Archives July 2014

After work last night I  met Cindy at her daughters apartment.  They had a large Ikea wall mounted dvd cabinet to hang on the wall and asked if I could help do it.   They had the cabinet put together, my task was to get it securely mounted on the wall in a level manner.  Before I got started I identified one bracket that was not in the right spot.  It was a rather important bracket that is used to help reenforce the cabinets connection point to the wall.

At first I thought I might have to partially disassemble the cabinet to flip the bracket.  Luckily I came up with another solution that only required drilling a couple small pilot holes and some careful work with a screwdriver. Katie’s boyfriend helped me hoist the cabinet on the wall.  After securing the center mount point we leveled it and then sunk the anchors for either end.  The cabinet felt nice and secure at the end of the installation and looked nice complimenting the matching TV stand underneath.

The second task they had for me at first seemed to be far easier, hanging up one of those large outdoor roll up blinds on their lanai to help block some of the sun that beats in.  Somebody had already drilled holes in the aluminum screen frame, all that needed to be done was thread in hooks and hang the small triangle shaped loops from the blinds onto them.  Well this turned out to be an extremely frustrating task.

There was next to no clearance between the hooks and the ceiling.  When paired with the very small attachment points, and my fingers trying to hold the blinds up with one hand and guide the clasp with the other, it quickly became very frustrating.  I wound up drilling a second set of holes as low as I could on the frame to give me another fraction of an inch of room.  Even with doing that I still struggled like crazy to get the blinds on the hooks.  To get the last hook attached I used a pen cap as a surrogate finger, it was crazy.  All that struggling in the outdoor air had turned me into a sweaty mess.  The back of my shirt was soaked by the end of it.

Katie and Daniel thanked me multiple times for the help, the two projects made their apartment look more “finished”.  Another perk of helping out was getting to play with their dog Tank, a very cute and friendly french bulldog.  By the time we got home it was later obviously so we just threw a Costco pizza in the oven for an easy dinner since Friday night we aren’t doing our normal dinner ritual.

Tonight I am picking up the girls for another few days of dog sitting while Ali is out of town.  I just received my dog whistle in the mail.  Hopefully it makes it easier to get Nicki’s attention.

Yesterday Cindy found our second egg on the ground under the coop, woohoo!

So yesterday Cindy told me that we now have our first homegrown egg, very exciting news indeed. The egg was on the smallish side but otherwise appeared perfectly normal. We are 99% sure the egg was produced by Betty, the hen that has had all the classic symptoms of being ready to start producing.  On Monday she was up in the nesting box making all sorts of odd noises we never heard before.  I imagine producing your first egg is a confusing/painful thing for a young chicken.  It seems like Wilma is starting to exhibit some similar behaviors so maybe she will be next in line.

We don’t have immediate plans to consume the egg but when we do we think we will hard boil it to allow us to cut the egg open to see how normal the interior of it looks.

Last night we had the chickens roaming about as I was doing my second session of pull ups in my 1000 pull up video series.  We had a hard time getting Pebbles back in the coop, the other two chickens responded easily to cracked corn bribery.  I had the camera rolling as we coaxed her back in.

So today was my first day doing my lunch workout at the Wellness Center.  As I expected there are some challenges that comes along with switching gyms.

Today the traffic on the way there was on the annoying side.  Since the gym is very close to downtown Naples there is no avoiding the swarms of old people behind the wheels of their luxury vehicles going 10 mph under the speed limit in all three lanes. It took me close to 10 minutes to get there today as a result.  I will be leaving my office a couple minutes earlier to compensate for the travel time.

As I also expected, there will be an entirely different harvest of gym goers to analyze and observe.  Already today I spotted a young kid showing his girlfriend how to curl with horrible form in the squat rack and another guy who really loved admiring himself in the mirror, a lot.

Today I wanted to do squats and deadlifts.  I was surprised that with the size of the gym they only have one squat rack.  I am not nuts about it’s construction either.  It is non-adjustable so the top set of pegs requires me to almost get on my toes to get the bar off and the next set down requires a bent leg starting position I’m not crazy about.  I struggled doing squats like I hadn’t done it in months, although I think I only missed last week if memory serves me correctly.  I topped out with three reps at 205 and it felt HEAVY.

There is not an obvious area to do dead lifting in the place.  I wound up doing it behind the benches in the free weight area.  I got a feeling that the crowd in there is not used to seeing someone deadlift, especially someone doing it in their socks.  I only did two sets of deadlifting and once again the bar felt heavy.

I was then looking to do quick sets of leg extensions and leg curls.  They have two different types of machines , TechnoGym and Hammer Strength.  I first tried doing leg curls on the TechnoGym machine and it seemed physically impossible to get it at an adjustment level that worked for my stork legs.  I eventually gave up and got on the Hammer Strength stuff which I am pretty sure will be the only machines I use in the place.  They also have some bizarre stuff that works with air pressure cylinders.  I didn’t even bother wasting my time on it.

As far as pull up and dip options go, thus far I have not been super impressed with my options.  They have one power tower type of rig and one assisted pull up/dip machine.  Unfortunately unlike the one at my old gym, there is no option to flip the assist plate out of the way so you can do reps freely.  I still need to do some more exploring to get a full inventory of what my options are, it will take some time. There was one piece of equipment I was interested in trying out, one of those continuous rope machines.  Basically you set a resistance level and then just start pulling a fat rope hand over hand for as fast and as long as you can.  It should be a good supplement to conventional pull up training.

The gym environment seemed a bit on the sterile side, filled mostly with people minding their own business.  It’s no big deal though and if more of my old gym buddies show up it will make things better.

I was very happy to see a gym employee meticulously cleaning the entire time I was there, what a concept.

So as I outlined in Dufisthenics, my gym yesterday once again sounded more like a techno dance club than a fitness center.  The thumping, never ending dance mix shit was once again pouring from the over head speakers.  I had complained about this in the past, as recently as last week.  Well I was done complaining, I decided to take some action.

I have had various nagging issues with Royal Fitness (formerly Retro Fitness) over the years. I was a client from basically day one when they opened.  I remember early on being very annoyed that they refused to turn on closed captioning on the tv’s mounted along various walls, despite the volume on them being turned off.  The explanation of “it is against company policy” made no sense to me.

For at least the first two years the gym had no real hot water.  Evidently whatever hot water tank that was in the space when it was a Walgreens was never upgraded when it became a gym.  As a result if you were foolish enough to take a shower there the best you could hope for was slightly less cold water.

The gym had a pretty solid staff the first year or so but since then there has been an unending carousel of people behind the counter.  I have described in the past the odd pattern where gym members suddenly transformed into gym employees, only to fade away as quickly as they came.  The vast majority of these people possessed no common sense on how to treat gym patrons, typically keeping their heads buried in their smartphones when people came and went instead of at least greeting them.

