Back temporarily, hilly, icy, fuel flowing, crushed

So I am back from my week long at home virtual training and to be honest, I’m pretty glad about it.  I really don’t know if my sanity could have endured another day of seemingly endless lecture on topics I had very minimal interest in.  Coming back to the office is made even sweeter by the fact that I have a nice and tidy one day work week.  We get off Xmas Eve and Xmas but I tacked two vacation days on the back end to make for an awesomely long weekend.  I am quite glad I maintained the blog from home last week, trying to regurgitate all of last week would have been cumbersome.

On Saturday I timed the race in Marco.  This race perennially has had organizational issues and this year was no different.  The most glaring oversight this time around was the lack of any port-potties for runners to use.  Participants were forced to use Burger King and Publix if mother nature called.

Cindy and I basically set up the registration area ourselves.  Our normal volunteer coordinator was not involved with this race so nobody really knew what roles they were doing ahead of time and had to be quickly briefed/trained on the spot.  It made for a very hectic pre-race environment however somehow we got through it like we always do.

Once the race got under way things settled down.  Timing the event went very smoothly without hardly a hiccup to report.  Cindy also ran the event and did well, finishing the very hilly and difficult course in less than 42 minutes.  Since the race didn’t start until 8 and it was five miles long I didn’t get offsite until almost 10 AM.  On the way home we made additional pit stops which meant I didn’t pull back in the driveway until right around noon, a long morning.

Saturday afternoon was quite busy as well as I attended to the post-race duties, house chores and Cindy’s Miata.  Month’s ago her car refused to start.  I got the thing running by removing and reinstalling the fuel pump assembly somehow.  When I did, I noticed the pump obviously had been dug into before.  The ground wire to the connector had been cut, spliced and routed through a drilled hole where it wired directly to the fuel pump.  It looked very rigged so I wasn’t surprised it was problematic.

Last week her car stopped starting again and again I tried to jostle the pump to get the fuel flowing.  I was unsuccessful.  A quick look up online indicated if the car was taken to a dealer, a new fuel pump assembly could easily run $500 plus.  Instead I rolled the dice and bought a used assembly from Ebay for $60.

Prior to installing the used part I did some splicing of my own, reconnecting the ground wire to the factory connector as it was supposed to be.  Swapping out the fuel pump rig was pretty easy/quick since I had it half ripped apart already.  When I turned the key and heard the pump whirring away it was like music to my ears.  The car started up immediately and per Cindy has run better than it ever has since she assumed ownership.  I love when a plan comes together.

On Saturday night Cindy, our friend Alfred and Cindy’s daughter went to an Everblades hockey game, I hadn’t been to one in many years.  There was a good sized crowd present, much more than the anemic gathering I have become accustomed to for Tarpon games.  The game itself was fun, despite the 8-4 losing outcome.  I enhanced my fun meter with a number of beers and people watching.

We were behind a couple that were obviously DIE HARD Everblades fans.  These people take their minor league hockey very seriously.  They were wearing matching custom Everblades jerseys that if I was being honest, were hideously ugly.  Their seats were right behind a railing.  They had that railing fully decorated, attaching various stuffed animals, souvenirs and Xmas decorations.  Obviously I quickly realized how serious these fans were but I didn’t realize just how much planning went into their fandom until the game was over.

After the game ended the two of them quickly pulled out a hanging sign that had the words “Merry Christmas” strung together.  They scurried down to the glass surrounding the rink and pressed the sign against the glass proudly, hoping the Everblades players that were exiting the rink 15 feet away would glance up, see the holiday greeting and somehow recognize the fans effort.  I felt a degree of disappointment in my heart for them as 20+ players skated by the Merry Christmas sign without a single one even looking their direction.  The fans were left without the payoff they were hoping for.  There’s always next year.

Yesterday was a very welcomed slow starting day that did not include the use of an alarm clock.   Cindy was out running Xmas related items a good chunk of the day.  I did some running around of my own including dropping off a birthday card for Ali from the dogs.

Speaking of the dogs, I will be picking them up on my way home from work today for an extended holiday stay.  Ali is going to be up in PA for the entire Christmas/New Years holiday.  It’s going to be a very canine Christmas.

Yesterday afternoon Cindy and I went outside to do a workout.  Cindy did a lot more working than I did.  I shot some video of her in action that you can see here if you like.  It included her first ever real deadlifting, she did very well.

Last night the Eagles CRUSHED the Bears, setting up a do or die game next week against the Cowboys which should be epic.  Unfortunately my team got CRUSHED in my fantasy football championship.  The only member of my team that had a great day were the Bills defense.  Every other player in my line up underperformed by a bunch.  In contrast my opponent had everyone hitting for big days, lead by Peyton Manning.  Oh well, with the amount of effort I put into my FF team, second place two years in a row is something I can hang my hat on.