Archives February 2015

Moving offices consumed all of my day yesterday and I am still not completely done.  The combination of logistics involved moving from an office much larger into a smaller space and having 15 years of accumulated crap in that bigger space made for a lot of work.  I threw out TONS of cables, cd’s, paperwork and other old tech that serves no useful purpose in 2015.

I actually changed into my gym clothes late in the morning and left them on the rest of the day.  Pushing heavy steel furniture around works up a sweat.  I also managed to draw blood during the process.  I was lifting up my heavy printer and did not have a balanced grip underneath it.  The add on paper tray came off which lead to the 75 pound printer falling out of my grasp.  My instinct was to try to break the fall of the printer using my leg.  In the course of doing so I had two large chunks of skin scraped off my knee.  It immediately started to bleed pretty badly.  I didn’t have time to bleed so I just messily taped a gauze pad over the knee and kept going.

My accommodations in the new windowed office are MUCH tighter than my old space but it is workable. The addition of a window to my everyday environment should make the more cramped quarters a big plus overall.  I still have a few straggling items left in the old office.  I then have to go in there and try to clean up 15 years of dust and dirt that was living underneath the old furniture.

Yesterday Cindy got some horrible news. Her sister in law had a brain aneurysm and her outlook is very grim.  I met her a couple times, including when she was over with her family to the house on Thanksgiving.  She seemed like a very nice person and devoted mother.  She is young, some 12 years younger than me, an age where you just are not giving any thought to this sort of scenario.  The fact that there are a total of four other children in the family makes the situation all the more tragic. Cindy went to the hospital after work.  Of course her kind heart is breaking for the family and she wants to do anything she can to help although it’s hard to know what exactly that is.

The news immediately brought me back to last August when my mom had a similar, unexpected downfall.  Of course Cindy’s sister in law’s age makes it seem even more improbable.  This is just another reminder for me that you never really know when your world is going to get flipped upside down so you should appreciate each happy and healthy day you have on this planet.

Yesterday my buddy and new boss at work asked me if I was interested in switching offices, leaving the largest but windowless office I have sat in for 15 years for a much smaller but windowed space around the corner.  Although my office is spacious, more so than I really need, I always hated the dungeon vibe since it has nothing but artificial light showering me.  Really the only hold back would be laziness, an unwillingness to go through the hassle of moving everything.  Luckily that is an affliction I don’t suffer from very often.

To facilitate the move I brought in a measuring tape and my furniture sliders.  My hope is to simply shuffle a lot of my current furniture to the new space intact to save time and hassle.  It’s time to get to work.

When I got home Monday night I saw my neighbor talking to the guy on the other side of him, something I never saw before.  When I got out of my truck he called over to me as well.  I walked over and asked him what was up?  He asked if I saw his truck parked outside that morning when I went to work.  I told him I don’t really know, I don’t recall taking notice one way or another.  He said his truck was stolen. What???

He pointed to the tire tracks in his yard that looks like they were left by something with dual wheels (tow truck or flat bed).  His 2005 full size Ford 4×4 was locked with no keys in it yet it was plucked clean from his property.  My neighbors theory is they winched it up onto a flat bed although I saw no drag marks on the driveway from pulling something that had locked wheels.   The area the truck was parked was directly under the street light that is next to their driveway, making the thieves act even more brazen and surprising.

Of course my first thought was of the Tacoma and party van, both of which are typically outside and unlocked.  As soon as I finished talking with my neighbor I immediately went over and locked both of them, a habit I will need to establish going forward.  Because of our location near the beginning of a relatively busy street I just never thought a criminal would pick the houses in that area as a target, something more secluded and less lit would make more sense.  This may have literally been a “gone in 60 seconds” scenario.  Both Cindy and my sense of security has been rattled a bit as a result.

So I worked from home yesterday to accommodate the appointment I had to have the house professionally measured for potential carpet installation.  It was one of those deals where they give you a window of arrival times.  Since I can do the vast majority of my job anywhere that has an internet connection it worked out well.

For whatever reason I expected the guy that did the measuring to be a carpet installer as well.  Well that certainly was not the case, he basically knew nothing about carpet installation.  His skill set involved using a measuring tape and inputting those measurements into an iPad.  I asked him 4 or 5 questions regarding the installation and gave up after getting a “I don’t really know” as the answer each time.

By the time the guy finished he had a virtual blue print of the house floor plan on the tablet.  He said I will have a precise estimate by sometime today.  I found this funny since Cindy and I have not even decided what we are putting on the ground yet.  I can only be sure that it isn’t going to be something that is going to cost nearly $5 a square foot for just the carpet, not counting the pad.

Yesterday I went into the small shed to see if I still had the box for the tile that is installed in the kitchen, utility room and one bathroom.  I actually had one unopened box left over.  I was rolling around ideas that if I could find more of the same tile, the main living area could be tiled with the bedrooms just getting fresh rug.  However the fact that I got that tile some 12 years ago on clearance from Home Depot makes the possibility of scoring that exact type very, very remote.