The gym also always had a cleanliness problem.  Cobwebs are in nearly every corner, and dust bunnies roam the floor.  Anytime I get up from doing a set of push ups my hands come up black.  It’s pretty gross.

It was easy to tell that financially the gym was not doing well.  Auxiliary side ventures came into the gym to try to generate additional revenue.  The most noticeable of which was a supplement peddler that had all of his stuff locked inside a 6 foot tall square cage obnoxiously stuck in the front of the gym.  The guy and his cage lasted all of a few weeks of not having any customers before it was torn down.

There have been a number of management changes at the gym although the ownership has never changed hands.  Once they dropped the RetroFitness franchise name there was a ridiculous period of time where it seemed every other week there was somebody new in charge of the place.  During this transition the majority of the pre-existing staff quit which to me was the beginning of the end.  I have documented my thoughts on the new training staff there,  including their lack of attention to clients unless they are attractive women, as well as body odor issues that seem counter productive to their role in the gym.

Basically, since the gym name change I have found very few reasons to keep giving Royal Fitness my money, short of the few gym buddies I have there.

One of those buddies, Jim, recently jumped ship for the NCH wellness center, a gym run by the dominant hospital in Collier County.  It’s normal monthly rate was expensive, normally $50 a month, but you get a lot of things for your money including tons of fitness classes, modern equipment in a huge space, sauna, steam room, a lap pool, and more.  And yes, the place is immaculately clean.

County employees get a huge deal at NCH, paying only $25 a month, only a couple bucks more than what I am paying at Royal Fitness, making the switch an almost no brainer.  Really the only potential snag is the additional 1.25 miles NCH is located from the office although in my trip timing yesterday it actually took me less time to get there.

Yesterday after work I made it official, joining the new place after quickly walking the facility which was huge, modern, clean, and appeared to have everything I would need and then some.   After signing up I decided I may as well stop at Royal Fitness to make my termination official as well.  I was not surprised that the process was annoying and unprofessional.

I walked in and the only woman behind the desk told me she was busy and it would take a few minutes until she could help me. She was trying to figure out how to do something with the cash register she was not familiar with.  Ok fine, I patiently hung out, looking around the gym that I would more than likely never step foot in again.  Sure the sentimental part of me was there, I expended a lot of effort inside those walls over the 5-6 years I had been a member.

Whatever issue the woman was having evidently was more challenging than she expected.  She came over to me and quickly asked what I wanted.  I told her I was cancelling my membership and wanted to know what I needed to do to make that happen.  She tells me I have to write a letter that states this with my name and date it.  Um ok, that’s odd, I am standing right here, why do I need to write a letter, I thought to myself.  She pulls out a blank, unlined, blue piece of paper and a pen, puts it in front of me and goes back to her issue.

I scribble on the paper that I am terminating my membership to Royal Fitness as of 7/28/14 and then both print and sign my name.  I hand the note to the woman and confirm that is all they need?  She said she will “take me out of the system then” but I may want to “check back in a week or so” to make sure I was removed.  No, “why are you leaving?”, “we are sorry to hear you are leaving” or cancellation paperwork/reference number was offered, not that I was surprised.  To me it was an appropriately unprofessional parting of the ways with Retro/Royal Fitness.  I totally expect to have to take further action to make sure my membership is indeed terminated. I’m looking forward to my workouts morphing along with my new environment.

Last night at home I started my 1000 pull up series, an idea that came up while Randall, Lily, Cindy and I were talking this weekend.  The concept is simple, 1000 pull ups with every rep on video.  Originally I had thought I would record all 1000 reps and dump them into one MASSIVE video.  However the AdSense mogul inside me realized this was stupid.  To maximize ad revenue it makes much more sense to do a large number of shorter videos that are more likely to grab views.

I plan to try to keep things interesting by making every single set unique in some way.  I can see  a number of reps going down during our upcoming road trip. Take a look at my first 60 reps below.

Randall and Lily weren’t supposed to arrive until early afternoon on Saturday.  That meant that I felt the need to get everything done chore-wise during the morning.  From the first step into the early morning dripping wet humid air, I knew I did not have a fun few hours ahead of me.  The heavy summer rain has kicked weed growth into overdrive, it took me close to the double the time it normally does to just get the weeding done.    I was already dripping with sweat.

The next task was weed whacking.  After starting the whacker it ran for like 2-3 minutes before shutting off.  Despite countless, hot, sweaty yanks on the starter cord, with each pull being more aggravated than the last, the damn thing would not start.  The last thing I felt like doing was screwing with weed whacker in the heat.  I first popped off the air filter to see if unrestricted air flow would help, nope.  Next I got my can of starter fluid/carb cleaner and sprayed it inside the intake and the exterior of the carb.  The whacker spun to life for a few moments as it combusted the starter fluid but then once again was dead.  Damn it.

I was about ready to say f it, and let the weeds win until I had time to do a more thorough analysis in more pleasant weather conditions.  I tried one more thing before giving up.  I pulled both of the fuel lines that run into the carb and then shot a bunch of carb cleaner into the inlets.  I assumed there was some sort of fuel blockage from the behavior I was seeing.  I didn’t expect what I did to be sufficient to correct the problem, thankfully it was.  After putting it back together the whacker started and kept running.  My reward for the effort was to sweat through both my shirt and my shorts as well as coating my shins with a heavy layer of grass clippings.

While Cindy and I were outside we had the chickens outside free ranging.  Cindy was giving the coop a thorough cleaning.  The chickens as always loved the unrestricted access to the backyard.  It’s very funny how they now will often follow Cindy or I around the yard, hoping that at any instant one of us will drop some cracked corn.

When Randall and Lily showed up Cindy and I were half asleep on the couch after eating lunch, we were both pooped.  The two of them showed up with a bunch of Trader Joe’s grocery bags, where they stopped on the way to the house.  The groceries were both for Randall’s pantry at home and some to be utilized Saturday evening as Randall had offered to prepare a shrimp dish for dinner.  Randall had prepared meals a couple times in the past for me, he is actually a good cook.

It didn’t take long until we took Randall and Lily out back to meet the latest additions to the family, the three chickens.  We had some left over pasta to feed them which rivals cracked corn as their favorite treat.  Both Randall and Lily got a kick out of how “friendly” the chickens were, even if most of their affection is tied into whatever food you had in hand.  One of the chickens, Betty has actually started allowing us to pet her freely.  When you reach out to pet her she will sit and let you rub her back and neck without much fuss.  Wilma and Pebbles do not share this trait and will only allow you to touch them briefly if they are in the middle of actively eating.

