Archives 2015

Although I don’t think Trump is a viable political candidate, I do find his campaign extremely entertaining.  Yesterday he decided to lash out at Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who evidently dared to say something negative about Donald.  It doesn’t really matter what your background is, if you say something bad about Trump he will find the time to throw a few “idiots” and “losers” your way.

I thought Chris Christie put the Trump hoopla into perspective during an interview I saw on Fox News at the gym.  He reminded the host that 4 years ago at this time Michelle Bachman was leading the polls for the GOP.  Although I still think it is unlikely, I actually hope Donald manages to somehow win the nomination and further hope Bernie Sanders is his opponent.  It would be absolutely hilarious to see Trump throwing endless personal attacks at Bernie and have them bounce off  like teflon.  Bernie absolutely will not participate in smear tactics.  It would be one hell of a show.

Prep continued last night for the race and departure that are both coming up this weekend. I have many fragments floating around in my head of things to get done before now and then.  I need to make sure it all gets pulled together.

Hey it’s Throwback  Thursday.  When I was a kid I was really into riding toys.  I had a number of them.  The farm I grew up on was a good place for them with many hills as well as a long, gradually sloped driveway, perfect for gravity powered vehicles.

Before a bicycle became my primary transportation I had four different “vehicles”.  Two of them were purely gravity powered.  One was a soapbox style car that my dad built for me from a kit.  It had a conventional steering system, complete with steering wheel that cleverly used a dowel and rope to control direction.  Unfortunately as the rope stretched the steering got progressively more sloppy.  It had a hand brake that consisted of a piece of wood that applied friction to one of the back wheels.  Despite my dad putting a lot of work into the project it never got an equivalent amount of riding time.

The other gravity only vehicle got even less use, an old riding mower with the engine removed.  Driving this was cool as it almost felt like a real car.  The coolness quickly faded when it came time to push the thing back up the hill.  It weighed a ton.  As a result the old mower spent most of it’s time in the barn.

The two pedal powered toys I had where the Big Wheel and the Green Machine.  The Big Wheel was the status quo of riding toys, everyone had one.  It’s light weight and reliable steering made it a solid choice for most riding conditions.  I do recall thinking that I always felt cramped in the riding position.

My favorite riding toy of all time was the Green Machine. I remember when I opened it on Christmas feeling like I hit the jackpot.  It’s aggressive styling and unheard of rear wheel, lever based steering made the toy unique and difficult for the average kid to master.   The steering on the toy wwas both a good and bad thing.  It was bad for conventional steering and became very twitchy at speed. It however was awesome for doing power slides.  I loved pedaling my ass off and then throwing the steering levers in opposite directions, sending the Green Machine into and instant tail spin.   It’s extended riding position was also unmatched in comfort.

I miss the days when the major decision I had to make for the day was which toy I was going to ride.

Last night was the annual fantasy football draft party.  I got home a little before 4PM and got to work rearranging the house.  Cindy had picked up various items for the party during the day and had started getting stuff ready.  There is a pretty extensive furniture shuffle that goes on for the event.  The sofa and love seat go against the wall and the big dining room table gets moved in front of the tv along with some other smaller stuff getting relocated.  I also had to get the computer set up for the remote owners to connect in via Skype.

The draft was supposed to start at 7.  Of course it didn’t start on time, it rarely does.  Most of the guys showed up around 6:45 but Taylor, the guy that was bringing the draft board didn’t get there until 7:15 or so. A lot of the guys commented on the new faux wood ceramic tile floor, complimenting the way it looked.  It certainly holds up better to 15 sets of feet than the old carpet did.

Cindy did a great job of having a nice food spread out.  We had three coolers with ice in them available to keep beer cold and all three went completely unused.  All the people that brought beer did so in their own personal coolers so there was no need for our auxiliary storage.  My personal stash of Miller Lites was in the fridge.

Every year, the draft party seems to be my most gluttonous eating experience and once again that was the case.  The combination of alcohol and a room full of fantasy football owners seems to bring out my inner pig.  I was eating almost non-stop the entire 3 hours the party was going on, it was like I was a tractor trailer going down a steep appetite hill with no brakes.  I dined on the veggie platter, spanikopita, pizza bites, chips, brownies, cookies, and more in a steady rotation.   The six or seven Miller Lites I drank made me just not care.

