Archives 2013

I neglected to mention that this week the majority of my harvest came from the orchard instead of the garden.  The garden right now is entering it’s least productive time, summer.  The soaking rains, brutal heat and relentless attack of insects makes trying to maintain a productive garden quite difficult in SW Florida.  The only thing I am getting out of the garden right now is kale.

The orchard on the other hand produced a full colander of apples, a couple dozen blackberries and has enough myer lemons to make a couple gallons of lemonade.  That being said, the orchard really could use an overhaul.  There are couple trees in there that produce nothing and just look like shit.  I should go through the effort of digging them out and starting over with something new in those spots.

Part of the problem is unlike the garden, which is filled with pristine garden soil in raised beds, the orchard never had it’s sandy soil amended other than whatever it gets from the mulch breaking down.  I compounded the problem by not fertilizing the trees regularly.   I am trying to address this by adding an Outlook calendar reminder that will visually cue me it’s time to get out there and feed the trees.

So the dogs got through yesterday without any excrement collateral damage which I was glad to see/smell.  Nicki however is still not eating as consistently as she should.  Her new thing seems to be not eating well when Ali is away.  When she does eat she doesn’t clean her plate like she used to and sometimes she won’t touch it at all, like this morning.

Part of it probably is the schedule difference between when the dogs are with Ali versus at the house.  I probably am plopping breakfast down three hours earlier than they normally see it.  Whatever the reason, I pulled up Nicki’s food before leaving.  Sadie has started doing sneak attacks on Nicki’s food bowl if noone is watching.  I am hoping when my mom goes out to the house today and puts Nicki’s food back down, she will be more interested in it.

Nicki goes back and forth with her moods a lot.  Last night when I shot this workout video you can see she appeared happy and wanted to play.  Later in the night she goes into sad/mopey mode.  If there was a little word balloon above her head I am pretty sure it would say “Getting old sucks…”

Saturday morning I got up to do the club run.  It was a “bagel run” where the running store provides breakfast items for free after the run like juice, coffee, bagels and more.  Of course the lure of free food resulted in a big crowd, there might have been 75-100 people there.

I only ran 4 miles, I had not run in somewhere between 3-4 weeks so I was not interested in going very far.  When the run first started both of my knees were not feeling very happy with various jolts of pain shooting through each of them.  Luckily as I warmed up my knees felt better. I wound up running a much faster pace than I expected, averaging right around an 8:30 mile.  After the 4 miles I was pretty much soaked from head to toe from the thick, humid air.

When I got home I wasted no time before hitting the to do list.  After weeding I hopped on the tractor.  I officially need to mow every week.  The high temps and ample rain has kick started the yard into it’s normal summer growth rate.  Before starting I took the blades off and tried to sharpen them with a small grinding wheel attached to my dremel.  It’s far from an ideal set up to do so and I’m not really sure if it helped much.  The blades are really beat up at this point and need to be replaced.

After a hot mowing session I moved inside to handle all indoor work until heading back outside once again to wash the SSR which was dirty from last weekends road trip. I was in chore mode until right before 4pm.

Saturday night I saw World War Z, the new Brad Pitt film which puts the zombie craze onto the big screen in a big way.  I have never seen a movie that Brad Pitt was in that I did not find enjoyable and this film is no exception.  It was like Walking Dead on steroids, minus the compelling character development of the tv series.

We saw the 3D version which was effective with zombie action.  A couple times I almost pushed my seat back off it’s mounting studs when a zombie popped off at the screen at me.  Imagine humanity mixed with fire ants, that is World War Z.  A-, make sure you don’t have stuff in your mouth during the scary parts.

On Sunday I rounded off my endurance exercise training with a 12 mile bike ride at an average 18.4 mph pace followed by 1600 yards in the pool. I was thoroughly tired when I was done.

I picked up the dogs on the way home as Ali is out of town for a few days.  Dog watching has additional complexity now because Ali has dropped the full time dog daycare.  Today I am running home at lunch to let them out and then tomorrow my mom is lending me a hand by going out to the house to let them out mid-day.

