Whirlwind weekend, Eagles, Phils
It was a pretty hectic weekend with my sister being down to visit. They flew in late Thursday night. Friday after work we were supposed to meet at my mom’s place before heading out to dinner. I had to snag groceries before meeting them so I hit Publix for a whirlwind shopping trip, hurry home, unload the groceries, walk the dog, feed the dog and shoot right back out the door.
I was a few minutes late but I still beat my sister to my mom’s place. We met Ali at Carraba’s and had yet another quality dining experience. After dinner we made plans to meet back up with them Saturday afternoon. I took my mom back home but told her I would look at her cable. Earlier in the day she lost most of the channels and the ones she could see were snowy and fuzzy. She said that on the other side of the duplex there was an HVAC guy working earlier in the day and she thought the problem could be connected.
I was in shorts and a t-shirt, not great clothing for crawling around in a dusty, blown in fiberglass insulation filled attic. Instantly the fiberglass dug into my exposed skin. The air handler unit looked brand new, I assume that was what was replaced. Beyond the air handler I spotted a splitter with three coax cables running into it, I figured that was a good place to look. Getting to it was a challenge. I had to crawl over the air handler, through the ceiling joices while keeping low enough to not impale myself on the nails poking through from the roof. After a lot of grunting and sweating, I got to the splitter, pulled on one cable and it instantly pulled loose of the crimped fitting, problem spotted.
Of course I didn’t have any coax fittings with me so I asked my mom to throw me up some duct tape. I jammed the cable back into the fitting, verified with my mom that the picture quality had returned, and then sloppily taped it in place with the duct tape. I figured this would work for now until I could get some new fittings to fix it properly.
Saturday morning I was outside early, before 9 am. I knew my time to get house chores done would be very limited between visiting with Torrin and having to work a 20k race Sunday morning. So by the time that Ali got home from the gym late morning I had almost everything done. We cleaned up and headed over to the condo in Fort Myers beach where Torrin, Emily, my brother-in-law and his parents were staying. The place was right on the gulf, facing the water, it was an AWESOME view. We had some time to kill until mom got done working so we spent it down at the pool/beach with everyone. My niece really enjoys the water, it was fun to see her playing in both the pool and the gulf. The plan was I would go pick up my mom after she was done and bring her back to Ft Myers beach and then go to dinner around there.
Before we went back to FMB, I wanted to quickly go back into mom’s attic and fix the coax cable with one of the new connectors I bought. Of course it didn’t go well. I brought long pants and a long sleeve shirt to protect me from the dirty insulation, however it also served to insulate me, making the hot attic feel hotter. I was sweating profusely within minutes. So I crawled back to the splitter and tried to connect one of the two new coax connectors in the small pack I bought. I ran into an issue, I didn’t have a good tool to crimp with. I forgot to bring a pliers and mom could not find one. I wound up trying to crimp it with a diag snip. I failed miserably and destroyed the connector. Ok , well I had one more to go. I was more careful this time, tried to crimp it with a pseudo pliers I had with me and again failed miserably. Now I was pissed off. I certainly didn’t want to crawl back into this sweaty hell hole again. So I came up with plan C, I took apart the original connector, jammed the cable into it and tried to re-crimp it. I connected it to the splitter and asked mom how it was. If the connector was still the pic was good, if I moved it around some interference shows up. Ok, well that was good enough, luckily the splitter should remain motionless tucked away in it’s dark, hot, dusty home. I crawled back down, verified the picture was still good and was satisfied. I hopped in mom’s shower to rinse off a bit before heading back up to the condo.
When we got back up there everyone was ready to go. The place that was selected was very close to the condo, two or three blocks away. Ali, mom, and I decided to walk while the rest piled in the mini-van. This place was very quaint with a big salad bar and a decent menu selection. We had a nice meal which my Damon’s dad covertly paid for before anyone knew. ( I paid for everyone the night before at Carraba’s) We went back to the condo, said our goodbye’s and made plans for everyone to come over to our house the next day to do a bbq on the grill/hang out thing.
I was anxious to get to bed Saturday night since I had to get up at 5am to go work the 20k race. Originally Ali was going to go as well to volunteer but right before bed she decided she would sit this one out. I HAD to go because I committed to shadow the guy from the Fort Myers Track club that was going to time the race electronically. The local running club we belong to is planning to move from a manual timing method to an automated, electronic timing set up and they want me to be the one to run the whole deal.
