Archives 2013

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.

I pulled out of work early yesterday to head up to the site of last evening’s race.  I had already assumed I was going to be getting really, really wet.  I drove through torrential rain for most of the 10 mile drive north.  When I got there the ground was wet but the rain had stopped.  The skies still looked pretty menacing, I assumed the rain would be resuming shortly.  Well the expected precipitation never returned, a very lucky break.

This race I had less things to worry about since we decided to not chip time it.  This race includes a ton of participants that are not regular runners, many of which in the past would show up, get a timing chip and never do the race.  We would lose more timing chips at this race than any other every year.

We used to advertise the race as a 5K when in reality the course is actually at least a 1/4 mile short of that distance wise.  We would have runners cross the finish line thrilled that they established a new PR only to realize that the only reason for that was a short course. So anyway, not chip timing the event made sense for these and other reasons.

Although I did not have to lay down timing mats I still found myself quite busy leading up to the race.  I had online registration for the race open all the way until two hours before the race, something I can’t do when chip timing is involved.  I had to get the last minute online entries pulled in on the race site, utilizing my wireless hotspot.  At first I thought I was having more bugs with the timing software when I was getting a multitude of errors downloading the entries.  It turned out the errors were tied to a flaky internet connection.  Once the link firmed up I was able to pull in the 30+ people that registered online yesterday.

After that was done I kept busy with race day walk up entries which we had a decent amount of.  In total the race wound up with just over 500 entries.  The registration table was greatly simplified by the lack of a race bib and timing chips.  Each team captain walked up and was handed wristbands for their team members which entitled them to a t-shirt and the food and drink after the race.  It kept the lines way down.  The only long line I saw all night was the people lined up for burritos afterward.

Timing the race was considerably simpler than I am accustomed to.  All I had to do was start the finish line clock with the start of the race, done.  With no chip times there were obviously no individual awards.  Instead they handed out race beer glasses to the top 50 male and female finishers.  The overall team winners were determined by team size.  The winning team had 47 people.

All in all the race went well and I felt quite fortunate to emerge from it totally dry.

Tonight should be an exciting one.  Earlier in the week Jeremy turned me onto a special discount code that could be used on Amazon Warehouse deals, it knocked 10% off already low prices.  In the warehouse they had one of the LG tv’s I was considering buying that has everything I wanted, LED, 120 MHZ refresh rate, internet connectivity, smart apps AND 3D.  Between using the discount code and my Amazon spiff dollars I got the tv very inexpensively, all along with free Amazon Prime two day shipping.    I plan to get a copy of Avatar 3D to try the set out.  It should be AWESOME.

Yesterday I had 3 boxes by my front door.  In them were the custom race bibs we ordered for our Thanksgiving race.   These bibs also include a disposable timing device on the back of them.  Using these bibs allows runners to totally bypass any lines on the day of the race if they pick up their race packet early.  Attaching the bib to your shirt means you are ready to go and be timed officially.

I have utilized this style timing device once before at the half marathon.  At that race I had a lot of problems, missing about 5% of the runner finishing times.  However that problem appeared to be tied to the distance of the race.  13 miles seemed to be too much sweat and jostling for some of the bibs, since at the halfway split we had nearly 100% read rates.

Another local timer I am friends with has used the chip bibs at many shorter races and has had very few problems so I feel ok trying them out once again. Plus, Ipico has done several revisions to the bib chips since January that supposedly enhance their reliability.

This is the first year the club is holding their own Thanksgiving Race.  They decided to step away from the long standing Thanksgiving race this year due to a myriad of issues, some public, some that were behind the scenes. .  Originally the plan was for the old race to simply transition to the new race which offers a better venue with more accessible parking, more race route capacity and ample space to house the many participants .  It’s the same place we hold the Naples Half Marathon.

Originally the race director for the old race agreed to go along with the new race and venue since it would still be 100% supporting the same charity as the race did the prior year.  Well in the last few months that spirit of cooperation apparently disappeared.  The race director developed resentment and anger about the race change despite the advantages the new venue offered to runners.  He decided he was going to relaunch the old race, creating something you typically never see, TWO Thanksgiving runs in a town.