I pulled out my portable ping pong set and transformed the dining room into a sports arena.  Despite the table being more narrow than regulation it still was good enough for a bunch of good quality, highly contest matches where all four of us played each other.  Both Cindy and Lily have real good hand/eye coordination and were tough players.  Lily was funny to listen to as she played.  She was as vocal as a pro tennis player when she lost a point.  Every match we played was tight, but of course the only person to emerge undefeated was me.  I used a boring but consistent play style to rack up the wins.

The plan was to eat at home and then head out to catch the 7:55 showing of Lucy at Coconut Point.  Randall’s shrimp pesto pasta dish seemed quite involved to prepare.  The end result was really, really good.  All three of us greatly appreciated Randall’s efforts.

So after cleaning up we had to hustle to get out the door to the movie.  We walked into the theater about one minute before the official start time, luckily, as is almost always the case, late arrival has no seating choice penalty.  The theater had less than 50 people in it.

Cindy and I had been looking forward to Lucy based on the previews we had seen.  The movie started out well, it was exciting and cool.  Unfortunately the last two thirds of it pretty much fell apart.  Randall, Cindy and myself all struggled to keep our eyelids open during parts of the film.  The story was just weak and predictable.  It’s nothing more than an average B to B- movie, suitable for a Netflix rental but certainly not the effort/expense to see in a theater.  My opinion of it was shared by everyone else. By the time we got home we were all pretty damn exhausted, we retired to bed without much further delay.

On Sunday morning originally Cindy and I were targeting to go on an Ave Maria bike ride with Randall and Lily.  Unfortunately Cindy has been diagnosed with a probable hair line fracture in her left foot, meaning torquing the foot on a road bike was on the not allowed list of activities.  So while Lily and Randall did the ride Cindy and I went to go pick up the dogs for a day trip at the house.

When they returned from the ride the dogs were quite excited to see Uncle Randall again.  Nicki fussed for a couple minutes because she never saw Liliy before but soon mellowed out.  Old age has made her not be so fussy about who is in the house anymore.

Cindy made a nice omelet breakfast for Randall and Lily to help them refuel from their very warm and calorie consuming bike ride.

I unwrapped the reusable hanging rubber bottle shooting target I bought at Rural King a few weeks before.  I figured BB gun target shooting would be a different type of activity for us.

I was out by myself at first.  I set up the target maybe 30 feet away.  I discovered that the rather hard rubber the “bottle” is made of has a bad trait of making bb’s bounce off of it instead of absorbing the impact.  When one of my shots hit the target and then bounced off the metal picnic table I was leaning on I knew it needed to be further away.

I moved the target all the way out next to the small shed, figuring that was well out of rebound range.  Unfortunately having it that far away made hitting the bottle much more difficult.  You see the sight on the $30 air rifle I bought for myself two Xmas’s ago is not accurate.  To hit what you want you need to aim right of your intended target and even when doing so, it’s still a crapshoot.  When the others came out to join me they were surprised to learn you had to pump up the air rifle after every single shot which is a physically demanding task.  The pump on the Daisy gun requires significant amounts of power to get it going.

Hitting the bottle at long range was too hard.  I had Cindy bring out some additional things to shoot that would not rebound bb’s and were bigger like an empty Bud Light box, a tissue box and an empty one gallon water container.  These items were placed closer.  I liked hitting the water bottle the most.  It gives no doubt about it feedback when you hit it.  The cardboard boxes did not flinch a millimeter when the bb’s sailed cleanly through them.  Cindy was actually the only one to hit all four targets, including the rubber bottle.  She was deservedly proud of her accomplishment.

All of us were pretty warm after hitting the backyard shooting range so we decided a little pool time would be appropriate.  Sadie was quite pleased with our decision as Randall and I took turns splashing her.  She was totally soaked and very tired by the time we got out.  Even Nicki participated in her normal, not too close, way.

Sunday afternoon was filled with various things.  One of them was me working through (with a little help from Randall) episode 4 of the Walking Dead game.  I finished the episode, leaving only one more left to complete the series.  It really is like being a first person participant in the show.

We also took in about 2/3 of Interns which was playing on HBO.  I wonder how much money Google laid out to have a movie that was like one big commercial about their business.  I just have a hard time enjoying anything with Owen Wilson in it.  Despite not seeing the entire movie I feel qualified to rate it, giving it a Lucy-like B- rating.  It has a few laughs and a story structure you have seen 1000 times before.

Randall and Lily stuck around for dinner.  Cindy made a combo meal of black bean burgers and crab cakes.  She did an experimental desert, something she never tried before, lemon meringue pie.  Unfortunately the healthy ingredient substitutions she made did not work out great.  It seems that baked goods are less forgiving than cooked meals when it comes to tweaking the recipes.

We left the house last night the same time Lily and Randall did as we had to drop the girls back off at Ali’s place.  They thanked us for the hospitality and pushed off for the other side of the state.  It was nice seeing Troy and Randall on consecutive weekends, something I don’t think has ever occurred before. The stretch of time leading up until the road trip looks to be more conventional, allowing me to keep plugging away at the endless must/should do’s at the homestead.

Over the weekend a good exercise themed video was suggested.  I plan to try to “pull” it off although it is going require large amounts of both physical and editing effort to complete.

Yesterday Cindy had the tires replaced on the Prius.  This was a necessary precursor to the trip since the old tires were rather worn and starting to dry rot on the sidewalls.  You don’t go crossing dozens of state lines on a set of iffy tires.  We wound up getting the low rolling resistance variety that are recommended for hybrids.  Other than an oil and filter change prior to leaving, the Prius should be ready to go.

When I got home last night Cindy had the chickens out in the yard free ranging again.  I discovered that chickens have some good vert.  Cindy was holding the cup with cracked corn above them.  A couple of the girls hopped a good 8-10 inches in the air trying to reach it.

For a few days Cindy has been complaining of spells of dizziness and nausea.  This morning she woke up and it was really bad, bad enough that I dropped her off at one of the local clinics on my way to work.  The dizziness was to the point that I didn’t feel good about her driving herself.  Late last week she had hit her head.  Some of the symptoms match up with post concussion syndrome.  She also had been told a long time ago that she had vertigo.  Whatever the source, it’s good that she is getting checked out.

Randall and Lily are scheduled to visit this weekend starting tomorrow afternoon.  I plan to jam all of my to do’s into the AM to clear my slate for the rest of the weekend.  The docket for their visit looks to include a meal prepared by Chef Randall, going out to see Lucy, a cool looking new movie and doing some sort of bike ride on Sunday.  Other than that I expect the rest of the time to be occupied by drinking, chickens, and maybe the dogs can come hang as well.