I was not very happy with the team I drafted.  I made some mistakes and drafted a number of players whose name I never heard of before, putting them on my roster just based on their placement on my player rankings list.  I was quite surprised when at the end of the night the draft rating tool said I had the 4th or 5th best draft of 12 teams.  It sure didn’t feel that way.

The draft didn’t finish up until almost 11, about a half hour later than normal.  Cindy and I still did our best to get 90% of the house back in order before retiring to bed.  I was utterly exhausted from drinking combined with the food coma. That feeling persisted through till today.  I awoke feeling pretty miserable and wishing I could just blow off work.  I just feel toxic.  My body is not accustomed to taking in that much fat, sugar, salt and alcohol in such a short period of time.  I am hoping to beat it out of me with a good cardio session at lunch.

Cindy said this morning the hawk, presumably the same one that we have chased away before multiple times was back.  It was on the ground near the pond literally a couple feet away from Katie, one of the barred rock chickens.  Katie was actually curious about the hawk and not scared.  The hawk seemed equally curious and not aggressive.  This hawk also is not very concerned with human beings, not flying off until Cindy got pretty close to it.

We really don’t know what to make of this bird.  Of course hawks are natural predators of chickens however they don’t attack chickens by chasing them around on the ground.  Typically a hawk will dive bomb it’s prey at high speed with the resulting impact either stunning or killing the animal it is attacking.  Cindy and I don’t want to lose a chicken to any predator so we will keep chasing this bird away although I have a distant hope that maybe this is one of those weird things in nature where natural enemies become friends.

The yard around the chicken coop has at least a half dozen different spots the chickens can use for cover if need be.  Hopefully they are smart enough to utilize them.

If you are curious what my FF draft looked like here it is:

So we have started working on the long list of items to be handled prior to hitting the road on Sunday.  There is a daunting amount of things to take care of between now and then so we are utilizing lists to try to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.  With Cindy being home during the week it definitely gives us an advantage over prior years.

I will be skipping out of work a little early today to get to work on draft party prep which involves a lot of furniture moving, food/drink prep and AV configuration.  As usual I will do the bare minimum for my team (The Green Machine) draft prep besides having a ranked list of players in front of me.  It has served me well in the past so why change?

Once the party is out of the way the race on Saturday comes into the foreground however trip prep needs to be going on simultaneously.  I am crossing my fingers we have a few hot, bright, sunny days with no rain so we get an opportunity to give the grounds a thorough haircut before we head out.

Cindy pointed out the other day that we just rolled through another full moon cycle which is probably why I have been feeling generally lousy with my disposition recently.  There have been some external situations that didn’t help matters much.  I am crossing my fingers that the road trip will be a good way to clear my mental plate and come back with a suitcase full of fresh memories to cherish forever.  I just hope the chickens are ok.

So after work on Friday I made the mistake of stopping at Costco.  It was a mistake because I forgot to consider that people were worked up into a frenzy about tropical storm Erika.  The mere mention of a remote possibility of it becoming a hurricane is all it takes to set off mild panic.  The aisles of the store were crammed with people preparing for end of days.  It seemed like almost every cart in the store had a case or two of bottle water jammed in it.  As is always the case for me, I don’t react well to mob mentality.  Sure be prepared if there is a serious reason for concern but what the fck, we get severe thunderstorms weekly that deliver as much if not more punch than the storm was predicted to have.  It turned out to deliver even less than that as Erika fell apart Saturday morning.

The state of Florida jumped right onto the overreaction bandwagon with Rick Scott declaring a state of emergency far in advance of there being one.  His declaration meant other government agencies had to fall in line and overreact in kind.  State agencies were given orders to do stuff like shutdown, unplug, and cover equipment with plastic.  It was all just a big production over a very small threat.  Since Florida hasn’t had a hurricane make landfall in 10 years it seems like some EMS agencies are just chomping at the bit to put their emergency action plans in place, regardless of their actual need.

Saturday morning Cindy and I headed to the track to run.  We wound up running slightly over 5K in distance, the first time I have run that far in at least 6 months, maybe more.  I felt ok during the run besides being drenched from what felt like 100% humidity.  The rest of the weekend I had an off and on limp but I didn’t expect to emerge from the run pain free.  As long as it fades in a day or two that is the best I can expect nowadays.