Yesterday I did a backyard lunch workout that involved pull ups and my 300 pound tire.  My production of exercise themed videos has slowed to a dribble the last few months.  Producing two in one day is unheard of anymore. I also created a short, “Meet the new chickens” video to boot.

A little before 5 I headed outside to get the long section of the pool border covered in weed block.  I let the chickens out while I was out there which they greatly appreciated.  When they first are let out of the coop they act like it is a jailbreak, sprinting, jumping and flapping their wings as they head for their favorite hang out spot under the birds of paradise.  This moment is almost always followed up with Nona, the bully of the group starting a fight with either Curly or Kathy.  Evidently the chicken pecking order with the four of them is still getting sorted out.

After about an hour of work I had the long section covered, leaving only the 20 feet or so on the far side to go.  If I am feeling ambitious I might have the rest of the project completed by the end of the upcoming weekend.

Friday after work I was running around like a mad man trying to get my triple headed grocery monster tamed.  First stop was the dreaded Costco where the relentless rude mobs of customers suck every ounce of enjoyment out of shopping there.  However my need for Costco pizza to pull off a successful Friday night pizza party made the trip unavoidable.

I was picking up the dogs on my way home as well so to avoid back tracking I decided to stop at a Publix other than my normal stomping grounds.  Well that decision of course opened up a Pandoras box of frustration as I didn’t know where shit was, requiring me to go up and down most aisles.  Since I was trying to rush, snaking around the dozens of aisle clogging old people was more aggravating than normal.

The last stop was Sam’s where I needed Mexican Coke and a few other items.  By the time I was finished I had Cindy’s passenger seat stuffed with groceries.  I only put limited items in the folded down back seat since I needed to keep room for Nicki and Sadie.  By the time I got the girls they were surrounded by grocery items.  Sadie was disappointed that the front seat she normally likes to occupy was taken.  When I got home Cindy asked what took me so long which I am sure I responded with a WTF face to.

As is customary when the dogs are over, Sadie started trying to wake me up as soon as a trace of daylight was in the bedroom window Saturday morning. When we got out the lanai door I was surprised to see ANOTHER racoon was in the trap, the smallest one yet.  Sadie somehow did not see it and ran right past the trap.  When she did see it of course she was interested and came storming over.  The raccoon greeted her curiosity with a hiss and a swipe although it landed against the inside of the wire cage.  Sadie’s hair on her back stood up and she started growling back at the raccoon.  I had her go back inside before things got out of hand.

So my first task of the morning was taking this little racoon to the same spot at the sanctuary to release him.  He genuinely looked scared and I did nothing to exasperate his fear, I handled the trap gently and waited patiently before he made a dash out of the opened door.  I hoped he managed to find the other raccoons I released if they were indeed part of the family.

When I got back the first outdoor tasks involved undoing the substantial frost prep I had done on Thursday night.  It appears that despite temps only 3-4 degrees above freezing the landscape has escaped pretty much unscathed which I was happy about.  While we were working outside I told Cindy I wanted to let the chickens out.  The dogs hadn’t acted any differently towards the new chickens than they did to the old ones but Cindy was nervous about letting them out to mingle.  I had more confidence in Sadie behaving herself so I let the birds out.  As I hoped the dogs acted just fine with Sadie ignoring the chicks and Nicki slowly “chasing” them around the yard from time to time.

We then piled everyone in the van to run some errands, the biggest of which was a stop at Home Depot.  We first went to the customer service desk.  Cindy had her DD214 with her that proves her military service, she was told previously that if she presents that at a store they can add her phone number to a database so she automatically gets the veteran 10% discount.  The guy we were talking with was not familiar with the program so he asked another woman that was next to him.  The woman assumed a bitchy disposition when she pointed to a piece of paper that had the rules for the discount.  Evidently you need a special ID card to get the full time military discount.  The DD214 is only valid on certain holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, 4th of July etc…  It was good to get the information but neither Cindy or I appreciated that the woman took a stance almost like we were trying to scam the system, nasty bitch.  The guy that helped us originally apologized, it seemed that he caught the bitch vibe as well.

Our next stop was in the carpeting department.  For quite a few years I have had replacing the carpet in the house on my peripheral of to do’s.  The carpet in there is in decent shape thanks to tireless robotic vacuuming and semi-regular shampooing but it needs to come out.  It’s the 14 year old builder grade carpet, which like many things in the house, was not high quality.  The only saving grace was we got the thicker 1/2″ pad which helped make up for the so so carpet.  Since I had my tax refund in the bank I thought it would be a good time to get some numbers on replacing the rug.

