Return to running, The reason, 930AM Football, Soldering sucks, Ride and ramble

So I decided Friday night that I was going to take another shot at running, something I have avoided for weeks since my energy reserves seemed to be permanently reduced from my undiagnosed ailment.  I drove there instead of riding a PEV but I did have the Meepo in the trunk so I could ride it a little afterward.  The first few laps felt especially miserable but not because my energy level felt that bad, it was just because I haven’t been running.  I managed to complete the 13 laps at what was surely a snail’s pace.  I never got the ready to drop sensation, my legs just felt unhappy running, which is to be expected.  I’m hoping I can continue on from here, reintroducing a once a week 5k+ run into the fitness routine.

On Saturday morning mowing the grass consumed the majority of the morning.  After lunch I got to enjoy riding the One Wheel around on that freshly cut grass.  I had only tried this once before and it was pretty early after getting the One Wheel. I recall struggling a lot with the conditions.  The back yard is filled with uneven surfaces that make riding very challenging.  Well a few months of experience definitely has helped me deal with those conditions.  I rode pretty confidently all over the back of the property.

I did have one bad fall when I swung around the hill where the reverse osmosis system drains.  The grass there is normally very wet.  I rode across it without thinking and had the tire slide out, sending me crashing to the ground on my elbow.  I popped right back up, no worse for wear.  Feel free to witness my increased skill set below.

We did a late afternoon trek to Tractor Supply where I bought more than $100 of mostly chicken supplies.  Speaking of the chickens, the egg factory seems to be shut down.  We have gotten one or two eggs in the last three weeks.  I am hoping that production could still possibly resume.  Four or five of the hens are currently molting their feathers, when that happens they don’t lay eggs.  So production may resume but even if it doesn’t they are still our pets first and foremost.  Cindy and I have talked a little about possibly getting a few young chicks to reboot egg production eventually but we haven’t committed to doing so.

Saturday night was not exciting but still enjoyable for me.  I was doing some work getting 3D prints going and also dug into some WoW while Cindy was doing crafting of her own which she really enjoys.  The cool front that was predicted started rolling in during the afternoon, making the temps feel cool and pleasant, finally.

That feeling was amplified Sunday when I awoke to temps in the mid-60’s for the first time since late April or early May.  It felt simply glorious to finally have some less oppressive temperatures, even if we had to wait till nearly Halloween to get them.  I didn’t get to enjoy the real cool temps in the morning that much because it was the Eagle’s turn to have one of those annoying London games, meaning kickoff was at 930 AM.  I barely had time to do the chicken clean up and pay my bills before the game started.

The game was really not as close as the score.  The Eagles, and specifically Carson Wentz made some bad plays early that wiped out scoring opportunities.  However Wentz more than made up with it the rest of the game.  He made some amazing plays and the Eagles played well enough to win.  For the first time in awhile instead of falling on their face at the end of a game they actually did what was needed to close out the other team.

I was multi-tasking during the game, as I worked on assembling a gas station skimmer detector.  It’s a plan I found in Make magazine.  I bought the stuff to make it months and months ago but never set the time aside to do it.  I figured an early morning Eagles game was the perfect time to do so.  I had some trepidation because the project requires soldering small wires onto small contacts between two different boards.  I am terrible at soldering so that made this project somewhat daunting.  My aging eyes didn’t help, I relied a lot on the magnifying glass that is built into my old Radio Shack soldering station.  I eventually got it wired up but I won’t really know if it will work until I do some more configuration work on it.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I wind up having to redo the wires.

Cindy and I got out early afternoon with our wheels to North Collier Park.  The visit was for two reasons.  Of course we wanted to ride but we also wanted to get our early voting done.  A couple years ago we voted on the Minipros so we thought it would be fun to revisit that again.  We did the voting first.  We took turns so the other could guard the equipment.  It was a long ballot that covered four pages in total.  I cast my votes, hoping to make a difference in the direction of our political climate but doubtful it will be fruitful.

The ride we had afterward was fun.  In total I brought four different devices with us, the Minipro, Meepo, One Wheel, and the Msuper.  Cindy, was feeling it yesterday and actually got up on and rode all four devices competently for a substantial amount of distance.  I was proud of her for her accomplishments.  I still maintain my premise that if she practiced more she would quickly surpass me in riding skill on everything we own.  The awesome weather made riding so enjoyable.

Sunday night I had another EUC live stream with Marty.  It lasted damn close to two hours which is sort of crazy.  Marty and I are able to ramble on about things which works out well I guess.