Last night after work I headed out to tend to the chickens.  I gave them a nice surprise by letting them run around the yard while I was moving the coop and cleaning/refilling the food and water stations.  They were quite funny as usual.  After I refilled their food at the small shed they followed me like the pied piper as I carried it across the yard.  Later I sat down on the hill and all three of them were mulling about me only a couple feet away.  Betty even sat down when I reached towards her, letting me pet her back and neck.  A couple of the chickens took advantage of their freedom by jumping up and “flying” for a short distance.  It was cute.

When Cindy got home from work I told her I had the chickens out of the coop.  We have been hesitant to do this much because of potential difficulty getting them back in.  However we now have established their absolute love of cracked corn.  By carrying and shaking a small cup of it Cindy was able to lead the chickens back to their home.  Sprinkling some of it in the coop was all that was needed to get them in there.  Now that we feel confident we can get them back in reliably we can let them out to explore on a more regular basis, even for short periods of time.

So Cindy has been getting the itch to do a road trip again.  Much like last year we are throwing together plans to head west in September with the the western endpoint destination being Durango, Colorado.  You may recall we stopped in Durango during our epic Grand Canyon trip last year.  During that stop both Cindy and I commented how Durango had so many things to see and do that it would be a great place to spend several days, hence our current plan.

There will be a major difference in the trip this year, the party van will be left at home.  As comfortable as the van is for long distance travel, the 15-16 mpg it delivers adds up to massive gas bills on a trip of this length.  Since money is an issue, we are going to try crossing the country in Cindy’s Prius instead.  Getting 3x the gas mileage of the van is going to add up to a huge reduction in expense.

Now of course there are trade offs to be made.  The Prius has seemed comfortable enough on the various places we have taken it but being in the vehicle 8-12 hours a day is a totally different scenario.  To address that issue we may have to do more frequent driver swaps.  To allow for at least some degree of party van type comfort we hope to lay the back seats down flat and cover the area with a mattress pad and comforter.  The thought is one human being should be able to lay down on one side of the area while the luggage would take up the other side. To make this plan work we will also need to pack more frugally than we have in the past with the van which has no tangible limit on space for stuff.

Who knows, trying to go cross country in the Prius may turn out to be a mess but it’s worth a shot to find out.  50 mpg is just too alluring.

The route I am envisioning would take us through St. Louis so Cindy can see the arch, something I have toured before but would have no problem seeing again.  We will have to see what other things we may be able to hit on the way out there.  The good thing is that potentially, we could take a full 2 weeks if we wanted to but I think we can do everything we want in less time with a few days left over to relax at the homestead.

After finishing up my blog on Sunday morning I packed up quickly to head up to Troy’s place in Lancaster.  As expected, my two day parking bill under Liberty Place was quite steep, $82.  As I was making my way out of the city I got to see a cool feature of the Tom Tom in action, building view.  In major metropolitan areas not only do you get a clear view of the streets, you get an accurate view of the buildings along the street.  I thought that was neat.

The drive up to Lancaster was a bit on the lengthy side, taking me nearly two hours.  I knocked on Troy and Melissa’s door right around noon. I last saw Troy when he came down to visit me last year.  I last saw his girlfriend when I was up there to go to a Raven’s game 3-4 years ago.

There has been a new addition to their family since I was last there, Lydia, a high energy, friendly Boston Terrier.  Within 5 minutes the shorts I was wearing were covered in dirty paw prints as we hung in the back yard.  I didn’t care, she was happy to have someone else to play with her.

Troy suggested that we take Lydia down to the awesome new dog park they built recently, of course I liked that idea.  He told me that some local girl won the dog park by entering some contest held by Beneful, the dog food company.  For winning this contest Beneful built a half million dollar dog park for the city, wow.

The park is in a word AWESOME.  Instead of grass which requires lots of upkeep and water, the dog park is lined with RealTurf, the high tech artificial turf that is used throughout the sports industry.  For human beings there is a huge deck made out of composite lumber that never wears out.  On top of that are a number of Adirondack chairs that are under huge shade sails.

For the dogs there are wide open spaces to run, water features that can be activated with the press of a button, a tree that doubles as a tennis ball launcher, and even water fountains that have one level for people and another for their furry friends.  It was easily the best dog park I ever saw in my life. Lydia was a social butterfly, going around to tons of dogs and people introducing herself although she was a bit submissive when it came to dealing with a dog that wanted to aggressively play.  It was great hanging out there for awhile watching the dogs play.

When we got back Melissa had made us a nice lunch that we enjoyed in their back yard.  Troy did some solid work out there since I was last at the place, making a small eating area with landscape blocks that is covered with a small shade sail.  Troy suggested that we head out to a nearby bar with outdoor seating.  They had some sort of blues band playing, starting at 3PM.  Sure, I was up for anything. Like most things when you live in a small city, the bar was only a few minutes away.

I was surprised that there was a $10 cover to walk in considering I saw exactly 4 people in the outdoor seating area with maybe another 10 under the roof.  Troy generously picked up my cover. Now of course I am not a big fan of blues but as I said, I didn’t really care.  The band was a bunch of older guys fronted by a big black guy with what looked to be an ACL injury style knee brace.  He remained seated during the entire performance.  He mostly just sang but could play a mean harmonica occasionally.

The three of us kept a very steady flow of Miller Lite drafts flowing during the couple hours we were there.  The beer helped me enjoy both the music and my observational ability of the audience around us which happened to include two dancers from the original Soul Train show.  There was something interesting to see at every one of the few tables that were populated.  Melissa was enjoying the show.  The lead singer picked up on her enthusiasm during the performance and called her out more than once.  When it was all over he was more than happy to pose for a quick picture.

On Sunday night we just stayed at Troys place where Melissa made another nice meal, a pasta dish this time.  We decided to just hang there and work on the 30 pack of Miller Lites Troy had in the fridge.  Boy did we work on them.  By the time the evening was over the box was empty between the three of us.  I do not have an exact total of how many beers I drank between the blues fest and out of the 30 pack but I am absolutely sure I set a personal beer record, consuming well into the teens without a doubt.

As we were drinking we took turns reviewing some pictures Troy and Melissa had stored on some SD cards and then watching various Howard Stern content on YouTube which Troy and I found hilarious, Melissa, not so much.  I collapsed into bed somewhere close to midnight, it was a fun but exhausting session.

I awoke Sunday feeling dehydrated and a bit hazy but not nearly as bad as I would have predicted after drinking so much beer.  I had no nausea, headache or other debilitating issues.   Poor Melissa had to actually get up and go back to work, Troy had luckily taken Monday off.  Troy and I were throwing around ideas of what to do on Monday.  We started the day pulling Troy’s Mustang out of storage.

