Archives December 2013

I am too busy, tired and hungover to go into much detail about last night’s running club Xmas party.  I drank a lot of Shocktops and had a good time. My eyeballs shut right around midnight.  I just wish the party wasn’t sandwiched against a race where I am going to have to pull myself out of bed at 4AM for.

The weekend schedule has been shifted around a bit.  Instead of seeing the Hobbit Saturday night I think it will go down Sunday evening instead after a pre-birthday dinner with my mom.

I will be undertaking the massive pool area pressure washing project as well, I can hardly wait.

It would be nice if I manage to squeak in some sleep equalization time as well.

Tonight is the running club Christmas party.  Historically this has been my biggest drinking night of the calendar year and I would expect this year to follow suit.  Last year I was thoroughly single at the party so my perspective/objective weres obviously different than current day where I am in a very happy and positive relationship with Cindy.  I don’t think that change will result in any less fun or drinking.  If anything hopefully the fun quota goes up.

The way the calendar is laying out this year is less than ideal since I have a race to time on Saturday.  That means that tomorrow morning I will have to drag my hung over ass out of bed and process the pre-registration lists for the race before work.  The following weekend I roll right into another race to time. Yay.

My Dufisthenics app, previously only available on Google Play has now gotten the stamp of approval from the Apple Store as well.  The app obviously is nothing fancy.  It’s main functionality is to aggregate content from my two blogs, Facebook feed, and YouTube channel into one spot.

I do have a conundrum however.  I created the app using the free/basic plan level on Conduit.  This level is designed to let you create and publish an app (manually), but it gimps you otherwise, only allowing a total of 5 installs of your app.  If you want your app to be widely available you have to go to the subscription based model.

Now do I think my free app will be a smashing success and justify spending my dollars to publish?  Of course not.  However I could easily slide the subscription costs into my utility budget column so I may do it just for fun. You can find it right now if you search the App Store for “dufisthenics”.

This weekend will be jam packed.  After timing the race on Saturday I need to go full bore into house chores.  My hope is to blast the considerable crud off the pool deck/cage as part of chorefest.  It will take a long time but it is also long overdue.

During my pre-birthday weekend Cindy and I hope to go out to see the new Hobbit movie Saturday night and make the epic chocolate birthday cake on Sunday.  Next week I have at home remote classroom training all week so it will make for an unconventional approach to the impending Xmas madness.

Last night after work I wanted to hurry up and get an attempt in at the pull up variation for this month’s BB challenge before I ran out of sunlight.  I put in a decent attempt for me, completing 5 rounds of the ascending pull up ladder totaling 35 reps.  You can see it here if you care.

I also spent a good portion of the night wrapping Christmas presents which is never much fun for me.  I am three footer present wrapper, meaning the presents look ok from 3 feet away or further, but if you get close you see there are a lot of crooked lines, uneven corners, and wrinkles.  I just never put much stock into spending a lot of time on the wrapping process since it’s purpose is to be torn apart eventually.

I let the new Neato go through a full run last night and it was able to do so successfully without the brush error.  Hopefully my fiddling was sufficient.

All I have for today.

So I placed my Elio reservation way back in the beginning of November.  I never saw the reservation hit my credit card and the Elio shwag that was supposed to accompany my reservation was a no-show as well.  When I went on their website I saw my order was there but it showed a processing status ever since I placed it.  It appeared like it was “stuck”.

So last week I sent a message to Elio via their FB page, explaining I placed the reservation quite awhile ago but haven’t see the t-shirt or bumper sticker.  They responded back that everything was good to go.  Well evidently my contact got the wheels rolling (no pun intended) as my Elio shwag arrived yesterday.

Included was a letter welcoming me to the future Elio owners club, a bumper sticker and a cool shirt playing off the 3 wheel stance of the vehicle.

To date Elio has about 5500 reservations for the vehicle (people that actually laid out cash), not a bad number for something brand new that isn’t slated to even begin production until December of 2014.  Of course I realize there is a very good chance that the Elio never makes it off the ground.  At least I can sell the shirt on Ebay for big bucks if it dies on the vine.