The rest of my Sunday was pretty low key, including  paying bills and watching Horrible Bosses on dvd, a damn funny comedy which gets an A-.

I am well into my Soprano revival, taking down 7 episodes so far.  Watching the show makes me feel even worse about James Gandolfini passing away.  His portrayal of Tony Soprano is amazing.

I keep forgetting to talk about the article I read the other day,  how the AMA now is officially classifying obesity as a “disease”.  You know, like it’s something you catch like the flu or a common cold, beyond your control.  Here are a few quotes from the article that made me see red and my thoughts about each…

Identifying obesity as a disease may also help in reducing the stigma often associated with being overweight, said Joe Nadglowski, president and CEO of the Obesity Action Coalition.

Reduce the stigma?  More like provide an excuse or a victim mentality.  “I’m obese, I have a disease that needs to be treated by the medical community”.  This to me is utterly ridiculous.  What is the point of providing obese America with yet another crutch to rest their sizable rear ends upon to support the lack of personal responsibility? This flows right into the next quote…

“Obesity has been considered for a long time to be a failure of personal responsibility — a simple problem of eating too much and exercising too little,” he said. “But it’s a complex disease… we’re hoping attitudes will change.”

Complex disease = complex cures that cost huge amounts of money to fix “professionally” instead of people just looking in the mirror and be honest with themselves.  Labeling obesity as an official disease is a cash cow for anyone in the medical/pharmaceutical community.  NEW FLASH – for the overwhelming majority of obese individuals the problem IS simply a failure of personal responsibility!

Nadglowski thinks the AMA’s support is also an important step in helping people gain access to obesity treatment. Most forms of insurance do not cover obesity alone. For instance, an obese patient cannot hire a nutritionist or a trainer and have it covered by his or her plan simply to lose weight”.

So the key to fighting the disease of obesity is having others pay for nutritionists or trainers to “fix” the obese population??  Again, simply moronic from my point of view.

To me this declaration is all about money as most things seem to be nowadays.  Declaring fat people as diseased adds another large chunk (no pun intended) to the pool of humanity that can get treatment under insurance.  Of course eventually this comes back to the rest of the population as higher insurance premiums and medical costs.

How will you feel when Fat Sally down the street just got put on permanent medical disability because she can’t stop stuffing pizza down her throat?  Disabled via pizza, what a world we live in…

Rewarding bad behavior only encourages more bad behavior.

Last night I decided I wanted to try a move that I never did before, elbow planching on a bar.  I wasn’t able to hold it as steady, as straight, or as long as I would like but it was a good start.  Here is the video of my various attempts.  I will talk about it more on Dufisthenics.

Last night I had a brilliant idea, spurred by the death of James Gandolfini.  I was going to finally watch the Sopranos!  I saw maybe one season of it’s 6 year run so there is a ton of tv gold waiting for me to enjoy.  It just so happens through the magic of HBOGO on my Xbox I can access every single episode of the show via streaming.  It looks like a month or so of late bed times are going to be on the schedule…

This weekend will be the first of what is a typical 6 month summer weekend.  I’ll be mowing grass, cleaning and attending to other chores.  On the exercise front, I hope to run with the club on Saturday morning and follow up with a bike/swim brick Sunday.  Finally, for entertainment there will be pizza/Tivo Friday night backed up by catching World War Z Saturday evening.  Nothing spectacular in that list, but a combination that will blend work/exercise/recreation in a way  that works for me.

I had the Tacoma up on the highway this morning doing 70-75 and the vibration was pretty much gone, sweet.

Falling Skies is back and I watched the first two episodes last night.  It isn’t anything as epic as Game of Thrones or Walking Dead but alien invasion shows always will hold my interest.

