Archives June 2016

I just had a chunk of flesh cut off my left deltoid, find out why. http://duf.net

So this week the presidential primary season came to a close with Hilary winning the Washington DC primary.  Although Bernie has still not formally conceded it seems like he has committed to helping the democrats win the election as opposed to him running under a third party which would fragment the vote.

Bernie Sanders has accomplished an incredible amount during his presidential run, going from being an outsider that was an afterthought to the American public to a game changing candidate that generated the most excitement, the biggest crowds, and the biggest upsets.  The fact that he did all of this with grassroots fundraising that was 100% devoid of SUPER PAC mega-dollars such as what funds the Hilary Clinton battleship is amazing.

Regardless of you agreeing or disagreeing with some of his policy ideas, the one thing that you can’t dispute is his honesty and desire for the greater good.  I have never seen a candidate that I found to be more likeable or in politics for all the right reasons.  It would have been amazing if he would have been able to secure the nomination but old school politics and big money made that nearly impossible due to the corrupt super delegate system which makes absolutely no sense to me.

I can only hope that the support he generated turns on the light bulb for the political establishment.  I only wish he would have thrown his hat into the presidential ring a decade or two ago.  Even if Bernie would have won the nomination his odds of being able to implement many of his ideas would have gone nowhere unless somehow term limits in Congress were implemented to get the career politicians out of the way. Fresh ideas could actually be nurtured and flourish instead of being sprayed with Monsanto lobbied weed killer to die on the vine.

Somebody brought my attention to some false flag conspiracy regarding the Orlando shootings.  It revolves around a video clip of two men carrying a third guy with red shoes that has a bandana around his thigh covering a supposed gunshot wound.  Some websites went over this clip with a fine tooth comb, pointing out that the men were carrying the “injured” person towards the club and not away from it.  Another clip showed that once the two men thought they were no longer on camera they sat the “injured” man down and were laughing.

The point I seemed to be getting from this was the shooting was “staged” in order to build more support for gun control measures.  Or to further simplify, “Blame Obama!”.  I think there is a far more obvious and simple explanation.  These were three assholes that thought it would be funny to act like they were heroically carrying away an injured patron for the cameras.  In this social media addicted society, staging of things happens all the time with the intent of personal gain.  Calling it a “false flag” is pretty idiotic in my opinion.

This is not to say that there is not legitimate deception going on about the incident.  I have heard multiple accounts that there was at least two shooters involved and a third person blocking an exit door to maximize casualties.  Who knows if we will ever get the 100% truth.  In a related story, did you know for about $100 you can easily transform any AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon. Wow that’s neat.

Cindy and I played some more Overwatch last night.  She has found a new character that she likes to play, D. Va, a little tiny girl that controls a serious pink mech.  We played several team matches last night and had a lot of fun.  If you ever enjoyed first person shooters during your lifetime you NEED to try Overwatch.  It is such a good game.

Today out of the blue my coffee maker at work died.  For some odd reason I felt a small degree of loss in it’s passing.  When I bought the $10 small appliance over a decade ago I never expected it to last long enough to literally make me thousands of cups of coffee over the years.

I will be replacing it with an equally low budget Mr Coffee unit that will hopefully carry me through till retirement age.

This weekend I need to be a little conservative with my physical activity due to my stitches.  I still would like to try to get a run in and I really need to get the mower deck back in a functional state.  My box of replacement parts for it arrived yesterday.

I also received the mile marker signs I ordered for the timing business yesterday.  They will help add a degree of professionalism to events I am involved in as well as getting my branding out in front a lot of eyeballs.  Although I am not interested in aggressively pushing or growing the amount of race timing I am doing, the events I am involved with will get my best effort to make sure they are run well.

I had my skin cancer surgery yesterday starting bright and early at 8:30AM.  This was to be another “mohs” procedure, something I have had a couple times before.  The doctor cuts a perimeter out around the cancerous area and then tests the cells on the edge to make sure he got it all.  If not you get cut on again until the test is clear.  It’s not a fun procedure and can take awhile since it takes 30-60 minutes to get the test results each time.