Yesterday my new Neato arrived, it’s the XV Signature model, Costco had a real nice Black Friday deal on it. You may ask why I would need a second Neato?  Well the answer is I don’t.  I plan to give my original Neato to Cindy so she can have her place robo-cleaned as well.

When I first unboxed the new Neato and docked it to the charger I thought I immediately had a problem.  It kept flashing up a 0002 battery error and was restarting.  I was preparing myself for the hassle of calling tech support when I looked  more closely at the directions.

Evidently they added a secondary on/off switch to the new Neato models that is hidden in the dust bin compartment.  After flipping it to the ON position the new bot started charging normally.

This morning I turned it loose on a test run of the house.  As soon as it took off I noticed the brush motor sounded a bit odd, like it was working harder than normal. I wrote it off as just being brand new.  Well when the Neato stopped several minutes later with a “my brush is stuck” message on the screen I didn’t write it off.

I popped the brush out and confirmed there was no debris impeding it’s rotation.  I did notice though that the bearing on the one side of the brush was warm and not spinning freely as it should.  Great.  I let it cool down and flipped the brush around so the questionable bearing was on the non-drive belt side of the robot.  When I popped the brush back in and spun it the resistance felt ok.  When I fired the robot back up the brush motor also sounded ok, not labored as it had before.

Of course I will be monitoring the robot closely.  The good news is if there is a problem, Neato has been good about getting it addressed quickly with minimal hassle.

I forgot to relay another odd incident from my weekend with Randall.  When we were on the way to Snowfest I needed to stop at the ATM.  My intention was to utilize the drive up ATM but when I saw the line was 4 vehicles long I decided I would just park and use the old fashioned walk up model which had one guy waiting in line to use it.

Well as soon as I walked up I smacked into an aura of impatience and frustration from the guy that was waiting.  He followed up with a sigh, a mumble, a head shake and a glance at his watch.  I immediately ascertained he had been waiting awhile.

People that take forever at an ATM have always been a pet peeve of mine, in the same club with people that place massive orders in the Dunkin Donuts drive thru lane.  If you have a complicated/lengthy banking transaction or you simply don’t know how to work an ATM, do your transaction inside.

Well despite my normal dislike of ATM idiots, I was not all that bothered by this guy.  I was more entertained by the guy that was waiting as he was getting more agitated by the second as we watched the ATM guy try to do a transaction again and again and again. Finally after about 5 minutes (who knows how long he was already waiting), the guy waiting blurted out “this is ridiculous” and took off, making me numero uno in line.

So even though I no longer had the agitated in line guy to entertain me, my observation of the dummy at the ATM continued to entertain me.  He was acting like he was confused and frustrated, at one point burying his face in his forearm.  Eventually I said to him, “Are you having a problem? Do you want help?”  The guy, who looked like he was in his late 20’s to mid 30’s turned around and said with a strange, unidentified accent, “no bro, it’s ok it’s ok” as he flashed a thumbs up sign.  He obviously had distress on his face.  Wow, this is weird.

I had been probably waiting at least 10 minutes when the guy finally finished and again flashed me the thumbs up and said “ok bro, thanks bro” as he walked towards a huge jacked up pick up truck with another guy in it.  ATM guy hands truck guy a wad of money and then gets into his beat up car and drives away.

After I finished my 30 second transaction the truck driver steps out, a tall, fat, bald with gnarly beard man, and heads to the ATM himself.  As I walk back to the SSR I have a pretty strong suspicion that I just witnessed a drug deal go down.

Since Randall was now not arriving until Saturday morning and Cindy was in Key West for a triathlon I had a now unfamiliar Friday night alone.  Well that isn’t really true since I had picked up the dogs on the way home.  The three of us had an enjoyable evening and I attended to various duties I otherwise would not have a chance to do over the weekend.

