Archives July 2015

Last night the woman and her son that we hoped could be our chicken caretakers stopped by.  They live less than 5 miles away so that is a nice plus.  It took very little time to figure out that they were good people that were worthy of trust.  We gave them an introduction and tour of the grounds.  They both were impressed with our backyard and specifically the chicken accommodations.  You could tell Alex found the chickens interesting.  He even held a couple of them.  It seems like they are on board with being our animal support team for two weeks although there are some details to work out, for example we didn’t even talk about money.  I have a figure in my head as to what I am willing to pay, hopefully it jives with what they feel it is worth.  Cindy will be the primary liaison in getting those details handled.

My second shipment of Hue bulbs arrived yesterday as well as of the LED strip lights designed to mounted up under a cabinet or ledge.  When the Hue system is tied to the Echo and the incredible power of IFTTT you open up a Pandora’s box of possibilities.  I am just starting to scratch the surface of what I can do.

So when I get home today there could be three less animals at the house.  Ali is supposed to be picking up Nicki and Sadie during the afternoon.  There is also a possibility that a woman that Cindy is friendly with at the local Dunkin Donuts might be interested in adopting Jaina and could pick her up as early as today.  If the Jaina rehoming works out it would greatly simplify chicken care.  Tonight a woman Cindy knows and her son are stopping by to talk about the possibility of the son being our chicken sitter during our September road trip.

I am feeling generally irritated right now and not very interested in typing out the various reasons.  It’s been going on for awhile.  I do have a path to escaping the source of some of the irritant.  I just need to start walking down it.

Most of the complications we are currently dealing with in chicken world revolve around Jaina.  Jaina eating constantly, Jaina making more manure than a horse, Jaina getting disgustingly dirty since she can’t perch, Jaina wandering the coop at night. Jaina, Jaina Jaina….   Well now we have a new Jaina issue, she may be a rooster.

This morning Cindy caught Jaina crowing on tape in a very rooster-esque fashion.  If you look at “her” she already has a big comb and large waddle, other indicators of roosterhood.  If she is a rooster it is rather annoying since Rural King had her bin listed as pullets (females) only.

The crowing comes the day after Cindy was surfing the internet reading horror story after horror story of people trying to raise cornish X birds into adulthood.  Some of them can literally get to be the size of turkeys, crossing the 20 pound mark.  At that size Jaina would not even fit through the chicken door to the coop.  Obviously something needs to be done.

With our hopeful upcoming road trip we need to have our chicken situation settled before we leave.  I think the only way we will be able to do that is to subtract Jaina (Cindy now calls her Bruce) from the equation.  The likelihood we can rehome her to a place that won’t use her for meat is next to zero.  Cornish X were engineered as meat birds much like corn that is engineered to resist weed killer.  She is sort of a freak of nature.

I told Cindy she can start looking at options for Jaina.  I really don’t think we have much choice if we are looking down the road at what he/she will grow into.

Tonight should be the last sleep over night for the dogs.  The week has gone by pretty quick.  They slide right into life at the house very easily.  Seeing both of them out in the yard content brings smiles to the faces of Cindy and I every time.

I need to carve out more sleep time during the week.  Recently I have been not closing my eyes until around 11.  With a 5:30 AM normal alarm time I wake up most days feeling tired.  I think one additional hour would hit the sweet spot of my sleep needs.

I have to admit I find it very entertaining watching what is going on the republican presidential race.  Donald Trump who has entertained me on tv has suddenly become very popular with white, middle aged and older Americans because he basically said Mexican illegal immigrants suck.  It almost seems like he is the 2016 version of Sarah Palin.

Then there is the endless stream of republican candidates that have declared themselves as potential presidential material.  I could not come close to naming everyone that has declared but I know it’s well into the double digits.  It seems counter productive to me.  It seems like on the democratic side it is already pretty much a one person race which can be seen as a good or bad thing depending on your viewpoint of Hilary Clinton.

Personally I am at the point that no matter which candidate wins in the end from either party I really don’t care all that much.  I am convinced that no matter who is sitting in the White House, the true masters of this country are outside the boundaries of national elections.  They are the ultra-rich corporations and their minion lobbyists that dictate the direction the country is going, regardless of the current political climate.

This was another weekend of labor. Hot, sweaty, annoying gnats buzzing your face labor. It started unconventionally on Friday night when our friend Tricia came out to the house with her sister Judy.  Originally they were talking about shooting an exercise video with Cindy for FitFarmChick channel.  They wound up showing up later than they expected so instead they just got a quick tour of the grounds and stayed to eat some Friday night pizza with us.

Judy is a real deal power lifter.  Even though we didn’t put her to the test you could easily tell she had a powerful build that would be able to move a lot of weight.  She also just recently became a certified personal trainer which is what Cindy has been working towards.  Judy is a good source of advice in regards to how to prepare for the test.

On Saturday I did not feel like getting up but Sadie had other plans.  I had a long list in my head of things I wanted to get done so I drug myself out of bed to get the day started.  After weeding the property I jumped straight into running the weed whacker.  By the time I got done with both tasks the heat of the day had started in earnest and I was soaked with sweat.  I turned my attention to the chicken coop/shed which was getting yet another of a seemingly endless amount of tweaks.

Since summer started the interior of the shed has been getting pretty brutally hot during the day.  Even with all of the windows and front doors open the thermometer would get up to around 105 degrees.    Although the chickens are out of the coop most of the day either in the run, under the shed platform or free ranging, it still is too damn hot in there.  Lucy goes in during the day to lay an egg plus I have several hundred dollars of electronic equipment in the coop that doesn’t enjoy temperatures in the triple digits.