Ironically the most painful part of the surgery is normally the injection of the local pain numbing which burns pretty intensely as it goes in.  It didn’t take long into the procedure until my embarrassing, excessive sweating reflex kicked in.  This is something that happens to me pretty consistently in a medical scenario that involves me getting poked or cut on.  It only took a few minutes until I could feel the beads of sweat building on my back and few minutes longer until it started to drip off me.  The nurse asked me a couple times if I was ok.  I assured her I was and this was normal reaction for me.

The numbing solution did it’s job as I couldn’t feel the cuts being made on my shoulder but I certainly could hear them.  At times it almost sounded like a box cutter going through cardboard.  I dared not look at the wound as it was being worked on.  Seeing a bloody hole in my skin would have probably kicked my adverse reaction to near pass out level.

So after round one of the cutting I was sent back to the waiting room to wait for results.  I brought my Warcraft book to read to help me pass the time.  After around a half hour the nurse gave me the bad news that more cutting was necessary.  I returned to the cutting floor and had another sweaty session under the knife. By the time the doctor was done this time I had a circle bigger than the size of a half dollar cut out of my deltoid, thankfully the test came back clear this time around.

They said they would be able to stitch me up around 11, some 90 minutes away.  I used the time to go drive to a near by Dunkin Donuts and read a couple more chapters of my book.   When I returned I had a short wait before they called me in to close up the wound.  More numbing was injected before the fun began.  I literally felt like a human football getting it’s laces installed.  I could feel the skin being pulled tight by the thick thread.  The sound of it was even more unsettling.  Again I kept my gaze firmly directed at the wall, I had no interest in seeing the visual that accompanied the sound.

Finally the stitching was complete.  The nurse applied a pressure bandage and I was sent on my way.  The doctor said I should limit my upper body exercise until a week after the stitches are removed to be safe which means a total of three weeks, a long time but I expected it based on past experience.

At first the surgical area didn’t feel like much thanks to the numbing effect lingering on.  As it faded the weird feelings of tightness, stinging, and burning came rolling in, again, as expected based on my prior experiences.  I tried to find arm positions that minimized the pulling on the stitches, letting my arm hang in a normal position actually was not ideal.  I felt rather tired most of the day and even took a brief nap after reading some of my book.  I did make sure I got something productive done, replacing the battery on my Neato and documenting it for the world.

I have had Cindy playing a little bit of Overwatch on my account.  You may recall awhile ago she was playing Diablo with me.  Well I was surprised that she really liked playing Overwatch.  Last night I set her up with the game on her own pc so we could play simultaneously in a group together.  We played a bunch of games and she did well for somebody new to the game.  There is a TON of stuff going on simultaneously in the game so it takes some time and practice to get acclimated.  I’m hoping she wants to play more with me in the future.

We are still dog sitting Tank.  He seems to be quite content hanging with us although I am sure he misses his normal surroundings and playmate Bowser.  Tank seems 100% fine at this point but the concern is roughhouse play could damage the stitches in his nose, so I don’t know how long he will be hanging around.  I know Cindy likes having him there so I know she is in no hurry to give him back. He certainly is a cute little fella.

Last night when I got home Cindy’s daughter, her boyfriend and his brother were all at the house.  They had stopped by to visit with Tank who seems to be doing well.  While they were there Cindy talked them into doing a group effort in the 22 kill push up challenge that Cindy and I have been participating in this month.  We shot the set from two angles to add visual variety.  With Camtasia it’s very easy to blend the clips together.

So with the Orlando shootings  it gave social media a big burst of energy to once again fuel the circular argument regarding gun control that accomplishes very little except making people on both sides of the argument seem ignorant to/angry with the other.

Yesterday I saw a lot of gunners deciding to post “educational” information regarding guns, playing down the power of an AR-15, the assault rifle that was the primary death bringer in the attacks.  They thought it important to point out things like how it was not a fully automatic weapon, meaning you can’t just “squeeze and spray” bullets.  You have to pull the trigger for each shot.  Put your hand in a gun position and see how fast you can repeatedly squeeze your index finger. Wow, thanks for that clarification I feel so much better about it now.

