Archives May 2017

Last night after work I changed in to my gym clothes to stop at Home Depot.  I wanted to load up on sod to lay over the area by the shed we back filled with top soil.  Load up I did, with 25 pieces of St Augustine grass which turned the bed of the Tacoma into a big sandy mess.  When I got home I wasted little time getting to work.

I have a pretty effective method of preparing the sod.  After thoroughly soaking the top soil I brought over one of our rolling wagons which I fill with about an inch of water.  I then grab a piece of sod and lay it in there grass down exposing the dirt/root side. I take the hose and lightly spray the dirt ensuring the sod has a nice wet contact point with the top soil to make sure it “takes”. I then carefully place the sod and wet it again thoroughly with the hose.  When it is all in place I go back with a large rake and tamp the grass down followed by one more dosing of water.  My technique works well but the real key factor is watering it every day to make sure it doesn’t dry out.  During wet season this happens automatically but during this time of year we need to hit it with a hose to  ensure success.

After I was done I was a dirty mess and the truck was worse.  I spent a good 20 minutes in the driveway trying to get all the sand, dirt, and grass out of the composite bed of the Tacoma.

So like most, I was sort of shocked that Trump fired James Comey yesterday.  Well let me back up.  Maybe I was not shocked he was fired, I was amazed at the reason that was provided for the firing.  No, it wasn’t that Comey was sniffing around the Russia election tampering scandal.  The reason was the way he handled the Hilary Clinton email situation, lol!  So Trump, who applauded Comey for bringing in the second round of email scandal a mere couple weeks before the election, which surely was a big factor in the outcome, now cites that as the primary reason for the termination of the FBI director?  Wow I don’t think I could write a better script.

When you factor in the recommendation came from Attorney General Jeff Sessions who is yet another shady character in the Trump team who recused himself from the Russian involvement investigation, it just looks even more suspicious.  You have to wonder just how long the American public, regardless of their political leanings are willing to let this buffoonery continue.  It truly is an embarrassment to our country to be governed by someone so woefully incompetent to fulfill the responsibilities of the presidential office.  After only a few months there has been enough scandal and controversy to make a feature length film. If you would like to keep a close eye on the latest shenanigans just tune in here – https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/

Last night as I was hanging outside with the chickens and Elsa there was a funny moment.  Elsa and I were outside the chicken area near a corner.  The chickens were all hanging around and Elsa was sitting there observing them, only a foot or so from the fence.  The chickens were observing Elsa as well with curious looks.  Pumpkin was comfortable enough to stick her entire head through one of the squares to pick at the grass on the other side, somehow thinking the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.

Elsa slowly moved closer to the point where her nose was barely inside the fence line.  Peaches greeted her with a quick peck on the nose which of course sent Elsa scurrying.  It was funny but I immediately told Elsa it was ok and the chickens were just playing with her.  Elsa really has seemed to be coming into her own as she is passing through puppy hood.  She is still neurotic for sure at times but she also is very loving, fun, and happy at the same time.  She brings a lot of joy into our life.

I finally completed the long grind to enable all of my characters in WoW to fly in the current expansion.  Hopefully I get some time to now enjoy untethered movement in the game that I invested so much time in.

I have a very intense week of work ahead of me so I figured I would be well served to get the weekend recap out of the way now.  Any blogging for the next week or so may be sparse.

I decided to flip my weekend running schedule around and run on Saturday morning instead of Sunday.  This is something I may try to do more regularly as it makes more sense.  Since Cindy teaches class on Saturday she has to get up anyway.  On Sundays she doesn’t teach so the 6AM alarm wakes us both up on the one day we could sleep a little bit.  So running Saturday allows us to truly have Sunday as a day of rest , if we want it. I used to always do my running on Satu

I skipped last weeks run because of a sore IT band.  It didn’t really feel much better this week but I needed to get out there so I didn’t start to lose my base endurance level.  The run felt uncomfortable from start to finish but I got it done.  Cindy actually came with me and did some running of her own, the first time she has done that in a long time.

Another reason I wanted to get out to run Saturday morning was to take advantage of what is probably our last cold front for the next six months.  The morning temps in the low 60’s with low humidity felt just about perfect.  I told Cindy we need to find a place to live that has weather like this all year round.