After touching the roof from the inside of the coop a couple weeks ago and burning my hand almost instantly I determined the dark brown color of the roof was the primary culprit in super heating the space.  Dark colors absorb heat.  The simple solution, paint it white.  Now a white roof sort of messes with the the color coordination of the coop but I was willing to sacrifice esthetics for function.  After doing some research Cindy and I found some paint that is designed to be used on plastic.  While I was at the timer conference Cindy painted the back half of the roof.  I tackled the front.

It took some trial and error to find a spray pattern that laid down the gloss white in a more or less even manner. Cindy had masked off the edges of the roof along with the two front skylights for me.   I had on my sunglasses and a dust mask to protect my airway from the paint fumes.  Unfortunately because of the heat, breathing became quite challenging with the mask on.  My long arms were quite useful in reaching the upper areas of the roof.

When I was done the roof looked a bit odd but not terrible since the chicken run has white roof panels as well.   The mismatched color scheme was forgotten when mid-afternoon I was able to put my hand on the roof and keep it there.  It was only warm, not hot.  It seems like the simple color change on the roof has lowered the temperature in the coop during the heat of the day by around 10 degrees.

On Saturday my Philps Hue starter pack showed up.  The Hue is an intelligent lighting system that allows you to do all sorts of lighting magic thanks to a smart, web connected hub in addition to smart bulbs that talk to it.  It also integrates with the Amazon Echo, allowing you voice control of your lights which is cool to me of course.

I was able to get the Hue set up in less than 5 minutes, it is very, very easy to do.  I put one bulb in the kitchen and another in the bedroom and named them by location.  After pairing the Hue with the Echo I was able to turn on, turn off, or dim the lights in either location via a voice command.  It was very Star Trek-esque.

I was confused why I was unable to get the bulbs to change color.  After doing some digging I discovered that was because my starter kit has the Hue Lux bulbs which are white only.  If you want bulbs that can change to any color in the rainbow you need to spend triple what the white only bulbs cost.  Even without the Echo integration the Hue system is pretty damn cool.  Using your smart phone there are nearly countless ways you can customize and tweak their actions.

Speaking of the Echo, Cindy and I are still discovering what it can and can not do.  The one frustrating part is the somewhat limited access the Echo gives you to info compared to Siri.  Some of this has to do with the difference in providing information via voice as opposed to a screen but it seems like there is still a lot more power they could add to the device.  Many free form questions like “What movies are coming out this weekend” will generate a generic, I’m sorry I do not have an answer, response.  They are constantly adding features to the Echo so I am sure her sphere of knowledge will continue to expand.  In addition the platform is open architecture, allowing for 3rd parties to utilize the hardware which will only mean more and more power available to the little black cylinder.

On Saturday night we stayed home and finished off our 2nd generation Star Wars trilogy Netflix marathon, watching Episode 3.  After completing the second set of Star Wars films I can’t say my opinion of them changed significantly for the better or the worse.  They still are vastly inferior to their predecessor but are entertaining to a B+ degree.

On Sunday morning I did a rare solo bike ride.  Cindy had a sore neck that would not have been helped by the hunched over riding position her triathlon bike utilizes. I decided to do a 20 mile ride but not to Dunkin Donuts.  Instead I road 10 miles out Oil Well Road towards Ave Maria and then turned around.  I got out on the road a little later than I would like on a July morning, not cranking my first pedal revolution until a little after 9AM.

I hit head wind immediately as I turned onto Immokalee Road.  Head wind was a near constant factor for most of the ride.  Even after turning left onto Oil Well Road I had an angled wind slowing me down that somehow managed to follow me to a degree even after I turned around.  The only time I had a true tail wind was the final two miles after I turned back onto Immokalee Road.  I struggled pretty much the entire time.  I barely averaged 17 mph overall for the ride despite working at what felt like a high level.  The heat radiating off the road sapped my energy reserves and desire.  When I pulled back into the driveway I was soaked and panting.

Part of motivation for going out on the ride solo was I just got done flipping through a bunch of pictures from my 30th class reunion that went down Saturday night.  I have never attended a single class reunion since graduating high school.  I also have seen an amazingly few amount of high school classmates in person since 1985, my only contact with most is if they hooked up on Facebook.  If you would ask me why that is I would not have a clear and definitive answer for you although I am sure it is somehow tied into my hang ups regarding aging, which I have many.  If I would have paid attention more to the date of the reunion I could have easily tied it into my attendance of the RSU conference earlier in the week.  However I did not do that.

So anyway as I flipped through some of the pictures it did not take long until I grabbed my senior year book.  I was surprised how many faces that I had absolutely no idea who they were.  Weight gain, loss of hair, and just plain aging had transformed some of my former classmates enough that I no longer could match my 1985 version of them to the present day.   Of course I found this unsettling and made me feel even older.

From all accounts from the people in attendance, everyone had a FANTASTIC time.  I am relatively confident that once I got over the initial shock of seeing people that in most cases I had not seen in 30 years I would have been able to settle in and just enjoy the fact that we made it this far.  Of course alcohol would have been a key ingredient in making that happen.

