trenches that were now finally dried out.  I then headed to the rear of the property and re-mowed about half of the area with the deck set at the normal level.  I was able to to do this at nearly top speed since the first pass was just done on Saturday.  I plan to knock down the remaining section sometime soon.

On the way home from work I had to stop at Walgreens for something.  I inadvertently found myself in the Halloween aisle.  My eye was immediately drawn to the plastic pumpkin designed to look like Spiderman.  To make things even better it has a small orange light in the back of it, making glow eerily at night.

To make my Spidey-pumpkin visible to the general public I utilized my beat up blue ottoman that Nicki has spurned and an axillary box to get it high enough to be clearly visible in the window.  I automated the coolness by hooking the pumpkin up to a spare timer so it will go off an on without human intervention.

Once it was dark outside I walked out the driveway to see how the Spidey-pumpkin looked. Awesomeness was confirmed.

Hey the government is still closed, awesome.

So Saturday morning I suggested to Cindy that instead of getting up hella early to drive all the way into the club run that we instead run laps at the nearby middle school track.  I used to run this track quite a bit but I haven’t been there since my epic 10 mile Tough Mudder training run last year.  The temps had actually dipped into the high 60’s for the first time in 6 months Saturday morning so I figured getting a little later start would be fine.

The optimal goal was to do 10 miles, splitting it into four 2.5 mile segments for water breaks.  We started off and it didn’t take long for me to start feeling warm and bothered.  Despite the relatively lower air temps, the sun was unobstructed in the clear blue sky and felt like it was melting me.  By the time we got to the 5 mile water break I felt gassed and was debating pulling the plug right there.  I reset my goal to complete one more 2.5 mile segment.

During this segment I felt miserable, I was hot, tired and not in the state of mind I needed to be.  I failed to even complete my revised goal and bailed after exactly 7 miles on my GPS.  Cindy ran 7.5 miles and then for good measure wanted to see how fast she could run a single 400 meter lap.  The answer was, pretty damn fast.  She circled the track in about 1:37 which works out to be just above a 6 minute mile pace.  It was very impressive.

As I was leaning on a recycle bin sucking wind next to one of the light towers I felt something hit my head.   I instinctively reached up with my hand and came back with something black and wet.  I look up and see a starling about 75 feet up on top of the tower.  The damn thing shit on my head.  It was quite the shot from so far up.

So I felt like a failure for missing even my downward shifted goal.  Cindy on the other hand could have kept going I am sure, all the way to 10 miles if I had the energy to do so.  It’s good that she pushes me but frustrating when I don’t answer the bell like I should.

When we got home we were in the driveway and Cindy made a comment about a wasp dive bombing her as she walked by.  For several weeks I have allowed a wasp nest to be built under the left cut out of the garage entrance.  In my sometimes neurotic compassion for animals, I have not knocked it down because of the effort the wasps have put into constructing the nest.  I have walked by it many times without incident so I figured I would just continue to let it go.

So to demonstrate to Cindy that the wasp nest was harmless I walked towards it and stopped less than 6 feet away from it.  I said “Aw, good wasps, good wasps…” in a voice I usually reserve for my conversations with my pets.  Almost the instant I finished speaking, a wasp launched itself from the nest and rocketed at my face, stinging me less than an inch from my right eye.  I stumbled back in disbelief as I flailed at the air.  I could not believe the mf’ing wasp stung me.  Where was a camera when you needed it?

After confirming I was ok, aside from a burning sensation by my eye, Cindy and I lol’d at the irony.  Still, I have not knocked down the nest, but if I get attacked again my benevolence will have reached it’s end.  When I woke up Sunday morning it looked like I was smacked in the right eye, it was all swollen.

On the way to the movies I had one more interaction with nature, this time saving a turtle that was just about to make a very unwise trip into three lanes of traffic.  I spun the SSR around at the first intersection I could and headed back.  I scooped the turtle up, carrying him down to the canal I assume he was trying to reach.  I see so many roadkill turtles.  It angers the hell out of me that people are too lazy, stupid or oblivious to avoid them.  It isn’t like a rabbit or a deer that dashes in the road in front of you, it’s a TURTLE.  Idiots.