Others felt it important to point out that the incident was being misreported as the worst mass shooting in US history when in fact there were other shootings where more people died in different circumstances.  Again, thanks for the education.  How stupid of me to think the real issue was  a man using an assault rifle to mow down people like a carnival game was a terrible tragedy that once again emphasized the need for real change regarding gun laws in the country.

I educated myself a little bit yesterday as well.  I did not realize that assault rifles such as the AR-15 were actually banned for a decade, starting in 1994.  When the provision expired in 2004 Congress chose to not renew it, presumably under HEAVY NRA lobby influence.  If you look at the history of mass shootings since the ban has been lifted, which has sky rocketed, the connection seems pretty damn obvious.  Of course I know it is ridiculous for me to think that common sense could prevail in a situation like this but I can continue to hope lobbyist dollars doesn’t have the final say.

Tomorrow I once again go under the knife for more basal cell skin cancer surgery, this time removing a spot on my left deltoid.  This will be my 6th or 7th procedure to have skin cancer removed.  I remember when I was first told I had skin cancer in my 30’s being very freaked out about it.  I have since become more numb to the diagnosis since my cancer has all been the basal cell variety, it has not been a huge concern.

Having a history of basal cell cancer does put me at risk for the more serious type of skin cancers like melanoma.  I have had friends and former classmates die of melanoma so I do have more serious cancer concerns tucked away  in the back of my mind.  It’s an area that rarely gets opened however.

So I finished up my week of at home training Friday.  I was happy it ended up mid-afternoon, giving me a slightly longer weekend. During the day on Friday I got a head start on my weekend chores getting around the house to weed the property.  I wanted my weekend as open as possible although I knew that more than likely I would find a way to fill that time with more work.

Sadie, who we picked up Thursday night had a dog companion brought in the house when Cindy came home with Tank, her daughter’s dog.  Tank is a french bulldog.  He had surgery done to help alleviate problems that plague the breed with breathing and swallowing.  Cindy had offered for us to watch him for a couple days as the vet said it would be good if Tank was separated from their other dog as they like to roughhouse and play like most dogs do.  Tanks was supposed to keep “calm”.  Well that lasted all of 30 seconds.

You would have never known Tank had pretty serious surgery the day before.  Other than the spot on his front leg that was shaved for a catheter he seemed pretty much fine.  We were a bit concerned how Sadie and he would get along but it wasn’t much of an issue.  Sadie made sure to emphasize she was the main dog when it came to my attention and Tank was content emptying out dozens of dog toys from the basket.

Originally Cindy planned to have Tank sleep in his crate at night despite him normally sleeping in bed with her daughter when he is home.  I told Cindy he could stay in the bedroom with us although it was rather crowded until Sadie jumped down to sleep on the floor.  Tank does not sleep soundly, my last few nights of sleep have been interrupted on a regular basis.

On Saturday morning we thought it would be fun to take Sadie and Tank to our two dog friendly stomping grounds, Rural King and Home Depot. We brought a towel and let Tank cruise around in a cart while Sadie walked conventionally.  Tank seemed to enjoy the experience and other shoppers seemed to enjoy him.  French bulldogs are cute in a bizarre sort of way and garnish a lot of attention.

During Saturday afternoon I got out on the tractor and mowed the grass.  We are now getting to the time of year unfortunately where weekly mowing is required to keep the yard from looking ragged.  Originally we had plans to go see the Warcraft movie Saturday night but I suggested we postpone due to Tank being there and the fact that we had a Netflix disc in the envelope to watch.  Cindy endorsed the plan.