I sometimes am curious of what my classmates think of my online presence which has a pretty large footprint at this point.  In school I certainly was not very loud or outspoken.  I would describe myself back then as mostly quiet and not the type to be outwardly seeking new personal connections or looking to draw much attention. (pretty much the same now)  That contrasts itself with my YouTube channel with nearly 600 videos as well as my personal blog that has been running for going on 13 years where I spill tons and tons of personal thoughts, opinions, and experiences for the world to digest. It’s an odd dichotomy.

I spent a decent amount of time editing some additional footage for Cindy’s YouTube channel over the weekend.  She now has over 25 videos posted, not bad for only being in existence a few weeks.  I have supplemented her channel with some excerpts from some of my Bar-barians challenge videos that she participated in.  We also posted some baking, exercise, and hot pepper eating videos.

On Sunday I had a few more tasks to complete.  I quickly threw together a small platform to house a nesting box for Jaina, the monster cornish cross hen.  She is too big to perch like all of the other chickens.  The stand was to house a dedicated nesting box that is supposed to serve as her bed at night.  Last night she was only mildly successful in using the box.

I also grabbed my tube of Scratch X to remove some marks on the back of the SSR that mysteriously happened while Cindy had the truck parked in a lot a couple weeks ago.  I have used Scratch X before to remove what seemed like pretty formidable paint blemishes.  Once again the product did it’s job.  After a few applications and a bit of elbow grease a casual passerby would never know there was a problem.

Later in the day my to do list was finally cleared and I could just veg out.  Cindy shot some cute video in the evening of the chickens hanging with the dogs.  It’s so cool that they all can hang together without conflict.

So as the chickens have been getting bigger the task of caring them has been growing as well.  When we sized out the coop and the run it was always designed with a maximum number of 10 birds in my head.  We currently have 12, including Jaina, the massive cornish-x hen makes the mess of two or three regular chickens due to her non-stop eating.

Cindy and I have talked about the possibility of re-homing some of the chickens to make things more manageable although the sentimental part of me hates that idea.  Since we raised 11 of the 12 chickens since they were a week old it makes the idea of casting any of them off hard for me.  I think this idea is less difficult for Cindy to endorse since she is the one that does the overwhelming majority of the clean up and daily maintenance.

I think part of the problem is we have set a chicken cleanliness standard that is far above average.  Each and every day Cindy is doing a very thorough cleaning of the coop, by the time she is done the inside of the coop looks pretty pristine.  Most chicken care handbooks you read will refer to coop cleaning as a weekly task, not daily.  She also is in the chicken run multiple times during the day trying to pick up the various “presents” the chickens leave.

Last night she said that she has felt sort of trapped because of all the chicken maintenance which is 180 degrees opposite of what you normally hear about chicken care.  It is not supposed to be something that demands so much time each and every day. I told her that maybe she should start letting the chickens free range for more of the day.  She has been paranoid about letting them roam around unless she is somewhat actively watching them because of hawks.

I told her that the chickens are old enough/big enough to be trusted outside more.  If you let your chickens free range at all you are exposing them to additional risk there is no way to deny that.  It is just a matter of weighing that risk with both the chickens quality of life and your sanity.  Allowing them to roam a good part of the day across 2+ fenced in acres allows any mess they create to be widely distributed instead of it being concentrated in the 8′ x 12′ run.  The property has a number of spots where the birds can hide/shelter themselves including various landscaped areas as well as the two storage sheds.

For now I am not ready to pull the trigger on thinning our flock.  I am sort of assuming that Jaina’s lifespan will not be all that long due to her size.  She already has outlived the typical cornish life span by several weeks.  We also might just need to be a little less fanatical about the excrement collection schedule, shit happens.

The amount of rain recently appears to finally be exceeding the capacity of the sandy soil to absorb it meaning standing water is starting to pop up around the yard.  This signifies the start of the part of summer in Florida I really, really do not enjoy.

This weekend I have a number of things to do just like pretty much every other weekend the last 15 years of my life.  A lot of them require me to be outside which means it will likely be a miserable slog.

So my flight was scheduled to leave Philly at 6:15pm.  A couple hours prior to that they pushed the departure time back 20 minutes to 6:35, annoying but nothing major.    The gate area for my flight was getting quite full so I decided to wait in the gate right across the hall.  I figured I would easily hear/see when they started to load.  After completing my blog post I dug into reading Crash and Burn, which I only started the night before.  Well either the book really held my attention or the speaker system next door wasn’t turned up very high.  I glanced over at my gate and all of a sudden there were about 15 people left, they obviously had been loading for quite awhile.  I quickly snapped close my book and wound up being the second to last person on the plane.

Despite packing intentionally light to avoid the cost and hassle of checking luggage for the second time in as many flights I wound up having to check my small bag due to all of the overhead bins being full.  The only positive of being forced to check your bag is they do it free of charge instead of socking you with the bullshit checked luggage fee US Airways and almost all major carriers charge nowadays.

I found my aisle seat.  Next to me was a hispanic woman who was traveling with her cute little daughter.  The little girl was already all set to take a nap, complete with a pillow, her blanket and a teddy bear.  It was very cute.  I almost immediately dug into my book.  Despite reading I was unable to block out some of the unavoidable annoying people on the flight.  Immediately to my left was a chubby, nerdy looking guy that would make some utterly disgusting noises which sounded like he was rattling mucus around.  Sometimes he would combine this with bringing his hand to his mouth, presumably to catch the sputum that was accompanying the disgusting noises.  After doing this I would see his hand go to his pant leg for a quick wipe off before it went right back to touching various areas of the seat.  Disgusting.