Cindy suggested that a hard surface in the main living area might be cool since it is the highest traffic area.  I agree it might be cool but I think my only option would be hardwood flooring since I have tile in the kitchen already.  I assume having two different types of tile would look pretty stupid.  I already know my foundation is far from flat from the issues I had installing tile where I did so I don’t know what sort of challenge that would present doing something like hardwood or laminate.  I also don’t know if I would like that huge open space with a hard surface. If I got carpet I was going to get the good stuff obviously backed up again with thick high quality 1/2″ padding.  Cindy suggested a mixed color rug, containing the various colors in the house, tans, whites, blacks, grays would be neat and also help hide stains.

It didn’t take long for Cindy and I to see a sample we liked.  It was part of HD’s “Platinum Plus” carpet which has extreme stain resistance and a 25 year wear warranty which is pretty impressive.  The price for this sample on the board listed at something like $3.69 a square foot.  So doing some quick math in my head using the floor layout I had with me from when the house was built which showed roughly 1200-1300 of carpeted surface, I figured I am well below 5k.  Pricey for sure but worth it for high quality carpet. Home Depot had a promotion that free BASIC installation was included for any purchase over $1500 so I figured that would help save me significant money as well.

We were helped by a woman in the department who sat down with me to run some numbers and in the process deliver me a huge surge of sticker shock.  There were some things I was not considering in my mental number and other things I just did not expect.  For some reason I did not factor in the padding which at 89 cents a square foot for the good stuff adds well over $1000 to the price. I also quickly found out the the basic install is basically a joke.  More or less if you gut the carpet and move all of the furniture yourself then the install is free.

When our old neighbors had their flooring replaced the crew ripped out the old carpet and moved the furniture around on a room by room basis to get the work done.  Sure Home Depot will do that for you if you want, they will just charge you a bunch of money extra for it.  Plus they have all these stupid guidelines, for example, if they move less than 6 furniture items per room it is one cost but if they move more than 6 it is more, charging for removal based on square footage and other nickel and dime shit I found annoying.

So after a lot of data entry the woman handed me the estimate which she said she figured high.  Part of the process was scheduling (and paying for) a professional measurement that would determine the final quote.  I glanced at the total dollar amount and tried to not react with violent nausea all over the woman’s desk.  The quote was over $9000.  Cindy was off looking at back splash tile when I was handed the quote so she didn’t know the number until I handed it to her as we walked around.  She thought it was outrageous as well.  As we looked at the quote in more detail later Cindy noticed that the woman listed the carpet we liked as being something like $4.69 a square foot, a full dollar more than what was posted.

So at this point my game plan is to get the $35 professional measurement and then use it as a tool to shop around for a more reasonable quote.  Sure I expected the Home Depot number to be somewhat inflated due to the additional layer of profit taking inserted between them and the installer but $9000 to me just seemed outrageous to carpet 1300 square feet of household.

After the carpet sticker shock our final stop in the store was the outdoor garden section where we picked up 18 castle wall blocks as well as 10 bags of rubber mulch to start the pool border renovation project.  I had already picked up 220 feet of commercial grade weed block at Costco on Friday for the project.

The castle block was to be put around the border of the small pond.  I had some shitty looking plastic fence around there that I wanted to get rid of for awhile.  I needed something solid and heavy to prevent the chickens from kicking mulch into the pond, something the old chickens were quite adept at.  The new border looked better and should perform better as a barrier to pond debris.

I also finally got motivated to fix the blocks around the palm trees/bird of paradise that are in front of the cage.  When I installed the block over 10 years ago I was a novice and had them on the ground upside down, with their alignment line upward.  I didn’t realize I had them upside down until 5 years later.  For whatever reason it took me another 5 years to actually fix it.

From years of dogs running around this area and more recently chickens digging in the same vicinity most of the blocks were totally buried.  I used the post bar to pop each one out and them used a shovel to loosen and level the dirt so I would have a clearly defined border once again.  When I placed the old blocks back on the ground I expanded outward slightly to accommodate the tremendous growth of the birds of paradise over the last decade.

The chickens seemed to appreciate the new higher wall to their playpen.  They seemed more secure and content to be nestled in the plants with the blocks on higher ground.  The chickens free ranging playtime was cut short when the damn hawk flew overhead screeching away.  I quickly herded the chicks back to to the safety of their coop and run.

The final part of my Saturday outdoor work was covering the shortest leg of the patio border with weed block and rubber mulch.  The work wasn’t overly difficult except for the toll it takes on my knees.  Crawling on all fours is an activity that I just can not do for extended periods of time anymore.  I really liked the end result of the block/mulch.  I LOVE that when I am done, it will require next to no maintenance and the chickens will no longer be able to fling mulch dust against the pool cage.

On Saturday night Cindy and I went out to see Kingsman, a flick based on a comic book series I never heard of involving British super spies.  I really did not know what to expect but from the previews it looked like a decent action film.  It turned out to be a decent action film with some funny and totally random moments I did not expect.

