Archives 2015

Last night Cindy’s daughter stopped by to join us for dinner.  As we walked her out later she pointed out there was a chicken in the front yard, great.  It was Cutie Pie, one of the black ones.  We discovered shortly afterward that Peaches had jumped the fence as well and was on the other side of the house.  When we trimmed flight feathers a month or so ago it was just for the smaller/lighter birds, we didn’t think the heavier black chickens would be flight risks.  Obviously we were wrong.  We are going to have to do another wing clipping round.  When we couldn’t find Peaches at first Cindy was already freaking out, thinking the hawk carried her away.

Tonight after work we have our only evening race of the year, the Corporate Run, which is targeted at local businesses and getting their employees, who in most cases are not regular runners, into a “race” environment.  We converted the race to a fun, non-competitive, un-timed format a few years which made race logistics much easier.  Trying to get a bunch of race novices to wear their assigned timing device was a nightmare.  The race encourages simple participation, the teams with the most members, win.

The event has seen a huge surge in numbers this year.  We are already 200 people ahead of last year with online registration still going on until 1PM today, plus whatever walk ups we get.  There is a possibility that this will be the largest 5K event the club does this year outside of the Thanksgiving Day race. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of our events flip to an evening start time.  Removing the sleep penalty most of our races impose on us would be quite nice.

Since nothing overtly interesting about my last 24 hours is popping into my head I could instead decide to pontificate on some bigger subjects like gun control, middle east upheaval, income inequality, or the 2016 presidential campaign.  I could turn the arrow inward and instead expand on some of my  personal thoughts and feelings regarding my own situation, relationships, and mental disposition.

I could do all of these things, but instead I would rather offer this.

So several of the new chickens have started regular egg laying.  We had a total of 5 eggs yesterday including some weird “shell less eggs” which sometimes happens when chickens start laying initially.  We know when there is laying going on by the symphony of clucking that goes on in the backyard.  It almost seems contagious at times.    Even though we have a total of 5 nesting boxes most of the hens prefer to use only one of them.  They actually line up for it, clucking impatiently.  Chickens are strange.

We also keep having close calls with the small hawk that absolutely refuses to take the hint.  It is constantly hanging around.  Cindy witnessed a couple times where the hawk swooped right through the areas where the chickens were hanging out, sending them scrambling.

The odd thing is I sort of like the hawk, it seems pretty docile, allowing us to get within 10-15 feet before taking off.  I have chased it away countless times only to see it return shortly thereafter.  I am still hopeful that the hawk, which is quite small, is more curious than aggressive.   We are also lucky all of our chickens are healthy, speedy and have numerous places around the yard to take cover if need be.

Last night I watched the season finale of The Strain, a show that seemed dangerously close to jumping the shark in the first few episodes.  The show rebounded some as the season continued with less reliance on disgusting vampire suckfest scenes and more on story and conventional action.

We also caught the first episode of Homeland, a show that I thought was going to be a mess after the Brodie character was killed off.  Instead it somehow has managed to get better, a testament to how important good writing is in the success of a show.

We started Saturday off with a trip to the track, I wanted to give a short run a try.  In general my IT band has been hurting less since the road trip so I wanted to see how I would feel.  For the first two or three laps the answer was not good as I felt pain in my right hip and knee.  Eventually as my body warmed up the pain faded.  We completed the 8 laps and I probably could have pushed to a 5K distance if I wanted to.  So far I haven’t had any serious blowback as far as follow up pain or soreness.

We headed out to Home Depot to grab sod and top soil needed to repair the now massive excavation the chickens have performed at various spots around the yard.  Cindy and I worked in tandem to complete the work.  The humidity in the air was noticeably less on Saturday.  The combo of cloudy skies, breezy conditions and temps in the low 80’s almost felt pleasant to work in. Cindy and I set up the inflatable Halloween cat by the front door to complete our decorations. (unless Cindy decides to decorate the coop)  We anchored the cat with opposing 35 pound dumbbells to keep it steady as much as possible.

We have had a wasp problem on the one side of the house that I mentioned last week.   I finally broke down and bought wasp spray although I don’t feel good about killing the insects, despite their aggressive intentions towards me.  The wasps had somehow survived a couple spraying sessions, one by Cindy and one by myself.  I eventually pulled the hose holder off the wall and soaked every inch of it with wasp spray, hopefully putting an end to their persistent unwelcome habitation.