Then there was somebody with a horrible, chronic cough about six or seven rows ahead of me.  They were hacking almost non-stop for the first 45 minutes we were in the air, it was awesome.  I figured my odds of getting through the next several days without catching some illness from one of the passengers on the flight is pretty slim. The little girl fell asleep quickly.  She had her legs across her moms lap.  A few times she shifted and hit my legs with her feet.  The woman moved her feet immediately but I smiled and told her it was fine.  I was jealous the little girl could sleep through the gross sights and sounds of air travel.

I have to tell you US Airways flight attendants are pretty grumpy people.  I hardly caught a smile on any of their faces.  I also thought it was quite odd that between my two flights we had more men then women flight attendants.  That was a first.  It’s too bad that US Airways is my primary option for direct flights to Philly, I really don’t like the airline at all.  Between the bullshit fees, the cramped seating, the barebones drink service (you get one drink and not a single morsel of food), and the generally lousy disposition of the majority of their employees I really wish I had better options.

So as I mentioned I was plowing through Artie Lange’s second book, Crash and Burn.  Artie is a comedian and was co-host on the Stern show for around 10 years.  He is very funny, quick witted, has a photographic memory and happens to be one of the biggest drug addicts on the planet.  The second book covers the darkness surrounding his exit from the Stern Show which included a suicide attempt where he drank four shots of Chlorox Bleach and stabbed himself a number of times.

The stories of self destruction that are in the book seem impossible in scope and how often they were happening.  It gave a very open look at just how deep and dark the world of a serious drug addict can be.  I am sure multiple times my mouth dropped open as I shook my head in disbelief as I was turning the pages.  It was amazingly terrible just how hard he worked at destroying both his life and as a result the lives of the people that care about him.

The book was odd in the way it was written where at the end Artie tells on himself, basically admitting that something written earlier in the book was a lie.  Also earlier in the book he described how his relationship with his girlfriend that he loved came to an end after another Artie self destruction event.  Then at the very end he says they reconciled and were now engaged. I did a quick search and found out that engagement ended as well.  Of course I’m not surprised.

Also the good fortune he described work-wise after he came back from his suicide appears to also have gone away as well.  The DirecTv show he had was cancelled as was the deal he had with Comedy Central.  It appears his only action currently is a podcast that you have to pay to subscribe to as well as some stand up gigs.  Unfortunately I have next to no doubt that Artie is cursed to spend whatever is left of his life, lying, abusing himself and hurting anyone in his inner circle as his demons come to the surface again and again.  The roughly 300 page book was a good read but certainly nothing that will make you feel happy or upbeat.  The best you can hope for is it will make you more appreciative that at least you are not him.

I had forgot to mention that I bought a unique present for Cindy that arrived earlier this week, an Amazon Echo.  The Echo is a wireless digital assistant.  Sort of imagine if Siri was pulled out of your Iphone and placed on your counter.

The small device has 7 microphones inside that are specially designed to hear your questions/commands from a considerable distance away.  It also has a high quality speaker system inside that provides high quality audio when you ask the Echo to do things like play music.

When Cindy first opened the box she was sort of like “great, another weird piece of tech”  but once she set it up and started playing around with the device she changed her tune.  She realized the Echo was sort of awesome. Not only can you give it commands by saying “her” name, Alexa, it can answer questions spoken in plain english, play music, tell you the weather, etc and even control home automation devices like the Nest and Phillip Hue.   In addition the device works with IFTTT (if this then that) which allows the Echo to be scripted to interact with other web enabled services in a near infinite amount of ways.

Amazon is continuously expanding the feature set of the Echo so the device should only get better and better over time.  Is it a necessary household addition?  Of course not.  Is it fun and cool? Absolutely.

It was nice to sleep in my own bed with Cindy and the two dogs near by.  The trip was quick and fun but it’s always feels good to come back to my familiar four walls.

So instead of writing this in the cramped confines of a plane seat I am working from the slightly less cramped confines of an airport departure gate.  I have three hours to kill so I figured this will eat up some of it.

So as I mentioned in my last entry, I hit the streets of Philly last night to do some sight seeing.  It did not take long until I encountered my first of many homeless people along the way.  I did not hand out any cash because all I had was 20’s at the time.

I first walked to city hall.  I found it to be quite interesting architecturally since it is quite large while being ornate.  I took pictures of it from at least 5 or 6 different angles.  I also found it interesting seeing the dozens of window shaker ac units peppering the sides of the building since obviously central air is not an option with a building that old. I saw a couple old churches that were also just amazing to stare at and take in the detail in their appearance.

I also found it very interesting checking out the various small storefronts.  In most cases the first floor was refaced and updated to varying degrees to suit the tenant however the additional floors in many cases looked untouched.  Some of the upper floors looked like they would be condemned but somehow businesses continued to operate at street level.

I thought it might be interesting to see the Liberty Bell, something I probably saw as a kid in the 70’s on some field trip or family vacation but never as an adult.  I looked it up on my phone and saw it was about 3/4 of mile away and closed at 7pm.  It was a little after 6 so I figured I could make it no problem.

On the way there I briefly ducked into one of the subway entrances.  I was curious how it compared to the NYC subways which I traveled quite a bit the last time I was there.  It didn’t take long for that same musty mixed with urine smell to flood my nostrils.  The look and feel was similar to what I experienced before but the density of people, at least where I was, was non-existent.  I actually snapped a picture of a tunnel with nobody in it.

