Archives September 2015

So our new chickens have now started to produce eggs the last few days.  We have gotten 4 or 5 eggs in the last couple days.  Cindy has been fascinated with the process and has been utilizing the coop security dvr to review footage to find out who laid when. Even with the footage it is tough to 100% determine who is laying since sometimes the hens will sit in the box without popping out an egg. Even though we have 4 nesting boxes, it seems the chickens prefer the box against the back wall.  Every egg but one has been found in that location.

Last night after work I met up with my timer buddy John.  He had two things for me.  First was one of his timing clocks that I am borrowing for some cross country meets I am involved with.  The second was one of his inflatable finish line arches that I bought.

John recently bought a new arch so he was looking to sell one of his old ones.  I plan to use it for my independently timed stuff although perhaps the running club would be interested in using it as a start line arch to dress up an event as well.  My plan is to rebrand the arch with Green Machine Timing signage.

I am thinking I may be able to use a combo of vinyl signs with velcro to accomplish this goal but I will assign Cindy the majority of the responsibility with the project since she likes this sort of stuff.  Hopefully when it is finished it will look something like the image on the right.

Yesterday and last night we got another round of absolute drenching with very powerful storms.  I am absolutely over precipitation at this point.

Last night Cindy and I watched Ray Donovan which had it’s season finale last night.  Man that was some intense shit, it may be the best finale I have seen since they wrapped up Breaking Bad.

I forgot to mention that over the weekend I was attacked by two of the more aggressive members of the insect family, wasps and fire ants.  For a long time I have seen wasps crawling into the small opening in the pull out drawer of the hose holder on the side of the house.  There were enough wasps in there now that it was dangerous to try to get water from that hose.

I have run into this situation before where I was hesitant to take out a wasp nest because I felt some odd sense of guilt destroying something the wasps have worked tirelessly at creating for weeks on end. Well just like my act of ripping out the old bush by the house, which bypassed my normal sentiment, the wasp nest received less compassion than normal from me due to my bad mood.

I first used the hose to spray water into the opening to confuse the wasps and prevent them from flying out to attack me.  I then quickly grabbed the lid to the drawer and yanked it open as I simultaneously sprinted away to avoid the wrath of the angry wasps.  Somehow in the span of a fraction of a second a water logged wasp managed to land a burning sting on my left calf before I could escape. The combo of the water I sprayed and the force I opened the drawer with ejected the baseball sized nest out into the yard.

My other incident came while I was weed whacking.  Up until a couple years ago whenever I weed whacked I ALWAYS wore my work pants to do so to protect my legs.  For whatever reason one day I decided to start wearing shorts for the job which is kind of dumb but I guess it was driven by sacrificing safety for more comfort in the heat and humidity of south Florida summers.  Well I paid the price.

I was knocking down weeds along the edge of the driveway.  I inadvertently moved the trimmer head into a substantial fire ant pile that was somewhat obscured by the high grass on top of it.  The angle of the trimmer head evidently was just perfect to launch dozens of angry ants out of their mound, onto my calves and into my boots.  Within a few seconds I had a massive coordinated attack on my lower body which resulted in kicking off my boots and spending 5 minutes getting all of the evil little bastards off my skin.  My legs look like an acne riddled 14 year old’s forehead right now.  I think the pants will become standard weed whacking equipment once again.

The other day I saw a warning about a devious default setting in the new iOS 9 called “Wi-Fi Assist”, located under SETTINGS/CELLULAR.  (have to scroll to the VERY bottom) The “feature” is supposed to automatically use your cellular data if the phone determines your wi-fi signal is “weak”.  There have been many reports that this setting has resulted in a lot of people getting huge phone bills when they rolled right past their normal data caps thanks to the phone using cellular data when users assumed it was using wi-fi. Unless you want to be in the same boat I suggest you turn off that feature asap.

I think this is a total bullshit move that is an obvious attempt to pad the pockets of cellular carriers.  I find it even more concerning that I turned this feature off the other day only to see that this morning it had turned itself back on without my interaction.

Cindy and I were up at 4AM for Saturday’s race.  We had the truck all loaded up Friday night so we could get out the door quickly.  It didn’t take long once we got on site for things to start coming loose at the seams.  There evidently was some miscommunication between the race charity organizer and the running club race director in regards to where the race registration area was going to be located.  We had already started set up on one side of the park when the charity organizer came and told us we were supposed to be set up somewhere else.

I told the woman that I just confirmed the location a couple days ago and that we would not have time to move everything around.  She had already set out a number of signs pointing 5K runners to the other location so we had to have someone go and relocate the signs pointing to where we actually were.  There was also more confusion in regards to how we would utilize space after the race for awards.  It was like they thought we were going to be in the way of the festivities for the big charity walk that followed.

I found this odd since the race course was changed this year specifically to put the race and walk in the same vicinity per their request.  In retrospect it would have been better if they left things alone.  The entire morning was filled with a lot of frustration as we muddled through various issues.  When the awards ceremony were conducted it was done at practically an auctioneer type pace because they wanted us out of there asap.  The whole event was just not well executed.  My timing portion of the event went smoothly with no missed runners that I am aware of.

