Garage timing, Boringland, Ending segregation, subtitles please
This weekend seemed to be over way, way too quick. On Saturday after weeding and a few other tasks I worked on setting up my test race in the front yard. This was the first time I set everything up in anything close to real world conditions and it was a learning experience for sure. I had my stop watch out to see how long it would take Cindy and I to set up a full 8 meters of mats, the maximum I would need to do for the start line of most races.
The design of the timing mats is quite different than the roll out mats Ipico uses. From a runners perspective the design is definitely better, The low profile, durable rubber mats will not present the same tripping hazard that the unavoidable wrinkles in the Ipico mats caused. In heavy foot traffic situations the Ipico mats would also have a tendency to slide, again causing tripping concerns. The interlocking design of the MyLaps mats combined with their grippy rubber bottoms should eliminate that problem.
From a time and set up perspective, the Ipico mats are much easier to deploy. Simply unroll and connect one set of connectors to the timing box per mat. The MyLaps mats are in shorter, 1 meter sections where the shortest Ipico mats are 2.5 meters in length so you need more MyLaps mats to cover the same distance. However the real time consumer comes in setting up the cables. Each mat has it’s own detachable cable that you have to connect at both ends. On the mat side after attaching the connector you have to route the cable in one of the 8 rubber channels under a flap in the mat, back to the timing box. If you are doing a full length of 8 meters this is not a quick process. It took two people almost 15 full minutes to get the mats in place, cables routed, and hooked to the timing box. For comparison sake I could do something similar with the Ipico system in probably 5 minutes.
Now to be fair this was the first time Cindy and I ever attempted this thus we surely were inefficient. It took some trial and error to figure out which cables needed to go into which channel to prevent problems. I am sure we will get faster at this process as time goes on but there is no doubt I need to allocate extra set up time for hardware set up at each race.
Once I got the start timing mats up Cindy strapped on 10 race bibs to simulate 10 runners. I gave her a ready set go and had her run across the mats. I then headed to my “finish line” which was a single mat in front of the garage. I worked on getting the finish line up and running which is made simpler due to the fact the MyLaps boxes automatically synch themselves to GPS time, not requiring me to synch them with my laptop which in turn was synched with my atomic watch.
Once I had the finish mat up and running I started walking the bibs across the finish line to simulate the finish. I had assigned the 10 bib numbers to various well known people of mine so it was funny to see the results posted which included the likes of Nicki, myself, Randall and even IronLoo (the virtual race winner). Importing the data into my timing software was not difficult at all. I like the fact that my timing data is absolutely safe on the MyLaps box. I can pull times off of it in real time or a week after the race if I wanted to.
Later on Cindy and I discovered another noteworthy issue with the rubber mats. By the time we took them apart the sun had moved enough that the mats were now receiving direct sunlight. They were BOILING hot, requiring me to grab my leather gloves to handle them. Of course this was around mid-day, in race situations which are early in the morning the mats should not be able to collect enough heat to simulate this issue, hopefully.
On Saturday while Cindy was outside doing a brief bar park workout I got on the pull up bar, curious if I still could do a muscle up, despite not doing any of them for at least 3-4 months and doing next to no training of the movement over the last couple years. Well I got my answer of yes, but if you watch the slo-mo video of it you will see two extremely sloppy reps.
Saturday night we decided to mix things up a bit. Yes we still saw a movie but we did it at Silverspot Cinema in Mercato. We really went crazy and had a meal at Mercato beforehand at Masa. We were able to do the date night on the cheap since we had gift cards from Christmas for both places.
The dinner at Masa was very enjoyable. The food was nothing short of fantastic. The two Budweisers I drank were more than enough to raise my somewhat droopy mood I was in, thanks to being somewhat dehydrated from a lot of work outside during the day. I was feeling stressed from two things. The first was the uncertainty of timing the upcoming July 4th race with the new hardware. Not having a smaller, real world race under my belt with the new equipment prior to jumping headfirst into a nearly 1000 person 5k is a bit worrisome.
My second stress item was the chickens, big surprise. I was worried about them integrating with Lucy and Lola and the long term care requirements our decision to have 13 chickens will present. It seems like the last 3-4 months have been chicken crazy, first with the construction of the housing quarters and next the challenges of raising 11 chicks. Now of course the VAST responsibility and workload for the chicks has been squarely on Cindy’s shoulders. We both feel the work that has been needed has far exceeded what we expected.
I find myself wondering if we will ever get to the point where the chicken care will simplify along with a gradual reduction in the amount of time required in their care. I know Cindy has had large blocks of each and every day gobbled up with chicken related items. I was worried that this pattern would continue, making us feel somewhat shackled and unable to what we want because having a big ball of feathers over our heads. Hopefully the integration, which started last night and I will cover more later is an important first step to more barnyard animal independence.