So I made it to the Liberty Bell with around 20 minutes to spare.  I briefly looked at the various history of the bell exhibits but I was primarily interested in just seeing the bell.  When I got to it there was a line of about 10 people waiting to get their picture taken in front of it.  The security guard was nice enough to take pictures for anyone that needed it.  When I got to the front he told me that I picked the perfect time to show up.  He said sometimes the line to see the bell literally can take a couple hours to traverse which sounded like pure insanity to me.

I spent maybe 10 seconds looking at the bell.  To be honest it almost looked fake.  Perhaps it is because of whatever process has been used to preserve the bell.    It just looked odd to me.  The guard snapped my selfie and I was out of there.

My plan was to grab something to eat on my way back.  I wanted to eat somewhere authentic, not a chain.  I also did not want to go to some sort of formal sit down restaurant, doing that myself just didn’t seem to make much sense.  About halfway back I spotted a sign for Paulie’s Pizza, that sounded promising.

It was a small little pizza shop with maybe 10 booths that only had a couple occupied, perfect.  Paulie was actually behind the counter making pies.  The place was cramped, old fashioned, and dirty, which somehow felt perfect to me.

After getting my two slices of plain cheese pizza I positioned myself in the rear booth facing the TV mounted high on the wall above the drink cooler.  I was amazed when I realized it was tuned to the Science channel, one of my favorite tv destinations.  I guess Paulie is a science buff.

The pizza was greasy but good, pretty much how you would imagine a Philly pizza would be.  There was no air conditioning in the place.  Their comfort system was comprised of a large rusted stand fan placed in front of the open rear door.  Despite the warm temperatures outside I was not really uncomfortable while I ate.  I emerged from the shop full and satisfied I experienced a small slice (pun intended) of authentic Philly cuisine. I finished my walk back to the hotel.  I would imagine in total I covered over three miles.  My legs felt like I went further.  My shins were already sore from walking back from the party the night before in my docksider shoes.

After taking my shower I read a few chapters of Artie Lange’s second book , “Crash and Burn” which documents his drug induced self destruction which lead him to leaving the Stern Show and ultimately trying to commit suicide.  The book was interesting enough that I was disappointed I was too tired to continue reading for more than an hour.

This morning I awoke on my own about 6:15.  I read a few more chapters of the book as I got ready at a casual pace.  I packed my things but I had made arrangements to do a delayed checkout so I wouldn’t have to take my luggage with me to the conference.  On my way out the door I was flagged down by Bryan Jenkins, my main contact for RunSignUp.  He was eating breakfast so I hung out and talked to him while he ate.  I planned to score the free breakfast over at the conference.

In addition to being one of the best individuals I ever met in terms of customer service, Bryan is also just an interesting guy to talk to.  We talked about a variety of subjects, several of which had absolutely nothing to do with event registration or race timing.  Our conversation meant we got into the conference just as it was starting up.  My breakfast turned out to be a cup of coffee with a couple muffins that I quickly devoured at my table in the conference room.

I found I paid much more attention during the entire four hours session today because the subject matter was all about race timing, specifically the software I use to do it.  There were a lot of tips and good information thrown out there which will help me going forward.  It also gave us ideas about what improvements we can see in the future.

After the conference wrapped up I quickly grabbed some food from the lunch spread that was provided.  The food that was provided to us was all top notch and delicious.  Other than my dinner at Paulie’s I did not have to pay for a single meal.  After downing my food I said a few quick goodbyes and shot across the street to the hotel to grab my stuff.  I checked out and was back out on the street hoofing it.

I decided I would just walk to Suburban Station, there wasn’t really anything else I needed to see in the time I had left.  I grabbed a large coffee from the subterranean Dunkin Donuts they have there and found my departure area.  The ride back to the airport was quick and uneventful.  Much like with my trips to NYC, I found delving into mass transit options interesting and different compared to renting a car. (and much less expensive)

When I got to the airport I still had 3/4 of my coffee left.  The train drops you off right at the security checkpoint so I didn’t want to waste my drink.  I found a seat and just people watched while I finished it.  The security line was quite long but it moved along at a decent pace.  After clearing the line I grabbed a water and started pounding out this entry.

My flight is scheduled to touch down in Fort Myers around 9:15.  Cindy will have already picked up and dropped off the dogs at the house when she comes to get me.  We are watching them for a week.  I will be back at work tomorrow, a practice I don’t normally engage in.  I always try to give myself at least one day of padding after traveling to get things in order but since Cindy has been home manning the ship while I was gone there wasn’t a real need.

It’s been a quick but enjoyable trip.  It somewhat recharged my depleted race timer batteries.  The influx of fresh ideas and new possibilities gave me a long list of things I want to work on and try out.  Onward and upward.

So after getting blindsided by outrageous parking costs last year I decided to utilize SEPTA (South East Pennsylvania Public Transport Authority) for the first time to travel from the airport to the hotel.  I also needed a rental car last year because I visited Troy after the conference.  Anyway I was able to take the train directly from the airport to Suburban Station which is only 1/4 mile from the hotel.

The train was clean and somewhat modern inside.  The same could not be said about the terminal or the tracks the trains traveled on.  It all looked like it was in dire need of some TLC.  I thought it was odd that the trains were an all cash business.  There was no use of credit cards.  Instead a ticket taker goes seat to after you depart and expects you to lay $8 of cash in their hands.  Once you do they punch a paper ticket with a hole puncher multiple times, circa, 1953.  I mean wtf SEPTA, really? The ride to the city might have taken 25 minutes which wasn’t bad at all.  Once I got to Suburban Station I used Google map walking directions to orient myself.  In the span of 5 minutes I walked in the door of the hotel, very cool.