The cinematography of the action portions of the movie were shot in a very cool manner, in a somewhat Matrixy sort of way.  There also was a lot of in your face and pretty gross carnage but somehow it managed to remain cartoon-like as to not become overly realistic.  Some of the violence was downright hysterical at times and the very loud and unexpected mention of a sexual act into the middle of the action brought both gasps and laughs from the audience, depending on your moral compass.  I found the movie entertaining once Cindy brought me a soda to help wake me up from the initial drowsiness I was suffering from.  I’d give it a strong B+, I don’t know that Cindy would say the same.

Sunday morning we opted for a ride instead of a run as my right knee was feeling swollen from the work on my knees the day before.  We did the Dunkin Donut ride instead.  Early on Cindy was doing a lot of complaining about the temperature even though it was around 65 degrees, considerably warmer than the last ride we did.  Evidently she didn’t dress as heavily for Sundays ride.  I was in my normal bike outfit and felt a little cool early but fine once we had a few miles in.

We held a pace of nearly 21 mph during the long traffic light free portion of the ride.  I figured on the ride back we would pay the price with a bad headwind.  Lucky for us the wind was more of a crosswind heading east and allowed Cindy, who lead the entire way back, to hold 18+ mph for most of the 10 miles.  Overall we averaged 18.8mph for the ride, equaling what Randall and I pulled off a few weeks prior, impressive.

On Saturday Cindy had given Nicki a much needed haircut with the electric pet shaver.  On Sunday after the ride she gave both of the dogs much needed baths as a follow up.  We did something different, abandoning the normal tub bathing for a driveway session using the hose.  I was worried that it would be too cold for them but they didn’t really seem to mind.  Nicki especially seems to like the personal spa sessions with Cindy.

Over the weekend Cindy and I digested portions of the SNL 40 year special in small chunks.  I have to say as a whole I was disappointed.  Here are some of my questions/observations:

– The show was filled with montages of old clips but each clip was cut too short to get much out of any of them.

– the Kanye West performance was stupid and got FF’d

– is it me or can Paul McCartney not sing anymore? His voice sounded really rough.

– What did Paul Simon do to his face?  I can’t tell if it was plastic surgery, botox or both?

– Why were most of the actual live skits they did so weak?

– WTF is Eddie Murphy’s problem?  You couldn’t participate in one skit or say one funny thing after Chris Rock gave you a sickeningly over the top ass kissing intro?

– Miley Cyrus’s new hair is not flattering.  She can actually sing a little bit but she got FF’d as well after 60 seconds or so.

– Holy shit did Chevy Chase get fat.  It made me sad to see him that way, sincerely. Cindy didn’t recognize him.

So anyway like I said, as a whole I thought the special was disappointing although it was cool to see so many talented and funny people in one room together.  I just expected a lot more laughs.

The rest of my Sunday was mostly just chilling out virtually in WoW which I really enjoyed.  Cindy had her own stuff to do so it worked out well.  After feeding the dogs dinner I took them home.  Once again Ali was not home and once again I felt guilt as I saw the dogs sad faces being left with nothing but a radio to keep them company.

This morning I was not happy to see ANOTHER raccoon had become a live trap resident.  This one appeared to be an adult female as Cindy saw her nipples as she hung sideways on the cage.  Knowing this was a female bothered me as I had no way of knowing if she had babies somewhere waiting for her to return.   She also was the least aggressive of the four raccoons I have caught.  There was not a single hiss or strike the entire time I was handling the cage.  I left the house early to give me time to release the animal where the other three have been relocated.  I hope they are all part of the same family and wind up reuniting at some point.

Part of the reason the raccoons are visiting the yard has nothing to do with the chickens.  They come to scavenge the seed from the bird feeders.  For years I have had low feeders randomly knocked to the ground which I now am sure is a raccoons handiwork.  If I wanted to discourage more from showing up I could relocate or remove the feeders, a step I have not taken because we both enjoy seeing the birds hang out in the yard through the back windows of the house.  I may have to give up that pleasure unless I want to take up live animal trapping as a second profession.

I spent over an hour and a half after work covering what I could in the landscape.  The strong winds that were leading the cold front made the task extra challenging and frustrating.  The garden was covered with fabric that is normally used to line the ground underneath a pond liner.  I then hold the fabric down with a combination of olympic weight plates, wood, tools, bricks, and anything else laying around that weighs a few pounds. The plants along the pool mostly were wrapped individually with standard frost cloth with more heavy objects and staples to keep it in place.

I had the chickens out the entire time I was working.  They are definitely getting more comfortable around me, not flinching when I am close by and even following me around at times.  Curly is the most inquisitive chicken right now, she will follow me almost anywhere, hoping I will drop a treat.