I am friends with the race director of the old race.  I can understand to a degree his feelings but am disappointed that he has decided that personal vendettas are more important than the greater good.  I am also disappointed to hear some of the inaccurate information and half truths that are being spread regarding the race and our running club in general.  The existence of two Thanksgiving races is causing confusion and drama in the local running community.  The sport of running is all about releasing stress and escaping drama, not manufacturing it.

This weekends plan include a moderation of work seasoned with just the right amount of exercise and entertainment.

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To atone for the lack of eating discipline Tuesday evening, my Wednesday night dinner was pretty sparse, an avocado and a sweet potato.  I mixed in a bunch of stuff into the mashed avocado including hemp seed, sunflower seed, chia, almonds, and hemp oil.  I had a huge cup of water to wash it all down.  For desert I chowed down on a protein bar that had been sitting around for quite awhile.

The meal was far from fine dining but it served its purpose.

I was very tired last night and fell asleep between 10 and 10:30.  A little before 2AM I woke up having to pee.  I did so and laid back down, expecting to immediately fall back asleep.  My expectations were not met.  Instead I rolled around and was unable to reenter the land of slumber, despite feeling exhausted.

Somewhere around 2:30 AM I gave up and shuffled out to the kitchen.  I spent the three hours that I would normally be sleeping in front of the computer doing a mix of work/play (WoW).  When my normal 5:30 AM alarm went off I felt like I was ready to go back to bed.  The drive into work today was quite challenging, my eyeballs just did not want to stay open.

To make matters worse, tonight there is a race after work.  By the time I get off the race site I will be in pure zombie mode.

So we are entering day 3 of the partial government shutdown, the end result of the Senate/Obama refusing to engage in the budget hostage negotiations that House Tea Party clowns are trying to force.  Although I think the shutdown is the latest example of just how dysfunctional our congress is, I can’t blame democrats or the president for flat out saying NO, and meaning it.

Allowing the tea party to derail laws/legislation in this manner would set a horrible precedent and only encourage similar behavior in the future.  So as far as I am concerned every day this goes on just puts another layer of mud on congress in general with an extra thick facial on the tea party “generals”.

It make me smirk when I see republicans acting like they are the negotiators, they are the ones looking for a compromise.  To me it is like the school bully trying to steal your lunch money but then kindly offers to let you keep half of it.  Congress must really believe the overwhelming majority of Americans are truly brainless lemmings that are unable to discern anything beyond the snappy one liners that fill social media and news outlets.

So yesterday I received an email from Network Solutions regarding renewing my duf.net domain name which has been in existence since 1997.  I clicked on the RENEW NOW link and was shocked at the dollar figure that flashed up on the screen, something like $185 to renew for 5 years.   When I broke it down was something ridiculous like $37 or $38 a year.

Now I knew that this is a common tactic of domain registrars, get you signed up with an attractive up front rate but then turn the screws on you when renewal time comes around, figuring many people will just pay the extra money instead of deal with the hassle of switching registrars.  Well I am not one of those people.  I picked up the phone and called their 800 number.  I told the woman on the phone that I just received my renewal bill and thought it was outrageously high, much higher than when I renewed 5 years ago.

Well that was all it took to get a nearly 50% discount, the woman said I could renew the domain at the same rate I paid in 2008, $99.  That was good enough for me although I could have still transferred to another registrar and saved even more money.  I was content to pay what I paid before and not have to go through moving the domain around.

This was just the latest of countless examples I have personally experienced where discounts and deals are there for the taking, all you have to do is ask for them.

Last night I sat down and watched the Homeland season premiere for the second night in a row.  When I watched it Monday night I was half passed out and missed huge chunks of it.  I am glad I took the time to watch it again, lots of fuzzy details became much more clear.

I had eaten my dinner while watching Homeland, finishing up with a Zone bar a little before 7.  I had planned for this to be the end of my eating for the night to assist in my goal of dropping a handful of pounds.  Well I pulled out my Blade MQX and did some flying/crashing, with an emphasis on crashing.  The copter was very difficult to control, more so than normal.  It did not want to hover in place, it would just keep drifting in various directions. It was frustrating me.