When we got home Cindy cleaned the coop while I cleaned up the post race work.  I then joined her outside to tend to chores.  I had not weed whacked the property since we got home from the road trip plus I had other stuff to do.  Despite the early wake up and timing the race I somehow had enough energy to trudge away in the increasing heat and humidity.  I was not feeling very enthusiastic however, feeling like I was assigned to a prison work detail.

Mid-afternoon we went and picked up the dogs whom I hadn’t seen in something like 3 weeks.  When it came time to load them up Nicki was acting hesitant, like she didn’t feel like going.  She does the same thing when we try to load her up at the house to go back to Ali’s so I think at this point she just doesn’t like the hassle of changing locations.  Nicki is really slowing down.  Every step she takes looks painful and I swear she sleeps 90% of the day.  It makes my heart heavy.

Originally Cindy and I talked about going to the movies on Saturday night. As evening approached that plan changed as we both were dragging from the early alarm followed by a day of labor.  I could almost guarantee that I would drift off if I was sitting in a dark movie theater so we decided to just stay put and continue catching up on our big backlog of DVR content.

Before settling in for the night I headed back outside late in the afternoon to rip out a large bush on the garage side of the house.  This bush was one of two that I planted shortly after the house was built.  I ripped out the first one years ago because it was getting overly large and was causing issues accessing the utility boxes.  This second bush was even larger.

The bush required regular trimming to keep it looking half decent and even after doing so I still was not really pleased with the outcome.  I made a command decision that if I didn’t like the way it looked why am I keeping it?  Up until this point the answer that would have come back is sentimental value, it had been there almost as long as the house.  Well at that point in time, perhaps aided by my super full moon bad mood, sentiment had lost it’s grip on me as I cut the bush down to the ground with loppers and pried out the roots with a shovel.  Cindy will put something in that spot that is more visually appealing and less maintenance heavy.

Sunday morning despite skies that were looking threatening we pushed off for our 20 mile Dunkin Donuts ride.  I want to try to make sure I get a decent cardio session in on the weekends since I plan on phasing out my Wednesday lunchtime cardio in favor of more resistance training.

We had Cindy leading on the way there.  When behind, I typically like to stay back several feet so I get my own view of the road ahead.  Well maybe 8 miles into the ride I was tailing a little closer than normal.  I saw a decent sized pebble fly into and out of my field of vision followed immediately by a loud pop, it had punctured my front tire.

I immediately pulled off and Cindy stopped and doubled back as she heard it as well.  Luckily we had a spare tube with.  The stone had poked through the sidewall.  I stuck a patch on the inside of the tire before we put the new tube in to reinforce the repair.  A quick couple blasts with a CO2 cartridge inflated the tire and we were back on the road. Believe it or not this was the first time I had a conventional flat while riding.  I once had the spokes on a rear tire break but I never flatted myself.

After fixing the flat Cindy suggested we just turn around and head home as the skies to the west were looking very gray.  I told her we were close to DD and I didn’t want to fall short of my predetermined goal.  I told her I was sure we would beat any rain (we did), despite not really knowing for sure.  The ride back was into a steady head wind that I lead for the entire 10 miles.  I dropped gears and upped my cadence to compensate.  By the time we got in the driveway I was spent.

I cooled off with a dip in the pool which Sadie appreciated as it gave her an opportunity for some splash time which she always likes.  Although Sadie is still quite mobile, I can tell she is getting older.  It used to be she would literally run around the pool until my fingers were shriveled, wanting just one more splash.  Now after a few minutes I can tell she has had enough and is ready to lay down.

Cindy and I did a Home Depot run to pick up sand for the chicken run and top soil for the chicken holes.  The hens have dug out some huge holes they use for dust baths.  Some of the holes are to the point where they are on the verge of displacing the castle stone border they are dug next to.  Somehow we need to find a way to get them to dig holes in areas of the yard where it has less impact.  By the time we got to Home Depot I was feeling like a battery that has a direct short across it’s terminals.  I was exhausted.  Simply dumping the dirt and sand out of the back of the truck when we got home felt like a large undertaking.

Later in the day when I spread the sand I almost wound up beating up the chicken run. I hit my head three times going into and out of the doorway when I I forgot to duck.  After the third time I punched the 2×4 cross member, as if it was intentionally getting in my way.  Yes, I was in a bad mood.

This low energy feeling persisted throughout the rest of the day.  As I watched the Eagles game I was repeatedly drifting in and out of alertness.  The Eagles played better in the first half but unfortunately returned to utter offensive ineptness in the second half, scoring zero points and having to hold on to close out the Jets after building a 24-7 halftime lead.   Sure I was glad to get a win but overall the performance did not make me feel like the Eagles have a solid foundation to build the rest of the season upon.