Originally Randall said he was going to leave the east coast at 6AM and arrive at my place around 8.  Now I know Randall well enough to realize the odds of that happening were very slim.  My premonition turned out to be correct when Randall sent me a Glympse a little after 7:30 saying he had just left.  The good news was Randall no longer needed me to run 6 miles with him on my still touchy right knee.

I put the extra time to good use, I always have something available to do.  The use this time was walking around the pool area and trying to knock down the endless cobwebs that are around the cage frame.  I was disgusted with just how nasty the pool cage is, probably the greenest/blackest I have ever let it become.  I am now mentally committed to making sure I pressure wash it before Xmas hits. It looks so bad.

I set up my pool barrier of chairs, cushions and other items so I could let the Roombas run wild.  I figure having most of the sand/hair pulled off the pool deck before pressure washing can only be a good thing.

As soon as Randall showed up he was inundated with dog love.  Both Nicki and Sadie laid down on Uncle Randall whom they hadn’t seen in close to a year.  They laid there with him for a long time, it was very cute.

Randall came bearing gifts.  First he had my clothing that I accidentally left at Tracy’s place when I last visited month’s ago. He also had a collection of gadgets/accessories that he grabbed at the Office Depot employee sale.  OD employees are allowed to fill a box they pay a flat rate for with as much stuff as they can jam in it.  He grabbed me some stuff for my Iphone and Kindle, it was nice of him.

So after catching up for a little while Randall and I laid out a game plan for the day.  I saw that this weekend they were having Snowfest, an event I never attended.  At one of the local parks they throw hundreds of blocks of ice into a wood chipper to make “snow”.  I have seen pictures of it and thought it would be a fun thing for us to check out. We hopped in the SSR and headed out.

I didn’t bother to check Snowfest’s location, I was sure it was at the Golden Gate City community park.  Earlier in the week I saw signage talking about parking for the event, reenforcing the events location in my head.  I thought I would be “smart” and park in a shopping center parking lot that I thought was next door to the community center.  Well as is often the case, my internal compass was a bit off.  We were actually at least a half mile from the center.  Oh well, it was a nice day for a walk.

Our walk took us by the Golden Gate library.  Randall said he had to use the bathroom so I told him I would just wait outside.  As I did I noticed a Ford Tempo looking vehicle that was parked in the handicap space.  My eyes were drawn to the rear bumper which was created of 2×12 lumber, painted to match the color of the car.

There was a very old and frail looking woman in the drivers seat with the door open.  For some reason she must have thought I looked trustworthy, despite the “Blood Makes the Grass Grow” t-shirt I was wearing.  She asked me if I could get her wallet out of the folded up walker in the rear seat, she said her car keys were in it.  Of course I I had no choice but to say yes.

I reached into several of the walker pockets and felt various items that I didn’t really want to be touching.  I then found her wallet in the the last pocket I tried.  I hand it to the woman and close her rear door. I expected her to pull out a key ring and be on her way.  Instead she opens a small snap in the wallet and dumps a small collection of individual keys into her hand.  She slowly fumbles through them until she locates the ignition key.

The process was so slow that I felt I should be assisting her somehow.  I did my part by closing her fully open driver door part way so she didn’t have to reach out far to close it.  Finally she finds the correct key, closes the door and waves.  I wave back.  She then very slowly backs out and misjudges how much room she required for her three point turn.  As she pulls away she jumps the Tempo up onto the curb and slides a good 2 feet up onto the sidewalk before she manages to bounce it back down to asphalt.  She then continued out of the parking lot at a slower than walking pace.  I am pretty sure my mouth was involuntarily open as I imagined this woman out on the open roads.  Holy shit…

When Randall emerged from the library I shared my experience with wood bumper lady as we resumed our walk to Snowfest.  We approached the building and saw a good amount of people and a bunch of tents that appeared to be some sort of flea market but no “snow” was to be found.  WTF?

We asked a cop where the snow was?  He said that Snowfest is actually at another local park, a couple miles away.  The signs I saw indicated you should park where we were but there were school buses shuttling people back and forth.  Great.  Well we walked all the way back to the SSR and headed over to the other park.