Getting the chickens back into the coop area when I was finished took some patience.  I got three of the four back in with a cracked corn bribe but Lola, the smallest and presumably youngest chicken was off doing her own thing.  I slowly herded her towards the coop but had to complete at least a half dozen circles until I was able to scoop her up and put her inside.  I try to make sure I don’t CHASE the chickens as I don’t want to make them scared of me.  When they go back in I always make sure they are rewarded, just like you do with a dog when it behaves well.

So after completing the outdoor cold prep it was time to work on the reverse osmosis leaking issue.  After a lot of futzing around I was able to get the head unit loose so I could take a look at it.  What I saw was a lot of nastiness and scuzz where the hoses go into the faucet.  I then started to weigh trying to clean/fix the leak versus just pulling the damn system out.  Although it has worked well for me over the years, the cartridges are very expensive and I don’t know that the water comes out tasting any better or being any cleaner than a Brita pitcher.  The reverse osmosois holding tank is enclosed, after 6-7 years of service I can only imagine what the inside of it looks like.

I hopped on Amazon and priced out a Brita pitcher which was less than $25.  I then conferred with Cindy, asking if she had any problem with me just ripping out the RO system and using a simple Brita pitcher for our water needs.  She didn’t care at all, in fact she used to have a Brita pitcher when she lived by herself and liked it.  So out came the scissors.  I cut the main feed and drain line and pulled the head unit out.  I then yanked the big holding tank and filter assembly out as well and lugged it all to the garage.  I plan to deposit it all by the curb for one of the local scavengers to snap up.

I had to do some reconfiguring of stuff under the sink, namely the water line that feeds the fridge which used to be tied into the RO system.  At first I was worried I did not have the right combination of fittings to make it all work but by repurposing some of the stuff I cut out I was able to make it work.   The RO removal opened up a lot of extra room under the sink as well as allowing us to clean up and throw out items in there that were no longer needed.

I hopped on Amazon and ordered the 10 cup Brita pitcher.  If that proves to be inadequate for our water needs they also have a large 18 cup reservoir that would get the job done.  Of course the level of filtration a carbon activated system like the Brita uses is not as extensive as RO but I really don’t think we will be able to tell the difference since even water straight out of the tap isn’t bad.

I am picking up the dogs on the way home tonight for an all weekend sleepover visit.  It will be the first time the dogs get to see the new chickens.  We will have to start the familiarization/trust process all over again.  I’d also like to start phase 2 of the 3 phase pool border project which would be recovering the area in weed block cloth so that it can then be later covered in rubber mulch.  Other than that, normal weekend guidelines are in place.

Well it looks like tonight will be a busy one.  First I need to once again do the best I can to cover the landscape to protect it from some very cold air, which in our area could be hovering right around the freezing mark.  That is cold enough to cause all sorts of carnage in the yard.  I’m already writing off the banana trees which will once again brown, die off and reemerge in a few weeks.  The areca palms are another annoying casualty when it gets this cold.  Their outer fronds will all die and turn brown, requiring a labor intensive clean up afterward.  My main concern is the garden and the plants along the pool.  Hopefully I can get frost cloth over everything.

Of course we will be doing our best to protect the chickens from the cold as well.  The ramp being up and covering the coop in old comforters hopefully will keep the chicks ok.  The chickens provide their own insulation when the temps get cold by piling on top of each other.

Now of course complaining about temps around 32 degrees seems ridiculous to my friends/family that live in the northeast where the highs for the day barely reach double digits along with snow storms that seem to be one after the other.   Thankfully this cold streak will be short lived.  By Sunday the forecast high is all the way back up into the low 80’s.

The other task for tonight will be pulling off the reverse osmosis faucet.  It has developed some sort of leak that needs to be addressed.  My futzing around with it this morning actually caused a drip under the sink as well.  Working on it is going to be a pain in the ass because of the deep tub sink we have in the kitchen island.  I have limited space to work and limited plumbing expertise to back it up.  The RO system uses those pressure/push fittings instead of good old fashioned brass fixtures with nuts.  I find these pressure fittings problematic if you ever have to touch them once they are installed.

I forgot to mention that for the last week Cindy and I have been participating in the Neilsen tv survey program.  I got a call a few weeks ago asking me if I wanted to participate and I said sure, I was curious what it would be like.  Early last week I got my kit in the mail along with my five one dollar bills, the standard rate for doing the survey.  I have to say I was quite surprised just how low tech this process is.

You are sent one log for each tv in the house.  Each log has a number of questions regarding your tv service in the front.  It also includes detailed instructions of how to fill out the log.  The log is broken into 15 minute increments.  For any tv that you watch you need to record the station call letters, the channel, the program name, and if you are watching on a dvr, the original air date and time.  You then draw a line downward to cover the 15 minute blocks of time you were viewing tv.  This gets logged for every person in the household, luckily Cindy and I normally are watching shows together so we can just duplicate the scribbled lines.

