Far out, PA day, Blizzcon, no loan for you, one and then three

Cindy and I drug ourselves out of bed Saturday morning with the 4AM alarm to head to downtown Naples for the 10K race I was timing.  As is nearly always the case Cindy and I were the first ones on site which I actually like.  There is something peaceful about moving about the world at a time when most others are sound asleep.  By the time the next person showed up Cindy and I had already dropped off the start line equipment and had most of the other stuff in the van unloaded.

This was a first year event and sign ups were on the light side, light enough that I told Ali she could skip her normal data entry responsibilities.  Cindy helped me handle the walk up data entry.  The pre-race scene went smoothly, the last time we had a race at this venue in May it was a mess as nobody remembered to order port-o-potties.  Thankfully we had four of them on site Saturday.

Everything from my side of the race went well but there was one major problem that was rather embarrassing.  The race course was marked incorrectly, resulting in runners completing a 5.70 mile course instead of the full 10K distance of 6.24 miles.  Runner after runner crossed the line with looks of confusion/frustration on their face knowing that their finish time was impossible if they ran a full 10K.  Personally, I didn’t freak out about it, it wasn’t my responsibility although it made the club look unprofessional and unprepared, something that you just don’t expect from an organization that puts on as many races as we do.

Since this was a new race it meant it was also a new course.  Even though the people setting up the course had course maps in hand, they evidently were not looked at closely enough.  I felt bad for the runners as I know how would I feel if I ran a short course.  Other than the course shortcomings, the event went fine, the race shirts were nice, people liked the award podiums/back drop and we got offsite by 9:30 which is good for a 10K race.

When we got home, while I worked on post race data needs Cindy got busy working on other to do’s around the house. When I finished up I helped her outside while the chickens mulled about.  Mid-afternoon we did a Home Depot/Rural King/Dunkin Donuts trip which was logistically sort of inefficient since we were going back the same direction a few hours later to go see Interstellar.

We expected the movie to be decently full, even at Coconut Point.  After all snowbird season has sort of started again and the movie was really being promoted.  Surprisingly the huge theater we were in was very sparsely populated.  That fact made it very annoying that a group of loud younger people decided to take root within 10 feet of us.  Once the movie started the talking died down but one girl in particular had her feet up on the chair in front of her (our row).  Periodically she would start shaking/bouncing her legs which would send tremors down the row of connected seats.  I sent two or three stink eye warning shots to try to curb the behavior.

The movie was long, very long, clicking in damn close to three hours in length.  For 85% of the movie I was totally on board, it was meaningful, visually epic, and cool.  However as the movie entered the home stretch things started to get a bit too weird/far fetched for my tastes.  (ever see 2001 Space Odyssey?) Of course I won’t go into detail but I am curious if others felt the same way as I did.  Even with the clunky finish I liked the rest of the movie enough to squeeze it into an A- rating.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I had talked about ambitious plans to do a bike/run/bike brick.  Those plans vanished when we slept in until an incredibly late (for us) 8:45 AM and awoke to a cold, wet drizzle outside.  The nasty weather lasted all day with rain of varying intensity and temps not escaping the 60’s.   Other than one small coffee/store run, Cindy and I spent most of the day inside.

I actually sort of enjoyed having to be forced indoors.  Other than a few must do tasks both Cindy and I did whatever we felt like doing independently.  For me that meant mostly playing some WoW while watching Blizzcon footage via my virtual ticket.  Blizzcon is a a conference held by Blizzard, the company that makes all the games I currently play including Hearthstone, World of Warcraft and Diablo.  It is a geekfest to the max.  The virtual ticket allows you to see EVERYTHING that went on if you chose to do so.  In my case I cherry picked stuff that interested me.  I still have a ton more of things I’d like to check out, luckily they give virtual ticket subscribers two weeks after the event to view the content.

For Cindy she liked using the indoor time to do stuff like organize, clean up and spend time in the kitchen preparing more of her stellar meals and deserts.

I have had a home equity loan on my house for almost 10 years.  I had received a letter from my credit union a month or so ago informing me that if I did not “renew” the loan I would no longer be able to take out money against it.  Evidently after 10 years this is a requirement.  My HELOC has been a nice thing to have over the last decade, allowing me to get access to money on demand without having to secure a new loan.  It has been used to build the pool, replace the ac system in the house, buy vehicles, and several other big ticket items over the years.  The idea of having that convenience taken away seemed inconvenient, enough so that I began the process of renewing the loan.  Well part of this would require me paying closing costs again as well as the cost of an appraisal.  Depending on the type of appraisal required the costs could approach $1000.   Even so, I was still considering doing it.

Well last week I described the scenario to Jeremy and asked him what he would do.  He felt like the closing costs were prohibitive considering the amount of money I would be getting access to.  I was already leaning this way but having Jeremy reaffirm that position cemented it.  In fact if anything I started getting angry at myself for even considering this in the first place.  I have a stellar credit score and have the numbers to be qualified as a great credit risk within any financial institutions guidelines.  Why in the world should I pay the credit union a dime for the privilege of loaning me money?  If I need money for something I am sure I will have no issue finding someone willing to loan it to me at a low rate, fck the CU.

This is an odd week.  I work today but am off tomorrow for Veterans Day before resuming the work week on Wednesday.  I don’t have definitive plans for Tuesday but I plan to exclusively do things that I want to do.

Oh yea, we watched Sex Tape last night.  I slept through a lot of it.  I’ll give it a B rating just because you get to see Cameron Diaz’s bare ass.