As we approached the park entrance we saw a long line of cars waiting to turn left and police by the turning lane.  The cops were going vehicle to vehicle and talking to them.  They did the same for us, informing us that we had to park in the Publix parking lot another mile away and take a school bus to the event.  Oh geez, ok.

So I pull into the Publix lot and am dumbfounded by the amount of vehicles parked there.  I knew Snowfest was popular.  I did not know it was this popular.  Randall and I saw a huge mob of people waiting for school bus shuttles.  We made an on the spot decision that Snowfest was not  worth dealing with that sort of humanity.  Instead we pulled out and headed to the Miromar Outlets.

Randall is a big fan of Under Armour gear and Miromar just happens to have an UA outlet.  In addition they have other outlets we like to check out like Nike, Adidas, Oakley and a few more.  After eating lunch there we walked the grounds.  I bought a few gift items and a dirt cheap shirt for myself at Oakley.    While we were there Randall tried on some high tech and surely astronomically expensive ski goggles that featured an in mask HUD. (heads up display)

After leaving the outlets we stopped at Trader Joe’s so Randall could load up on stuff not readily available in his area since TJ is yet to open a store in Lauderdale.  The bed of the SSR was pretty loaded up by the time we headed for the house.

I got a report from Cindy on her triathlon.  Despite her normal playing down of her performance, she did well, getting 5th in her age group despite some very windy conditions.  She had taken the van for the long drive and was on her way back.  We made plans to go out to dinner at South Street.

While we waited for Cindy to get back I introduced Randall to the world of quadra-copters.  I took my Blade MQX and Syma X1 in the backyard and flew them a bit before handing the controls over to Randall.  As you would expect Randall had a a lot of unintended impacts of the copters to terra firma but none of them were fatal.  He was able to maintain a decent hover occasionally.  He definitely thought it was fun, fun enough that he mentioned getting a cheap Syma X1 of his own to play with.  The Syma is definitely the better choice to cut your teeth on since it is a third of the price of the Blade and has a much less aggressive control rate that is more forgiving for a beginner.

Cindy got back and quickly got ready so we could head out to South Street, a place I never took Randall to previously.  When we got there it was moderately busy but not packed.  We grabbed three stools at the bar, ordered some beers and food.  Randall had never met Cindy prior to Saturday.  The two of them got along well which was cool.  We had a good meal that Randall graciously paid for.  By the time we left there were people mongering for our bar stools.  As soon as we got up they were claimed by other patrons.

So on Sunday morning Randall and I planned to do a bike ride.  Cindy also agreed to do it with us, despite competing in an Olympic distance triathlon the day before, pretty crazy.  Randall does a TON of cycling, more than he ever has before so neither Cindy or I expected to be able to hang with him for the long ride out to Ave Maria.

On the ride out the three of us actually did stick together.  The consistent headwind made staying close together advantageous for all.  Randall, Cindy and myself all took turns in the front of the line breaking the wind.  On the way out to Ave Maria our speed probably averaged in the mid 16’s.

Randall hadn’t been to Ave Maria in quite awhile, things had changed considerably.  Ave Maria has benefited from the resurgence in the real estate market, there is quite a bit of new construction going on.  We first grabbed some chocolate milk at Publix as a recovery drink and then headed over to The Ave Maria Bean to enjoy a cup of coffee before riding back.  If you disregard the religious back bone of Ave Maria it still stands alone as a beautiful and peaceful place.

On the ride back the first 3 miles on the long winding road that leads to the town was still at a slow pace as the wind was smacking us around.  However once we got out onto Oil Well Road the wind was finally at our backs.  Randall was in the lead and hauling ass.  I was going 23 mph and he was still pulling away so Cindy and I just let him go.  We were content to zip along at a steady 21-22 mph.  Randall eventually waited for us to catch up, saying he was holding a steady 27 mph for quite awhile.

Cindy had said she was really struggling earlier in the ride which was expected since she just raced the day before.  I tried to help her as much as I could, being the wind breaker for the first 10 miles of the ride back.  With 5 miles to go Randall said he was going to sprint the rest of the way.  I bid him farewell as he pulled away.  At the same time Cindy said she wanted to lead the last 5 miles in our two person peloton.