When we got home we dug into some chores before heading out to Home Depot.  I wanted to get a bunch of top soil and sod to raise and repair an area by the large shed the chickens had excavated.  I wanted to get this spot filled in before wet season started to have one less pond in the yard and to make it more difficult for Elsa to crawl under there.  We were able to get the dirt but all the sod was gone unfortunately.  Cindy may try to pick some grass up during the week.

Later in the afternoon Cindy and I headed out to ride the EUC’s at north Collier park.  We only brought the Monster and the Msuper.  It was the first time Cindy rode just the Msuper, we wanted to see how her feet felt as a result.  The answer was much better, riding the big wheel with large foot pedals definitely was more comfortable for her.

On the way home we decided to stop at Fuzzy’s Tacos, a place Ali had recommended several times.  We quickly found out why Ali and her boyfriend liked it so much.  The food is excellent and affordable and the beers are CHEAP.  The 18 ounce beer you see in the picture costs $1.89 every day.  We will definitely be returning in the future.

This morning when we woke up I got the idea in my head to go try to get sod somewhere else.  We went to Lowe’s and another Home Depot and struck out both times.  For some reason none of the chains seem to be able to stock enough sod to meet the demands on the weekend.

We did get a chance to stop by our local Hyundai dealer to get a look at the Ioniq, the new hybrid that came out recently.  With Cindy’s Prius rapidly approaching 200,000 miles we are thinking about the future.  Normally we would have looked seriously at a new Prius which I am sure are still good cars.  There is only one problem, they are butt ugly.

The Ioniq not only looks better, it gets slightly higher mpg than the Prius.  They had a couple of them on the lot and one was unlocked which allowed us to get a pretty thorough first hand look at the vehicle.  It looked good in person and I am a fan of the Hyundai warranty, 5/60k bumper to bumper, 10/100k on the power train and UNLIMITED warranty on the battery pack.  So although I don’t think Cindy is ready to pull the trigger on a new vehicle quite yet, I think the Ioniq will be her target when it happens.

Late morning we loaded Sadie and Elsa in the Prius for a trip to Rural King to grab a few items.  Sadie loves car rides and Elsa loves Sadie so taking the two of them works out well.  Having Sadie by her side helps Elsa overcome some of the jitters she can have in public.

The rest of the day has been pretty chill.  I took a quick ride on the Monster to the school and rambled on about various things.  Feel free to check it out.  I am hoping by this time next week I will have crested the large mountain of work that I need to accomplish.  It will be nice to have it behind me.

So Patrick and his girlfriend Nicole pulled out this morning for the last leg of what will be a nearly two week trip after arriving at our place Monday evening.  We worked around Cindy’s class teaching schedule to do things together.  Pat and Nico tried desperately to earn Elsa’s trust while we were home and were only mildly successful.  At one point Elsa licked Pat’s hand and let him pat her head but for the most part she would keep wide circles around both of them.

On Tuesday morning I introduced Pat and Nico to the Minipros.  Within the hour both of them were out in the driveway and street zipping around on the Segways having a bunch of fun.  That mutated later into Pat trying his hand on the cheap EUC to see how it would feel.  He struggled for a little bit but by the end of the day he was rolling around the back yard on my Msuper somewhat competently.  It seems pretty much every person I have assisted in learning to ride an EUC has picked it up quicker than I have.  Maybe that means I am a great teacher, however I think the more likely scenario is I am just a slow learner.

We wound up going over to the Greenway to ride around which Pat and Nico both seemed to really enjoy.  The sensation of riding a Minipro or an EUC is a little bit like flying which Nico really thought was cool.  Cindy had a class Tuesday evening so the remaining three of us just hung out more at home with more EUC practice, hanging at the pool, and flying my Mavic.  I gave both Nico and Pat time behind the sticks.

On Wednesday morning Cindy had another class to teach.  I called the nearby Tuffy to see if they would be able to align my Tacoma, which is a requirement after installing the lift/leveling kit.  I was happy to hear they could squeeze me in.  I decided this was a good opportunity to get a more extensive test ride in on the Monster.  I threw the humongous wheel in the truck and used it to ride the roughly 10 miles back to the house.  Right now the wheel feels awkward to control doing tight turning but for open road commuting it is fantastic.  The 22 inch diameter wheel just eats up bumps like nothing and it is extremely comfortable cruising at 20+ mph for as long as you need it to. Be sure to watch the video to hear my experience with the inept woman at the drive thru ATM.

