One more time, holding on, Break while fixing, 40 MPH, Close score wide gap, Almost two
I got out and ran again on Friday night. The temps were close to 80 but the humidity was low. Normally when I run my mind drifts around and bumps off various subjects. This time the thought was “Running laps on the track remind me of the years of your life. The early laps seem incredibly lengthy but as they pile up they seem to get exponentially shorter” The run also pushed me over the edge with the old man beard I was sporting. I hate the sensation of having a sweaty lip that you can never get dry thanks to bushy facial hair. I buzzed it off that night.
Saturday morning I had targeted as my last grass mowing session before the holidays. The lack of consistent rain and lower temps have dropped the growth rate of the yard quite a bit. It took longer than expected even with Cindy helping out by pulling down all of the yard ornaments and putting them back. I didn’t come back inside until close to noon.
Poor Shadow, our most recent sick chicken is not doing well. Her strength is almost non-existent and we both know her time left is not going to be long. We have been isolating her to the chicken tractor during the day so she can just rest while giving her some of her favorite treats as we hope for a miraculous recovery that will never come. It seems obvious that whatever Pumpkin had, Shadow has it too. Disease in chickens can spread easily. Luckily the other five hens seem totally normal still.
Cindy and I were talking about some changes we need to do in their area. The chickens spend the majority of their time during the day camped out under the raised deck we built the coop upon. They like feeling safe and secure. When we had them free ranging the entire yard they would find this safety hiding under the big shed or among the thick areca palms by the pond. Well the problem with them hanging out so much under the coop is it is sealed up on three sides with hardware cloth, making it impossible to clean/maintain. I am sure that 8 x 10 square is disgusting and filled with all sorts of unhealthy substances.
I am thinking what we need to do is block access to under the coop so the birds remain in areas that we can keep clean. However they need an area to feel safe, secure, and shaded from the intense Florida sun. So my plan is to renovate the “playground” area we haphazardly made behind the coop for the birds. I need to raise the ground it sits on, reinforce it, and secure it to the ground in a much beefier manner. I will then come up with some sort of roof covering for it that I am able to remove as needed to clean up underneath on a regular basis so we don’t have a germ factory going on. I will need to first move it out of the way and raise the entire area 8-10 inches to make sure it does not get flooded out during wet season.
Saturday afternoon we ran some errands with the dogs. It’s a funny contrast when it comes to how Sadie and Elsa act in public. Sadie is super friendly and willing to let anyone interact with her where as Elsa is the exact opposite. The second someone looks like they take a step towards her she will scramble behind Cindy or I to seek shelter. For as long as we have had Elsa we have taken her out in public to try to lessen her fear but it has only gotten slightly better.
Later Saturday afternoon and into the evening I had some EUC projects to do. One went ok, one did not. The successful project was upgrading the pedals on my KS-18L to the super sized variety that are on the KS-18XL that I tested. I ran into some snafus along the way but the end result was positive.
The other project was trying to replace the inner tube on my Gotway Monster which requires disassembling the wheel to a large extent. I got everything apart ok and the old tube out, which had a tear at the valve stem. However as I was trying to get the tire back on after putting the new tube in I manged to puncture the tube with the tire lever as I pried with great force. It was frustrating. I have now ordered TWO additional tubes, just in my case my technique fails again.
Sunday morning was overcast and windy but Cindy and I still managed to get out for a ride. It is awesome having the Dualtron in our fleet as it now allows Cindy to go pretty much anywhere I go on my EUC’s since the scooter has the range and even more speed than any of my EUC’s. Cindy really loves it too. Several times during the ride she had the Dualtron up to 40MPH, a full 10 MPH faster than I can go on my 18L. We managed to get to and back from DD without getting wet thank goodness.
The Eagles had a huge game against the Cowboys at 4:30. The end result of ending in a OT loss would make you think the Eagles played very competitively throughout. Actually nothing could be further from the truth. The Cowboys DOMINATED the game amassing something obscene like 600 yards of offense and more than doubling the Eagles time of possession. The only thing that kept the Birds in the game were some turnovers and the Cowboys shooting themselves in the foot in the red zone several times. The Cowboys could have easily amassed 50 points. Let me break down some of my thoughts about the state of the team.
Carson Wentz – To me some of the shine has definitely come off Carson’s star. He seems to lack the sixth sense to know when it’s time to get rid of the ball. He doesn’t “feel” pressure and the end result is him fumbling or taking sacks for a loss far too often in my opinion. He also has demonstrated a disturbing McNabb-esque inaccuracy at times, missing easy throws on a pretty routine basis. The guy is a gamer and like his attitude but he just is not getting it done when the opportunities are there. He has a very solid receiving corp, clearly better than last year, yet he is struggling to make plays.
The defense – I absolutely HATE the way this team plays defense. Yes, the secondary, which in my opinion was already subpar with it’s starting players, has been absolutely dreadful with the back ups which are playing due to injury. What I hate specifically is the soft scheme they play seemingly all the time. Last year the team had a reputation of getting consistent pressure only rushing four lineman and playing a zone behind it. Well that pressure isn’t consistent this year but they are still playing that shitty, frustrating as hell soft zone.
I clearly remember a play that was the definition of why it is sch a ridiculous defensive strategy. where the Cowboys had the ball and it was 3rd down with three yards to go. The Eagle defenders were lined up 5 yards OFF the ball and their initial move was back pedaling from there. WTF, how does that make sense? When you allow such a huge cushion receivers have plenty of time to get a full head of steam and then cut hard as a DB is back pedaling, immediately putting the defender at a huge disadvantage. I hate that we never play tight man coverage where you bump the receiver within 5 yards so he can’t immediate blow your doors in or simply stop and turn around while you are in a full back pedal five yards away. I think the scheme sucks and it’s obvious the players out there are not good enough at playing zone defense to be effective.
Pederson – I think Pederson has somewhat fallen flat in his play calling. For most of the year the run/pass balance has been very lopsided but once again injuries at the RB position have contributed to that.
So anyway I don’t know if my rant makes any sense but I found myself feeling frustrated the entire game, even when the Eagles tied it up. The defense is just woeful and the offense can not get out of it’s own way most of the time. Two of their remaining three games are very tough so losing to the Cowboys was likely the last nail in the coffin of the 2018 Eagles. Hey, we won our Super Bowl….
With the game going into overtime I only got on my computer 10 minutes before the live stream was supposed to start. We had very good interaction with the viewers which made the stream extend to almost two hours. It went well and I hope I can continue to grow the audience over time.