I had about 90 minutes until the conference started.  I was worried because I was already feeling exhausted since I was awake since 2:15.  I was also worried that the hotel would not let me check in this early since it was before 10.  Luckily the room was ready to go and they handed me my room key without issue.  I stayed at The Westin last year as well so I already knew the accommodations would be very nice, which once again, they were.

So after unpacking some stuff and relaxing for a few minutes I collected what I would need for the conference and headed over to the building it was held in which is very conveniently located right across the street.  I was somewhat disappointed they had no food out at this point since I had not eaten anything since 3:30 am.  I did slam a couple cups of coffee to clear the fuzziness in my head.

So the conference started.  I saw a number of familiar faces from last year as well as some new ones.  There were significantly more RSU employees there than last year as they have been hiring a TON of new staff to help support their explosive growth.  After the owner of RSU talked for a bit and introduced all of his staff it was time for the customer advisory board members, which I am part of, to say a little about themselves, what they use RunSignUp for, as well as any particular likes, dislikes, and potential wishlist items.

Bob had sent out the guidelines for our intro ahead of time so I had typed out a framework for me to speak from since I am pretty terrible at off the cuff speaking for prolonged periods of time.  I’ll type out my thoughts until my fingers bleed but when it comes to trying to speak about the same subjects I just can not do it in anything resembling a similar manner.

So anyway it got to be my turn to speak.  Despite having my notes I still found myself falling into a verbal black hole at various points where I started to expand on my points only to find my sentences leading nowhere interesting.  Often I would just cut the sentence off awkwardly and move on to something else.  Public speaking just isn’t a thing for me.  So anyway I manged to get through my little spiel and I really had nothing else to say for the rest of the day, which was fine with me.  My primary goal at this conference is to harvest ideas that are thrown out there and find ways to use them in what I do to make the runner experience better in our races.

The 1st day of the conference wrapped up a little after 4pm.  I had another 90 minutes to kill before a shuttle was scheduled to take us to a group dinner.  I used that time to get 150 push ups and a few games of Hearthstone in on my phone.  It felt like a good use of my time.

Last year they rented a van to transport us to the event.  The van was driven by an angry middle eastern man that was an extremely aggressive driver.  He was constantly cutting people off and then swearing at the people he cut off, which I found odd.  Well this year they rented a full size tour bus, symbolic of how much RSU has grown.   Unfortunately there was one problem, the bus was too big to get down the street the venue was located.  Instead it wound up dropping us off in front the art museum (the steps Rocky runs up) and we walked three or four blocks to get to the dinner.  It was fine.

The dinner had unlimited food and drinks, all of high quality.  It was held at the same place as last year, a boat house with a beautiful view of the river.  Well the view was beautiful unless you looked closely at the river which had a lot of trash, debris, and brown muck floating in it.  Of course this was another social situation where I don’t feel comfortable.  Originally I intended to use alcohol as a crutch but the IPA’s they were serving had high alcohol content.  Only two of them started to hit me pretty badly so I dialed it back very early.  There were a handful of people I knew enough to chat with for awhile so it was ok.  It wasn’t like I was standing in a corner alone holding a drink with a blank stare on my face.

The combo of the beer and food amplified how tired I already was.  I wound up joining two other guys in walking back to the hotel instead of taking the bus.  The one is a guy I knew from last years conference who started timing races when he was in high school, he is 24 or 25 now.  The other was the software programmer that created Race Director, the timing software I have used for the last 7 years or so.  It was cool to have some timer talk with them during the mile and a half walk back to the hotel.  I took a shower, fell into bed and slept straight through the night for the first time in several days.

This morning I woke up without an alarm at about 6:15, allowing me to slowly get ready for the conference that didn’t start until 8.  Today the conference was open to anyone that wanted to sign up, there were a ton more bodies there, somewhere close to 100.  The majority of the day were presentations from various people regarding different aspects of race/event planning as well as the logistics of timing and how RSU makes all parts of event execution better.  All of the speaker presentations were good although it felt like most of them went on longer than they needed to.  Perhaps I felt that way because my rear end was really starting to get sore from of all the sitting over the two days.  The chairs the meeting space provided were those web suspension varieties that are comfortable for short spurts but start to hurt after prolonged use due to their lack of cushion.

Today there was no speaking requirement of me which was welcomed.  I basically took notes during the day and tried out some of the things that were being talked about real time on the laptop I brought with me.  It was a good day.

This evening I was hoping Troy was going to be able to swing down to hang with me but he has a work commitment that scuttled that plan.  Instead I plan to get some more push ups in and then perhaps walk around the area a bit to do some minor sightseeing and grab some food.  Despite living in this general area most of my life, I only recall doing any Philadelphia sightseeing once or twice as a child.  I made no effort to try to coordinate my evening plans with other conference attendees.  For some reason I don’t initiate these sort of friendly gestures.  Sure if somone invited me to dinner I would probably go but I am just as content to fly solo and entertain myself.  It’s just how I am.

Tomorrow I have a half day of the conference and then it’s back to PA via an evening flight.  I am not quite sure how I will handle the extra time there should be between the conference end and plane departure.  I will have checked out of the hotel prior to the conference so I might be spending a lot of time looking out airport windows.