When Cindy got back we piled in the Prius to head to Bowman Beach in Sanibel.  Nico is an avid sheller and Sanibel is one of the best beaches in Florida to collect shells.  The drive up there is long, easily taking 90 minutes, but it is worth it.  The natural beauty of Sanibel is hard to beat.

We walked a stretch of beach for over an hour and half enjoying the refreshing water and amazing assortment of shells in the sand, free for the picking.  Nico grabbed an amazing assortment of beautiful shells.  Cindy snagged a bunch of cool ones as well.  Even though the sun was melt your skin hot, the simple beauty of the beach made hanging out there a very enjoyable experience. The custard ice cream we grabbed on the way home added to the enjoyment.

On the way home we swung by Tuffy so I could pick up my truck.  I was somewhat worried that I would get the truck back in worse shape than I dropped it off.  When I had Tuffy install tires and align my 99 Tacoma a couple years back the steering wheel was slightly off center which annoyed me but not enough for me to take it back.  I was glad when I saw the wheel on the Tacoma was still dead center as I left it. The truck felt no different after the alignment and I didn’t expect it to.    The ride of the truck has felt pretty much identical to pre-lift which is exactly what I hoped for.  The only difference is now I see eye to eye with most full size trucks on the road instead of slightly below them.

Cindy made a nice spaghetti dinner for all of us that we enjoyed while watching The Accountant.  The movie was interesting as it didn’t have the plot I expected.  I enjoyed it enough to push it into A- category.

This morning Pat and Nico were up early with us to prepare for shoving out for a long drive up to the Florida panhandle.  They are going to be camping the next two nights up there before rolling into New Orleans for the weekend for a crazy conclusion to their trip.  Cindy and I really enjoyed their visit and hope it won’t be long before they come down again.  Both Patrick and Nico are such good people, it just makes you feel better about the world spending time with them.

I now get to dig back into what is going to be a very hectic couple weeks where we are tasked with transplanting the majority of our staff from one building to another without losing functionality.  As in most things I just will keep my head down and keep plowing ahead.

So Chuck showed up pretty much right on time, despite only pulling out of Maryland very early Sunday morning.  It felt somewhat weird meeting someone that you “know” from YouTube but I had talked to Chuck on the phone before he came down so it wasn’t a huge deal.  Chuck’s personality in person matched what I had seen online which was a good thing.  I could tell we wouldn’t have a hard time getting along.

So I had done some prep ahead of time, pulling out all of the tools I thought we would need and setting them up on a folding table in the garage. Despite my best efforts we did have to make one trip to AutoZone to grab a deeper 14MM socket to torque the bolts in the recessed area of the front spacer.  It gave me an opportunity to ride and drive Chuck’s truck which was a cool experience.  Since Chuck had already installed a more involved lift on his 4×4 Tacoma we used a combination of his past experience and the detailed color instructions I printed out to guide us.

So from the steps detailed in the instructions, the front lift seemed like the more complex part of the job to accomplish and it was, but it turned out to be less difficult than what we ran into in the rear of the truck.

The issue we ran into was the instructions were written from the perspective of the work being done on a car lift, not on the ground using jack stands.  As a result we had to come up with our own on the fly method to support the rear axle while getting space to install the lifting block.  After we got the blocks in there we had a hell of a time getting the alignment pins on both sides where they needed to be.  At one point Chuck and I were basically holding the rear axle up ourselves, one on each side, while getting the the blocks seated.  It was a bit hairy for a short period of time but we got it in place and secured.

You can tell from the video of the rear that things were tough as I tried to describe exactly what we did and didn’t do a good job of doing it.  There was a lot of seat of the pants actions.

So after everything was all back together we took my truck for about a 10 mile test ride to verify everything felt normal.  It felt and drove just fine, the only difference was the higher driving position which was immediately noticeable.  It’s hard to believe that raising the front of the truck roughly three and a half inches would feel and look so much different but it really does.

Shortly before Chuck pulled out the FedEx truck containing my Monster arrived which was funny timing.  I opened the box while he was still there so he could see one of my non-Tacoma hobbies.  He is an avid motorcycle guy but was impressed with the size of the Monster as I struggled to pull the 60 pound beast from the box.