So this movie was Steve Jobs 2.0, where Michael Fasbender took a shot at portraying the tech legend after Aston Kutcher did the same a couple years prior.  I thought it odd that this movie picked up in the timeline pretty much where the first movie left off.  This film focused more on his relationship with his daughter but didn’t touch what I would think is the most interesting portion of his life, when the iWhatever devices started and the degradation of his health.  I think Fasbender is a better actor and did a better job, no pun intended, but the narrow focus on 15 years of his life just seemed odd to me.  I wonder if any Steve Jobs film in the future will try to portray his entire life instead of just portions of it.  I’d give the movie a B, a decent rental.

On Sunday morning Cindy was not feeling like running in the humidity.  I jumped on the treadmill and did 3 miles at nominal pace.  It’s not as effective as being out on the open road but better than skipping a run altogether.  We made a return trip to Home Depot with the dogs, this time in the Tacoma.  We tried to dog proof the cab the best we could.  We already have seat covers up front.  We draped the old SSR seat covers over the rear jump seats where Cindy and Tank sat.  We also had a large towel along for more protection coverage.  Tank seemed very happy to ride in the truck.  The back window was a perfect size for him to see the world.

We took the truck because I was buying construction materials for another project.   After installing the Rachio I decided I’d like to get some sort of additional shelter over the box and the water cleaning equipment that resides there.  I envisioned a simple design, somewhat similar to what I did for chicken run using high durability corrugated pvc panels.  I plan to attach a 2×4 high on the wall and support the front of the “roof” with two 4×4’s that are screwed into the concrete.  At first I had ideas about doing the project during the day but the oppressive heat and humidity put an end to that plan.

Instead I decided to take on another project which I envisioned as pretty simple, replacing one of the blade spindles on the mower deck.  Last week the one spindles felt like it’s bearings were going bad so I thought I would be proactive and replace it.  Despite owning the Craftsman tractor for somewhere around 5 years I have never had the mower deck off yet.  I am able to change blades without pulling the deck but replacing the spindle required deck removal.  Getting the deck out was not too bad, it’s mainly just pulling out about a half dozen cotter pins.

When I was unbolting the old spindle two of the four bolts securing it snapped on removal.  I was glad I followed the advice I received online and ordered four new bolts along with the spindle.  So after some grunting and groaning I got the new spindle on but noticed odd behavior.  Despite my having the bolt on the pulley that is attached to the spindle cranked down as hard as I could manage, the blade was spinning independently of the pulley.

After a few minutes of head scratching I figured out what actually happened.  If you look at the image of the pulley to the left you will see the hole in the center has groves that slide over the center spline in the spindle.  When I looked at the old spindle I saw the spline had been stripped and presumable the pulley had the same damage.  I’m not 100% sure how it happened but I suspect it had to do with the way I was changing the blades.  Instead of blocking the blade movement with a block of wood I would do it by having a wrench/socket on both the blade nut and the pulley nut.  I think I may have accidentally stripped it using that technique.

I was frustrated that once again a job I thought would be simple had now grown into something more aggravating.  I went online and ordered not only a new pulley but the parts to redo the other side as well as a new drive belt.  I figured while I have the deck off the tractor I may as well do both sides of the blade drive train equally.

Cindy and I decided to go and catch Warcraft as a matinee late Sunday afternoon.  As long as I have been waiting to see the movie, not getting out on opening weekend would have been a minor letdown.  The movie has been the victim of a lot of “me too” negativity, something very common nowadays.  People love to jump on the negativity bandwagon with films.  Batman versus Superman was a recent example of this, a movie that certainly was far from perfect but not at all deserving of the heaps of shit that was piled on it.

Warcraft had a bunch of negative reviews from people very quick to dismiss it as another bad video game based movie.  I, as a long time World of Warcraft player and fan, was very interested in seeing what the 160 million dollar film could do to depict the world I have experienced virtually for so long.  I have to say that I found myself swimming upstream from the current of bad feedback on the film.

Visually I thought the movie did an amazing job of bringing the up till now virtual world to life.  They obviously paid a ton of attention to detail.  The story line of the movie actually is prior to the story the game started at so even with all of my experience I was not familiar with the details.  I heard that the movie script has some major departures from official lore in the Warcraft books but I didn’t really care.