Recently I saw a Lincoln commercial where it showed off the built in ground projection logo set up.  Basically you open the door and an LED projects a crystal clear image on the road.  It’s just a cool thing.  This reminded me that a couple years ago I had bought the hardware to do this for my SSR but never installed it.  I found the box in the garage and hooked one of the projectors up to my 12V DC power supply to verify it worked.  I showed Cindy the bright image it cast on the rug which she thought was cool.

I have two of them as I originally planned to install them as prescribed, in the bottom of both doors.  I have since changed direction.  I want to try to hook one up in the back of the vehicle under the rear bumper.  I am hoping to tap the back up light circuit for power.  When you unlock the truck the back up lights stay on for several seconds so I thought it would be cool to have a projector in the back. I haven’t gotten beyond the thought process stage of this.  I need to put the back of the truck on ramps so I can do some thorough investigation about mounting options.

Speaking of the SSR, I made another large payment on the loan for the truck this weekend during my bill paying session, leaving less than a thousand dollars to go before it’s paid off.  It will be nice to have my only existing vehicle payment evaporate although I still am a bit sad that for the most part the SSR is a much smaller focus of my entertainment sphere nowadays.

We did take the SSR to the movies Saturday night.  It was our first trip to the theater since before the road trip.  I bet it has been a month and a half since we went to the movies which is surely a record for us.  We went to see The Martian, both Cindy and I are big fans of sci fi/space flicks.  The movie theater was decently full, probably half the seats were occupied.

I thought the movie was great and extremely well done.  Really the only negative I can give is it’s long, if you are annoyed by lengthy movies.  Personally I don’t care if a movie is long as long as I find it entertaining and interesting (ie Lord of the Rings).  I felt like I just watched the best space themed movie since Apollo 13 by the end of it.  I give it an A+.  Cindy felt similarly.

Cindy and I had talked about doing the 20 mile DD ride on Sunday morning as a follow up to Saturday’s run.  However Cindy wasn’t feeling great and the skies looked very threatening so we bailed.  It turned out to be a good thing as it started to rain shortly thereafter.  The weather all day was very unstable with periods of sun and rain which I assume were the fringe effect from hurricane Joaquin.

After skipping the ride my day became very lazy.  We grabbed coffee and some gas for the mowers and I paid my bills, other than that I was in slug mode.  Part of the slogfest was watching the Eagles game which was so shitty for most of it that I split time watching it with playing Hearthstone on the iPad.  I really don’t enjoy watching this team play, let me break down the latest loss.

Chip Kelly seems to be a one trick pony.  His vaunted hurry up offense which seemed to frustrate defenses in his first couple years in the league now seems to be passe and easily addressed.  The only thing it seems to do consistently is tire out the Eagles defense since they spend so much time on the field.  In addition Chip’s personnel management skills are proving to be pretty damn awful.  We are seeing the end result of coring out the majority of a team and inserting a random cast of characters like it is fantasy football. The team has no character, no personality and no leaders.

I have not been impressed by Stafford, our new QB.  Yes the offensive line has been more or less horrible and the receivers have dropped some catchable balls but his accuracy is reminding me of Donovon McNabb.  I have seen him miss wide open receivers A LOT, something I did not expect.  So far I certainly don’t see his play as a step up from what Nick Foles could have done for us. It was nice to see Stafford complete a couple long balls.  I think I heard the announcer say yesterday was the first game the Eagles had a play over 20 yards.  If that is true it is a pretty damning stat considering the team used to lead the league in plays over 20 yards.

The running game continued to be awful, again in large part thanks to the shitty offensive line that Chip constructed in the offseason.  Their inability to create anything resembling a consistent running attack further cripples their ability to pass as play action fakes mean absolutely nothing.

Huge kudos to Chip for signing a kicker that obviously has a mental block, missing a short field goal and an extra point which would have changed the game outcome.  I expect Calebs stay with the team to be brief.

Even with the Eagles leading late I had a sickening feeling in my stomach they were going to collapse at the end, which they did, allowing the Redskins to mount a confidence crushing 15 play drive to score the winning touchdown.  The offense came out onto the field with roughly 25 seconds to go and promptly shit the bed, allowing two sacks before crawling off the field with their tail between their legs.