My fantasy team is in utter shambles. (0-3)  Early injuries have wrecked my roster and I have some fantasy players that are not coming close to living up to their predicted productivity.  Roddy White has been the biggest offender, the wide receiver for the Falcons.  Yesterday the Falcons scored 39 points and White somehow managed to not contribute one speck to it, earning an unbelievable zero points.  I am so frustrated I feel like I should just cut him to make a virtual point which will mean absolutely nothing to anyone else but me. Of course the second I cut him he will blow up and have a huge game, guaranteed.

After the game my feeling of sluggishness continued.  Cindy and I watched five back to back episodes of Fear the Walking Dead, a testament to my laziness.  We stayed up to try to catch a good glimpse of the Super Moon which was mostly obscured by cloud cover. My mood issues that correlate with the phase of the moon have been well documented in the blog. My mood/state of mind during this latest phase has been as dark as I can recall in a long time, perhaps testament to the proximity of the moon.  Very little feels right/good during these periods of time.  Hopefully my feelings brighten as the weeks goes on.

On the way home last night I stopped back at Retro and finalized rejoining the gym I walked away from over a year ago.  I’m looking forward to getting back into a better groove with equipment and facilities that are more to my liking.  My bench press buddy is going to be moving with me which will be a plus.

This weekend we have a small 5K race to time.  Despite the small size I am hoping it doesn’t include some big headaches due to their being no early packet pickup, an earlier than normal start time, a new race course and some of the normal regular board members that help run things not being around.  I still should be able to time the race accurately which is the only thing I am ultimately responsible for although I do still feel badly if others aspects of the race experience for participants falls short.

I have a lot of things I would like to accomplish this weekend.  We also will have the dogs over for a weekend visit since we have not seen them for something like three weeks due to the road trip.  It will be Monday morning in a blink of the eye.

So after work last night I made a pit stop to my old gym stomping grounds, RetroFitness. (formerly Royal Fitness and then RetroFitness before that).  As soon as I stepped in the door I could tell they gave the place a thorough cleaning, it looked practically brand new.   I immediately spotted Luis, the guy that was managing the place before I left.  Like I mentioned earlier, he was pretty much the only person on the staff that seemed to have a clue about how to treat customers.  He was very happy to see me and greeted me by name.

I had at least a 15 minute good conversation with him by the front desk as he filled me in on why things went downhill before and how much better things should be moving forward now that there is new ownership in place.   In addition to cleaning the place thoroughly they did renovations/tune ups on all of the equipment.  They also are going to restore the cardio theater room which was turned into a junk room and have bought the adjacent vacant space which will be used for fitness classes and some medical/health services.

I left there totally on board with signing back up.  My 40+ glory days of fitness all went down inside the walls of Retro.  I like their equipment more as they have dumbbells that go all the way up to 120lbs, a squat rack, and spare olympic bars that can be used for stuff like deadlifting.

All of these are items missing at Planet Fitness. Also, the locker rooms/showers are mediocre and the gym can get annoying full at times, even in the middle of the day when I go. I also question Planet Fitness’s decision to fill their staff mostly with individuals that are very overweight and not representative at all of a healthy lifestyle.

To be fair, Planet Fitness has not been awful.  The Lunk Alarm has not sounded off once in the 8 or 9 months I have been a member.  They keep the place relatively clean and I like that they have the Concept 2 rowers, something Retro does not have.  I wound up getting better workouts in there than I did at the Wellness Center at least.

I need to inquire at the PF membership desk about how financially painful it will be to cancel my membership early.  I signed up for the 10 bucks a month plan which includes a 1 year contract which I still have a few months left on.  If the penalty is very stiff it may actually be cheaper to just keep plopping down 10 a month until the contract is fulfilled.  Either way I plan on rebooting my membership at Retro asap.  I am excited about getting back to my fitness roots after drifting around for 18 months inside of the Wellness Center and The Judgement Free Zone.

Speaking of fitness, I awoke today with extensive lower body soreness from Tuesdays lower body resistance training backed up with yesterdays cardio brick which included 20 very difficult minutes on the rower.  Cindy is feeling much the same after her first full session at Orange Theory yesterday.  The workout she described to me sounded very intense.

Hey, the Pope is here.  Evidently there is a rock star aura surrounding his visit with 24/7 media coverage and throngs of catholics surrounding his every step and and hanging on his every word.  Don’t get me wrong, as far as popes go, I think the current pope is the best I have seen in my lifetime.  He seems to be willing at times to inject a little common sense into his positions on various issues that contradict the normal religious narrative which is a good thing.  I am also glad he just looks like a good person, not look like Satan spawn, as the last pope did.

I can’t say I have watched 10 seconds of pope coverage.  It just doesn’t move my interest meter a single tick.

Last night when I got home the skies were very menacing but I already had it stuck in my head that I wanted to get the Prius oil change completed.  When I get in that mindset it is tough to get me to change directions.  I quickly changed clothes and drug out the stuff I needed to do the work.  Doing an oil change immediately after driving home from your commute is never a great idea as the engine oil can be hot enough to burn you.  I used extra care when removing the drain plug and filter to minimize my contact with the hot used oil.  I had the oil swapped out in the span of 15 minutes as the thunder rumbled overhead.