We picked up the dogs after the run on our way to do a couple errands.   At Home Depot I picked up some hardware to work on the door to the chicken run.  Since it was built it has twisted somewhat, making it difficult to open and close. My idea was to drive an anchor point into opposing corners and then use vinyl coated steel cable with a tensioner in the middle. My thought was this would resist the twisting forces.

Well it seemed like all it wound up doing was actually make the door even more difficult to close.  I decided to take a new approach, grabbing my large wood chisel and a hammer.  I used it to shave down the 2×6 along the bottom frame of the door until it was able to swing open and closed without friction.  It took a lot of trial and error and I had to keep chasing away curious chickens that thought wood shavings were treats.

Over the weekend I also tried to further address water problems and the coop.  The seam between the chicken run and shed still has been allowing a lot of water to seep through.  The water runs down the side of the shed and then drips onto the chicken door landing, splashing water inside as well.  Yesterday I used an entire tube of caulking to fill that seam as much as possible.  Hopefully I have finally got the issue handled.

During the afternoon Saturday I also completed the rebuild of my pool cleaner.  I installed the new bumper assembly and gear box.  Having ripped it apart several times recently and using my power drill made the work go very quickly.  I was quite happy when I put it in the pool for a test run and it immediately took off, hauling ass around the bottom of the pool like it was brand new.

Saturday night we again stayed home and watched Run All Night, another Liam Neeson action flick.  Cindy didn’t expect much of the film but it was quite good.  Liam and action films have proven to be a pretty solid combo.  I’d give this one an A- rating without batting an eye.

On Sunday I woke up feeling very blah.  I felt unmotivated, lazy, and just down on the world.  I felt like I have such a busy week ahead of me that I should be doing stuff to prepare but had no desire to do so.  The wet swamp outside did little to help alleviate my cloudy mood.  Instead of doing productive work I played some games of Hearthstone for awhile to soothe my mind.  As the hours passed I started to feel a little better, aided by a cup of DD coffee.

I couldn’t mope that long because I needed to get busy on making my famous chocolate cake.  A friend of ours and her kids were coming over Sunday evening so we wanted to give them a treat.  Cindy Periscoped a good portion of the cake prep process.  The end result was what may have been the best version of the cake I ever pumped out.  Both the frosting and the cake itself were dead on.

The rains once again came mid-afternoon making any outdoor activities with the kids impossible.  Instead when they showed up they were entertained by the dogs, Tuki, and the latest Transformers movie that was streaming on Netflix.  Cindy prepared a very tasty meal to compliment the chocolate cake which everyone gave kudos to. It was nice to have them out to the house, hopefully next time the weather is more accommodating.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a super packed week.  I host the fantasy football draft party tomorrow night, have a race to time on Saturday, and oh by the way, a two week western road trip to prepare for.  Yay.

So yesterday was a big day for Cindy.  It was test day for her ACE personal trainer certification exam.  This was the culmination of a journey she started about 6 months ago.  She has been reading and studying from day one but the past month or so she was studying her ass off and taking endless rounds of practice tests.    She was very nervous about the exam, worried that despite her hard work she would not pass.  I felt anxious for her because I knew she would devastated if she did not pass.  Well a little after 1PM I got the text message from her that she did indeed pass the exam and was now an ACE certified trainer.  I talked to her on the phone.  She was actually crying which I think was just the culmination of stress and happiness for reaching her goal.   I told her I was very proud of her.

When she first talked of getting this certification I honestly did not think it would be quite as difficult as it turned out to be.  You are required to have a pretty in depth knowledge of physiology, exercise, client analysis and much more.  It was much more comprehensive than I expected.

The certification will help open a number of doors for Cindy.  She already has several promising leads which will allow her to embark on her new career.  To celebrate her accomplishment we went out to dinner at Carrabbas last night.  We enjoyed the non-season light crowds and were able to sit down without waiting, a near impossibility from the months of October to March.  We had a nice meal.  Cindy certainly deserved it.  I could tell she felt so relieved to have the looming test off her shoulders.  I swear during the last week she was studying/testing 8 hours a day.