I think people that play the game had a major advantage as patrons of the film as a lot of the back story on the characters was already filled in for us.  I can totally see how somebody that was new to the Warcraft scene would have a hard time following what was going on 100%.  The two hours of the film was not nearly long enough to get someone up to speed on the deep and involved story.  Even so I think it was entertaining and interesting.  Cindy, who only knows a little bit about the game, mostly from watching me, really liked the movie.  The movie was far from perfect but I was not disappointed.  As a Warcraft player I give it an A, for the average Joe that is into sci-fi, Lord of the Rings type story I’d still go B+.

Shortly after we got home last night the skies opened up accompanied by a ferocious lighting and thunder storm which shook the house repeatedly. Both dogs were scared and looking for comfort as the strikes rained down.  I was glad I got the grass mowed the day before.

So of course I saw the news about the latest mass shooting at a gay dance club in Orlando.  The 50 total casualties set a dark and disgusting record as the largest mass shooting in American history.  There is sure to be a lot of blowback as the man that committed the murders was evidently the subject of two FBI investigations yet somehow landed a job as a security guard and was able to legally buy the assault rifle used in the attack.  I’m not quite sure how that is possible but it points a bright burning light on the just how screwed up the system is.

The shooting has of course fired up all sorts of ancillary debates some of which never really seem to lead anywhere like banning assault rifle sales.  I have yet to hear a reason why an individual needs to own an assault rifle that makes any sense.  This tragedy fans the flames on multiple fronts, the gun debate, gay bigotry, and muslim hatred.  There have been so many mass shooting tragedies the last decade yet none of it has lead to any substantial change in gun policies or enforcement of existing laws.  It’s gotten to the point where I almost have shoulder shrug response to it all.  Here we go again, mass shooting, outrage, calls for change on the left, calls for “they are coming for our guns” from the right and nothing ultimately changes.

If the country as a whole can not get behind finally doing something to make a discernible effort to at least making it more difficult for these type of situations to occur in the future we should be ashamed to be ashamed in words alone. Words without action mean next to nothing.  I am not sure what sort of tragedy it will ultimately take until some degree of change can finally be seen as reasonable by enough people to make it happen.  Hopefully the world doesn’t burn to the ground before that day finally comes.

One of the nice things about this training week is that class doesn’t start until 10AM each day, giving me bonus morning time I am unaccustomed to.  Today I used that time once again to get a run in for the second time this week.  I chose to log the 3 miles indoors on the treadmill.  The run was the third time I had run in 5 days.  I can not tell you the last time that has happened, I may have been in my 30’s.  It also means for the week I have run about 10 miles.  I haven’t had double digit running mileage totals in a week for a period of years either.  Although my pace still is pretty damn slow, my hope is if I am able to continue to run without major injury problems, the speed increase will come naturally.

While I was on the treadmill I fired up Full Metal Jacket on Netflix.  I saw the movie once when it came out nearly 30 years ago so my recollection of detail was very poor.  It was almost like seeing the movie for the first time.   It reminded me why the movie has been revered as one of the best war movies of all time.  There are so many classic lines in the film that I lost count after 20 or so.

I am winding down day four of my training.  It has become a bit of a slogfest as we are covering features of Office 365 I have no interest or need for.  One day to go.

I had made one last purchase to add to my voice controlled, internet connected arsenal, a Sensi smart thermostat.  I had looked into getting a Nest a couple years ago but was told my Trane AC would not work with it.   The Sesni actually has better reviews than the Nest and supposedly had greater compatibility, working with over 95% of all HVAC systems.

Before buying it I tried to 100% confirm it would work with my Trane unit.  I could not find that confirmation but I also could not find any info saying it would not work.  So when the box arrived today I was eager to get it installed during one of the breaks in my online training class.

I was surprised when I pulled the Trane thermostat off the wall that there were only three wires feeding it, a red one, a white one, and a yellow one.   When I used the install guide that is included with the Sensi app it asks you to enter the letter for each terminal of your existing thermostat so it can tell you how to hook the wires to the new thermostat.  Well the yellow wire went to a terminal labeled D.  There was no D option in the app which was the first sign I had an issue.