Yesterday I found myself spending a good portion of the day dealing with running club related issues regarding various events.  I have been doing chip timing for the club for something like eight years at this point.  The core group of people that handle most responsibilities for our races have been pretty much the same for that amount of time or even longer in some cases.  With this being the case you would assume when it comes to putting on races it would go like clockwork more often than not since it is something we have done literally 100 times or more.  Well unfortunately that isn’t the case.

Even after all of that experience it seems every event has some basic breakdowns in execution or preparation that you just would not expect.  Of course a race is a living, breathing, dynamic beast that will always have unforeseen issues.  It’s the foreseen issues that should not be popping up on the radar at this point.  The frustration that results from these issues has to be tempered however since almost everyone involved is on a purely volunteer basis, graciously donating their time and effort.  It’s a tight line to balance upon.

Last night after work I made a couple pit stops on my way home from work.  First was to grab supplies for a Prius oil change, the maintenance light came on with over 1500 miles to go on the trip.  I used full synthetic oil for the last change which holds up much longer so I am not that concerned but I do need to try to get it changed tonight.  I am also thinking the car may be ready for a shock/strut replacement after 165,000 miles.  I noticed on the trip the ride is getting on the harsh side.  Since I did the shock/strut job on the Tacoma I think I could do the same on the Prius without much fuss.

The other stop was to check out the race course for the race I am timing Saturday.  With the new race equipment I need to have a good idea of how wide the start line is going to be so I bring the necessary amount of 1 meter wide mats.  I also need to get an idea of how far it is between the start line and the finish line since I need to haul ass between those two points on race day.  This is especially critical with 5K’s since the first finisher crosses the line anywhere between 15-18 minutes from the start gun.

Over the weekend I got a surprise email from RetroFitness, the old gym I went to for over 5 years before I jumped ship for the Wellness Center.  Well technically by that time the gym was actually rebranded as Royal Fitness after they dropped the RetroFitness franchise.

Around 6 months ago Royal Fitness shut their doors.  I heard they had not paid their rent for months and they were looking to sell the gym to new ownership. Well that sale never happened and the gym remained closed with it’s lights out but all equipment still intact ever since.

So the email said the new gym is once again open under “new ownership” and the Royal Fitness name is now flipped back to RetroFitness.  Although Planet Fitness has been a serviceable gym and is very close to my office, I liked the equipment and spaces available to me at Retro more.  When I quit the gym it was not because of equipment, it was other factors like staff and upkeep.  I didn’t enjoy staff being more interested in checking their smartphones more than acknowledging customers or their tendency to play really obnoxious music at decibel levels that approached concert level.  They also did a poor job of keeping the place clean, cobwebs and dust were as prevalent as weights by the end.

So when my gym buddy told me he saw the same guy that managed the gym (not owned) under the Royal Fitness name was back as the relaunch Retro gym it did not thrill me.  I like the guy personally as he is friendly and one of the few that treated clients nicely.  However he was also the one that allowed his employees to be slugs so in the big picture I would much prefer a new face in there running the show.  Even so, I plan to stop by after work this week to take a look and see if there is enough change there to warrant me coming back.

Every year after a road trip it feels strange to be home.  The idea that a few days ago you were on the other side of the country and now find yourself back in familiar surroundings with familiar routines just screws with my head a little bit.  When we got home on Friday about 5 of course one of the first things we did was head out back to say hi to the chickens.  I guess they were as excited as chickens get which means not very.

We immediately worked on unloading the Prius whose interior looked like a homeless person was living it after 13 days on the road.  I went back to front, systematically removing items, many of which first went into the middle of the garage for Cindy to sort and sanitize as needed.  Cindy also was out in the coop tending to it since we told the chicken sitters we would handle cleaning it since we would be home.  In total we were plugging away a solid couple hours until we actually settled down to enjoy our traditional Friday night pizza and start catching up on our huge backlog of dvr’d content.

Saturday I headed outside to start on what I knew would be a pretty miserable session of yard chores.  Two weeks of it not being touched combined with heavy rainfall had left the grounds in a pretty jungle-like state.  As the heat and humidity poured down on me I instantly yearned for the crisp, cool air we just experienced in Wyoming and Yellowstone.  Florida wet season is really getting old.

After weeding the yard I hopped on the tractor and mowed the soppy grass wherever I could.  A lot of areas were still too submerged to touch.  Some of the areas I did mow were still very mucky resulting in the tractor looking like a swamp buggy when I was done with mud splattered everywhere, including on me.  Cindy was busting ass during most of this time giving the coop a very thorough scrub down.

After taking a shower to get all the scuzz off me most of the rest of the day was spent inside tending to pulling and editing the various videos which is a lengthy process.  You can catch what I published so far either on my YouTube channel or on Cindy’s channel.  There is still more content for me to dig through.