The movie we saw was Captain Phillips, the Tom Hanks movie about the 2009 incident where Somali pirates hijacked an American freighter.  As expected Tom delivers a stellar acting performance but that is the norm.  I thought the movie was very well done.  It made me think about the reality of living in a destitute place like Somalia.  Imagine living conditions so awful and options that are so limited that being a pirate was one of only a few choices you have to put food on the table.  People are a product of their environment.  If all you have know your entire life is misery, that becomes your norm. Anyway, good movie, I’d give it an A-.

Over the weekend I put out my limited amount of Halloween decorations.  My favorite item is the blow up pumpkin with the silly looking grin.

The back part of the yard finally got mowed.  It had attained true jungle status from weeks of being untouchable due to the never ending rain.  We finally had nearly a completely dry week allowing water to seep back into the ground.  Even with going slow and the mowing deck at max height the tractor couldn’t come anywhere close to doing a clean cut.  The grass looks like my head would if someone would cut my hair with a butter knife. If time allows this week I may zip back out there on the tractor to do a secondary speed mow.

On Sunday morning I did my second endurance training session of the weekend, doing the 20 mile DD ride.  It’s funny, I have pretty much switched back to riding my dirt cheap, heavy,  Dawes road bike instead of my Trek 2.1.  The aero bars and general body position I use on the Dawes is just a lot more comfortable for longer rides than the extremely low handlebars on the Trek which cause me to put so much weight on my hands.

Sometime in the future I may see if I can simply get a different stem for the Trek but for now it is all Dawes, all the time.

I picked up the girls late morning to spend the day out at the house.  I have stopped giving Nicki “elevator rides” and picking her up for lift assist unless she clearly wants it.  3 times she has peed when I picked her up, acting like she is afraid something bad was going to happen.  She managed to get into the van herself on Sunday but it wasn’t easy.

The Eagles game went surprisingly well.  Both the offense and even the defense (at times) played well which I was glad to see.  Of course I temper my praise with the knowledge that they were playing the 0-4 Buccaneers.  But hey, a win is a win.

There was one moment late in the game that the announcers totally glossed over.  To me it was a totally incredulous (and stupid) decision by Chip Kelly.  The Eagles were ahead by 8 points with three minutes to go and were facing a 4th an inches inside the Bucs 20 yard line, an easy chip shot field goal.  I was in disbelief when I saw he sent the offense back on the field to go for it.

Why the fck would you do that? A field goal makes it a two score game, virtually sealing the win for the Birds.  The Eagles snapped the ball, Foles dropped back to pass and was sacked for a loss.  LUCKILY, the defense was off sides, giving the Eagles a first down.  Now the announcers and the media in general did not identify what a potentially dumb call this was.  Yes, drawing them off sides is a viable strategy in that situation but if that is your intention, you DONT SNAP THE BALL.  You hard count them and if they don’t fall for it you call a time out.  I don’t understand why everyone is ignoring how risky and foolish that decision was.

But hey the Eagles are 3-3 in the horrible NFC East, things could be worse.

Sunday evening I took advantage of the mowed and dried out backyard, taking my Blade MQX out there for some open air flying.    My hope was that the lack of obstacles would allow me to work out some of the issues I am having flying the quad copter.  The good news is the grass makes as a great cushion for crash landings. The bad news is I still am unable to do simple, controlled circles with it.     It is so easy to get disoriented.  I will continue practicing outdoors although that comes with it’s on set of hazards.  Several times a gust of wind sent the Blade soaring in directions I did not anticipate.

Sunday night we finished up watching Avatar in 3D.  It looked so damn sweet on the new tv.  Too bad I was so damn sleepy that I was nodding off and on throughout.

I call nights like last night character builders.  The task for the evening was to replace the front brake pads on Cindy’s Miata.  I had done my normal video tutorial before going into the job, I didn’t expect any major speed bumps.  The job started at 5:45pm. It ended at 11:05 PM. There were bumps.

When I went to take the wheels off with my newly acquired spline lug nut adapter I had my first minor issue.  It looked like someone else that did not have an adapter tried to remove a lug nut via brute force, it was all mangled.    I got around this by using my hammer to drive the lug adapter on the nut.  Luckily it wasn’t on all that tight and I could break it loose.

Once I had access to the brakes on the driver side I removed the lower caliper bolt which is supposed to allow it to flip upward, giving access to the  brake pads. Well it didn’t want to move.  It felt like the top caliper bolt was very tight and not allowing the caliper body to move.  I pulled out the Miata Haynes repair manual to double check what I recalled from the video, yep it should just flip up.  Well this one wasn’t.