James Gandolfini, aka. Tony Soprano, dropped dead yesterday at the young age of 51 of an apparent heart attack.  He was a great actor and by all accounts a nice guy.  It’s too bad he didn’t pay much attention to his personal health.   Everyone decides how they want to roll through life.  I prefer to stack the health deck in my favor by putting in the work.  Many more prefer to just keep pulling that trigger day in and day out, hoping the chamber is empty.

I made a half ass attempt to do 5 sets of 10 pull ups with strict 60 second rest periods last night.  I didn’t even get close, bailing after rep 37.  My failure piled onto aggravation when I saw that the backing pad for my triple gym left a big indentation in the drywall above the doorway.

I think the design of the equipment applies more leverage to the anchor points of the pull up bar since the main bar is up and away from the door jamb instead of straddling across it. Evidently when a 180 pound man tries to rep pull ups at a decent pace with this set up it can be hazardous to typical drywall.

I actually have entertained mounting a pull up bar hanging off the high vaulted ceiling in the house.  I won’t though, the last thing I need is to pull down a section of drywall overhead or bend the ceiling studs.  2×4’s with a couple nails in them aren’t all that sturdy.

Last night was the monthly running club meeting.  Afterward we continued the post meeting South Street tradition where I enjoyed beer, pizza, laughs and karaoke.  I was surprised that a number of the karaoke singers were really good and none of them were downright awful.

For a long, long time I was off the texting bandwagon.  I read the stories about teens sending thousands of text messages each and every month and looked at it as pure lunacy.  I also was vocal about idiots that have their face buried in their phone texting while driving.  I remember when I used to get bent out of shape about people simply talking on their cell while driving.  Hell now when I see someone simply talking on the phone they come off as responsible drivers.

For a long time I had a limited texting plan on my smart phone, capped at 200 messages a month and I never ever came close to that cap.  Texting just never appealed to me much, email or IM were my preferred virtual forms of communication.

So anyway, my separation exposed me to the world of texting.  In my dating experiences I quickly found that most women wanted you to text them, many times preferring that over any other form of communication.   I added unlimited texting to my phone plan to accommodate this new reality, who wants overage charges after all?

So I discovered I am a pretty good texter, since it is just another form of written communication which I am far better at than the verbal variety.  Without realizing it I started getting sucked into the texting vortex.  All of a sudden going long periods of time without sending a few words to someone else via the computer in my pocket felt odd.  You start to text people pointless status updates about what you are doing for no good reason at all.

If I was able to talk to the 1995 version of myself and try to explain why I am sending all of these tiny thoughts back and forth between various people all day long, the 95 me would tell the 2013 me to snap out of it.   After all, for the first three decades of my life, connections to others were limited to face to face conversation or picking up a phone wired to the POTS. (plain old telephone system)

When the cell phone craze hit I remember feeling much the same way, that it was stupid that so many people felt the need to talk on the phone so often.  99% of all conversations could wait until you get out from behind a wheel.  Yet as time progressed this practice of always being reachable via a portable phone became as commonplace as breathing.

Well texting has followed the same general course although it is even more dangerous when practiced while driving a car.  Despite the danger, texting/interacting with your smart phone while driving is rampant.  Simply look around you while driving on any moderately busy road.  I can guarantee you that you will see a number of people looking down at a screen instead of at the road. It’s crazy.

Of course I am a hypocrite, I have found myself interacting with my Iphone while driving, especially since getting the 5 with the voice to text translation.  Even with that feature, I still am required to glance down at the phone more than I should be.  I shouldn’t do it at all.

Texting for whatever reason takes on an addictive nature.  We become Pavlov’s dog, responding to the little noise or vibration, indicating some person has sent us some short form of communication.  It becomes a reflex reaction to grab your phone, even when no noise is heard, just to make sure you didn’t miss anything.

I am using this blog post as motivation to discontinue this practice as much as possible personally.  If I am driving, the phone can wait.  I have hands free Bluetooth to address phone calls but if something is life or death, dont send me a text about it.

End the madness.

I already emptied most of what was in my brain about my automotive repair/Seaworld adventures from the last few days.  The rest of Monday was pretty lame.  I went outside briefly and knocked out a BB forum challenge video. 