Well this frustration triggered a “must eat” reflex, I suddenly felt very hungry. Now I know this feeling was entirely caused by frustration and if I waited 5-10 minutes it would probably pass. I went ahead and poured myself a bowl of mini-wheats anyway and gobbled them down.  Doing so made me feel weak and disappointed in myself for not exercising more self discipline.

I messed around more with X-split and using it to capture and broadcast stuff on my computer.  Last night I used it to capture roughly a half hour of WoW play although I need to use larger video windows of both the game and my webcam feed.  You may find this interesting to watch or mind numbingly boring depending on your point of view on MMORPG’s.

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Masterful.  That is the word I would use to describe the series finale of Breaking Bad, one of my most favorite shows of all time.  Unlike other finales for big shows that typically will leave fans with annoying unanswered questions, this finale delivered in every imaginable way.  I won’t spoil it for those of you that have not yet had a chance to watch it On Demand but damn, I was riveted every single second.

On the Stern show this morning they played the song the series ended with.  It gave me chills as I relived the final scene.  If you never got on the Breaking Bad bandwagon, get a Netflix account and start watching, now.  A fantastic show that may have the best ending of any tv series I have ever seen.  A+++ rating

So today the federal shutdown begins after congress was unable to agree to raise the fiscal ceiling.  More specifically, the Senate refused to pass a bill from the house championed by Tea Party douche bags that are trying to tie a lead weight to Obamacare in exchange for their cooperation in keeping the lights turned on.  I really think this strategy is going to blow up in the face of idiots like Ted Cruz.  This is like a bank telling you that the only way they will loan you money is if you agree to kill your cat.  The two items have no business being paired together.

Robert Reich, whose opinion I respect and value, summed it up like this:

The issue we are about to face as a nation has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act or any of the other of the demands Republicans are making. It has to do with political extortion: Republicans’ threats to close the government or default on the nation’s debts if they don’t get their way. The President and the Democrats must not negotiate. Once you start negotiating with extortionists, there is no end to it. Extortionists will hold the nation hostage again and again. Any law on the books they don’t like, any tax their wealthy patrons detest, any regulation their corporate bank-rollers would like to do away with, any subsidy or bailout their Wall Street underwriters desire, will be fair game.

Let Republicans carry out their threats. Let America see them do it and experience the consequences. And then let us send the Republican Party into the dust bin of history.

If this shutdown happened a few weeks ago it would have literally killed our Grand Canyon visit which is now officially closed today along with all the other things the National Park Service operates.

I was surprised to read the last this happened (an actual shutdown) was 95-96 since this pattern of drama approaching the debt ceiling deadline has happened so often in the last half decade.  Up until today, common sense had prevailed, the realization that partisan agendas are not worthy of disrupting the services of the federal government.  RIP common sense.

Friday night  I was quite busy, wedging in a Sam’s club and Publix stop before getting home to do race prep.  By the time I was done doing everything and loading the truck it was bearing down on 10pm, even with Cindy’s help.  My body did not welcome the return of 4:15 am alarms on a Saturday morning.  I drug myself out of bed anyway and got the show on the road.

This was the third year of this race and more than likely the last year of it as well.  It was only decided to take place less than 2 months ago.  It has never been a very well attended event and this year there was a change of the course that made timing the event incredibly inconvenient.

The finish line, which used to be in the parking lot where pre-race registration is located, was moved almost a half mile away.  The decision to move it did not include thought of the logistical implications of doing so.  Both the start and finish line were moved and both were located in the middle of a street with no AC power available.  Luckily the club has a small generator for these situations, however on Saturday there were complications.

At the finish line we have two major things that require power, the fan motor that keeps our inflatable finish line upright and my equipment which includes a couple laptops and a small laser printer.  We have used the generator to power everything several times in the past.  When I would print, it would tax the generator for a few seconds due to the power a laser printer draws while printing, but it still was able to handle things. For some reason on Saturday, that was no longer the case.