This entry is getting keyed at 30,000 feet + on my way to Philadelphia, cool. So with July 4^th falling on a Saturday this year it meant I had Friday off which worked out well. After doing the weeding around the house Cindy and I changed and went to LA Fitness, which Cindy had just joined the prior week. She was hoping I would able to show her how some of the gym equipment operated. Part of her membership included a free two week guest pass so I could tag along for free.

I had never been inside a LA Fitness before, it was pretty amazing in size and scope. The place has pretty much everything including a huge main gym floor, stadium style cycle room, racquetball courts, smoothie bar, a lap pool, basketball court, and more. It was sort of overwhelming. The place was also packed, filled with lots of fit people wherever you looked.

So after walking the perimeter to see what was where we worked in a few areas. I wasn’t all that concerned with getting a full workout for myself, I just wanted to give Cindy the framework she needed to be comfortable working out there. Cindy found a few machines she liked, her favorite of all was the assisted dip/pull up rig.

As we were close to wrapping things up back in the free weight area some guy came up to me out of the blue. He was short, muscular, heavily tattooed, and sported a very long black beard. He asked me if my shirt was to show support of Kaitlyn Jenner, it was my Wheaties Movember shirt that we picked up at the last Tough Mudder Cindy and I did.

At first I wasn’t sure if he was trying to be funny or an asshole. Cindy joined the conversation and I was able to realize he was trying to be funny although I still wasn’t sure why he would randomly pick me as a conversation target. Cindy and he started talking more and more. She said that he looked familiar but couldn’t place him. After some more information was exchanged they realized something pretty incredible, they were from the same high school. If that wasn’t weird enough, they also were in the same class, graduating the same year.

This opened up a big can of worms where the guy and Cindy were talking about all sorts of things related to where they grew up. During the course of the conversation we found out even more which was spurred by his unwillingness to shake Cindy’s hand. It was related to the fact that he is a hasidic jew, a pretty hardcore one. Evidently part of their belief is a man should touch no woman other than his wife.

Like I said, his appearance, other than the beard, would not make one think this was a devoutly religious man, but he was. Along with their recollections about school Cindy and he even talked about religious beliefs. As you can imagine I had little to contribute during the entire conversation but Ben was indeed an interesting individual. I had a tie to him as well since he works in the same government complex I do in the county jail.

We wound up standing around talking with him for close to a half hour and if we didn’t break away I bet we would have been there another half hour. I could tell Ben was the type of guy that could literally talk forever. We told him we had to get going. He shook my hand, evidently that sort of contact is within the rules.

On the way home we made a pit stop at Sam’s for groceries. While I was there I decided to pull the trigger on purchasing a security dvr for the chicken coop and run. Having four internet accessible cameras out there would allow us to keep tabs on the chickens anywhere and anytime.

When we got home I had to do prep for the large holiday 5K I was timing on Saturday. I have been extra worried since it was going to be the first time utilizing the brand new timing hardware. I had been running through a lot of mental planning and practicing to ensure things go well. I had to leave mid-afternoon to go down to the store where early packet pickup was being held. I had a ton of people signing up in person so I needed to get all of that paper into the system.

When I got home we tried to somewhat act like it was just another Friday pizza night but obviously we had a lot to do. We completely loaded up the truck with all of the equipment so we could get out the door as quickly as possible Saturday morning. I set my alarm for 3:30AM, earlier than normal since this race starts at 7AM.

We went to bed relatively early, hoping to at least get a few hours sleep. That plan did not pan out. I found myself awake at 1:15 AM and unable to fall back asleep. My mind immediately started dwelling on race details despite my wanting to desperately fall back asleep. I wound up rolling around restlessly before the alarm went off two hours later. I felt miserable.

On the ride to the race I shared my poor sleep with Cindy, facilitated by anxiety over the race. I told her how moments like this make me question why I continue to subject myself to the stresses race timing lays on my back. This is nothing new, these feelings routinely come and go.

When we got on site the first thing we did was lay out the start mats and cable them since that was the most time consuming portion of setting up the new timing gear. Once we had it set up the club president stopped and told us that the start line was now relocated since the course was now certified, a detail that obviously should have been shared with me prior to race day. The new spot was about 50 yards away.

Well I certainly did not want to tear apart the mats that Cindy and I just spent close to 15 minutes setting up. I decided to try to drag the line of mats down the road. This was not a lot of fun. Each mat weighs about 25 pounds meaning I was dragging 150 pounds of rubber with a very big footprint on asphalt. By the time I got to the new spot my forearms were burning. I was also concerned that moving the start line to this spot could potentially push the large pack of runners out into an intersection that was open to traffic. Well there was nothing I could do about it now.

After laying the mats out at their new location we headed to the registration area to set up. Since we were tied up at the start line most of the tables, tents and chairs were already set up which was cool. Cindy and I got all of our stuff hooked up and laid out.

Once Ali showed up to handle data entry I headed to the finish line to get all of that equipment set up ahead of time. I spent next to no time in the race registration area, Ali and Chris handled all of the data entry and Cindy set up all of the timing bibs and signs. When I was done at the finish line I picked up Cindy and we headed straight to the start, earlier than I normally would to make sure I had time. We wound up having a lot of spare time since we had put the mats together ahead of time. All I had to do was carefully drag/turn them out across the road and hook them to the timing box. I had the clubs golf cart to help me shuttle between the different locations.