I was not feeling very chipper last night.  I just sort of chilled out with the dogs.

Speaking of the dogs, I gave them the stuffed Shamu I bought at Seaworld, the only souvenir I spent money on while there.  Of course Sadie immediately claimed the new toy as hers, as she always does.  She carried Shamu around with her most of the time, even setting it out on the chaise lounge she relaxes on.

Nicki was seeming extra gimpy yesterday, when I was in the bedroom folding laundry, I lifted her up and put her on the bed since she can no longer jump up there herself.  She always used to love jumping up in bed with Sadie when I got home from work.

She looked content to be back in the bed so I let her there while I went about doing stuff elsewhere in the house.  As I was sitting at my desk I heard a noise from the bedroom.  It was Nicki crying.  She was at the edge of the bed but was scared to jump down.  I felt a tinge of sadness in my throat as I picked her up and sat her on the floor.  She almost looked guilty for needing my help.  I told her whenever she needs help to just let me know….

Friday before leaving for Orlando I replaced the front struts on the Tacoma.  I was successful, however I am still unsure if my tires are balanced properly.  If you want to know all the details of the job, watch this.

The drive up to Orlando went smoothly.  The SSR gobbles up highway miles pretty easily.  However somewhere around the 3 hour mark my body starts to get a bit uncomfortable in the R.  It may look and sound awesome but nothing compares to the party van when it comes to driving comfort for long periods of time.

Cindy and I pulled into the hotel late afternoon and decided to spend Friday evening at Universal City Walk.  When we pulled up to parking toll booth it was about 5:50.  I saw the $15 parking fee and thought it was awful steep to just go walk around.  The attendant told us that if we were Florida residents and we came back 10 minutes later at 6PM the parking is free.  Ok, awesome.  I went to a gas station, filled the truck, and came back 10 minutes and paid nothing after flashing my drivers license, an easy 15 dollar savings.

We had dinner at Bubba Gump, the restaurant chain based on Forrest Gump.  I had a great meal and got obliterated on two blue versions of a Long Island Ice Tea, I think Bubba’s version is called Electric Tea.  Thank goodness I had a long time to let the haze clear.

The main reason City Walk was chosen was to see Man of Steel. We thought it would be cool to catch the film opening weekend at the huge cineplex  on site.  The Imax showing was sold out but I had no problem getting tickets for the normal 3D version.

The theater was quite large with two levels.  The theater Man of Steel was in was quite full by Coconut Point standards but we still had no issue finding a decent seat.  The one thing that was immediately noticeable was the room was cold, really cold.

The move was directed by the same guy that directed 300, Zack Snyder.  I have seen other movies he directed post 300 and to be honest, was disappointed.  I didn’t know what to expect this time around.

For the most part Man of Steel was pretty good.  On Facebook I had seen others describe it as “awesome” and “epic”, I didn’t quite agree.  My Facebook comment on the film was “Man of Steel was like being brought to orgasm so many times it gets to the point of annoying..”  Some were confused by this analogy but basically it meant even a good thing like huge action and fighting in a film can get to be stupid when that is all that there is.  The last third of the film was basically like one big WWE wrestling match.

I really can only give the movie a B+, sorry Zack.  At least it was better than Watchmen.  It didn’t help that my extremities had frostbite by the end of it.

Saturday morning we were up early to head to Seaworld.  The plan was to leave the SSR in the parking lot and instead take advantage of one of the free hotel perks, a free shuttle ride to the park.  Unfortunately we missed the 7:30 shuttle by 4 or 5 minutes with the next one not departing for more than a half hour.  F it, we’ll walk.  After all the map legend said the park is only .4 miles away. Well the way we wound up walking worked out to be more like 1.4 miles but hey, it’s exercise.