The process gets very annoying very quickly.  I just can’t believe that Nielsen has not found a more efficient way to track tv viewing numbers with the wonders of technology in 2015.  Our one week enlistment ends tomorrow, I won’t be reupping for another tour.

Last night I got in a little WoW time with my suddenly powerful and menacing death knight.  I was playing a map where my role was to guard a tower from being attacked by horde players.  I was at the top of the tower, some three stories high.  A horde player came rushing in and started to engage me but quickly realized I was beating the hell out of him.  He decides to run for it and jumps off the tower to escape my wrath.   I use my “death grip” ability which is basically like a tractor beam, pulling the enemy player off the ground and back up to me where I promptly finish him off.   I was laughing out loud as I did this, it was just so fun.  Cindy was in the office laughing at my laughing.

I am really having a good time with my new found superpowers.  Hopefully tonight I will have some time to strike more fear in the hearts of enemy faction players.

So this morning when Cindy went out to do chicken maintenance she reported that we have a new resident in the live trap, a possum.  At first I did not consider the possum a chicken threat but Cindy sent me a link later that confirmed they too are poultry predators although not as dexterous or creative as a raccoon.  The possum was not quite as aggressive as the raccoons with me.  It hissed and showed it’s very sharp teeth but it did not strike at me as I carried the cage to the truck. Before work I relocated him near the Bird Rookery Swamp area.  He was probably the most problematic of the three animals to get out of the live trap.  He wound up backing out of it ass first.

So the possum is added to the raccoon and hawk as current chicken predators on our property.  Speaking of the hawk, it was back last night sitting on the fence post confirming that I didn’t injure the bird seriously and that the bird can’t take a hint.

So yesterday pretty much went as I hoped.  I worked on various minor to do’s for the first half of the day, with things like doing laundry, paying the bills and washing the SSR, well I ran it through a touch free car wash and then dried it by hand.  During the rest of the day I chilled, playing a bunch of WoW and just unplugging from most real thought.

Later in the afternoon I wanted to let the chickens out for a bit while I moved their coop.  As soon as I stepped out back I saw the hawk that has been hanging around sitting on one of the posts of the fence.  I grabbed the bb gun and fired another warning shot by him.  The hawk flew off the fence but repositioned himself on top of the electric pole on the far side of the neighbors house.  He was probably 100 yards or more away but still obviously watching the yard.

Well I still didn’t feel comfortable leaving the chickens out with the hawk there so I pumped up the air rifle again.  Like I said the pole was on the far side of the house so only a small portion of it was in view over the roof line with the hawk perched on top.  My hope was to hit the pole to scare the predator away once again.  The sight on the air rifle is not very accurate at all, you have to aim right of your target.  Since the bird/pole was so far away I aimed a little high, figuring the bb would drop somewhat over the 300 plus feet it had to travel.

I steadied the gun and pulled the trigger, about a half second after the pop of air was the sound of a second impact followed by the hawk flinching and then diving off of the pole.  I think I actually hit him.  Instantly a wave of guilt washed over me.  I didn’t want to hit or hurt the bird, just scare him off.   Immediately I put down the rifle and walked across the neighbors yard and into the open lot next to them where it looked like the hawk flew down to.  I was hoping I didn’t see the bird on the ground injured or even dead.  I went in the field two separate times, increasing the search radius the second time.  I did not see or hear anything so I am crossing my fingers the bird just got a little stinging reminder to steer clear of the yard and our chickens.

One of the things I did while I was in WoW yesterday was to set up and configure an add in that makes it easier to fight in game.  Basically it takes most of your abilities and creates a macro that fires them off sequentially and repeatedly in  way that maximizes your power.  After doing this I went into a bunch of PvP (player versus player) battlegrounds, an area of the game I am notoriously poor at, and proceeded to kick ass and take names.

My blood specced death knight was a holy terror, dropping enemies left and right.  I was consistently one of the top offensive players in every game I played. I was so used to getting my ass handed to me anytime I did PvP, this felt amazing.  Having opposing players scramble to get away from me only to get death gripped back into my lethal range was just tons of fun.    This was the equivalent of the 98 pound weakling suddenly being able to bench press 400 pounds.

Anyway, I will be using a similar strategy to make my other characters equally lethal.  I just hope I can find some free time here and there to enjoy it.

On Friday I left work early to get a head start on covering up the property from the cold air which was predicted to drop into the 30’s in our part of town.  My prep is less extensive than it used to be, I basically just cover the garden and move anything that is in a pot inside the shed.  Cold prep also means we move the chicken coop as close to the house as possible as well as covering it up with some old comforters to block cold air.  It turned out it didn’t get cold enough to do damage but it was good insurance anyway.