So I peeled myself out of bed at 5am, feeling like death warmed over. I get to the race and start the shadowing process. The guy from FMTC is a very nice and very willing to share whatever knowledge he has regarding timing a race. I picked up all sorts of background info that will be helpful in getting our own equipment set up. The biggest drawback of the process was the race was a long 20k. It was more than three hours until the last timed participant crossed the line. That translated to a long time to just sit around. I didn’t get out of there until around 11.
Once I got home I was dropped right into another whirlwind of activity getting ready for everyone to show up. I immediately unleashed the Roombas to do some vacuuming while I scurried about doing whatever else had to be done. Ali had run to the grocery store and loaded up on more food, our fridge was barfing full with it.
So everyone shows up and shortly afterwards my sister, Ali, my mom, my niece and my brother-in-laws mom are off to the outlets for shopping. So Damon, his dad and I hung out the house. I had the Packers game on while Damon and I drank significant amounts of beer and chowed down on significant amounts of food that was displayed across the kitchen island. After roughly a six pack I had enough, the beer combined with getting up so early had me nearly passed out in the chair. After the game was over Damon and I jumped in the pool to wake up. It was a crappy, overcast, windy day out so the water didn’t feel that great although I had flipped on the pool heater earlier in the day to warm it up a bit.
Between 4 and 5 the women returned from their shopping excursion and it was soon time to begin prep on another meal. I was the grill guy and it was a tough assignment. Typically I am throwing two burgers on the grill for Nicki and I, cook them for 5 or 10 minutes and I’m done. This time I had boneless chicken breast, hamburgers and hot dogs to prepare. Having a variety of food on the grill at one time was a tough thing to manage since they take different amounts of time to prepare. With some pointers from both Damon’s and my mom, I muddled through it and we presented food that was at least edible.
Somewhere around 7:30ish, everyone got ready to shove off. We said our goodbye’s as we would not be seeing them again before they leave on Tuesday. We cleaned up what was left to do, although most of it was already done by Ali and whomever else helped. I felt like a sloth from the combo of drinking and eating. It’s a feeling I absolutely hate.
It was almost time for the Eagles game. I was so tired I knew there was zero chance I would make it through the entire game and it was just as well, it was a disaster. The team is so inconsistent, so undisciplined and so uninspired I can barely find the motivation to watch them. Somehow after steamrolling Detroit and throwing 56 points on the scoreboard, the very next week they managed to be held to 3 measly points against what was statistically one of the very worst defenses in the NFL. Along the way the Eagles committed an obscene amount of penalties as well as giving up an unbelievable 12 sacks. It seemed like Andy refused to react to the horrid performance of his offensive line by changing things up. Instead it was full speed ahead with a game plan that was obviously not working. The fat SOB just can not think on his feet apparently. Far too often it seems like if Plan A doesn’t work, there is no Plan B. It’s maddening. I fell asleep for much of the second half, thank God. What a disaster. I really am ready for a house cleaning. The core of players they have has gone as far as they are going to go in my opinion.
At least the Phillies have provided a bright spot to the Philadelphia sports scene. They have been battling all season to get to the playoffs and erased a huge deficit to the Mets to make the playoffs for the first time since the early 90’s. I’m sure Mets fans are crushed by the colossal choke their team has performed. That makes it even sweeter. I suppose I need to learn the names of more than 3 Phillie players. I actually would like to watch the playoff games. It will be the first serious baseball I have seen in years.
My October, Spratan-prep grind has now begun in earnest. My face is already sporting a good bunch of hair and I started my modified diet plan this morning, substituting the morning bowl of cereal for some egg beaters and a small glass of juice. At the grocery store I also loaded up with a bunch of low fat cottage cheese, carrots and fruit which will be another major staple in the routine. I found that the eggs and juice were not quite enough. I need to add something else in as I was already hungry by the time I hit the office. Don, my buddy from work who has been serious and strict about his fitness/diet forever said he has some toast with peanut butter in addition to the eggs. Yea I may have to add that in. I am hoping that my attempts to cut a significant amount of carbs (aka sugar) out of my diet for the next month will make it possible to transition to keeping that change in place after the contest. We’ll see. After this weekend, some diet discipline is welcomed.