On Sunday morning doing any endurance training was not even mentioned.  Both Cindy and I were not feeling up to it plus it felt that there was still a ton of things that needed to get done.  Among those things was the monumental task of auditing the trip where I had to reconcile a HUGE pile of credit card receipts and enter them into Quicken.  As I did so I categorized the expenses into a few categories, gas, lodging, food, souvenirs, rides, and other.  Seeing the final numbers were interesting.

Despite driving an additional 1600 miles this year we basically paid the same for gas as last year thanks to lower gas prices.  Driving 6600 miles on $380 of gas is pretty amazing.    Our average cost for lodging per night was $91.  That number was inflated by two nights at Cody, Wyoming during our Yellowstone visit which cost more than $150 a night.  Ironically during the entire trip we did not stay at a single La Quinta.  On most prior road trips La Quintas were the destination of choice most nights.  This time around they always seemed to be priced slightly higher than comparable chains.  Since dog accommodations were not a concern  it wasn’t a big deal.

Originally I had set a loose mental goal of us spending basically the same amount of money as we did last year.  The final tally came in about $500 higher than last year but with one night and two extra days of travel which included Vegas I think we did ok.  That final total is inclusive of cash I pulled out and money for two weeks of chicken sitting.  I bet I spent well over 90 minutes getting everything accounted for.

After a quick trip in the SSR to blow out the cobwebs and grab some coffee I got back onto the tractor to mow most of the areas that were impassable on Saturday.  A couple days of hot, bright sun had done a nice job of getting rid of a lot of the water.  The tractor still required a thorough bath after mowing again.

So on both Saturday and Sunday I spent over 35 minutes on the phone with a Directv representative.  This is something I go through every year and every year it annoys the shit out of me.  I have Directv just for the Sunday Ticket, something they allowed me to do years ago when I dropped my main package.  It is a non-standard configuration that they won’t allow a new customer to do.  When the season concludes I suspend my service for 6 months and then have it reactivate when the season begins.

Well each year I have to call to get the Sunday ticket working again.  They can’t simple turn it on since I have no normal package, it always requires the intervention of a supervisor.  So on Saturday I call and explain to a guy the background of my situation.  I told him that last year I specifically requested that the rep notes in my account what was done to get the service working so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel again.  He said there were no notes about that on my account which pissed me off.

Despite my advice to get a supervisor involved he insists on going through vanilla troubleshooting steps like restarting the receiver (I already did that) and resending the authorization several times, which did nothing.  He then tells me that we can’t really tell if the Sunday Ticket will work until Sunday, closer till game time.  I told him that wasn’t true, even before the games there will be a placeholder image on the Sunday Ticket channels if you are authorized for them.  The guy just seemed out of ideas and was trying to get me off the phone with “just wait to see what happens on Sunday” advice. I wasn’t accepting it.  I kept pressing him to dig deeper as I knew there was more that was required.  Well after 35-40 minutes I was abruptly disconnected which of course infuriated me but I had no time to sit on the phone another half hour again.

Fast forward to Sunday morning.  I once again call and this time get an older sounding woman on the phone.  I once again explain the background of the issue.  The woman says that she doesn’t see my account as even having the Sunday Ticket included on my account, nor does she see record of my call from Saturday.  Well that is just lovely.  Since I do not have a basic programming package the woman was not able to add the Sunday Ticket to my service.  However, after a long wait and some intervention by a supervisor, finally the channels started working.  I once again asked the woman to please document exactly what was done so we don’t have to go through this again next year. Ironically, since the Eagles/Cowboys game was a national broadcast I couldn’t even use the Sunday ticket this weekend which blacks out locally broadcast games.

After bearing witness to the game, I almost wish it was blacked out entirely, it was that bad.  In the offseason Chip Kelly came under a great deal of scrutiny based on his dismantling of the core of the team, especially on offense getting rid of our starting QB, RB, WR, and two offensive lineman.  After the strong preseason performance by the Eagles a lot of those critics adopted a wait and see attitude, maybe Chip is not only a strategic but also a personnel genius?  Well after two games of the regular season this outlook on Chip’s player decisions are looking much bleaker.  The Cowboys game was an utter disaster.

The defense, surprisingly, were the far better of the two units, despite being out on the field for 40+ minutes thanks to the Eagles absolute failure to sustain any sort of offensive momentum.  DeMarco Murray, the LeSean McCoy replacement ran for negative yardage overall for the entire game.  The fault for this was largely the offensive line that seemed to routinely let D-lineman into the backfield every time Murray was handed the ball, it was miserable.

The receivers did little to help move the ball dropping a number of balls that a pro should normally pull in.  Sam Bradford, who I assume was supposed to be a Nick Foles upgrade, looked flustered and confused in a manner that befit a rookie, not a guy that has been a starter in the league for a number of years.  I really don’t like the passing game that has been in place for the first two games.  I don’t think I have seen a single pass that has traveled in the air more than 20 yards down the field.  I don’t know if it is because the Eagles have no receivers fast enough to beat anybody deep or Chip just wants to exclusively do dump and run pass plays.