So there was another bonus for guests of certain hotels, you were able to get into the park a full hour before the general public.  They gave you a special card that you flashed at the gate that gave you the early access.  We were clued in by the hotel staff that a good use of that early time would be to get on Antarctica, a brand new ride that typically has wait times of one to two hours.  It was one ride that you could not use the Quick Queue card on. (more on this awesome card later)

Antarctica’s premise is it takes you through the southern most part of the world from the viewpoint of a penguin.  Well let me just use one word to describe the ride, lame.  You site in a circular thing and get spun around a few times while looking at a few video screens.  It’s a total letdown.  I could not imagine waiting two hours and be rewarded with that epic fail.  The only cool part of the Antarctic experience is once you get off the ride and get to see real life penguins in a frigid 32 degree habitat.  The penguins were awesome but you are so damn cold that you won’t enjoy them for as long as you would like to.

We rode all of the (adult)rides there and saw most of the show attractions on Saturday.  I enjoyed seeing the various animal exhibits up close like the dolphins, birds and other ocean dwelling species.

The most torturous ride was the Manta, a roller coaster that you ride in the same body orientation as a manta ray, belly parallel to the ground.  The ride instantly transported me to nauseous town when it went into an outside loop, meaning my body was facing the outside of the loop, not allowing me a view of where I was going.  For whatever reason that made me feel really sick.  I survived the ride without projectile vomiting but with little desire to jump on again anytime soon.

The Atlantis flume ride was fun because it had two big splash downs instead of just one.  The sky tower was just as it sounds, a big rotating tower that gave you a 360 birds eye view of the park.  Kraken was another bust you up roller coaster that at least allowed you to sit upright.  It snapped my neck around a good bit.

One thing that made all of the rides better was yet another awesome benefit of staying at a park associated hotel, a complimentary Quick Queue card.  This card allows you to bypass the regular lines at all of the rides (except Antarctica) If you buy the unlimited Quick Queue card at the main gate it costs you something like an extra $30.  However the hotel threw in a one use per ride version for free, which was perfect since hitting a ride once is typically enough for me at this advanced age.

The card was simply awesome.  We would see a line snaking back and forth for miles however it was no concern for us.  We would simply follow the Quick Queue signs that lead right to a different way to get in.  The attendants were quite good about making sure they jumped to help us right away.  If I were to estimate, I have no doubt that over the two days we spent at the park the QQ cards saved us at least 4-5 hours of waiting in line.  I don’t know I would do a park without them now and if you are smart you stay at a hotel that throws them in for free.

The attendants were supposed to punch out or mark your card for whatever rides you used it on.  Some did but most didn’t.  Hell some didn’t even ask to see the QQ card, we just told them we had it.

I am sure the people that were broiling in the sun forever in line absolutely hated us as they saw us suddenly appear and hop on the ride they have been waiting 45 minutes for,  30 seconds later.  I would hate us too if the situation was reversed.  I felt like a pure bred Republican, I have to admit.

Of course there was no avoiding the negative things that annoy yet amuse me at amusement parks, people, endless waves and waves of people.  Now mind you, I didn’t get annoyed by all of them, maybe only 80%.

If amusement parks are a microcosm of society then let me tell you, society is fat, really, really fat.  I saw countless big uns lumbering through out the park, looking miserable while trying to carry their bodyweight in the stifling heat and humidity.

Then you had the clueless people that would walk 25 feet while staring straight down and then act surprised when they collide with someone/thing. The rude people that think you will care less if they jump in front of you in whatever particular line you are waiting in at the moment deserve a titty twister or two.

I really had urges to inflict blunt trauma on the people that use motorized scooters for no other affliction but pure laziness or as an attempt to work the system, since scooter dwellers get preferential treatment park wide.   I would see a woman drive up close to the restroom, get up, walk in without any visible signs of difficulty besides being a fat ass, and then return again to their scooter to go score their next benefit as a “disabled” person.  Argh.  Sure some people legitimately need the use of a motorized set of wheels however I would feel comfortable wagering most that I saw suffered most from a lack of motivation.