The 39 degree air Saturday morning did make it challenging to time the 5K.  Cindy and I both bundled up majorly for the event.  I had 4 layers on up top.  The race was very small, not even cracking 200 participants.  Timing the event for me went pretty much flawlessly.  The only issue I had was one older guy that crossed the line with a dead chip later in the race that I caught immediately.

The race did have one wart.  The course is a simple out and back.  Well the turnaround point was misplaced which made the course nearly 2 tenths of a mile long, that’s pretty bad.  Course measurement is beyond the scope of my responsibility however.  In the past I would have probably made a bigger fuss about it, as an accurate course is one of the basic fundamentals of putting on a race.  However nowadays I keep my concerns more focused on the areas I have direct control over and responsibility for. Cindy and I rolled out of there by a little after 9:30 and were home by a little after 10.  Much like the race itself, the post race work at home was nice and tidy, things were back to normal before we ate lunch.

Saturday afternoon we worked around the house, undoing most of the cold prep I had done the day before as well as a number of smaller to do’s.  It was Valentine’s Day after all so we didn’t want to make the labor too exhaustive, although Cindy decided that she needed to do some weight work and back yard sprints just for fun at one point.

Before we went out to dinner we exchanged our small presents.  Our big present was the iPad Air that we both will get use out of.  Cindy got me some special half gloves that are specifically designed to protect the hands from getting ripped up during bar work.  Last week my hands were hamburger from two callouses that tore open. I got Cindy a cute little necklace of two giraffes with their necks wrapped around each other in a cute way.  One has small black diamonds (me) and the other has small white diamonds (Cindy).  It just seemed like a good depiction of our relationship.

I had suggested something that may have sounded borderline insane for dinner, Carrabbas.  Surely the place would be just mauled with people on a Valentine’s Day that fell on a Saturday night.  Our plan was to go earlier to perhaps lessen the blow.  Even if it was a mob scene I was prepared to just drink beer and people watch until we got a table.

So we pulled in shortly before 6PM and were handed a buzzer with an estimated wait time of 90 minutes.  Now normally this would scare me off but like I said we were prepared for a big number.  We made our way over to the bar area and ordered some drinks.  The new layout of the restaurant has made standing around the bar pretty inconvenient.  There just isn’t room to do it with the long bar seating tables wedged in there now.  There really is no good area to just stand around in and drink.  Ironically this wound up working in our favor.

Cindy spotted two ladies at the bar getting up to leave.  Since there was no room for anyone to stand near by that meant we had a clear shot to snagging those two chairs which we did.  Neither Cindy or I minded eating at the bar.  I handed my buzzer back in to the hostess, feeling like we just gamed the system, 90 minutes turned into 9 minutes.  We had a perfectly enjoyable meal at the bar, the three female bartenders were all very personable.  We were out of there by 7:30 and on our way back home.  Instead of going to the movies we thought we could watch John Wick, which I had waiting in the Netflix envelope.

The movie wasn’t quite what I expected.  Sure I figured it was Keanu kicking ass and taking names but it got a little nuts.  By the end of it I realized that John Wick may have just knocked Commando off the throne as the most bad guys killed by a single person in a movie category.  It was like singing Old McDonald substituting “head shot” with any animal reference in the song.  It was literally a head shot here, a head shot there, a head shot everywhere.  Now thankfully they didn’t make the head shots overly graphic or dramatic, for the most part it was just CGI blood.  Still, I thought it was a little nuts.  The movie was a solid revenge themed action flick but I can’t go any higher than a B+ on this one.

Sunday morning it was once again brisk but a few degrees warmer than Saturday.  I talked Cindy into braving the cold to do the roughly 5.5 mile “track and back” run where we run from the house to the middle school track, do one lap, and return the way we came.  We both had on long sleeve shirts when we started and both took them off at the half way water stop.  I personally love running in temps around 50 degrees.  Cindy likes it warmer but she did ok anyway.  This was the first time I tried the T and B since my various knee, calf and groin problems I have dealt with for the last couple weeks.  I was happy to be able to complete the run feeling pretty good and doing so at a pace 10 seconds a mile faster than the last time.

We had some errands to go run which we did in the top down glory of the SSR.  One of those stops was Rural King for the second week in  a row.  For the second week in a row they had baby chicks there and for the second week in a row Cindy was seriously considering adopting some of them.  Once again we were able to resist the temptation and left there with just supplies for the four chickens we already have.

Cindy’s daughter and her boyfriend stopped out a little after lunch time.  They were coming to borrow the Tacoma to pick up a table.  Both Katie and Daniel have stopped smoking for the last month and a half which Cindy and I were both very happy to hear.  I also got to check out Daniel’s new 2005 350Z he just picked up.  It’s a sharp set of wheels, maybe a little too sharp for an 18 year old, hopefully he doesn’t get in trouble with it.