Troy has had this Mustang for nearly 20 years but I only had seen it in the flesh once, back when he still lived in Robesonia.  After turning it over for a little while the Mustang roared to life and he pulled it out of the garage.  Overall the car is in good shape considering it is 40+ years old.

Troy had me look at his brake lights before we took it out.  Some garage had done some work on the brakes awhile ago.  The end result was his brake pedal grabs VERY high.  Because of this his brake lights do not get activated unless he pushes very hard on the pedal, a dangerous problem for sure.  Since we were just taking the car on a relatively short trip to the diner we rolled the dice.

Hopping in the Mustang brought me back to the last old car I owned, my 71 Buick convertible that burned up in the early 2000’s.  Original muscle cars smell old, they creak and roll and make all sorts of noise as they rumble down the road.  At this point in my life though I am totally fine just riding in someone else’s old car.  I have no desire to  dip my toe back in that pool whatsoever.

The diner we had breakfast at was huge and pretty busy.  When we walked in the hostess told us if we didn’t mind sitting in a two person booth she could make sure we were in the section of a very pretty waitress.  I am not quite sure why she went there but we saw no harm in sitting in a two seater. It almost seemed like we would be rude to decline.  The waitress was attractive by diner standards I guess but not quite what I expected. We had a good but large breakfast, I couldn’t finish the egg white omelet I ordered, maybe because I dusted off the large side of tater tots and toast as well.

While we were eating we decided we go to Gettysburg, a place I recall visiting once as a child but with little to no recollection of the trip otherwise.  Troy is an American history buff with even more knowledge regarding the Civil War and Gettysburg.  He said on average he goes to Gettysburg a half dozen times a year.  He is so into it that he even took the test to be a part time Gettysburg tour guide.  I was surprised when he described just how difficult the test was and even more surprised that he did not pass the test, even with his near encyclopedic knowledge of the place. I thought it would be cool going there with Troy, it would be like having a personal tour guide to fill in the massive canyons in my Gettysburg knowledge.

After returning the Mustang and grabbing a few things at his place we headed out for the battlefield which was roughly an hour away.  The skies looked sort of menacing but a little rain wouldn’t have bothered me.  We wound up staying dry the entire time.

We began a combination by car and by foot tour of the entire battlefield region.  Everywhere you looked there were statues and monuments scattered about at key positions of the battle.  No matter which one I pointed at Troy knew who it was as well as an extensive back ground of this persons role in the war.  To me, it was really quite incredible.  I knew Troy knew Civil War history well, I didn’t know he knew it this well.

Having him by my side explaining things made the visit exponentially more interesting.  I imagine if I would have toured Gettysburg solo I would have tired of it much more quickly.

Some of the quick facts about the battle I didn’t know was that it lasted 3 days, not one and a total of over 51,000 troops died during the battle, the largest amount of casualties ever on American soil. I also found it interesting that up until closer to the mid 1900’s, the park was soley dedicated to the victorious northern soldiers.  They only added tributes to the southern forces much later.

A number of the grave markers had coins on them, one of the few things that Troy actually did not know the explanation for.  A Google search revealed that depending on the type of coin left it signified different things.  A penny means they knew the dead soldier, a nickel means they went to boot camp with the soldier, a dime means they served in the same company, and a quarter means they were in battle where the soldier died.  There were a lot of pennies out there.

Troy and I scaled several large sets of steps during our visit.  The Pennsylvania monument has a steep spiral staircase leading to the top observation deck.  We also climbed to free standing observation towers one with 120 steps and another with 100 that had pretty much everyone sucking wind by the time they reached the top.

In total we spent around 4 hours touring the place with Troy easily navigating the many roads that connect the various areas.  The trip made it very clear that ultimately he really should be doing something that taps into his passion for history.  He said he doesn’t think he would make a great tour guide, I told him based on what I saw first hand he would be a perfect fit.

On the way back we stopped at a Subway to grab some lunch.  Behind the counter was a an obviously younger freckled face girl whom we found out was 19.  I had made some comment when I was ordering my sandwich how I was trying to recover from a lot of drinking the night before.  All of a sudden she tells us how she prefers to drink whiskey, primarily Jack Daniels and Windsor.  I told her that she didn’t look old enough to drink.  She said she wouldn’t be for two more years.  She continued, telling us how she normally only drinks whiskey at home like somehow that makes it better.

Despite what surely were odd looks on my face regarding this revelation she continued.  She described her love of heavy metal groups and going to heavy metal concerts.  This mostly one way conversation continued even after Troy and I sat down to eat our food.  She came out from behind the counter cleaning tables while relating more stories about the 20 concerts she has attended, her most and least favorite concerts and how she has never been any further back from a stage than fourth row.  Both Troy and I exchanged looks of confusion during this exchange, I’m not sure how we got there.

On Monday evening Troy, Melissa and I headed to a nearby sports bar place that served brick oven pizza.  Neither Troy or I got what we expected in our pizzas.  Troy order the four cheese variety, little did he know that meant it was exclusively cheese with no sauce.  He described it as eating a big piece of garlic bread.  My “shrimp and roasted tomato” pizza was just the opposite, it had no cheese at all, odd. Prior to dinner we went on another Wixon shoo fly pie search which again turned up unsuccessful.  I did find a store made pie that seemed like a pretty close equivilent however.

Monday night we again just hung out since I had to get up early Tuesday to drive back to the airport.  No beer was on the menu however, all three of us had our fill the night before.  We did watch Gravity on HBO.  Yes I saw it before but watching it again was enjoyable enough.

I set my alarm on Tuesday for 5:15 AM.  Troy got up before I left at 6 but I was able to get out without waking Melissa or Lydia.  I thanked Troy for the good time and encouraged him to come back down to Florida whenever he could.  I always enjoy hanging with him regardless of the environment.

The drive down to the airport went smoothly as did the rental car return.  I was back inside the terminal by 7:45, plenty of time considering my flight to PA was not until 10AM.  The security lines in Philly can be tortuously slow so I didn’t wan to take any chances.  It didn’t take long until I had my first annoying experience of the day, which turned out to be filled with them.  As I checked into the kiosk I got the prompt to insert my credit card to pay my $25 bag fee.  I find bag fees along with the other once complimentary items/services that many airlines now charge for to be infuriating.  To me it’s just a pure money grab even though initially the change was blamed on fuel prices.