So I figured the easiest way to address this was to loosen that top 17mm bolt.  Well that was easier said than done, it was almost welded in place.  I beat on it with a wrench and mini-sledge for a looong time until it started to move.  I was worried I would snap the head on it, it turned so hard.  Eventually I got it a few turns looser which allowed the caliber body to flip up.

The old pads, which looked thin to me when I peered at them with the wheel still on were actually not that badly worn, there was still a good amount of pad material left.  Well of course I was going to replace them anyway.  The actual act of replacing brake pads is pretty damn simple.  You just pop the old ones out and pop the new ones in, assuming the retaining clips stay in place.  I put the new pads in.

The old pads did not have the anti-rattle springs that I used with other brake work.  They are used to keep the pads off the discs when the brake pedal is not applied.  I wondered why they were missing but based on other shortcuts that have been done on the car, I wasn’t all that surprised.

I put the caliper back in place and spun the brake disc.  It seemed to be making more contact with the pads than it should be but I wasn’t sure if this was just because I didn’t seat them yet.  I put the wheel back on and went to passenger side.

As soon as I worked on the caliper on that side I knew something was up on the driver side.  When I removed the lower caliper bolt on the passenger side front brake the assembly lifted up easily with no resistance from the top bolt which “floated” back and forth.  There was no float in the driver side bolt.  I knew I was going to have to revisit it again. Replacing the pads on the passenger side was a piece of cake.

So I hopped back over to the driver side and removed the wheel once again.  I found that by turning the top bolt out a few more turns I had more clearance for the new pads but I still could not get any float from the top caliper bolt.  I buttoned the driver side back up and took the car out for a test drive.

When you first put pads in you are supposed to “seat” them.   The way you do this is via several hard decelerations.  I got the Miata up to about 60 and then hit the brakes hard.  After I did this the second time I heard the unwelcome sound of metal on metal.  I turned around and babied the Miata back into the garage.

By this time the sun had set and an army of flying insects had invaded the garage, drawn to the bright overhead light.  It made for a nice annoying distraction if I didn’t have enough annoying me already.  The noise was clearly coming from the driver side so I pulled that wheel.  I felt like punching myself in the face when I pulled the inner pad. It was in backwards, with the pad metallic backing plate against the brake disc.  What an idiot.

Luckily the disc itself felt ok, despite my boneheadedness. Now I could have flipped the pad around and tried to use it again but I didn’t feel good about doing that to Cindy’s car.  It also appeared that I lost one of the pad retaining clips (which I later found) so I figured I need to buy a brake hardware kit and a new set of pads.  I hopped on the Autozone site first seeing if they had these kits.  They did but not in stock.  I checked the Advance Auto web site, I found the part at exactly one of their stores.  I called to verify they had it in stock and in hand, I didn’t want to do a 30 mile round trip for nothing.  The clerk said he definitely had it.

By this time it was 8PM.  I asked him how long they are open? “Till 9…” Ok I will be there.

Besides being frustrated I was starving by this time.  I figured in transit to the auto parts store I would swing through McD’s for a fish sandwich.

Well I was unaware that 8:20PM was prime time for the McDonalds crowd.  The drive thru line was 5 cars deep.  I figured I may as well just park and grab something to go. As usual, the McDonalds crowd didn’t disappoint in interesting visuals.  The most interesting to me was the woman in  front of me.  She was probably 5′ 5″  and if I were to guess 300 plus pounds.

She had a few musical notes tattooed behind her right ear.  I wondered to myself what was “music to her ears”, perhaps the sound of opening a Big Mac wrapper? I was sad to see this women had two young daughters, both well on their way to continuing the proud American childhood obesity epidemic thanks to mom’s thoughtless guidance.

Mom was actually getting quite annoyed, her food order was not coming out as fast as she wanted.  In fact my order was handed to me before hers which really made her mad.  As I shuffled out of there I heard her chastising an employee behind the counter, wanting to know “What is going on???” Poor woman….

So the McD’s experience at least was a nice distraction from the Miata brake job headache I was in the middle of.  By the time I got home with the brake hardware kit and new pads it was now after 9pm, sheesh.

So my focus was now getting that top caliper bolt completely out on the driver side.  I needed to see what was going on.  Getting the bolt out was ridiculously difficult.  Despite having it turned all the way out on the threads, the smooth part of the bolt was hanging up.  I only got it out after a long grueling battle using a needle nose pliers to apply outward force while continuing to turn it with a socket.