There is nothing that will get Eagles fans to turn on you faster than coming up small against the Cowboys.  If Chip hangs a couple more consecutive losses around his neck (he has lost 5 of last 6 games dating back to last year), there will be a roar of dissent calling for his head.  It seems like the league has now figured out how to deal with his hurry up style of play.  It scares no one.  Chip’s style of viewing players as trading cards you can just plug into and out of a team without consideration of overall team chemistry is looking to be his fatal flaw.  The team looked absolutely awful on Sunday.

As if the Eagles awful performance was not bad enough, my fantasy team is now in shambles as well.  Two crucial parts of my team were Dez Bryant and Tony Romo,  whom I spent high draft picks on, both are now going to be sidelined for months.  I may as well raise the white flag now as my bench players are marginal at best.

Later yesterday and overnight there was another round of torrential rain and storms that made me very glad to have had the opportunity to knock down the grass over the weekend.  It’s going to be an interesting week as I try to adapt back to the daily grind after two weeks of taking each day as it comes.

Last night we decided to split the difference between Tallahassee and Pensacola by stopping at a town named Bonifey which is almost dead center in between.  We got lucky and found a very nice and new Holiday Inn Express to stay at.  It was right around the best of the places we stayed at during this road trip.

Our dinner on the way in was an extravagant Subway meal. Both Cindy and I have had more than our fill of convenience food during this trip.  After we get back from road trips we normally have a lot of resolve to eat very clean to make up for the dirty road eating.

So like I said the hotel was very nice.  The shower was clean, the bed was comfortable, and everything was well tended to.  Despite these things I got yet another miserable night of sleep.  Why you ask?  Somewhere on the second floor there must have been a smoke detector with a low or dead battery.  The result of that was it beeping every 20 seconds or so the entire night.

I was exhausted when I fell asleep last night so the detector sound couldn’t stop me.  However once I woke up around 3AM it became like Chinese water torture.  I did not feel like going down to the front desk in the middle of the night. Instead I laid in bed trying to ignore the noise and fall back asleep, unsuccessfully.  I then grabbed one of the extra pillows and sandwiched my head in between it, fashioning some makeshift ear muffs.  The thick pillows did a good job of blocking the sound but also was warm and uncomfortable.  Having pillows jammed against my ears also made me hear/feel my pulse which was just another thing to keep me awake.  I basically laid in bed awake until maybe 5am and then was awoken at 5:40 by the alarm.  I am looking very forward to recapturing a more normal sleep schedule starting tonight in my own bed. I let the clerk know about the beeping this morning, I find it impossible that nobody else on the floor would have complained about it prior to me.

When Cindy turned on the tv this morning there was some Alabama public access tv channel tuned in.  The show that was on was called Hobo Pantry.  At first I thought the chubby man seated to the right was a woman as he had a bizarre 1975 haircut and a plaid button down shirt that would have passed for a blouse.  Once he spoke there was no doubt he was a hard core southerner.  To his left was some sort of park ranker type guy.  He sat in a large wooden rocking chair with his hands folded across his lap.  The set looked like it was straight off of a Hee Haw set.

While I watched they covered a variety of topics, including how to not shoot yourself during hunting season, fishing regulations, and how the host was glad to hear someone he knows that supports same sex marriage was moving out of town. It was strangely compelling, enough so that I filmed a few seconds of it.

We were pulling out in the Prius by 7AM and have had an uneventful drive south so far.  Our eta is 4PM but we need to make a grocery store pit stop on the way home so we probably won’t get home until closer to 5.  Once we do a whirlwind of unpacking, laundry, and cleaning will be unleashed, unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Just like all of our road trips, this one has had so many memorable moments it is pretty much impossible to pick them all out.  But let’s run some numbers first.  It looks like out total mileage is going to be just over 6600 miles, making it the farthest road trip I have ever done.  To be honest I think it was a bit too ambitious.  As I mentioned yesterday Cindy and I have both been going a bit nuts being in the car so long.  Just for perspective our trip last year was around 5000 miles.

We spent about $1100 on hotel rooms during the trip, not bad for 12 nights that included Vegas and the Grand Canyon area (most expensive of the trip) Believe it or not to cover all those miles only cost us $375 in gas, I added it myself a second time because I couldn’t believe it.  We averaged a little over 45 mpg for those 6500 miles.  Our best tank average was 54.7 mpg and our worst was 38.7.  The most we paid for gas was $3.29 in the Vegas area, the least we paid was $1.99 in Georgia somewhere.  The lowest price we saw posted anywhere was $1.80 a gallon somewhere in Texas.

So as far as highlights of the trip, every spot we targeted delivered in one way or another. There are 13 days of blog entries you can pour through if you would like them in detail.  There was so much beauty to be seen in many forms from the man created Mount Rushmore, Las Vegas and Hoover Dam contrasted by the natural awesomeness places like Yellowstone, Craters of the Moon, and the Bonneville Salt Flats possess.

I really couldn’t establish a clear leader in the best of those attractions but if I were to pick the worst of the five I would probably choose Vegas for several reasons.  Only spending one full day there made everything seem rushed and when combined with all of those damn people, cigarette smoke, and pricey entertainment I found Vegas to be the only time during the road trip where I really found myself in a foul mood.  I also was not happy that they have torn down so much of the strip and rebuilt it in the span of 10 years that I hardly recognized sections of it.