She zooms by and is pacing even faster than I was.  She was holding a steady 23 mph.  I had to stay down on my aero bars and work hard to stay close enough to get any wind advantage.  I guess her legs felt better. 🙂 I showed the overall pace for the ride as 17.5 mph.  When you factor in that 18 plus miles of the roughly 30 mile ride was into a decent wind that wasn’t bad at all. Randall really enjoyed doing a long ride on wide, unobstructed roadways, quite the difference from the traffic clogged streets he typically deals with on the east coast.

Cindy made herself and Randall some made from scratch pancakes for lunch, I stuck with my typical PB wrap.  It was now time for the Eagles/Detroit game.

I had heard some bits and pieces about potentially bad weather in the northeast but I was SHOCKED when I turned on the game.  It was a blizzard.  Huge flakes filled the air, making it difficult to see what the hell was going on.

Well I have said many times before, there are few things I like more than a football game in snow.  This wasn’t just snow, it was near white out conditions.  The only thing better than a snow game is when your team does well in a snow game and unfortunately that wasn’t the case for a good portion of the game.

The Eagles offense appeared to be totally derailed by the snow.  They totally abandoned the pass and had little to no success with the run, not managing to get a first down until well into the second quarter.

The Lions on the other hand were actually moving the ball pretty well.  Luckily for the Eagles the Lions also were turning the ball over.  The snow crusted ball slipped out of their hands several times as they were deep in Eagles territory.  The weather was so atrocious that only one kick attempt was made the entire game which was blocked and resulted with David Akers sitting on his ass.  The teams instead just went for the two point conversion every other time.

As much as I was enjoying the action in the snow, the game was clearly going the Lions way.  Despite their turn overs they manged to score TWO touchdowns on special teams, one on a kick off and another on a punt return.  To do so with such horrible running conditions was pretty incredible.  I had chalked up the game as a loss.  Then came the fourth quarter.

In the span of 15 minutes the game went from a fun snow game to one of the most memorable Eagle games of my lifetime.  The snow, which never stopped coming down had at least lessened in intensity.  It seemed that after 3 quarters of playing on a white, slick field the Eagles finally figured out how to play on it.  LeSean McCoy went absolutely crazy, breaking off long run after long run contributing to an incredible two hundred PLUS yards of rushing for the Birds in the 4th quarter alone!  The running was mixed in with minimal but effective passing to lead an incredible charge winding up in a huge 34-20 Eagles win.

McCoy’s performance was historic.  Not only did he set the Eagles single game rushing record, he accomplished most of it in 15 minutes of play in some of the most treacherous field conditions the Eagles have ever seen.  It was such an incredible game, one I will never, ever forget.

All of a sudden this team that I wrote off as being in the midst of a rebuilding year at 3-5 is now instead sitting atop the division at a very respectable 8-5.  It’s hard to believe how drastic of a turnaround the last month or so has been.  Is Nick Foles the next Tom Brady, a QB that came out of nowhere to suddenly perform at an elite level?  We can all only hope so.

The NFL was filled with a TON of incredible games this week and I think each one had white stuff on the field.  Awesome.

Randall had to shove off for his cross state drive shortly after the game ended.  I thanked him for his brief but fun visit.  He should be back again in late January.

I made two trips back and forth to Ali’s condo Sunday night.  The first time to drop off the dogs and a second time to drop off the dog supplies I stupidly forgot to throw in the van.  I took the SSR the second time to make the drive more enjoyable.

I have a busy week coming up, a theme that is going to probably continue until the day after Xmas.  I have a number of running club related to do’s all compressed into a small time frame. Promoting and handling details of the events will be a challenge.  On Friday I got a chunk of my Xmas shopping knocked out courtesy of Amazon.  I still have a pretty large collection of holiday items to cross of the list before my mind can be at ease.

Speaking of which, I still have not been sleeping straight through the night.  Each and every night I wake up before the alarm.  Maybe this is just my new normal, great.