Sunday afternoon I decided to begin what I knew was going to be an unpleasant task, stripping out most of the mulch around the pool deck area.  My intentions were to pull out the old mulch and the old weed block beneath it.  I would then later lay down fresh block and recover the area with the shredded tire mulch that lasts forever and will not cause mulch dirt to get spread on the pool deck if the chickens dig in it.  Well this task was very labor intensive.

Normally Cindy would be right in there with me digging and carting but her lower body was very sore from the weight work on Saturday followed up with Sunday’s run.  That left me as the sole pack mule.  The mulch removal process was slow, dirty and aggravating.  I would try to grab the edge of the weed block and pull it up to allow the mulch to pile up, making it easier to shovel into the yard cart.  Each time I would fill the cart I would drag it to either the orchard or a low spot next to the garden to dump it for repurposing.  It just got to be a lot of labor.

The process was complicated by things that were buried in the mulch like long, steel cable like roots, and the old drip irrigation hose system that I used before I installed the sprinkler system.  It all had to get ripped out.  During this process I discovered that the 14 foot high cactus by the one door has INCREDIBLY long roots, some extending at least 50 FEET from the cactus.  It was pretty incredible.

As I was outside I had the chickens out of their coop as well.  However I also kept an eye on the sky.  Over the weekend Cindy and I noticed a hawk perched in the backyard with a clear eye on the birds.  It’s bad enough to have to deal with raccoons waging a ground assault on the birds, now we also have to watch for aerial attacks as well.  I had my Crossman air rifle out there with me and actually took a shot at the hawk as it was in the tree to scare it off.  I didn’t aim for the bird of course, just close enough for it to get the idea it wasn’t welcome.

The chickens loved being able to roam about although they spent most of their time nestled deep inside the one bed area, giving themselves dirt baths.  It seems clear that they are getting more used to us and don’t see us as threats.

We finished up outside around 6PM.  I was BEAT and running on fumes.  The rest of the night we relaxed and took in another “Better Call Saul” episode, the Breaking Bad spinoff.  I am quite pleased that so far the spin off seems to have a good taste of the flavor that made Breaking Bad so interesting.

Today I am enjoying my government holiday.  I hope to only have a small dose of chores/work mixed in with a big glass of just chilling.

Yesterday at work I got inspired to clean some shit up.  Once every few years I get disgusted with the clutter that accumulates in my office and I do a massive purge, yesterday was one of those times.    I went around the office filling various trash cans with mountains of stuff that at one point I deemed valuable but no longer have a use for.  This included hundreds of old cd’s, disks, as well as a bunch of outdated training and reference material.  After I got rid of shit I followed up with a much needed detail cleaning where I wiped down the 25 feet of total desk space that was dusty and gross.  The cleaning lady came through this morning with the vacuum cleaner, completing the task.  This morning my workspace felt fresh and new.

Cindy and I were happy to see Nona acting normally last night after a full day in the coop with the other three birds.  Cindy was not happy when she got home and saw I had all 4 birds roaming freely around the back yard.  When I let them out you could tell the chickens were confused, like they didn’t know how to react to having no immediate barriers in front of them.  Cindy said they were too little to be out of the coop.  I told her we weren’t letting them roam unsupervised.  She was also concerned about getting them back into the coop, that was a more of a challenge.

It was getting dark so we wanted to get the birds back in. Doing so took some patience, cracked corn bribery and gentle herding.  We don’t want to scare the chickens back into their coop, we want them to know when they go in there rewards are waiting, something Betty, Wilma and Pebbles knew well.  Cindy picked up and carried Nona back to the coop.  The other three we slowly guided around the coop perimeter before they eventually stepped back inside.

So when I stepped out into the chilly morning air I was surprised to see that my live trap had a new resident, ANOTHER raccoon.  This guy was much smaller than the animal I caught Tuesday night, I quickly guessed this could have been one of the “kids”.  It looked scared but as soon as I rolled the cage upright it hissed and carried on just like it’s bigger relative.

Well I had to quickly grab my raccoon relocation gear as I had not anticipated catching another one so soon.  This time I used the Tacoma, putting the trap in the bed in front of my cargo bar so it wouldn’t slide around the back.  Despite the raccoons treacherous intentions towards my birds I just can’t find a shred of enjoyment or pleasure out of making it suffer.

I took him to the exact same spot as the first for release.  The smaller coon was more reluctant to leave the trap once I opened the door, I had to tap and shake cage quite a few times before he scurried out.  I pulled out wondering if he would somehow find his “mom” if that was actually who I caught Tuesday.  Obviously I will continue to arm the trap each and every night from this point forward.  It’s cheap chicken insurance.

We have a small 5K to time tomorrow morning.  The timing portion of the event should be pretty simple, the worst part of it will be dealing with the frigid for Florida temps that may dip into the upper 30’s over night.  I will be sure to overdress for the occasion. I have one of those awesome government 3 day weekends since the office is closed for President’s Day.  Not much framework for it has been established yet but it should be a good 72 hours.