So almost on cue, after I proclaimed I had been smoke smell free for going on two weeks on Wednesday, the smell returned yesterday.  I can smell it today as well to some degree.  Maybe if I just stop thinking and talking about it it can fade away.  My Uncle Randy messaged me about my Aunt Sis, who was mom’s aunt.  Aunt Sis was very much a believer in reincarnation, ghosts, and that sort of stuff.  He told me the day Aunt Sis died he had a black bird that was watching him and he had an odd sense it was her.  My grandfather also was a believer in reincarnation. I remember one time my mom telling me when I was very young I talked in depth about living a previous life which I have no recollection of.

If you read my blog you know that as an adult I have a very logical view of the world.  I don’t subscribe to religious beliefs nor do I think there is much waiting for anyone when they die besides an eternal nap.  However I also am not the type to be afraid to reevaluate my thoughts when new evidence is presented to me.  I just haven’t had that happen concretely to this point although there have been many moments of coincidence and deja vu throughout my life that don’t have any explanation that would compute logically.

For the first time in a long time Florida is potentially in the cross hairs for a hurricane.  As of now Erika is projected to hit the east coast of the state and swing right up the middle.  I have been a Florida resident long enough and seen enough tropical storm forecasts to know that there is still a lot of opportunity for the forecast track to change.

However regardless of it’s final destination it is very likely that regardless we would see significant rain and wind at the homestead.  The rain especially is unwelcome since our property is still sopping wet.

This is our last full weekend before the road trip which is scheduled to kick off two Sundays from now.  I need to start developing checklists so all that needs to get done is handled before we leave.  It doesn’t help that there is a race to time next Saturday to complicate matters.  Of course my biggest concern with the trip is the welfare of the chickens.  Our chicken sitters are stopping by over the weekend to make sure everything is clear.

Yesterday my pool cleaner parts showed up so I wasted little time ripping into my old Navigator.  I was surprised at what I found.  I already knew I was missing part of a bracket inside, I didn’t know I was missing a lot more than that.  As I dug deeper into it small ball bearings fell out on my lap.  One of the bearings on the main impeller had totally shattered.  When I turned it upside down a few other things fell out, a piece of styrofoam and a red plastic disc that looked broken.  I never figured out where they came from.  (I just discovered they are from the gearbox)

I had the thing almost completely ripped apart on the patio table.  I carefully swapped in my rebuild parts.  At this point the only thing that has not been replaced is the gear box at the top of the cleaner which sounds like shit.  After reassembling the Hayward I dropped it in the pool.  It was tracking much faster but not turning great, surely due to the gearbox.  I ordered a new gearbox and bumper assembly a few minutes ago. I’ve come this far, I may as well do a complete teardown so I can add “Hayward Pool Cleaner Repairs” to my resume.

Cindy’s daughter stopped by last night to have dinner with us.  She hung around for awhile afterwards.  When Cindy and Katie get together they often wind up getting quite silly.  Last night was no exception.  You can see some of the sillyness here, but only for another few hours until it is vaporized from the Periscope servers.

It is amazing how the name of a Periscope broadcast can influence the viewership.  I named the stream simply “Cindy and Katie”.  Two female names instantly brought in a ton of male viewers, surely hoping for something risque.  At one point the total live viewers swelled to almost 300 which is crazy considering most broadcasts Cindy or I do barely scrape double digits.

I had a bad dream last night.  I showed up at the finish line to time a race and finishers already were crossing the line. I had no timing equipment set up at this point.  The race clock had just passed 7 minutes and this was a half marathon so I had no idea what the hell was going on.  My mind raced to figure out what my options were.  The dream ended just as I concluded “I’m fcked”.

So I have described the very odd phantom smoke smell thing that was going on with me for several weeks.  At some point last week I realized I had not smelled it for a few days and I have not had it reoccur since.  There are many medical possibilities that could be related to phantom smoke.  There also is a theory it has something to do with the spirit world reaching out to you which seemed ironic since the one year anniversary of my mom’s passing happened a couple weeks ago.  I am not making any presumptions either way, I am just glad to not feel like I was just in a smoky casino anymore.  I have enough other ailments to worry about.