Bad parenting was evident everywhere from the obese 6 year olds to the kids that had their faces buried in an Iphone game during an entire animal show while dad allowed it to go on without objection.  You are surrounded by the wonders of the world and you let your kid play Angry Birds instead?  Idiot.

Yes I could have just plopped myself down in a shady spot and done people commentary all day but then I would be no better than the Angry Birds father.  I actually appreciated everything the park had to offer me and wanted to experience it.

Mid afternoon the weather turned nasty, letting loose with heavy rain and lightning.  We took that as our cue to call it a day.  Unfortunately with no rain gear or umbrella we wound up trying to run away unsuccessfully from the rain drops.  By the time we reached the bus shelter we looked like we had been swimming with Shamu ourselves.

Saturday night we returned to City Walk, this time being sure to arrive after the 6PM witching hour.  After a good meal at a place called the Latin Quarter that had a very odd looking man playing live guitar, we walked around a bit.  I came up with a spur of the moment idea to see if we could get into the 9PM Blue Man group show.  We scored one of the last remaining pairs of tickets and score an incredible discount by simply showing we were Florida residents.  Flashing our DL cards saved between $50-$60.

Despite getting in last minute we had really good seats in the 5th row, right behind the splash zone where they hand out plastic ponchos.  I had seen BMG in Vegas and was a bit underwhelmed, I was hoping they would redeem themselves this time around.

They did, somewhat.  The show was entertaining with some repeat of what I saw previously.  There was a very funny segment where they pulled a very old lady out of the audience for a prolonged bit on the stage.  By the end of it she was practically crying and wanted to get the hell off the stage.  It was a bit awkward yet funny as hell.

The show was almost a full 2 hours of non-stop percussion, bright colors and laughs.  I enjoyed it, just again, not as much as hoped I could.  Cindy is a big BMG fan so she loved it.

So on Sunday we headed back into the park to hit somethings we missed on day one.  For some reason, most of the animal related shows/areas are closed until 10am so we had to reshuffle our agenda.  We wound up spending a good amount of time at the seal feeding area. I found the seals to be awesome and cute.  The cutest thing I saw the entire weekend were two seals snuggled up next to each other sunning themselves on a rock.

So we eventually got to knock out the other attractions like the Wild Arctic ride, the seal show, Shark Encounter and a few other items including one more ride down the log flume.  In total we saw something like half a dozen animal shows and I liked each and every one.  They were all very well produced.

We had lunch at the Shark Grill restaurant, an awesome place where you enjoy high end food while seated next to the HUGE shark aquarium.  It was one of the coolest restaurants I ever ate at and the meal I had was equally good, a great way to wrap up our Seaworld experience.

We wound up rolling out about 2:30 and after fueling up with some Dunkin Donuts coffee headed home.

It had been quite a few years since I had visited any Orlando theme park and my first time ever visiting Seaworld.  My experience makes me want to try to get back there more regularly when it is a little bit cooler with Quick Queue passes in hand….

You can see all of my pictures from the trip here…

I spent a good portion of today changing my rear shocks on the Tacoma.  See the associated videos below.

So as I documented my Tacoma tire rotation my internal wheels were already spinning regarding other possible causes for the front end vibration that really hits at highway speeds.  As I described yesterday, the vibration problem existed even before the $1600 of repair expenses and I attributed it solely to old shitty tires.

Well I did a few searches yesterday and found several Tacoma owners complaining of identical behavior, vibration kicking in around 60-70 mph.    In all of these cases the eventual fix was replacing worn out front struts.

Well that certainly seemed like a logical cause since the problem has persisted through the tire change and the truck still has the original shocks/struts on all four corners.  I immediately started checking out some how to videos.  Doing the rear shocks seemed pretty straight forward.  The front struts had complications.

The complication is a strut has a coil spring surrounding it.  This spring is compressed and under very high tension.  In order to separate a strut from the spring requires you to compress the spring further to release tension on the strut.  A garage typically has a piece of equipment specifically designed to do this.  A home mechanic has the option to use another method where you basically attach rods with fingers to either side of the spring and crank them down evenly to compress the spring.