The generator was able to power the finish line arch and that was basically it.  Even just adding in my laptops caused it to sound labored.  When I tried to print the generator nearly shut off from the added current draw.  The power was so poor that the printer wasn’t even able to spit out a page, the output  was just a blur. Great.

So in order to deliver results we had to throw a laptop and the printer in the back seat of a car and drive back over to the registration area where AC power was available.  I threw both things on a table and spit out one set of results instead of the 4 or 5 sets I would normally produce as the race was ongoing.

The course layout was not the only problem.  I had the exact same issues with my timing software that I experienced at the last race where runner finish times were showing up as the time of day instead of their net finish time.  I had reported this issue to the software author and received a patch that supposedly fixed the issue.  I was quite annoyed that it didn’t.  The bug meant that producing accurate finish results was much more of a pain in the ass than normal.

I also had lost the ability to post the finish results to the internet directly, adding to my frustration since I had signs posted around the registration area with a QR code for runners to view live results which was now worthless.  It was caused by yet another bug in the software.

It all added up to a very frustrating first 6 hours of my Saturday morning.

Once  I got home I chewed through the post race work as well as sending a long perturbed email to the timing software author, outlining the latest problems I was experiencing.   Timing races is stressful enough without the timing software throwing random roadblocks in my way.

Although I was sleepy I had stuff yet to do.  After weeding the property and assessing the grounds as too wet to mow, I changed my sweaty shirt and headed out in the SSR.  I haven’t driven the truck any considerable distance in a loong time.  I figured a trip to Home Depot and my mom’s place would be a good opportunity to blow out the pipes.

I was stopping at Home Depot to get a new valve for mom’s toilet.  Her valve stopped shooting anything beyond a trickle of water into the holding tank, making it take 10-15 minutes to refill.  While I was there I also grabbed myself a bad ass contractor quality rake.

When I raked the mulch earlier in the day with my generic, wood handled, pressed on head rake it felt flimsy and ready to pull apart.  This new mega rake should last longer than me.

I miscalculated the SSR cargo bed length, thinking the rake would fit in there when laid out diagonally.    It was not even close to fitting.  The rake wound up riding shotgun in the passenger seat on my way to mom’s.

I got to mom’s place maybe a half hour after she got home from work.  She was very happy that the valve replacement went smoothly and solved her problem. I really liked the type of valve that I put in.  I like it so much that I am thinking I might replace the old arm and float style valve that adorn both of my toilets with this new style. Mom thanked me for my efforts as she can once again use the toilet in her bedroom instead of walking to the other side of the condo.

This was the first time I have driven the SSR since I did the stereo work where I eliminated my double ground that was causing electrical feedback in the audio system.  Well the drive revealed a new issue, the sound to the front speakers was cutting out randomly, like something was loose.  I also noticed that my volume level seemed lower than before.  I resigned myself to having to rip open the dash again once again to track down the loose wire and turn up the gain on one of the modules used for the radio install to give me more volume. Great.  I will make sure to do it this time with the top down and out in the sunshine to make the reassembly process easier.  Warming up the air bag cover makes a big difference.

I even had some time to finish up the build of Tuffwing.  I got the servos glued down, the winglets attached, the motor/prop installed and the electronics in their compartment.  I thought I would be a good idea to do a stationary test of everything once I was done.

I had one hand on the plane, holding it stationary in my lap while my other hand worked the radio.  After verifying the servos were working as expected I hit the throttle.  The powerful brushless motor roared to life but it felt like the thrust was in the wrong direction, all the air was being pushed forward instead of backwards.

I instinctively reached my right hand towards the front of the plane to feel the air.  Well the prop was spinning quite quickly, fast enough that it was nearly invisible.  As I reached I felt the tip of my right ring finger make contact with something.  I glance down at my hand and it is already flowing blood at an alarming pace.  I knew I cut my finger badly.  If you slice a finger, normally the blood will sort of seep out, this was flowing from the gun, meaning it was deep.