So I called the toll free support line, described my problem and gave them the model number off the Trane thermostat.  After a brief hold the woman gave me the bad news.  My Trane system uses something described as a “communicating thermostat”, a proprietary thing that shoves my system into that less than 5% that the Sensi won’t work with.  Damn it.  I was mad that my new purchase was incompatible and frustrated with myself for not 100% verifying it would work before pulling the trigger.  I boxed it back up to get returned tomorrow.  I guess I will just have to live with a “dumb” thermostat for the foreseeable future.  I guess I could have worse problems right?

Today has been a pretty dreary day with a near constant rain which I believe is the ass end of Colin.  Quick, hard bursts of rain are expected around here.  Long, gray, wet Pennsylvania type days are not.  The chickens are soaked.

I find myself fascinated with the Tesla autodrive feature.  I have watched a ton of videos of the vehicles driving themselves.  It seems like Tesla somehow leapfrogged the self driving car field.  A couple years ago the only way to implement self driving was via a clumsy roof mounted 360 degree spinning sensor.  Technology is awesome.

Tropical storm Colin had some impact on us yesterday but nothing horrible.  It was windy for a good portion of the day and we had some periods of heavy rain however that can be said of most Florida weather days during wet season.

So despite my best efforts to unclog the air handler drain line over the weekend we were still having water back up and leak out of the unit.  We had a PM scheduled for the AC system on Wednesday but I called early Monday morning to see if we could get it someone out there sooner.  Luckily they said someone could come out during the afternoon.

I also had my first day of at home training for Office 365 deployment, which I plan to roll out in our office sometime this year.  The instructor was good and delivered the information in a way that kept your attention.  The labs are a bit repetitive and frustrating at times but all in all so far so good overall.

When the AC tech got there he quickly confirmed there was still something blocking the drain line.  Through applying suction to both ends instead of just one like I did, he was able to get the line flowing again.  He also did a thorough PM while he was in there.  He redid the kill switch that is supposed to shut off the air handler if drain water starts backing up.  I bet he spent close to two hours at the house and only charged me the standard $85 PM charge.  He told me to prevent the scenario in the future I should dump some vinegar into the drain line every two months.  I quickly added a recurring reminder to my calendar to do exactly that.

This morning we took advantage of my virtual classroom not starting until mid-morning by going out on a run.  Despite us starting at around 7:30 it was already ridiculously uncomfortable with a temp in the low 80’s with almost 100% humidity.  We logged about 3.5 miles, starting and ending at our Dunkin Donuts.  The humidity made for tough running conditions that had both of us soaked with sweat by the end of it.  The near instant reward of coffee afterward was nice.   It was the first I can recall getting a run in on a weekday in FOREVER.  I would not be surprised if a couple years have passed since it happened last.

Today the latest tool in my cordless 20 volt arsenal arrived, a Dewalt blower powered by the same batteries the weed whacker utilizes.   It allows me to quickly blow around anything without having to look for an electric extension cord or gas can.  I took it out for a test blow this afternoon and was very satisfied with the results.

During the morning I installed my new Tacoma rear view mirror with Homelink support. As usual I had some bonehead moments, a staple in most of my project videos.

I pretty much NEVER blog on a Sunday afternoon but things just work out how they work out sometimes.  Talk about work, Saturday was jammed full of it.  Before the work began Cindy and I headed to the track to get a run in.  We left the house around 7 but that was not early enough to offset the now firmly in place heat and humidity.  The three and a half miles we ran were hot and sweaty as you would expect.

When we got home I quickly jumped in the pool as a substitute shower before we jumped in the Prius to go pick up Sadie.  We went straight from Ali’s place to Rural King and Home Depot for our almost automatic weekly visit.  Sadie loves being able to roam the aisles of both stores like any other regular shopper.  I needed to get some stuff for a number of small projects.  I also bought a pretty big item, a Dewalt battery powered weed whacker.  They were running a promo where you got a free second battery pack when you bought the trimmer.  Considering these high powered batteries normally cost $100 each it was quite the deal.