Well every video I watched stressed the potential danger with this process.  If for some reason the spring would pop loose it would release a tremendous amount of force.  Depending on what was in it’s way when it popped, there was a possibility for severe injury.  Despite this warning I watched a couple videos that showed this manual compression method and I was confident I could pull it off without maiming myself.

However once I started researching buying replacement struts I saw there was another option available to me, you can buy the front struts already mounted on a new set of springs.  Sure it costs more than a bare strut but not painfully so.  To me, the time and aggravation savings was worth it.  Plus the springs on the truck are 14 years old, getting new springs along with the struts seems like a wise move anyway.

Replacing the pre-assembled struts/springs should be as easy as 5 bolts.  The most challenging thing might just be breaking the old bolts/nuts free.  I bought my replacement set on Amazon (free Prime shipping) and they should show up tomorrow.  Right now my plan is to get out in the garage early on Friday morning to do the work before I push north to Orlando for a long weekend.  I will replace the rear shocks as well before the month is over I’m sure.

I had the dogs sleep over last night.  Nicki has been not eating well the past week or so, at least when she is with me.  I had them for most of the weekend. Nicki was spotty with her eating then and then last night she only ate a portion of supper.  This morning she wouldn’t even touch breakfast.

Ali said she has been eating fine for her so maybe Nicki is just in mopey mode and missing Ali.  I hope that is all it is.

So I decided last night I wanted to get the Tacoma tire rotation that I had hoped to do over the weekend done, I hate leaving loose ends from the weekend dangling.  I decided I would make this a combination workout challenge and automotive maintenance hybrid video.  The goal was to rotate the tires using hand tools in less than 30 minutes.  Of course any challenge needs to be on video, else it didn’t really happen.

My hope in swapping the tires is to nail down the source of vibration I feel in the truck at higher speeds.  If the vibration is lesser after the swap I would assume the problem is wheel related, perhaps Tuffy did a shitty job balancing the new tires.  If the vibration is the same after rotation there is something else going on that I am more than likely just going to ignore.  I have no interest in spending any more money on Tacoma repairs in the near future.

Once I started loosening the lug nuts I immediately noticed that they didn’t seem they were on very tight at all.  They broke loose with my lug wrench much easier than I am accustomed to.  I would assume that the air wrench a garage uses to put the lugs back on would snug them up tighter.

The other thing I noticed was the lead weights that were used to balance the wheels looked all beat up and rusted.  The garage either reused my old weights or threw some used ones on they had laying around.  It’s a minor thing but it sort of bugged me that the $834 I paid Tuffy for tires did not include new lead wheel weights.

Swapping the tires went fine although there was a minor incident towards the end of the process.  I had the entire back end of the truck up in the air, supported with my smaller 2 1/2 ton floor jack.  I was using my heavy duty/taller 5 ton jack to jack the front end.  When I was dropping the jack from the driver side front position I twisted the handle a little too quickly, causing the truck to drop rapidly.  The rapid descent caused just enough sideways momentum to make the jack under the differential in the back to tip over and crash down.

Both of the back wheels were on the truck when it fell and I also had a jack stand under the driver side so it was fine.  Still, it was a bit unsettling to have the back of the truck come crashing down.

I missed my goal of 30 minutes for the entire job, instead clocking in at just over 37 minutes.  I was a sweaty mess by the end of it.

If you want to see the 16 minute video with lots of sped up footage look below.

If you just want to see the truck falling off the jack look here.

On the drive into work I didn’t go much over 50 so I couldn’t really tell if things feel much different or not.  I am wondering if the problem could be shock/strut related as well since the originals from the factory are still on the truck.  I smell another project in my future… (I’m already watching how to videos)

I watched the Game of Thrones finale last night.  Of course it couldn’t measure up to the incredible previous episode.  Instead the finale basically got you all primed and ready for season 4 which will be uncomfortably far away.