Last night I tried to knock out several to do’s since Randall will be coming over this weekend.  I have a few more things to get handled before he shows up.  He originally was going to pull in some time this evening but the schedule has shifted a bit, I should see Randall’s smiling face bright and early tomorrow morning instead.

Once he arrives we are almost immediately going to be heading back out the door to do a run.  Randall is on a training plan to do his first ever half marathon.  He is scheduled to get a 6 mile run in this weekend.  My knee still has some minor swelling in it but it’s nothing a couple Advil can’t handle.

The rest of the weekend has a loose framework and may include a random combo of shopping, drinking, eating, game playing, biking and laughing.  I also will have the dogs this weekend to add to the fun quotient.

Last night I watched my latest Netflix rental, Hubble 3D.  I had spent some time scouring Netflix for 3D Blu-ray titles to put my 3D Blu-ray player and tv to the test.  So I pop in the disc and start the short documentary.  I immediately notice that the TV didn’t give it’s normal heads up when 3D video is being displayed of “Put on your glasses”

Without the glasses the display looked normal instead of the slight blur which is normal with 3D images.  Well evidently the copy of Hubble 3D that I got was a 2D version.  Oh well.  Also, when the film started I realized I had seen this before when I went to the Kennedy Space Center with Charlie.  Even with seeing it before and even without it being in 3D, I enjoyed the film.

It looked great on the bedroom tv and the sound bar and subwoofer filled the room with window shaking sound.  The images the Hubble captures are beautiful, awe inspiring and thought provoking.  When you try to wrap your brain around just how massive the universe is and how microscopic our tiny little piece of it is, it shifts your perspective.  How can it be that the light we see filling the night sky actually left their source thousands of years ago.  How can there not be thousands of other planets in the universe that support life as we know it?  Now if they would just hurry up and invent warp speed engines.

Because Thanksgiving this year was as late as it possibly could be it feels like Xmas is coming on like a freight train.  I have not done hardly any Christmas shopping yet and before I know it the yellow shopping alert will turn to red.  I need to get things moving in earnest, I hope to get some of it knocked out via the power of the internet today.

So yesterday I was trying to manually publish my Dufisthenics app to the Apple Store.  I followed the well written instructions on the Conduit website to do so.  Things were cruising along until I got to the point where you actually upload the app to the store for evaluation.  For some stupid reason, the only way Apple allows you to do this is via a Mac only app, you can’t simply upload the file via your web browser. I’m not sure if this is just an effort to get people to buy more Apple hardware or just to be annoying.

Well I don’t own a Mac.  Cindy’s daughter has one so I thought of that as a possible remedy to my problem.  However as usual, I found another solution after a few Google searches.

I was directed to http://macincloud.com  It is a site where you rent time on a Mac.  The service was cheap and easy to set up.  The Macs you connect to already have the things app developers need, including the app needed to upload to the Apple Store, sweet.

I have very limited knowledge of the Mac OS but everytime I am forced into it it just seems klutzy to me.  Of course 20 years of Windows has surely jaded me but it just feels like I can get things done faster on a Windows 7 desktop than OS X.

I managed to slog my way through it and got my app sent to Apple.  The cost for me to rent the Mac was a dollar, can’t beat that.

Last night was what used to be a conventional night for me.  I got home and did a BB challenge and then another Vine compilation (I’m over 100)  For whatever reason I seem to not be getting in hardly any weeknight workouts, something I was doing most days awhile ago.  It seems like I just have something else that is commanding my attention most nights.  I do like my at home workouts, without them I feel sort of soft and lazy.

So a couple months ago my mom was involved in a minor accident which could have been major one. A guy driving some sort of delivery truck changed lanes abruptly and did not see my mom was in the space he was moving into.  One of the rear truck tires clipped the front corner of mom’s Rav 4.  The collision dislodged the top corner of her bumper and left some surface damage on her front fender and trim piece.