Our new chickens have been digging a few holes here and there as they have gotten older.  Recently they started digging at the exact same spots Betty, Wilma, and Pebbles used to, right at the corner near the lanai.   There are currently two holes there.  Quite often there will be a bird in each hole with another three or four standing near by waiting their turn to get in.  Chickens are funny.

So when I got home my immediate task was to work on the pool cleaner.  Despite putting a new set of feet on the cleaner it was going around the pool floor at a snail’s pace.  When I pulled it apart I saw a bracket that has fallen off 3 or 4 other times had worked it’s way loose again.  When I did some quick internet research I saw a recommendation to replace the inner a-frame if certain components are loose.  When I checked these components they were very loose and worn.   I was able to find a rebuild kit for 30 bucks.  I figured it was better than spending 300-400 on a new cleaner.  I am hoping this latest repair will help me squeeze another year or two out of the Hayward.

While I was out there I saw the small hawk had once again showed up, perching defiantly on a nearby fence post.  Once again the bird was unfazed by BB gun warning shots, I had to again walk at the hawk until it retreated to the back of the property but it still was hanging in a nearby tree.  I decided to try another method of deterrent.  I went inside and grabbed my drone.

I got the quadcopter airborne and walked to the back fence line.  The hawk was still in the same tree.  I steered the drone towards the bird and it immediately took off, flying to another tree.  It evidently was not a fan of the copter, it is quite noisy, like an angry swarm of bees.  I chased the hawk back and forth around the back of the property until it finally flew far away.  I’m hoping if am consistent with my hawk sorties they will learn there are better spots for them to hang out than our property.

So I was happy that it did not rain yesterday, giving the standing water an opportunity to evaporate to a good degree.  I calculated that by today the areas I could not mow on Sunday should be passable.  Well that plan was dashed when a tremendous storm rolled through last night.  The sound of water being dumped on the roof by the bucket was not music to my ears.  It was accompanied by frequent, close lightning and window rattling thunder.

About five or six times we had momentary losses of power.  This a very common summertime occurrence in Florida.  Unfortunately since we installed the Philips Hue bulbs this is a MUCH more annoying problem if it happens when you are trying to sleep.  The power to a Hue bulb is always on, the light may be off but the electronics inside are not.  When power is removed and then restored the Hue bulbs default to turning back on.  So every time the power burped the house lit up, requiring Cindy to grab her phone to turn them all off again.  I have to see if there is a way to change that default behavior, it was getting somewhat maddening.

So the stock market has had another blowout the last few days.  Luckily for me when this happens I don’t freak out although on paper I will have lost thousands of dollars in my two retirement accounts.  I am still young enough that I can view these dips as opportunities to cost average as I get to buy more mutual fund shares at a lower number through the automatic purchasing that continues to go on in the accounts.  However if I was closer to retirement age I don’t think I would be willing to have my nest egg exposed to the manipulation and robo-trading that can make these dips in the stock market much more exaggerated.

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.

Last night after work I met a few of my fellow fantasy football league owners to do the draft order selection.  Basically we put 12 numbered poker chips in a bag and start pulling for order.  Since we only had 4 of the 12 owners present we also pulled for other teams by proxy.  As is pretty much the norm for me, my draft spot is not great at number 9 but my past history shows my draft order has little to do with my teams future.  Last year I had the number 12 spot and I got second place in the league, for the second year in a row.

I had three beers while I was there.  When I went in the mens room to relieve myself I had a bizarre moment.  A few seconds after I went to the urinal another guy evidently went to the toilet to take a leak as well.  All of a sudden I hear “No I’m not sending you a pic of my c*ck!”  I look over my shoulder and confirm at this point it’s just me and this burly, bearded man in there.  Being slightly buzzed I found this rather funny and I laughed.  Although I did not ask for a clarification, I am pretty sure the man was texting/urinating at the same time and he felt the need to tell someone on the other end he was relieving himself.  Presumably this third party requested the genitalia picture. As I walked out I briefly glanced at the man with what surely was a “what the fck?” expression on my face.

My short 3 day work week will lead into another conventional weekend.  I have stuff to do of course which includes some maintenance on the Prius to get it ready for our massive road trip next month.  I am hoping we manage to have a mostly rain free weekend so the massive lakes of standing water can dry up.