I cupped my other hand under the red one to catch the blood as I made my way to the sink.  I rinsed off the blood and then grabbed a paper towel to apply pressure to the wound as I made my way back to the bedroom where my first aid supplies are.  As soon as I removed the paper towel the blood gushed again.  I knew that the cut probably should have stitches but I just did not feel like throwing a big wedge in my day to do so.  I slapped a heavy duty band aid on the cut and wrapped it tight.  I followed it up with wrapping tape around the bandage to further secure the dressing and add additional pressure.  When I was done I could feel my pulse radiating from the tip of my finger, it was not a feeling I enjoyed.

After my do-it-yourself first aid I jumped right back into my plane testing.  I read that I can reverse the motor direction by simply reversing any two of the three wires that are connected to it.  After doing so I cranked the throttle back up, with all body parts out of harms way.  The thrust the beefy high current battery and brushless motor created was very impressive.  If I manage to get the wing in the air it should be a BULLET.  The 80 mph top speed they boast the wing is capable of seems realistic from my bench test.

When I redressed the cut later in the night the bandage and tape was pure red with dried blood.  I am crossing my fingers that this gash will heal on it’s own with diligent bandaging.  The cut is about an inch long and I would not be surprised if it is to the bone deep.

Sunday was my second 4:15 am alarm of the weekend, this time to get up to go to the Marco Island triathlon.  Cindy was competing in the race and I had offered to help our equipment manager set up and tear down for the race.  It was my first time attending the Marco tri.  The hotel that was used to host the event was beautiful as was the beach area behind it where the race was stationed.

Lugging equipment around with my sliced finger wasn’t ideal but the substantial bandaging I had on it at least kept the cut protected.  I just used the other 4 fingers when the right hand was needed.  Setting up the equipment went well.  We had it all ready to go early enough that I was able to walk over to see all of waves of the race start including Cindy’s which was the last wave to go, 12 minutes after the first athletes.

I saw Cindy a few times during her race like when she came out of the swim, the bike to run transition, and as she came back in towards the finish line.  She initially was disappointed in her finish time of 1:27:19, saying she really was slow on the swim due to getting dunked by others swimming over her. In reality her swim was the same speed as last year, even with her problems yesterday.

She felt much better when we looked at the official results, she got second in her age group and was only a minute away from the number one spot.  Her bike and run was strong, making up for whatever issues she had during the swim.  It was the best finish she has ever had at a triathlon.

We were there until the very end helping to rip back down all of the stuff we put up several hours earlier.  By that time the sun was high in the sky and I felt it beating on me, making shade  a very welcome commodity.  We didn’t pull out of there till almost 11:30.  On the way home I stopped in to pick up the girls for an impromptu sleep over.  By the time the van pulled back into the driveway it was firmly early afternoon, around 1PM.

I was REALLY tired, so tired that I passed out for a much needed nap mid-afternoon before waking up to watch the Eagles-Broncos game.

Now I went into this game already chalking it up as a loss.  The Broncos offense has been prolific and the Eagles defense has been dreadful which I was sure would add up to a beating.  I just didn’t realize it would be THAT bad of a beating. 52-20, ouch.

The Eagles are in for a LOOOOONG season if they can’t find a way to turn their defensive roster into something resembling a NFL defense.  They are just awful, unable to do much beyond giving opposing punters the day off week in and week out.  Their secondary which is now filled with a bunch of no names can’t stop anyone, the pass rush is very inconsistent and their run defense is nearly as porous.

The Eagles fast paced offense didn’t seem to bother the Broncos much. They turned around and did the same thing to the Eagles, using a hurry up style for nearly the entire game except when the game reached blowout status and they were eating clock.  The game got bad enough that at the end of the third quarter Fox switched to another game, the hated Cowboys no less.

I find it hard to believe that Chip Kelly, despite his focus on the offensive side of the ball, could have ignored the defense this much.  Yea, I already assumed this year was going to be the rebuilding variety but if that means I have to watch this type of performance week in and week out I am going to need to find other ways to entertain myself on Sunday afternoons.

Sunday night we watched Dredd, the rework of the old Stallone classic, Judge Dredd.  The movie utilized the latest technology to create a visually impressive background for the film.  It used the technology to do things like show heads being blown apart in super slo-mo.  Is that really necessary?  I also found it extremely odd that you NEVER see the face of the guy that plays Judge Dredd, his helmet remains in place every second.  I am not sure if this is because the guy that played Dredd is not a well known actor or maybe had some zits on his forehead he didn’t want the public to see.  Whatever the reason, I thought it was odd.