I have read some former Eagle coach comparisons for Chip Kelly, the most accurate one I saw was with Ray Rhodes who did well his first couple seasons until the wheels completely fell off.  At this point I can see this team of misfits scraping together 6 wins.  I am curious if double digit losses is enough to merit the end of Chip Kelly’s pro coaching career.  The miserable Eagles game did nothing to pick up my already gloomy mood which was enhanced by my lack of tangible productivity backed by off and on shitty weather all day long.

Despite us being well past the vaunted super moon my overall mood has not been great.  I am concerned that as I advance further into the depths of middle age that I am acquiring more of the traits I saw in my mom as she got older, beyond wrinkles.  I am lucky to have Cindy’s positive energy to slow my descent.  I just don’t feel like dealing with things a lot more often than I recall in the past.

Last night Cindy and I watched the Falling Skies finale which actually broadcast sometime during our road trip.  I have watched the show loosely for most of it’s 5 year run.  It seemed like it had rotating writers, sometimes the story was pretty compelling, other times it was ridiculously stupid.  Well unfortunately it seems the bad writers were tasked with creating the finale.

As good as the Ray Donovan season finale was is how bad the Falling Skies series finale was.   It was clunky, simplistic, hokey, and disappointing.  At least it’s termination leaves room on the DVR for better programming.

So yesterday there was another mass shooting at a college, this time in Oregon.  Much like soldier casualties in the middle east, domestic gun violence in public places is happening so frequently at this point that the public is becoming somewhat numb to it.

Of course the shooting incites another round of fighting between the gun zealots and the gun control factions.  The gun crazies like to throw out one liner rebuttals like “car accidents kill people, are we going to outlaw cars?”  Of course the answer is no but if you applied the same requirements needed to drive on owning a gun, people would have a shit fit.

I would never advocate that Americans should not be allowed to own guns, despite me not ever owning one in my lifetime.  Hell I never even shot an actual gun.  However I do think that tougher permitting that includes background checks should be a no brainer.  Of course this will not eradicate random gun violence but anything that filters/slows down the gun ownership process to catch the obvious loonies can not be viewed as a bad thing.  One thing I do not advocate are people that feel it is necessary to own sub machine guns or other assault type weapons.  If you want to fire those type of weapons join the military or go to mercenary school.

I just wonder exactly what size/frequency of mass killings it will take to finally implement any meaningful change in gun laws.  I doubt I will see it in my lifetime.

This weekend has some outdoor work on the docket including repairing the numerous chicken dug holes, so they can dig some new ones elsewhere.  Cindy was nice enough to do most of the Halloween decorating in the house yesterday.  There might be a few final additions we can put out as well.

Last night Cindy’s daughter came over to join us for dinner which was nice.  Cindy’s happiness level, which is normally high anyways, goes off the charts when Katie is around.

I kept myself busy with some stuff.  I first replaced the battery back up in the alarm system .  The low battery was causing the alarm system to spontaneously go off at random times which was rather annoying.

I then headed out to the driveway to do a test inflation of the used arch I bought. I wanted to see how difficult/easy it was and also wanted to get some measurements that we will need to rebrand the arch later.  As the arch inflated I was shocked at just how big it was, wider and higher than the arch the running club uses.  Despite it’s huge size, the stand alone blower inflated the arch quickly. It also became quickly apparent I needed a second set of hands to get the arch upright and secure in the windy conditions so I quickly asked Cindy to come out and help me.

Cindy couldn’t believe how big the arch was either as I quickly drove stakes into the ground that were attached to the built in tethers to secure it.  Once it was up we took some measurements.  The outside edges of the arch are 23-24 feet wide and it stands close to 16 feet tall, an impressive structure.  With the arch inflated the flaking paint on the green area John told me about was very evident.  The Prius had green dandruff on it.

Cindy is excited to see how she does at arch restoration which will involve removing as much of the flaking paint as possible and then repainting the area, once we find the right type of paint to use.  Rebranding the arch with new logos will probably be accomplished with a combo of vinyl signs combined with velcro/bungees. Taking down and repacking the arch was not a big deal either as I have experience doing the same with the running club arch.

Cindy went to the hairdresser yesterday and had a pretty major chop done, shortening her hair to around shoulder length.  It’s a cute cut and makes hair maintenance for her a much quicker affair.

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.