I had a lot of time to kill so I spent it doing some souvenir shopping and grabbing a large DD coffee to enjoy.  I also was on the search for an open electrical outlet to charge my phone which was drained quite a bit from the Bluetooth connection with the Tom Tom on the drive down.   It was harder than you would think to do so.  The charger I had along did not have real long prongs on the plug meaning it did not make a good connection if an outlet was already loose from years of use.   In total I tried 5 different spots until I found one that worked.

I had an interesting sighting as I was entering the men’s room.  Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor and current candidate to become governor once again, was headed into the store across the hall.  I thought it was quite odd to see him in Philadelphia but I assume he was taking a flight back to Tampa which was in the same general area.  When I exited the mens room I walked around the gate, trying to find him.  I would have liked to shake his hand and wish him luck in defeating Rick Scott, the biggest asshole governor in Florida history.  A selfie to share with Jeremy would have been even better.  Unfortunately I think by the time I was looking for him he had already boarded with the other first class passengers on the Tampa flight.

So I boarded my plane on time around 9:40 or so.  Although I wasn’t flying first class this time, I was lucky enough to be seated in an exit row which offers nearly first class amounts of leg room.  We were told our 10:05 departure was going to be delayed around 10 minutes to address a “minor maintenance issue” .  I heard a stewardess say the issue was simply a tray table lock that was broken.  The 10 minute delay was in fact a 33 minute delay as we got in the air at 10:38. This started a very long and annoying trend of overpromising and underdelivering, something that bugs the living shit out of me.

As I said earlier, US Airways is VERY big on nickel and diming it’s customers in coach.  The ONLY thing you get is drink service, even though this was scheduled to be nearly a 3 hour flight.  And if you do get a drink you do not get an entire drink, instead you get a cup filled half with ice, there is no way they would let you have an ENTIRE 12 ounce can of soda or a complete bottle of water.  Nope, you get one small cup and nothing more.  It’s ridiculous.

I mostly passed the time playing more PvZ on my Galaxy tablet.  I find the game to be a great way to make long boring trips less long and less boring as I lose myself in endless waves of zombie attacks.    As we approached Fort Myers we were descending and then suddenly felt a big surge with the engines along with an obvious changing of directions.  After 5 minutes or so the pilot came on and said there was some storms near the airport so we were going to have to circle for around 3-4 minutes before being able to land.  Ok, no big deal.

Well that 3-4 minutes turned into 45 minutes of maddening looping, during which a couple times we again were told we should be landing “very shortly”.  Then the captain comes on and says that he really wanted to get us to Fort Myers but the weather wasn’t moving.  He said protocol dictated that the fuel level on the plane was low enough that it required us to now divert to Miami to refuel.

Instantly a huge groan flowed across the cabin area as the passengers that were already sick of waiting realized that not only was their wait going to get much longer, anyone that had travel arrangements made for Fort Myers (like me having Cindy waiting to pick me up) had to wait until landing in Miami to let the other party know.  The captain told us we should be landing in Miami in 15 minutes, instead it was more like 45 until we completed yet another maddening holding pattern.

By this time I was really fcking annoyed.  Of course the pilot could not control the weather and nobody would expect to land is conditions that were dangerous.  I was annoyed that we left a half hour late for a tray table.  Those 30 minutes probably would have been the difference between a normal landing and the Miami diversion.  I was also extremely annoyed at the pilot for being one of those guys that threw out overly optimistic numbers instead of realistic ones.  Don’t tell me something will take 3-4 minutes if it could take 45, don’t tell me you will be on the ground in Miami in 15 minutes if it will take triple that, don’t tell me the flight back to Naples is 20 minutes when it was more than double that. Time and time and time again the pilot threw out timeframes that were nowhere close to being accurate.  I mean come on, use some common sense.  Underpromising and overdelivering is the way to manage a situation like this, not vice versa, idiot.

Of course the refueling pit stop in Miami took much longer than the captain indicated as well.  We were not allowed to leave the plane so there was a line that stretched the full aisle of people waiting to relieve themselves in the tiny on board bathrooms.  By the time we landed back at Fort Myers it was almost 6PM, almost exactly double the amount of time the flight was scheduled for.

Yet another annoying item was that despite the delays and consistently poor reporting of expected times, none of the airplane staff saw it appropriate to offer passengers any additional food or drinks. (unless you were paying for it of course)  This seemed utterly ridiculous to me and lacked simple common sense and courtesy.  People are frustrated, aggravated and annoyed.  A bottle of water or, gasp, an ENTIRE can of soda is a small price to pay to express “sorry, we know this is a pain in the ass”.  Once again it cemented my opinion of US Airways as being penny squeezing idiots. The cherry on top was the bags taking nearly 30 minutes to arrive at baggage claim, it was truly a travel day from hell.

Cindy was able to find out about the delays and rerouting after the fact.  Evidently the information online was well behind the actual timeline.  She wound up eating lunch and reading to pass the time.  I felt bad she had to twiddle her thumbs for so long.  She picked me up in the SSR.  It felt good to be in control of my own destination for the first time in 6 hours.

It was quite nice to return home to the comfort of another home cooked Cindy meal and the familiarity of the 47th  avenue estate.  Cindy worked hard to maintain the house in my absence, a duty I will be once again resuming this weekend.

Last night I did take the time to pay my bills and fire off this blurb to the customer complaint section of US Airways.com.

If you would like to see all of my pics from the trip they can be found here.

So I figured I would be best served to recap the first part of the trip this morning before heading out to Troy’s place.

After receiving two emails from US Airways that I could upgrade to first class for my flight to Philly for not a ton of money, I decided to splurge and do it.  My logic was the regular flight expense was already being picked up by RunSignUp so I didn’t feel too fiscally guilty.  Plus I can only recall flying first class once before as a kid while traveling with my grandmother.  I figured what the hell, why not…

I woke up on my own a full 30 minutes before my already terribly early alarm of 3:30 AM. I hoped to get up without waking Cindy but that is pretty much an impossible task.  I figured laying in bed awake for a half hour wouldn’t do me any good.  We were out the door on the way to the airport right around 4AM.

Cindy was sad when she dropped me off.  I never have been the type to get sad when leaving on a trip or dropping someone off for a trip since I know they/I are going to be coming back.  I knew before I knew it I would be back in southwest Florida.

I had packed all of my stuff in a small piece of luggage, thinking I could just throw it in the overhead bin.  All my tech stuff and trip paperwork was jammed into my laptop bag.  Since US Airways is one of those shitty airlines that charges bag fees I figured traveling light would be best.  I wound up checking the bag anyway because I had some toiletry items that may get flagged in carry on luggage and I was flying first class so bag fees didn’t apply anyway.

Having never flown first class as an adult it was a different experience.  Once boarding was announced I was one of the first people on the plane.  On my seat was a pillow and blanket, waiting for me and free of charge. (I think they normally charge for that too)  As soon as I got situated the stewardess immediately served me coffee even as the lowly coach customers were still filing in.