Once I finally got the bolt out I saw why it was such a bastard.  It was bone dry and rusted, two things you don’t want for a caliper bolt.  I used a bunch of caliper grease on the bolt and made love to the bolt hole,  working the bolt back and forth to lubricate the fitting. By the time I was done the bolt once again was able to slide back and forth in the caliper housing as it was designed to do.

I put the driver side back together and then had to redo the passenger side once again, despite it not having a problem.  I didn’t want to have a different type of pads on one side.  I got everything back together and did a final test drive.  This time the brakes grabbed well with no metallic sound aftertaste, finally.  By the time I pulled back into the bug filled garage it was just after 11PM. Whew.

Now I should have gone straight to bed. However for some reason I had a second wind, instead of taking a shower and collapsing on my pillow I instead found myself in front of my computer processing the video from the brake work, which is pretty funny if I do say so myself.  By the time I actually went to bed it was 1AM, craziness.

This weekend has a loose framework, just as I like it.

So on Tuesday night I had managed to get fire ants on my sneakers in the few seconds it took to grab the trash bins.  It took them awhile to make their way to my shins, I didn’t feel the bites until I was inside.  I looked down and saw a number of them crawling on my sneakers.  I quickly go out in the garage, rip off my sneakers, and start beating them together furiously, swearing loudly with each impact for emphasis.

Well about 15 minutes after that I noticed my right ring finger looking swollen.  It wasn’t painful but the swelling  made the finger stiff.  I dismissed at as odd and carried on.

Well yesterday I looked down at my finger and realized it was now discolored, a reddish pink that stood out like a sore thumb.  It still didn’t hurt and only felt slightly swollen.

I posted the pic to FB and got all sorts of opinions, mostly bad.  This also just happens to be the finger that I cut badly last week.  If it was an infection I would have other symptoms and the discoloration would spread beyond the finger.  It still is just confined to that digit.  My noneducated  guess is when I was banging the sneakers I managed to sprain/damage something in that finger which is causing the discoloration. Of course I will keep an eye on things but if nothing changes I will just expect it to fade away.

So I had Cindy’s Miata at the house because of the iffy brakes.  Last night I planned to pull a wheel to take a closer look at the brake pads.  I pulled down my floor jack and quad lug wrench to the car to accomplish the task.  There was one problem, my lug wrench didn’t fit.   The custom wheels on the Miata had very minimal clearance around the lug nuts but that wasn’t the biggest problem.  Upon closer inspection I saw the lugs were the splined variety, requiring a special adapter to remove.

Ok no problem, surely the prior owners included the adapter with the car.  I looked in the console, the glovebox and the trunk, three times, looking for anything looking like an adapter.  Nothing was found.  Fck…  I texted Cindy and asked her is she recalled ever seeing anything like a lug adapter in the Miata, nope…..

Great. So I decided I would head to AutoZone to see if they sold the adapters for this style of lug nut.  I took the Miata there so I would have a visual reference handy.  There was good news and there was bad news.   They did indeed have the adapter I needed to remove the lugs. Unfortunately the only way I was able to get my hands on it was to buy a complete new set of splined lug nuts. Argh.

I had done a visual inspection of the brake pads, the best I could, at home with the wheel still on.  The back pads looked good but the front pads appeared to be thin.  I picked up a pair of front pads along with some Brake Klean for the job.  I returned home confident I had the stuff I needed to complete the job, hopefully tonight after work.

When I got home and opened the garage I immediately was hit with stench, the same stench I had smelled for a few days.  I assumed there was something in the trash that was stinking although I had no idea what that would have been.  Well as my nose was getting stuffed with the foul odor I just happened to look down at the corner where the garage door is seated.  There I saw a flat toad that was in the process of being taken apart by fire ants.

I recognized this toad, it was the same one I scared out of the garage several days ago.  He was a rather large toad probably the size of a racquetball. Evidently he ignored my verbal warning I gave him as I shoo’d him away and returned.  The idea of him getting inadvertently squashed by the garage door made me sad and guilty.  However I had to get his carcass and the associated smell out of there.

I grabbed my wonder bar to pry the pancaked carcass off the floor.  As I did, maggots started to spill out from the inside, it was f’ing disgusting.  I quickly flipped the poor toad into the middle of the yard like a sand trap chip shot.  I then sprayed the spot on the floor where it was with WD-40 to discourage ants from scouring the area for crumbs.