The bad luck I had with my aerial sorties during the trip were pretty funny in retrospect although they certainly didn’t feel that way at the time.  To crash the Phantom at both Yellowstone and Craters of the Moon after basically never crashing the drone in two years of ownership is pretty nuts.  The feelings I had of embarrassment and anger at myself as I maneuvered the dangerous, restricted lava field area of Craters of Moon trying to find the drone are something I will not soon forget.  I was literally a minute away from just giving up and walking away from $1400 of quadcopter and camera equipment.

Of course road trips are all about the travel as much as the destination.  We saw so many things, met so many different types of people and got to experience a seat of your pants style of life that is such a contrast to our mostly regimented day in and day out existence.

Cindy and I pretty equally split the driving on the trip which made things more bearable. My distraction of choice when I was not driving was either punching out the blog or playing dozens of games of Hearthstone on the iPad.  It helped long periods of time pass by pretty painlessly.

As I have mentioned several times the length of the trip was something that was a bit problematic.  It’s very hard to cover those kind of miles in 13 days and not have any conflicts which there have been a few of.  Luckily Cindy and I are normally pretty good at putting stupid things behind us.  I think our experiences will help us when it comes to planning future ventures out of the state.  Less miles and a more casual driving pace would probably make a road trip less about the grind and more about the great.

Our drive into Dallas was long but mostly uneventful.  We got to our hotel about 7PM, now on central time.  While I was in the passenger seat I was trying to remotely restart our chicken coop dvr which became unreachable remotely.  I was in the middle of trying to find a way to do it when we got a call from our chicken sitter who was at the house.  I just had him unplug the dvr for a few seconds and plug it back in which got us back online.

After a day of nothing but driving neither Cindy or I felt like going out to dinner, we had food delivered to the room.  Speaking of the room, it was actually a suite with a full second room and pretty nice accommodations.  It was sort of a bummer when Cindy saw what she said were baby roaches around one of the sinks this morning.  Once she saw that she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Last night while we ate dinner we caught a good portion of the republican primary debate which was a big tv event.  Mostly thanks to Donald Trump, there is more interest in the 2016 republican primaries than any other time in my life.  People just love seeing Trump throw his weight around, plain and simple.

I found the debate both entertaining and aggravating.  Let me go candidate by candidate and give you my feedback (if I can remember them all)

I felt bad for Rand Paul as Trump repeatedly mocked his current 1% polling rate as not being worthy of being on the stage.  I do agree with a lot of Rand’s ideas and he probably has a better command of the US Constitution than anyone else on the stage.  I also liked that he is not afraid to still characterize the US decision to throw military contractors a bone with the Iraq war as a major mistake and poor judgement.  Rand’s hair is very odd, it almost looks like a hair piece.

Mike Huckabee is a dipshit with his bullshit religious right agenda.  I thought it was laughable when he made a comment about how we should focus on finding the cures for ailments instead of treating the symptoms.  In the list of ailments he wanted “cures” for was diabetes and heart disease.  I laughed out loud that this man who looked to be very obese wanted a cure for these two diseases that are mostly lifestyle related.  Eat a salad you idiot.

Ah Ted Cruz, I can’t stand that guy even a little bit.  He is as smarmy as it gets even with his neck spilling out over his collar.  Every single word he says annoys me as he is the epitome of a tea party zealot.  He seems like he needed to be spanked more as a child.  He has zero shot of winning.

Marco Rubio, who is famous for dry mouth, came off as a mega-hardliner who wants to nuke the world and do nothing about climate change because China won’t.  His thoughts on immigration were interesting because of his background obviously.

Ben Carson who before the debate was polling at number two behind Trump has no shot either.  He seems like a calm, intelligent, logical man, which is why he has no shot.  He doesn’t have the presence or persona most people are going to want in a political candidate.  The fact that he is black dooms him in the republican party no matter what anyone says in public.

Trump was next and he seemed to be quite hot and bothered, literally.  His face looked flush for most of the debate.  I wasn’t sure if it was from the heat of the lights or if he was embarrassed a few times when other candidates called him to the carpet for a few things that he didn’t have real solid answers for.  I am sure he felt he won the debate.  I think it sort of exposed some of the holes in his plan.

Jeb Bush was next to Trump.  I heard the general consensus was he did better because he fought with Trump more, including asking Trump to apologize to Jeb’s wife for making a remark that Jeb was more sympathetic to illegal immigrants because his wife is Mexican.  Personally Jeb didn’t impress me at all and in fact said one of the dumbest things of the night when the moderator asked all of the candidates which woman they would want to see on the new 10 dollar bill.  His answer was Margaret Thatcher.  What the fck Jeb? It was a true George W moment where you could tell for sure they were related.