As the race started the timing box was beeping away indicating it was reading the hundred of runners passing over the mats. It seemed to be working fine. After the last stragglers crossed the line I disconnected the box, threw it in the golf cart and hauled ass to the finish. This race had some very fast runners so I didn’t have a lot of time to spare.

As the race leader came into the finish line I held my breath a bit, despite knowing this new timing hardware is very reliable. I felt better as I imported my first set of times, everything was working as planned. The new hardware worked flawlessly best that I can tell. I had no reports of any of the 800+ finishers missing a time which is great. Cindy shared in my relief when the race was over. She was the recipient of my grumpy mood more than once during the days leading up to the race.

Once we got home and unpacked I handled my post race duties while Cindy attended to the chickens. During the afternoon I installed the DVR system into the coop. I out one camera in the coop, one camera under the coop where the chickens like to hang out, and two facing opposite directions in the run.

Getting the cables for the cameras routed, secured, and into the coop was challenging. One entire shelf in the coop is filled with electronics at this point, it’s pretty crazy. We tested the dvr system from inside the house. It was cool having four simultaneous views at once giving us an instant idea of what was going on in the coop and run.

Originally we had planned on seeing the new Terminator movie Saturday night but after I woke up from a short nap I suggested we do that Sunday afternoon, we had Star Wars Episode II at home to watch anyway. Cindy liked the plan. The movie was as I recalled, with any scene involving the kid that plays young Darth Vader being acted incredibly poorly. B+

Sunday morning we skipped any endurance training as we had stuff to do that would make a 2 hour block of time cycling not practical. We ran out for some errands. One of the things we picked up is some white paint that is designed to be used on plastic.

We are planning on painting the roof of the coop white. The interior has been getting up well past 100 degrees during the day. The dark brown color of the roof sucks in heat like a magnet. If you touch the roof from inside the coop you can only leave your hand there for a split second, it’s that hot. We are hoping painting it white, while not being the most visually attractive choice, will reflect a bunch of that heat away.

We got out to the 2PM 3D showing of Terminator. I was curious about how they were going to handle the script this time. I also was curious how the actress that plays Khaleesi on Game of Thrones would do in the role of Sarah Connor. The answer was, not too well.

I thought her acting was pretty dreadful and she didn’t come close to being what Linda Hamilton was in the original Terminator films. Despite her shortcomings, overall the film was enjoyable. It had great special effects but that almost goes without saying nowadays. What big budget film doesn’t have eye popping special effects? Arnold had his normal share of funny one liners and the action was pretty constant. The way it ended didn’t seem to follow the guidelines of what was laid out in past films but I guess it didn’t matter. I’ll give a weak A- rating.

When we got home I needed to get my stuff together and packed for the trip. We had some hellacious storms blow in late in the evening that continued for a good portion of the night. I was in bed by 9PM, once again hoping for some solid sleep before the 3:30 alarm for the 6AM flight I am on. Again, I awoke stupidly early, 2:15 this time, and was unable to fall back asleep. In retrospect I should have planned to fly up to Philly last night instead of so damn early today. I have a full day of the conference to get through on far too little sleep. Regardless, it should be interesting and fun.

Of course air travel is always annoying. There are so many frustrating aspects to it, let me just list a few. The guy talking on his phone as the plane took off, the guy in front of him that was frantically texting at the same time like his life depended on it. There is the woman in front of me that thought nothing of cutting down my already miniscule leg room by fully reclining her seat. The couple with the young child who was incessantly crying whose father was telling the kid to “shut up” at regular intervals even though I don’t think the kid was old enough to even speak. I especially enjoyed the man that let a loose a big sneeze directly into the palm of his hand which he then of course proceeded to touch many surfaces with. There are few things that get me more annoyed with the human race than flying.

For the last few weeks Cindy and I have been staying up way too late many nights watching yet another quality Netflix produced show, House of Cards.  We finished up the 3rd season on Tuesday night.  Netflix’s self serve tv series format can be a blessing and a curse.  Yes it is awesome being able to chain watch episodes but from a sleep perspective, the traditional once a week show format is much more agreeable.

Like I mentioned yesterday, we plan to have a variety of different categories of videos on Cindy’s YouTube channel, including exercise, cooking, baking, and chickens.  One other category we are going to mess with is eating stunts, a VERY popular genre on YouTube.  There are TONS of eating stunt channels and many of them do very well, however they are almost all males doing the eating.  Having a female subject themselves to various food challenges is a sparsely populated area.

Cindy likes spicy food, I routinely challenge her to try various hot sauces on a dare basis.  We figured having her try it on tape would equal some fun.  I bought a small container of ghost pepper powder to be used in her first challenge.  Ghost peppers are some of the hottest peppers in the world.  Don’t be surprised if you see me participating as well.  Even though I am not a fan of hot stuff, I’m not afraid to throw my hat in the ring.  The worse I react to it, the funnier it is.

Thanks to the wonders of being a local government employee I get tomorrow off since the 4th of July falls on Saturday, giving me a three day weekend.  I have that backed up by three more days off when I travel up to Philly on Monday for the RunSignUp users conference.

It will be a whirlwind trip.  The conference starts on Monday at 11.  I am only flying out Monday at 6AM.  The conference ends Wednesday afternoon and I will be flying out that evening.  I decided to only utilize public transportation for the trip, skipping the expense of a rental car.  There is a chance my buddy Troy might come down Tuesday night so we can hang out but other than that, I will be in and out of my old home state like a ninja.