My seat number was 1A, literally the first official seat on the plane.  It actually was not a great seat when compared to the rest of first class because I was up against the bulkhead.  There was no seat in front of me that I could slide my laptop bag under so my bag had to go up in the overhead bins at least for takeoff and landing.  There was no flip down tray for food, instead I had to share a  wide armrest that was supposed to be a pseudo table with the guy next to me whom didn’t speak a word.  I was also surprised in this day and age that US Airways did not have any sort of in flight entertainment system in their planes, despite them charging an ancillary fee for everything.  Maybe I am just too spoiled by JetBlue.  On the positive side the seats were very comfortable and obviously I had a ton of legroom.

Originally I had thought maybe I would pull out my Galaxy Tab and do some Plant vs Zombies during the flight.  I didn’t for two reasons.  Since I was a 46 year old man sitting in first class, I felt like playing PvZ may possibly give away that I am not a typical first class passenger, many of which were reading the financial section or some serious literature, not that it really matters.  However more importantly, I was very tired.  I wound up reclining my seat and using my first class pillow to shut my eyes for at least an hour of the flight.  As soon as I was awake the stewardess was back in my face with the food tray which I was allowed to take whatever I wanted in as much quantity as I desired.  Perhaps my lifelong coach traveling training is why I only grabbed a single raspberry fig bar along with a bottle of water.

We arrived in Philly slightly ahead of schedule which was nice.  I figured I could get checked in to the hotel before heading over to the conference across the street which was scheduled to start at 11 AM.  At the Budget rental car office I commented on how rental car prices were dramatically higher than 5 weeks ago when I visited.  The girl said it was because of a shortage of cars related to the storms that delayed travel last week.  I saw plenty of cars sitting around but hey, ok.

Online I was pegged to get a Hyundai Elantra but I wound being given a black Nissan Sentra which seemed like a bit of a step up to me.  It felt like a smaller version of the Camry we rented last time.  According to the gps it should have only taken me 15 minutes to get to the hotel, the reality was much longer. Once I got into the heart of Philly traffic was shitty.  Since I last drove in the city they have changed some stuff around.  Many of the streets now have the right hand lane branded as BUS ONLY, which is also used by bikers.  That leaves one lane of traffic available to everyone else.  Of course since this is a large city, there were vehicles double parked everywhere, meaning you were trying to maneuver around bikes/buses to continue moving forward.  Plus if you wanted to make a right turn you again have to awkwardly cut into the bus only lane.  I appreciate the idea behind this setup to benefit mass transit and bikers but it’s actual implementation seems poorly conceived and dangerous.

So my GPS directed me to what it said was the address of the Westin however I didn’t actually see the hotel.  I wound up doing a series of left turns to come back around before I turned into the underground parking garage of Liberty Place. I knew the Westin was somewhere close by but I didnt see specific parking for it.  I parked 4 floors down and emerged up into the mall area of the building.  I found an exit to the street and finally saw the entrance to the Westin.  I figured I would get a better deal if I parked there.  Well I asked the valet what the parking situation was.  He said where I was parked was actually correct unless I wanted to have the car valet parked.  Shit.  I am not sure what the daily rate for parking is, all I glanced at was the $8 for a half hour number and originally thought I was only going to be there temporarily.  I can hardly wait to see the parking bill.

So I had to walk all the way back down to the car and grab my stuff before going to my room.  The check in staff were all super polite and professional as you would expect with a high end hotel like The Westin.  I unloaded my stuff in the quite luxurious room and then only had time to walk down to a Dunkin Donuts a couple blocks away before heading to the meeting.

The conference was being held at an office building right across the street from the Westin which was super convenient.  It was in a space called The Hub on the 14th floor. It was a GREAT meeting space, modern, tech filled, beautiful with a great view.  RunSignUp really cut no corners with this event, despite it being a year one thing.

I got to meet a number of people that I only knew from primarily emails and the occasional phone call.  Bryan, who has been my main customer support contact with RunSignUp was the one I was most interested to meet.  He consistently responds to any question I have within minutes, almost regardless of the day or time of day. In fact the only reason I gave RunSignUp a try was because Bryan started working there after leaving our prior online race registrar.

I also got to meet Bob Bickel, the owner of the company.  It took all of 5 seconds to understand just how passionate and committed Bob is to the success of the company.  He evidently has a track record of building successful companies from scratch.

I met the rest of the RunSignUp crew which has been rapidly expanding in recent months due to their success.  Every single person was young, positive and energetic.  In a way it reminded me of how things were when I first got into the computer business with Entre Computers where we had a young staff of talented guys that helped grow the company by leaps and bounds in a very short period of time.

I also got to talk with other timers and race directors in the room.  Throughout the two days I picked up TONS of good ideas just by picking their brains.  So Friday was the the meeting for the Customer Advisory Board, which I was asked to be in.  These were a group of people that RSU identified as being key in helping form the direction of the company.  The meeting started with each person giving a background of themselves along with touching on some ideas that were asked of us ahead of time.

As I have always professed here, I am 100 times better at writing out my thoughts than delivering them verbally.  I had typed out a bunch of notes ahead of time to help me during my intro.  When it came time for me to do my part I only touched on part of what I had written down as I clumsily delivered my speech, oh well.

The RSU co-founder, a brilliant coder named Stephen was very interesting.  I could immediately tell he was like me in that he was uncomfortable speaking to the room yet had was going 100 mph in his brain as he was literally coding while others gave their intros. The guy that writes the software I use for timing races was also at the conference.  Being able to meet and interact with him in person was another great benefit.

Day one of the meeting went well and it was followed up by a social Friday evening at a nearby boathouse.  RSU arranged to have a van take us there.  The trip was rather, um, terrifying.  5:30 traffic in Philly is not good normally.  Things were made worse by an impromptu “Free Palestine” march that went down the middle of Market Street, causing a mess.

The van driver was extremely aggessive, cutting people off and then honking his horn at the person he just cut off, like they did something wrong.  At one point he pulled across and blocked a lane of oncoming traffic and then again beeped his horn, like they were the assholes.  I felt fortunate to step out of the van without requiring a neck brace.

The evening at the boathouse was really nice with a nice spread of food and free alcohol.  They only had one type of beer, some sort of IPA with 5.7% alcohol content. I downed enough of them to help ease my normal social anxiety that arises in these situations.  Ironically I found myself spending most of the night talking to the one timer and his wife whom were both well past retirement age.  Listening to their stories was very interesting.  I also got to chat more with Bryan, learning more about his background beyond life at RunSignUp.