So the movie we saw was Tomorrowland, a film I had previously decided I would wait to see until it came out on Netflix. Since there were no other must see films out right now we decided to accelerate our viewing of the film. Well we could have waited. The pace of the film was rather slow. My eyes closed briefly a few times and Cindy reported she dosed off as well more than once. The coolest thing about the film was the big budget special effects. The movie was one big green peace message, something I support in the real world but did not make for a compelling storyline. If you are a regular Fox News watcher you would probably hate the film. To make matters worse it felt like somebody turned down the thermostat as the movie went on. By the end of it Cindy and were both chilled to the bone. Overall I’d rate the movie a B. Certainly there is no need to rush out to catch it in theaters.
Sunday was Father’s Day. When I walked out to the office I saw a plastic egg carton on my chair. It was all decorated with pieces of paper in each egg slot. Cindy can be very creative and thoughtful. Each piece of paper had a personal note from each chicken, appropriately written based on their personalities. The first one I happened to pull was for Kathy, whose paper had a little rainbow drawn on it. My eyes got blurry with tears for a few moments. The thoughtfulness of Cindy’s effort combined with thoughts of my mom was just very touching. I can say assuredly that this was the nicest, sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me on Father’s Day. The notes from the various chickens were quite funny. I especially liked Lucy’s “I love you but don’t touch me”
We got out early on the bikes for a DD ride, although I still dare not run with my cranky right wheel I needed to at least do something. Although I once again did not use a GPS for the ride we definitely picked up the pace. Cindy is considering doing a duathlon next month, in order to do so we need to crank the intensity level back up a few clicks. Once we got back Cindy almost immediately headed into the back yard to run 3 miles. I was sure to wave to her as I cooled off in the pool while splashing Sadie.
A large portion of Sunday was planning for an integration of the 11 chicks with Lucy and Lola. Cindy and I had somewhat of a role reversal on the subject. I was more worried about them being under one roof because Lucy was sort of terrorizing the 11 babies when they were enclosed in the run together, pecking the head/back of any that were near her. Although Cindy and I both know this is a normal part of integrating chicks, establishing pecking order, it still was upsetting. We certainly didn’t want any of the babies seriously injured.
After we dropped the dogs back off at Ali’s late afternoon we turned our attention back to the chicken integration. During the day the babies were out in the main run for a good portion of the day while Lucy and Lola free ranged. The chicks discovered the area underneath the deck platform. They seemed to enjoy the break it gave them from the brutal sun as well as the secure feeling they got with a low roof with a hardware cloth barrier.
As the sun started to set the chicks were getting very noisy and nervous, pacing back and forth in the run, expecting to be able to make their way back to the chicken tractor they have huddled in for the past several weeks at night. At first we thought the chicks might actually choose to just stay out in the run so we started putting in some accommodations for them to do that. However eventually a couple of the chicks went inside which is all that was needed to get most of the others to follow as chickens have a lot of lemming mentality. We had to stuff a couple stragglers in the coop but for the most part they all willingly went in there.
Getting them into the coop was only half the battle. Once inside a number of the chicks just started piling in the corners, not using the expansive and sturdy perch system we built last week. Cindy tried no less than a half dozen layouts to make things workable for the babies. After at least a half hour of futzing around she was able to get 5 or 6 of the chicks up on the perch with the rest hanging down below. Once we turned the lights off everyone seemed to settle down. When we woke up this morning and checked the web cam it appears everyone stayed put all night which was good. Cindy and I are hoping things improve from here and we can establish a less intrusive chicken maintenance pattern.
Last night we watched The Power of Everything, the movie about Stephen Hawking. I heard it was good and the lead actor was nominated for and I think won the Oscar for best actor award. Early on Cindy and I were struggling to make out the dialogue, I kept progressively turning the volume up on the surround system. Even before he was deeply symptomatic it was tough to understand. Later on in the movie they really could have used subtitles to help the audience make out what was being said. It was kind of annoying to be honest best guessing all the time about what was being said.
The movie did a good job depicting the incredible resiliency Stephen has demonstrated throughout his life as well as the massive toll it took on his family, especially his first wife. It is amazing he was told as a young man he had two years to live and when the movie was released he was now 72 years old. The actor who played Hawking, whom ironically came off as absolutely horrible in Jupiter Ascending, did an amazing job depicting the the physical aspects of Hawkings ailment.
Despite appropriately using the words “incredible” and “amazing” to describe the accomplishments of Stephen Hawking, overall the movie didn’t grab me all that much. Like I said, not being able to clearly understand large portions of the dialogue didn’t help matters. It’s a solid B rental for me.