They both pulled over and looked at the vehicle.  The truck driver, a Hispanic man, begged my mom to not report the accident officially, he said it would cause problems for him at work.  He said he would pay for any damage.  Well mom fell for his sob story, something I would have advised her against if she would have contacted me when it happened.

I was able to get mom’s bumper back in place so it at least didn’t look damaged.  She said she was going to get an estimate from a body shop to have the vehicle correctly repaired.  There was some issue with the estimate and mom later said she would simply accept $200 from the driver for the incident, again, cutting the guy an undeserved break. The driver agreed to send mom a $200 check.

Well weeks passed  by and no check arrived.  Mom sent a letter to the guy and got a call back with renewed promises of sending the check.

More time passed, enough that mom finally agreed to take me up on my offer of my calling the guy to rattle his chains a bit about the money.  I called him last Friday, “Michael’s” accent made it a bit tough for me to communicate with him.  When I first described who I was, the son of the woman he hit with his truck a couple month’s ago, he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about.

I continued my description, reminding him how he agreed to send a check to my mom for the incident.  Suddenly he remembered what I was talking about.  Not only did he remember, he said he had just sent the check earlier in the week.  Of course my years of dealing with human beings made me immediately cynical of what he was saying.  I told him if mom didn’t see the check within a few days I would be contacting him again.  He assured me the check is in the mail.

I hung up, pretty much positive that Michael was feeding me a load of horseshit.  I was sure he didn’t send a check and was just buying time, possibly hoping I would just give up eventually which I had no plans to do.  In fact today I was planning my follow up call to the guy where I was going to threaten to notify his employer and the sheriff’s office about the incident.

Well imagine my surprise when mom emailed me and said the check was actually in the mail.  I am so conditioned to individuals and businesses not following through that I assume that they won’t.  It was nice to be wrong this time around.

Last night I had another running club meeting to attend, this time it was regarding the half marathon that goes down in mid-January.  I had a few beers and pizza as various race details were discussed.  I actually got out of there earlier than expected, pulling out around 7:15.

Finally, close to a month after submitting to the Apple Store, my app for the running club has finally cleared the arduous Apple approval process.  You can now search “gulf coast runners” and hit on the app.  It’s certainly not a ground breaking app but it does aggregate the most important club information in one spot in a way that is easy to access and navigate.

So this morning I went through my annual Sirirus/XM song and dance.  It’s the same dance I have done for the last half decade or so.  It goes like this.

I get something in the mail that shows what my renewal rate for the upcoming year will be.  This renewal rate is typically ridiculously high and stuffed with surcharges for things that used to be included in your subscription for free (music royalty fees, internet listening).  This year’s proposed renewal charge for the year was $229.50.  I call them up and tell them I would rather cancel than pay these ridiculous rates.  They drop the price dramatically to keep me subscribed.

This year’s song and dance was no different although it took longer than normal to get the discount processed.  I wound up renewing the service for $100 less than the billed amount.  I would be interested in knowing how many suckers actually pay full rate for their service.

The first time they don’t offer me a similar discount I am out.  I only listen to the Stern channels for the most part (except for long road trips).  With as light as Howard’s schedule is anymore it just isn’t worth it to me to pay any more.

This morning I dropped the dogs back off at Ali’s place.  They had a lot of fun with me and enjoyed unrestricted access to the outdoors with the mild weather.  The good news is I will grabbing them in a couple days for another weekend stay.  They will be very excited to see Uncle Randall.

I really don’t have much flowing through my brain today.  Here is a picture of the 7 foot inflatable snowman that I added to this year’s Xmas decorations.  If you want to see my FB Xmas album you can see it here.

Last night Cindy and I caught up on this week’s Walking Dead and Homeland. This was the mid-season finale for WD and as you would expect, some MAJOR shit went down. Of course I won’t spoil it but let’s just say some people die.

Tonight is my last night with the girls but they will be back again in short order as Ali is again going to be out of town this upcoming weekend.  They certainly seem to be enjoying themselves out at the homestead.

Oh, I did some more silly Vines, find me on Twitter if you want to see the absurdity.