Jeb also defended W’s time as president, summing up his countless missteps with “at least he kept us safe”.  Huh? What does that mean exactly?  If the definition of keeping us safe is no more buildings falling down I guess that means Obama has kept safe as well? Who knows, to me it was like when you give somebody a very involved and thought out criticism and their response would be “I know you are but what am I”.  Adios Jeb.

I had never seen Carly Forina speak before and after last night I hope I never do again.  I found it amazing that the press was characterizing her performance as great.  I thought she came off terribly.  I don’t know if it is the gallons of botox she has injected into her face but everything she said came out as robotic and sterile.  You have to be somewhat likable to be the president.  She came off as an ice witch to me who repeatedly tried to log jam in her well rehearsed statements when it wasn’t her turn to talk.  She has as much shot as Michelle Bachman.

Ah I forgot about Scott Walker who was in the middle somewhere.  He is another guy with an image problem.  He has a permanent expression on his face like he is wasted.  As another tea party champion I of course spend most of the time he is talking being annoyed.  He of course has no shot either but maybe him and Ted Cruz can hang out and compare checks the Koch brothers wrote them.

The Ohio governor (Kasik?) seemed like a solid guy with a good track record.  He had some weird appearance issues as well.  He talks with constant duck lips, something I found myself concentrating on.  He is in a similar boat with Rand Paul, on the stage but far in the rear of the pack.

Finally there was big Chris Christie that was trying to throw his weight around, coming off as the big burly guy that doesn’t take any shit.  Despite his record of being more of a moderate republican candidate he seemed to be making a clear effort to come off as much more conservative than his past actions would indicate.  His crowing about enforcing the federal marijuana laws if he takes office is an instant turn off and a very stupid thing to hang your hat on.

I thought a lot of things about the debate were dumb as the moderator threw out many questions designed to solely incite conflict and nothing else.  The question about what woman each candidate would want on the 10 dollar bill was pointless and the following question about what secret service call sign they would want for themselves if they become president was even dumber.

Like I said earlier, I couldn’t believe the debate was 3 hours.  I also was surprised there were commercials.  I never recalled a debate having commercial breaks.  Thanks to Trump these debates have become HUGE money making opportunities for the networks, of course they are cashing in.

I was surprised you heard multiple candidates talking about changing the tax code to either the flat or fair tax model. One model imposes a simple flat income tax that is the same for everyone, no infinitely complex tax code and loop hole system.  The other model replaces the current income tax system with a nationwide tax on consumption.  I think either system is better than what is currently in place.  Every election cycle candidates say they like this plan and it never, ever gains any traction once they enter office.  It is one of those things that will simply never change because big business doesn’t want it to.

So this morning after breakfast we were walking up to the room.  Out of my peripheral vision I saw a person walk in the front doors and the clerk  say something like “hi, how can I help you”.  Then within 10 seconds we heard what was an obvious altercation.  Cindy got a better look than I did, she said the clerk was pushing and kicking the guy out the door.  I heard the clerk say “get the FUCK out of my hotel and don’t come back!”  I didn’t get a good look at the other guy but Cindy said he looked like he may have been a vagrant/hitchhiker type as he had a large backpack strapped on.  I wondered what happened in those couple seconds that made the clerk go from 0-60.  How exciting.

I was first to drive today, getting us into Louisiana.  As I mentioned yesterday, on this trip I have been approached by a number of people looking for help and I have repeatedly done so.  Well to my amazement, it happened AGAIN today.

Cindy was inside using the restroom and grabbing water while I was pumping gas.  An average looking guy in a baseball hat and sunglasses came walking over my way.  He asks me if there was anyway I could give him a gallon of gas.  I was caught a little off guard.  I asked him if he had a container or something to put the gas in.  He said his car was parked over there and it was running on fumes but he had enough to drive it over to the pump.  After seeing Cindy was still inside I told him to bring it over.

After I finished dumping 5 gallons into the Prius I dumped another 5 or 6 gallons into his non-descript brown Chevy Malibu.  As I pumped I talked to the guy a bit, asking him if he was trying to get home or to work.  He said “no man, I don’t know where I am going next”  He said he can’t believe he is an position where he has to ask someone for gas.  He said I looked familiar, I told him I am sure he never met me before as I am from Florida. I told the guy I was on a roadtrip and I have seen a lot of people in need during my travels.    I finished up pumping the gas and wished the guy good luck with whatever came next for him.  He thanked me, shook my hand and then asked me if I happened to have any cigarettes.  I told him I didn’t smoke.

He drove away before Cindy was done inside.  When Cindy came out I told her I had another charity situation pop up.  She at first assumed I gave someone else money.  When I told her I instead pumped 5 or 6 gallons of gas into his car she thought that was a better use of compassion.  It is an odd thing how I must throw off an invisible nice guy aura.

We are going to try extending our drive today as far as possible so we have a relatively short shot into Naples tomorrow.  Both Cindy and I are going a little car crazy at this point, after spending 100+ hours in the car, getting on each others nerves from time to time.  Yesterday I found myself randomly poking Cindy for no good reason, just to be irritating.  We both are just looking forward to getting our asses home and back to normalcy.