Unfortunately during my 12 years out at the house I have probably been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of frogs/toads inadvertently.  It’s a sad reality of living on the edge of the Everglades.

So this morning I was running behind schedule thanks to playing a couple games of Hearthstone before getting ready.  I grabbed my stuff and headed out the door and into the Miata.  As I put my stuff in the passenger seat I felt my pant pockets as I normally do, feeling for two things, my phone and my wallet.  Phone, check, wallet, wallet, wallet? I did not have my wallet.  Oh silly me, I must have left it inside.

So I head back inside, say hi again to Tuki and look at the spots where my wallet would reside.  All these spots came up empty.  Hmmm, that is odd.  So I did a quick retrace of when I had my wallet last.  I paid for the stuff at Autozone and then headed home.  Autozone is the last conscious use of my wallet I could recall.  Maybe I left it in the Miata?

So I head back out to the Miata and rip it apart, looking everywhere for my wallet, under, beside the seats, in the console, glovebox and even the trunk even though the only way it would have gotten in there was via magic trick.  No wallet.

So now I am entering freak out mode.  I start thinking about what a monumental pain in the ass it was going to be if I actually lost my wallet.  I went back in the house one more time.  SURELY I just wasnt seeing it.  I look everywhere, even places that made no sense for my wallet like the bathroom, nothing.

Ok my last hope was that it somehow fell out at Autozone in the parking lot.  Perhaps my wallet was still lying there or a good Samaritan turned it in to the store.  I hauled ass the best I could in the Miata, cursing out the school buses that were clogging the traffic along the way.  I pull in the lot and park in the exact same spot as last night, no wallet was there.  I walk inside and ask the manager if a wallet was turned in last night.  He checked the safe.  He had a wallet! It wasn’t mine. DAMN IT!

So I walked back out to the lot despondent, thinking about just how in the world I was going to replace everything that was in my wallet.  I literally have dozens of id’s and cards in there along with cash and credit card receipts.  I was so desperate I even dug through the Autozone trash cans, thinking maybe someone cleaned out the cash but tossed the wallet. Nope, only trash was found. For the THIRD time I reexamined the Miata, thinking perhaps somehow I missed it.  I moved both seats forward and felt around for anything resembling leather, nothing…..

I even opened up my lunch box, wondering if perhaps I shoved it in there for some reason. Nothing but food looked back at me.  I then unzipped my gym bag just because it was the only other thing I hadn’t checked.  There, nestled in my t-shirt was my wallet!  Relief flowed over my body like 6 foot wave.  What was moments before going to be an awfully dreary and frustrating day suddenly transformed into bright blue skies with rainbows everywhere.

I have no idea why I would have dropped my wallet in my gym bag last night.  I am just beyond thankful that I found it before I started the credit card cancellation parade.

Yesterday I was surprised to see an email from Blizzard offering entry into the closed beta of Hearthstone, a card based videogame that is based on WoW, the MMORPG I have played since 2005.   These type of games have a huge geek/nerd factor. Most people have heard of Dungeons & Dragons or Magic the Gathering. Well Blizzard decided to make their own slick interpretation of these type of games and as usual, has delivered a superior product.

Hearthstone is a game that is easy to learn but difficult to master.  There are complex strategies that can be utilized to gain an advantage but plain old dumb luck can be just as powerful at times.

I installed the game yesterday and played through a few of the tutorial games.  I picked up the basic rules pretty quickly.  The game was quite fun and enhanced by the audio/visual flare that Blizzard is so adept at incorporating into their games.  The best part of all is Hearthstone will be a “free” game, sort of.

You can play Hearthstone for endless hours and never spend a penny.  As you play you will be earning additional cards for your collection to be used in game.  However there is also the ability to buy card packs to quickly amass a large collection without investing an equally large amount of time.  So despite the game being free, Blizzard in reality will make a TON of money from the game from a gaming community that will be eager to lay out real world dollars at the chance to score some rare, epic, and legendary cards in a hurry.  If you want to join the fun, check out this link.

Yesterday Jeremy and I were talking Quad Copters.  He had recently bought one and was telling me how he has gotten pretty good at flying the copter indoors.  He even sent me a brief video demonstrating his flight skills.  I was surprised his X1 looked nearly identical to my Blade MQX, especially when Jeremy told me the price of it, 25% of what the Blade MQX costs!