My gas powered weed whacker still works although it is starting to have some problems.  I never would have considered a cordless trimmer several years ago but the advances in battery tech over the last few years means it is now a viable option.  The new 20V batteries are very expensive but with their cost comes long run times and power that rivals corded counterparts.

When we got home one of the many things I did was take the trimmer out for a test run in the yard since it needed to be whacked anyway.  It felt a bit odd performing the job that has exclusively been gas powered the last 15 years with an electric tool.  The power of the whacker was more than sufficient for my needs although I did have to pull out the second battery to finish up the last 10 minutes or so of whacking.

I was running around all afternoon fixing/installing things.  In the middle of it all we had a rather urgent problem to address.  Cindy had mentioned earlier in the day that she heard dripping in the AC return vent in our bedroom which happens to be right under the air handler.  When I was out in the garage I looked at the platform the handler sits on and saw something very disturbing, a very wet wall.  It was obvious the drain system for the handler had to be clogged.  Ironically we already had our AC company scheduled to come out for a PM this week.  Well this was a problem we had to address now.

I pulled the cap to the drain line and could feel some sort of organic material clogging it.  I went outside and attached my shop vac to the drain line to try to suck out debris.  When I had little to no success I took another approach and inserted my air hose from the garage side and tried to blow debris out with air pressure.  I had Cindy watching the drain pipe to see if anything came out.  She said some gunk did exit the tube.  I followed up with some misguided work with the garden hose that seemed to do little more than shoot more water around.

Cindy was freaked out by the idea of the moisture creating mold so she scraped away the very wet section of the wall.  We brought in a floor stand fan and pointed it at the wall to dry it out.  I appeared to have gotten the drain open enough to prevent more back up but we will need to the AC guys to really go over the system thoroughly.  I dropped some bleach in the drain line to hopefully kill whatever is growing in it. I am a bit annoyed that the sensor that is designed to shut off the air handler if water backs up appeared to not work.

After busting ass all afternoon I was beat but had one more item on my mental list to complete, cleaning the Prius thoroughly.   Not only did I wash it but I gave it a coat of Nu-Finish, polished the haze off the headlight lenses and applied tire glaze.  The end result was the nearly 10 year old vehicle looking about as good as it can at this stage of it’s life.

Last night we were both beat and were happy to stay home and watch our latest Netflix rental, Truth.  It is a movie regarding how Dan Rather was forced out of CBS News after 60 minutes reported on how George Bush’s National Guard service to avoid Vietnam was suspicious with allegations of him being AWOL during much of the time he was supposedly in the guard.

When this happened back in 2004 I recall the story but to be honest I didn’t pay tons of attention to it.  There was so much shady shit attributed to W at this time it was just another chapter in a very long book.  The movie was surprisingly intense and emotional.  I certainly did not expect it to be in A- territory.  Robert Redford does a masterful job of portraying Dan Rather, a role I would have told you he was not a good fit for prior to seeing the film.

This morning we did another trip to Home Depot with a DD pit stop with Sadie in tow.  When we got home Cindy got out immediately on the tractor to mow.  The forecast for the next couple days is a very wet one so we wanted to get the grass mowed before ponds once again appear in the yard. She got about 2/3 done before the rain came.

I also did my first day of the 22 kill pushup challenge, an ice bucket-ish thing where participants film themselves doing 22 push ups per day for 22 days.  The number 22 represents the average number of veteran suicides per day, so even though I am normally not a “me too” guy, a cause like this is worthy of my support.

My first installment can be seen here.

This upcoming week is going to be an unconventional one as I am doing at home technical training all week long.  In my past experience these training weeks are fun at first but lose their luster as the week progresses.  Regardless it will be nice to be sticking around the comforts of home all week long.

I talk about lame arena football, skin cancer, why vlogging daily sucks, Camtasia, and more. Yes, there is music too.

Music Provided by NoCopyrightSounds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM7SZ5SBzyY Song: Itro – Panda