So anyway, to me the movie was an overly gory, everyone dies but the good guys film that I just didn’t care about at the end.  I’d give it a B-.

I had a busy morning already.  I had to prepare the dogs breakfast, drop them off at Ali’s place and gas up the van before getting to work.  The rest of the week appears to be lined up to follow the same, too much to do format.

I am hoping to take in the series finale of Breaking Bad tonight.  I want to make sure I am fully awake to soak in every tragically brilliant moment of it.

So I went to my mom’s place after work to pick her up for dinner.  She had asked me if I could look quickly at her toilet which was having a problem, taking forever to refill.  I figured it would be something simple like a leaking flapper or a float adjustment.  The odd thing is the toilet was only around a year old, far too new to have hardware problems typically.

After looking at all of the components, it all looked practically brand new, I was baffled.  So after further inspection I determined the problem appears to be with the water valve itself.  It appears to only be shooting a trickle of water into the holding tank for some reason.  I did not have the time or the tools to rip it all apart further since we were meeting Cindy for dinner.  I told mom I would try to get back later in the weekend to dig into it further.

Mom also showed me the new fridge her landlord provided her to replace her two decade old unit that had problems.  She was excited about her new kitchen addition.

Since the toilet analysis took longer than expected Cindy wound up getting to Carrabas a few minutes before mom and I.  Luckily the restaurant wasn’t that full and we were able to sit right down.  The three of us had a very nice dinner.  Cindy and my mom seemed to get along great which was good to see, not that I expected otherwise.

This weekend is looking to be very full.  I have a small 5K to time tomorrow and then on Sunday morning I am heading down to Marco Island super early to help with equipment set up in a triathlon that Cindy is competing in.  The two events will basically chop my weekend free time in half.

I just realized the other day that 2013 is shaping up to be the first time in 20+ years that I have not played ANY organized volleyball, not a single game.  This hasn’t been a deliberate act on my part, it’s more just a culmination of circumstances.

My free time is now pretty consumed with various other activities that have supplanted the space volleyball used to occupy. Plus my main volleyball partners down here, Randall and Jeremy really don’t play tournaments anymore, making it even easier for me to forget about the sport that was such a focus for me for a solid 10 years.

It’s not that I wouldn’t play.  Physically, I think I could still hack the grind of doubles beach volleyball although I am sure my skills would be very tarnished from lack of use.

Maybe next year….

Last night I resumed my Tuffwing construction project which was on hiatus due to the road trip and other things that have had my attention.  The build timeline has not been rushed since the backyard has been too wet to use as a flying field for quite awhile with no prospects for it drying out anytime soon.

Building the plane has been a good learning experience and a reintroduction to the hobby.  I am behind on my knowledge of the current RC technologies, especially radios and batteries.  The  AM 3 channel radio I plan to use for the Tuffwing is a relative antique in the RC world.  I am also finding that my Triton charger which was top of the line when Mike recommended it to me back in the early 2000’s is not well suited to charge modern day lipo batteries that often come with balance plugs, meaning I might need to get a different charger as well.  I have been spending a lot of time on the internet trying to update my dusty RC background.

Last night I put together and loose fit the servos, and connected them to the ailerons. I then hooked them and the motor to my receiver and verified everything worked as expected, it did.  At this point if I put a solid hour into the build I think I could finish it up, then all I would need is a week long dry spell so I can do a test flight.

Tonight I am taking my mom to dinner.  Cindy will be joining us, the first time she will have met my mom which should be cool.  I’m sure my mom will be happy to meet the person I just traveled cross country with. It should be a good time.

I am now entering the teeth of race season.  I have a race to time on Saturday and then another race the following Thursday.  Race season is bitter sweet for me at this point.  I still like the challenge of timing events and the supplemental income I make for doing it but there are many Saturday mornings when the alarm goes off at 4AM where I would rather just stay in bed.  It’s a lot of work that extends far before and after the actual race day.