Jeremy sent me some reviews of the copter which indicated it was a great value and actually was more suited for indoor flight due to it’s more tame control scheme.  Well for $35 I was willing to find out.  It shows up tomorrow.  Maybe I will teach Cindy how to fly as well.

So when I got out of bed yesterday morning I had pain in my knee that was causing a limp however it subsided within a half hour or so.  Well I decided to go to the club social run after work, despite my on again off again knee issues, figuring if it started hurting I would stop, if it didn’t I would keep going.

Cindy was there and ran with me.  I used a moderate pace throughout, only accelerating the last half mile or so of the roughly 2.5 miles we covered.  My knee held together and I only had minor soreness afterward.  I guess I can call that a win. Today is leg day at the gym so that should do a good job of testing the joint out further.

Last night I wound up driving Cindy’s Miata home, her brake pedal is feeling a bit soft.  I let her take the Tacoma so I could take a look at the Miata brake pads.  I have a feeling it could use some new pads as well as a brake fluid flush/fill/bleed.  I think yet another auto maintenance video could be forthcoming.

Last night after eating dinner, mowing down some dried out high spots and doing a quick attempt at this month’s BB challenge I wanted to work on familiarizing myself more with the capabilities of my new 3D tv.  After registering the set with LG I dug into the multitude of features, settings and applications available.   I played around with various features including Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Pandora, YouTube and more.

I also played around with the 2D to 3D on the fly conversion while watching some Boardwalk Empire but only saw a subtle difference.  I need to try it on one of my videos, who wouldn’t want Duf in 3D? 🙂

However the coolest thing I discovered was the LG remote tv app for my Iphone.  It allows me to turn my phone into a smart remote, using it to navigate the screens, enter text and move the onscreen mouse with ease, MUCH easier than trying to use to conventional remote control. You can also stream whatever video is on the tv to your phone if the need arises, pretty cool.

The picture on the LED tv is so sharp and bright.  It’s a pure visual orgasm.

My right knee is really annoying me.  I will be fine one second and limping the next.  This morning I woke up and all of a sudden had pain in the knee. 45 minutes later, whatever was getting pinched had moved elsewhere and I was able to walk normally again.  With the Tough Mudder less than a month away this is not a good thing.  I have a feeling I may once again have an elephant sized right knee by the time it’s over.

My new LG tv showed up on Friday.  I didn’t waste much time before I unboxed it and had it set up in the bedroom.  The new bigger set was a much better fit for the wall it occupies than the 32 inch set it replaced.   The set was an “open box” Amazon warehouse deal so I was a bit nervous when I unboxed the set and saw all of the accessory bags free of the tape that once secured them.  I was afraid there could be some sort of flaw in the tv.  I felt better when I turned it on and the picture looked beautiful and bright.

I do have one issue, I can not get the tv to connect to my home wifi network.  It sees the network but fails when I try to authenticate to it.  Luckily since my house is hard wired with ethernet in every room I was able to jack the tv in that way and flip my Xbox over to a wireless connection.  I perused some of the massive amount of features and apps available on the tv but only enough to know I needed to spend some serious time familiarizing myself with just everything the tv can do. I also slapped on one of the 4 pair of 3D glasses to do a static test of 3D picture, low and behold the image had 3 dimensions, very cool.

Saturday was a busy day.  Because of my on again off again right knee pain a long Saturday morning run was off the menu.  Instead I worked on various things around the house.  Cindy was off on Saturday and was nice enough to help me get stuff done.  The messiest and largest time consumer of all of the chores was attending to the yard.  I have been putting off mowing/weed whacking the grass, hoping that the regular downpours that have drowned my property in standing water would  subside.  Unfortunately that has not been the case.

Well the yard HAD to be addressed at this point.  Cindy was happy to run the tractor.  I told her to avoid the high water areas, that I would weed whack them down.    I donned my mid shin water proof boots and embarked on a wet, muddy and slimy 90 minute plus weed whacking session.  I knocked down everything I could, including the trenches out front.  At some points the water was a couple inches below the top of my boots, threatening to flood my feet.  I am so tired of all of this water.

On Saturday night we went to go see Gravity, a movie I was looking forward to seeing.  The movie was suspenseful and visually amazing.  I have no idea how they did some of those shots, it looked so damn realistic.  It made space seem like a very, very beautiful but terrifying place.

