Prep, still swampy, bike-run-bike, Nerd to Rambo, Plasticool, Periscoped

On Friday night before bed Cindy and I had a joint Periscope session going on where we just laid in bed and had random conversation with a bunch of people we don’t know.  Of course I let Cindy do most of the heavy lifting in this scenario since she is clearly the more vocal of the two of us.  I prefer to lay in the weeds and just pepper the interaction as needed to add some variety.  There is something about Periscope that is isolating and inclusive at the same time.  I don’t know if there is an app that capsulizes what modern society is becoming better than Periscope and that is not meant as a compliment.  The world is becoming a screen addicted, voyeuristic, ADD riddled bunch of virtual haters.  Sure it is fun and entertaining but so is cocaine, or so I hear.

Saturday was very chore heavy.  I started outdoors with weeding.  I knew it was going to be miserable day when the heat and humidity felt oppressive at 8:30 in the morning.  I also was overdue for a weed whacking session, despite a good portion of the grounds being either underwater or sopping wet.  I emerged from it with my lower body looking like I grew a second, wet green skin.  I also did some of the vehicle prep for the road trip, changing the oil on the Prius.  I utilized Mobil 1 synthetic for the job since it would be well over 5000 miles until I get a chance to change it again.  The air filter got swapped out for good measure

We also made another trip to Home Depot to grab another 250 pounds of sand.  200 pounds of it got pushed under the coop deck to help dry out the soppy and smelly mess.While we were out we made a very unusual pit stop to grab a couple ice cream cones.  With the heat the cone had to be consumed at a very quick pace before it melted.

We decided to skip going to the movies again this week as there was nothing compelling out and saving a few bucks leading up to the road trip was a good idea.  We instead watched Blackhat, a movie where Thor plays a super computer hacker.  For the most part I found the movie good but the transformation at the end where the computer geek suddenly becomes a ruthless action hero did not make any sense nor was it backed up by any groundwork laid out in the film prior.  It was like the director said “Oh yea, we have Thor, I guess he needs to kill some people” Anyway it pulled a potential B+ rating down to B territory for me, a decent rental.

Sunday morning we did a training brick I never tried before, a bike-run-bike combo.  A traditional duathlon is the opposite where you run-bike-run.  Again it was oppressively hot and humid.  The course I laid out was biking up to Everglades Blvd and then back to the middle school track to run two miles before riding back home.  It worked out to segments of roughly a 7 mile bike, the 2 mile run and a final 3 mile ride.

Even though I wasn’t pushing the pace super hard on the bike I was sweating like a pig during the initial 7 mile ride.  If I was sweating that much on the bike I knew running in the same conditions would be extra miserable.  This was a first on many levels.  It was the first reverse duathlon brick and also the first outdoor running I have done in at least 6 months.  As expected the first couple laps felt pretty shitty as I had some pain in the right/leg knee but nothing overly severe.  The run evened out as time went on but I still was counting down the laps, even two miles felt challenging at this point which speaks to my lack of a running cardio base.

I tried to do a relatively quick transition back to riding gear, wanting to keep the cardio pressure up.  I was a little too quick and had to do some circling in the parking lot until Cindy was ready to go.  The last 3 miles to the house felt weird with my legs not being accustomed to the different demands of riding after riding and running previously.  By the time we got back to the house I looked like I was thrown in the pool, a big sweaty pool.  I used a dip in the real pool to quickly bring down my body temperature.

On Sunday and at various points over the weekend I had to scare a hawk away although I was only mildly successful at it.  It was like the hawk knew I meant it no real harm as it ignored my repeated BB gun warning shots.  Even as I approached the bird he just hung out until I got within 20 feet.  He/she only moved a few fence posts at a time.  The good news was this hawk was small in stature.  At this point all of the chickens are getting close to full size and are too big/fast to be carried off by a small hawk.  It still makes us nervous of course as there are always more predators out there.

I have been obsessing lately about a process known as “dipping” your vehicle.  It is something I did not realize was out there until a week or so ago.  Ironically one of the big companies that does this is based in Coral Springs, right across the state.  Basically you are “painting” your car with a high tech material that is peelable like sheets of rubber if you want to remove it.

I watched a ton of videos about the process and found it pretty incredible.  It brought me back to my teenage years where I spray painted a total of three vehicles, one can at a time.  The visual impact of dipped cars can be fantastic.  The fact that it is totally reversible without damaging the original paint makes it pretty much risk free.

DipYourCar sells kits that include everything you need, including a high quality spray gun for a reasonable price, much less than any paint job you could find.  The actual process of spraying the car requires some diligent prep and masking but is nothing all that technically difficult.  Of course when I saw dipping my first thought was the Tacoma, with it’s badly deteriorating paint.  I would literally have nothing to lose although many people dip brand new cars as well since there is no problem undoing it.

I would wait until dry season kicks in down here before giving dipping a go but I definitely think it will happen.  It should be a fun experiment.  You can dip many things, including wheels, another area of the Tacoma that is in poor visual condition.

Sunday afternoon I took back outside to do a few things including mowing the grass.  The property was still wet, very wet in some spots.  When I mow in these conditions I wind up leaving muddy crop circles in certain areas.  I also have to stop regularly to clear the mow deck chute of the green globs of grass clippings that clog it. To add to the fun I was repeatedly swinging at mosquitoes that seemed adept at landing on spots of my body I could not easily reach.  I really don’t like summer in SW Florida.

Sunday evening I finally relaxed a bit playing some WoW while Cindy continued her near endless practice testing for her physical trainer exam.  She has been working very, very hard.