Really the only negative of the night came when I went to use the single bathroom on the floor.  The seat was down, I am a courteous person normally so I reached down to put it up before I took a leak.  As I did the toilet seat promptly fell off the bowl and onto the floor.  What the fck??  It was not attached in any manner.  It looks like the plastic bolts/adhesive used to attach the seat had broken.  So I took a leak with the seat laying on the floor.  Afterwards I remained courteous, picking the seat back up and placing it back on the toilet.  After thoroughly washing my hands I warned a few people about the trick seat.

Thankfully the van ride back was much less white knuckled.  I collapsed in bed a little after 10, wiped out from the 19 hour day.

Saturday I once again tapped Dunkin Donuts for an XL coffee before heading to the meeting which was scheduled for 8AM.  The meeting room had been expanded to accommodate the additional, non-customer advisory people that were showing up.  A good portion of the day was a bit of repeat for me since some of it was covered on Friday for us.   I spent some of that time playing with some of the features that were talked about the day before and even playing a game of Hearthstone to pass some time.

During the day I was once again called upon to test my poor speaking skills.  The woman that organized the event pulled members of the CAB into a room to shoot some individual video of us answering questions.  Despite me talking into a camera all the time in my countless videos on my YouTube channel, this scenario again did not feel comfortable to me.  This time I had no notes to work off of and I had no idea what she was going to ask.

When I was talking I was distracted, not sure if I should be looking at her or the camera as I was answering the questions.  I haven’t seen the footage but my estimate was it was a lot of rambling with very little substance coming from it.

During the rest of the meeting my notepad which already was pretty full with ideas/suggestions continued to be utilized heavily.  I have a lot of things to look into once I get back in the swing of things at home.  The meeting let out around 4PM.  I hung around for awhile talking to some of the other attendees, again sharing ideas.  On my way out I saw both the owner Bob, and Johanna, who organized the conference.  I congratulated both of them for a job that was very well done.  The conference was a huge success in my mind.

Last night I didn’t make any definitive plans.  I went down to the Westin fitness room which was pretty decent with a full array of cardio machines, a few universal weight machines and a back room with two benches and a full set of dumbbells up to 50 pounds.  I did 3 circuits of chest press, should press and bent over rows and finished up with some dragon flags and reps on the vertical chest press machine.  The highlight was me pressing the full stack of weights (255lbs) one time, barely.

I decided to just eat at the hotel bar later.  There was a huge wedding party there when I was done working out.  I came back down after taking a shower and it had cleared out.  To my left there was a woman finishing up her drink.  She looked 40ish with glasses and  short hairstyle that looked severe.  She started up conversation with me that I politely rolled with.  She asked what I was in town for, I told her.  She said she was there for some birthday party for a guy that she used to produce music for.  She said the party was at some dance club right down the sidewalk.

It didn’t take long for me to see where she was leading.  She asked me what I was doing tonight.  I told her nothing really, just hanging out before I headed out this morning.  She then asked if I was married, despite no ring on my finger.  I told her no but I have a girlfriend.  “Oh ok, of course you do.” which I guess was a compliment.  Knowing she was barking up the wrong tree she headed out a minute or two later.

I ordered a scallop dish from the bar.  I was a bit shocked visually when my $20 entre came out in an appetizer sized dish with exactly 3 scallops in it.  Yea it tasted good but damn….  For desert I had a couple more Budlights before paying my $38 tab and heading back up to the room.  I was a bit affected by the beers, enough to record three silly Vines before falling asleep.

I will shortly be pulling out for Lancaster to meet up with Troy.  So far the trip has been a lot of fun, I expect that trend to continue.  All my pics so far are located here.

An odd thing has been slowly shifting over the last year or so, my SSR has become less and less of a focal point in my existence.  It is not abnormal at all nowadays for it to sit untouched in the garage for 2-3 weeks not making even the slightest rumble.

When I first got the truck I was taking it to work at least once a week, typically on a Friday.  In addition I was taking every opportunity to take the SSR out on the road.  Driving the truck made me feel proud, successful and alive.

It doesn’t take a PhD to identify buying a vehicle like this in your mid-40’s is classic mid-life crisis behavior.  There is no question that at the time of it’s purchase I was indeed dealing with several things in my life that were tough for me to handle.  The monster truck was a great way to divert my attention elsewhere.

Once I got separated the SSR really became my crutch as I took it out repeatedly on mostly unsuccessful first dates, perhaps thinking it’s mere presence alone would help make up for my instinctive awkwardness when meeting most people for the first time.  The truck was truly my companion in sorrow during that time.  No matter how down I felt, a quick spin with the top down was better than any anti-depressants on the market.

Since I started dating Cindy (whom is the only other person I have allowed to drive the SSR more than 100 feet), the SSR has steadily been pushed into the background.  I no longer bring it to work regularly, rarely participate in the SSR Fanatics forum, and generally speaking pay little attention to it.  It’s an odd thing.  Hell there have been moments when I considered the financials of selling it versus keeping it, something that would have been beyond taboo two years ago.

My amateur analysis of this shift seems to point towards whatever potholes I was feeling in my life have now become more filled, evening out my mental highway.  Don’t worry, the truck isn’t going anywhere.  I still love driving it, Cindy loves driving it, so it will remain my on demand, expensive joy ride for the foreseeable future.

After work last night I dropped the dogs back off at Ali’s place.  She was not home from work yet.  I always feel guilty when I drop them off at an empty house.  Perhaps the sadness I feel coming from them is self manufactured but it doesn’t make it any easier to feel.

Cindy and I already knew the chickens LOVE cracked corn.  We now know they love corn on the cob nearly as much.  Cindy bought a couple cobs which I chopped in half with my machete.  We have been giving them one half cob a day in the morning.  By the time we get home at night the cob is completely picked clean.

The house has been giving off symptoms of the septic tank needing to be pumped out including some smell coming from open drains and the guest bathroom toilet (closest to house drain) not flushing well.  I contacted the company that pumped it before to have it sucked out this afternoon.  I am not sure how long it has been since I had it pumped but I know in the 13 years I have been in the house it has only been done twice so I am surely overdue.

Getting out of work early will work out well since I need to pack and get ready for my trip to PA which starts very early tomorrow morning due to a 6:10AM departure.  The flight is with US Air whom I dislike.  I am trying to come up with a way to get everything I will need for the 5 day trip into my small suitcase that fits in an overhead bin.  I have a very adverse reaction to paying additional fees for checking luggage.

I think the trip will be fun with the first half spent at a conference for event planners/race timers and the second half hanging with my buddy Troy whom I have shared some of my most memorable experiences of my life with.  We always have lots of laughs.