The odd thing is overall, I don’t have a pristine rating for the movie, I’d give it a B+ . Maybe it was the routine lack of believability in the outcomes of dire situations, maybe it was the miniscule cast of characters involved.  I remember when the previews came out I was wondering how they were going to build an entire movie about the space shuttle getting blown apart.  After watching the movie I would have to say the answer is, they didn’t do it as well as I hoped.

Yea it is a movie that benefits from a movie theater 3D environment.  It may be worth seeing for the visuals alone.

We took the SSR to the movies.  When I was driving it I immediately noticed the clutch feel was different, the engagement felt sloppy.  I was concerned I had another automotive issue to worry about.  Well shortly before getting to the theater I looked down.  I noticed the rubber floor mat was pushed way forward.  It was piling up under the pedals, causing the weird feel.  Once I pulled the mat to it’s normal position the clutch went back to feeling more or less normal, whew.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I had decided to try a different bike ride, from the house out to Ave Maria, or as I like to call it, Catholic Town.  The ride would be a long one since the town center is 15 miles from my house.  I never have logged 30 miles on a road bike.

On the positive side, much of the ride was on the newly widened Oil Well Road.  The road, except for a small section is wide with tons of room and small amounts of traffic.  It is a great road to bike on.

On the way out there was a headwind that was just enough to be annoying.  Cindy and I took 5 mile long shifts of leading so the other could benefit from the draft.  By the time we got out to Catholic Town my man parts were killing me, despite wearing two pairs of bike pants/shorts and swapping my more comfortable seat onto the Dawes.  I have no idea how people do century rides (100 miles) without a stream of blood running down their thighs.

We parked at Publix and went inside for a chocolate milk recovery drink.  Walking on the hard store floors in bike shoes requires very small strides and a slow pace unless you want to wind up on your ass.  While we were finishing our drinks outside we saw a couple walk up with a big but young lab named Oscar.  He was funny, he was friendly but afraid to come right up to you.  Instead he would bound around, doing circles just out of reach.

Ave Maria had changed since I have been there last.  The gas station that was started but left uncompleted for years is finally open.  There also was a lot of construction going on and the most people milling around that I have ever seen.  We were there right around church time so that might have explained the additional activity.  Before we headed out we took a quick selfie behind the extravagant church at the center of town.

The ride back was tough.  We had better wind conditions but we also were maintaining a higher pace, mostly in the 19-20 mph range.  My crotch pain made things even less fun.  The total ride of 30 and a half miles was a milestone for me.  We covered the distance in a little less than 1:45 which worked out to an average pace of 17.7 mph.  I was quite spent by the end of it.

I picked up the dogs so they could spend the afternoon out at the house.   I got back just in time for the Eagles/Giants game.  The Giants so far this year have established themselves as awful, they were 0-4 and their defense actually appeared to be worse than the Eagles.  You can imagine my excitement when the Giants took their opening possession and marched right down the field and scored a touchdown.  I was quite ready for the Eagles to deliver yet another underwhelming performance.

Mike Vick, who literally did nothing with his arm in the game before going out with a hamstring pull, made his contribution on the ground, scrambling for a lot of yards.  When Nick Foles came in right before halftime I really didn’t care.  I figured the Eagles would find a way to lose the game no matter who is behind center.  The defense was once again poor but luckily the Giants shot themselves in the foot enough for the Eagles to prevail in the end.

It is pretty laughable that the Eagles are tied for first place in the the division with a 2-3 record.  This years NFC east might be the weakest NFL division in DECADES.  Any wins the Birds get this year are just gravy to me.  A team with this defense just has no shot of going anywhere.

Thank goodness for Tony Romo, his MASSIVE numbers in the Cowboys loss to the Broncos looks like it will single handily get me my first fantasy football win of the season.  Much like the Eagles, my fantasy team appears to be in for a long year.

Last night I watched Flight, a movie I wanted to see for awhile.  The movie was quite good and did a great job of making a person never want to fly or be an alcoholic.  A-

I also put the new TV to it’s first 3D movie test, watching some of Avatar in 3D.  The picture was fantastic and the 3D effects were every bit as good as anything I have seen in theaters.  I’m quite happy with my new piece of entertainment tech.

The Tacoma flipped 160,000 miles this morning.  I have never driven a vehicle as many miles as I have on this truck.  When I bought it back in 2000, it had right around 30,000 miles on the odometer.  It has been a very faithful and reliable companion for most of the journey.  I hope to be able to ride on to 200k and beyond.