So it was time for Chuck to roll out back to Sarasota to meet up with his family for the rest of their Florida vacation before they return to Maryland.  I thanked him repeatedly for all the help.  Although I may have been able to eventually complete the job by myself, it would have been MUCH more difficult.  Having Chuck’s experience , tools, and great attitude made the job much more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise.

So Patrick and his girlfriend Nico were due to arrive later in the day although I wasn’t quite sure when.  It gave me some time to edit the large amount of video footage I had from the day.  They wound up pulling in around 7 which worked out pretty well since Cindy was teaching an evening class anyway.  Once Cindy got home we piled in the Prius for a nice dinner at Pelican Larry’s.  We got to hear a lot about the adventures they have had so far in Key West and Miami.  Both Patrick and Nico are adventuresome explorers and seem to be a really good match which is awesome.  Today and tomorrow we have no script although I do need to get my truck to a shop to have an alignment done after the lift sooner rather than later.

So I was very excited that according to FedEx tracking the Monster was ahead of schedule.  As of Friday evening it showed it was sitting in Orlando meaning it should up Saturday.  When I awoke Saturday morning I was even more excited when the status changed to “On FedEx vehicle for delivery”.  Even though the scheduled delivery date still showed as Monday, I disregarded it.

I made sure all of my to do’s for the day would all keep me on the grounds so I would not miss the delivery which requires a signature due to the dollar value.  So as I weeded and weed whacked I imagined how cool it is that I will have my new mega-EUC to play with over the weekend.

Well mid-afternoon came with no delivery and no change of status.  I figured I would call FedEx just to confirm the wheel was going to be delivered today.  You can imagine my disappointment when the phone rep explained that Monday deliveries are loaded on the truck Saturday but not actually delivered.  WTF, that’s dumb.  I asked if I could simply drive to the hub in Fort Myers and pick up my package?  Nope, the facility is closed.  Damn it.  Well it was pointless to gripe about it to the Indian phone rep.  I would just have to wait.

Cindy wanted to see the new movie that came out called The Circle.  I didn’t know anything about the movie but I saw Tom Hanks was in it so I assumed it would be decent.  It didn’t seem like the type of movie I would normally get to a theater to see and instead catch via my Netflix subscription.  However Cindy was into seeing it and she certainly has been agreeable to seeing anything in the theaters I want to see so it was no big deal.

The movie was a thinly veiled recreation of what Facebook could become in the future, an all knowing, privacy smashing behemoth that takes over people’s lives without them even realizing it.  The story was pretty slow in the beginning and never really got very compelling.  Cindy was actually bored enough during part of it that she dropped hints that she was ok with leaving.  I actually didn’t think it was as bad as Cindy did.  It’s ok in a Netflix envelope, a B film.

Sunday morning I set the alarm to go run.  It went off, I got up, went to the bathroom and then promptly laid back in bed.  My right IT band felt sore.  If it felt sore before running it was going to feel worse afterward.  So although in some ways it felt to good to lay down in bed for another hour or so the guilt I felt throughout the rest of the day for not running was not worth it.

I tended to the chickens and paid my bills before we went out to ride.  We actually ran to Walmart and Dunkin Donuts before heading out to Ave Maria  to ride.  We have ridden there several times but Cindy has never done so on one wheel.  We parked away from the center of the town by the waterpark because I wanted to fly my drone for some aerial views.  We had a pretty short ride but it still was a long video because of the aerial footage that is in there.  Cindy spent a decent amount of time on my Msuper as we rode.  I have a feeling once my Monster arrives she will be riding the Msuper a lot more.

The majority of the afternoon was laid back.  I have been in the middle of a another long and time consuming virtual quest in WoW, this time to allow my characters to fly in the game.  Flying makes tasks that can be arduous much, much simpler.  Ironically the requirements to obtain flying are more arduous.

Last night we watched the second Jack Reacher flick.  It was a great action film, something Tom excels at, even as he is approaching his mid-50’s.  Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt are two actors that have yet to let me down.  As far as I can remember, any film of theirs I have seen has never been a stinker.  If either name is on the cast list I can usually count on at least a B+ experience.   I give Reacher a B+ as well.

Shortly Chuck will be here to start on an epic Tacoma lift install followed by Patrick and Nico later in the day for a quick but surely fun filled visit. Oh, and my Monster shows up today, for sure.  Adventures await.