Thanksgiving, Black Friday, metering, light lunacy, fake

So our Thanksgiving started very early, I rolled out of bed a bit before 5am to get up and ready for the holiday 4 mile run.  It was quite chilly outside, in the upper 40’s out at our house.  Ali was not happy about waking up so early or the rather cold temperatures she was going to have to endure.  She bundled up appropriately.

We arrived at the race site around 6:15, well in advance of the 7:30 start time.  We arrived early so we could help with the race prep.  Ali worked the registration table, I sort of floated around and helped where needed.  The cold temperatures had no affect on runner turn out,  there was a huge crowd of runners, probably close to 1200 overall.  The Thanksgiving race is sort of a casual race, the running club puts the timing clock up but the runners are not individually timed.  If you want your time you either look up at the clock as you finish or you rely on the watch on your wrist.

As the race time approached I peeled off and tried to stretch and get loose.  I had a nice surprise when I ran into Michelle, a friend and former co-worker of Ali’s.  For years we hung out with her and her husband.  They started a family a couple years ago and for some reason since then we sort have fallen out of touch.  I hadn’t seen Michelle for probably 6 months or so.  We caught up a bit on old times as we both tried to loosen up for the race.

There was a massive collection of runners behind the start line.  The start of the race was silent, at least from my perspective.  Shortly after the person got done playing the national anthem on a trumpet people just started to move forward so I started moving as well, slowly.  Having that many people jammed into a single lane of roadway is tough.  I’d say for the first 1/4 to 1/2 mile of the run I was bogged down trying to get out from behind people that were either walking or running slower than me.  This race is a four miler, a distance I have not run for several years, since Ali was in her running prime.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

I sort of hoped that since the race course was flat, my pace would be a bit better than the bridge run. However the combination of the quagmire at the start and having the race 12 hours earlier in the day (I always perform better physically later in the day) my pace was about 15 seconds per mile slower than the bridge run.  During the race I was passed more than in the Veteran’s Day run, a by product of having so more many runners in the field.  

I had one woman that was slightly ahead of me the entire race.  She was tall and sort of built like a female volleyball player.  I felt like I should be able to pass her during the race and I did briefly a couple times but she wound up back ahead of me.  As I passed the three mile mark I knew I was going into uncharted territory, I wasn’t sure what sort of kick I would have at the finish.  During the last half mile I sped up the best I could, in the process I passed a number of runners and  found myself right on the heels of the same woman.  I hoped my acceleration would carry me past her but she responded with a kick of her own and beat me to the finish, oh well. 

The clock above the finish line read 32:30 which seemed wrong.  When I checked my watch I clicked in at 32:59.  I think they messed up starting the clock.  My pace for the 4 mile run averaged out at an 8:13 clip, not bad considering the slow start.  It was a good run. I was tired from the longer distance but overall didn’t feel too bad.  After grabbing a piece of pumpkin pie and hanging out for a bit Ali and I headed back out for home.

When we got home we didn’t have much time before we had to head back out to go to mom’s for Thanksgiving dinner.  We both cleaned up and then piled in the car with Nicki to go enjoy our Thanksgiving celebration.  We arrived and had some time until the food was done.  Mom kept all of the ads from the holiday paper so I started thumbing through them.  For some reason it sort of got me thinking about going out on Black Friday and participating in the shopping madness.  Mom also asked if after dinner we could run over to K-mart so she could buy a, gasp, fake tree.  I told her I would go with her.

So our feast was ready.  It featured Tofurkey, the tofu turkey substitute.  This was the third or fourth year we had it.  In the past we would make the tofurkey AND a small turkey breast for mom.  The past couple years we just had tofurkey.  Mom said it was good enough that she didn’t mind going sans turkey.  We also had broccoli, dumplings that come with the tofurkey, mashed potatoes and the sweet potato dish that mom makes that tastes so good.  Our Thanksgiving dinners since moving to Florida don’t have much pomp and circumstance since it is only the three of us.  The food is ready and we eat it.  I almost feel like saying a simple prayer like my grandfather used to utter before our holiday meals to at least make the meal match the holiday at least a little bit.  I guess I just hate being a hypocrite.

We enjoyed the meal out on mom’s lanai. By that time it had warmed up into the 60’s.  It’s a cool thing to be able to eat Thanksgiving dinner outdoors, don’t you think?    As soon as we were done, clean up operations began immediately.  Mom isn’t very good at just sitting around and chilling out, she seems to feel uncomfortable with just relaxing if guests are around.  Of course I am much the same way although I would prefer for that to not be the case. 

So after clean up mom and I headed to K-mart.  I remember years ago K-mart started the “tradition” of being open Thanksgiving day, a way to get a jump start on holiday sales.  I remember my grandmother who used to be an assistant manager at a K-mart, chastising the chain for doing so.  She thought it was ridiculous for the store to ask it’s employees to work on the holiday.  I remember feeling the same way, it’s a shitty thing. However in recent years, more than once I have visited K-mart on Thanksgiving and felt somewhat dirty in the process. This time was no different.

As we drove to the store mom said that she felt somewhat guilty about “giving up” and getting a fake tree.  I told her how Ali and I had been entertaining the idea for a few years.  Mom already knew what she wanted from the ads that she saw.  Within a few minutes we had the tree as well as a new set of windshield wipers, mom said her current set were crap.  As we looked at the trees I remarked how some of them looked really nice, even though they were fake. I mean the same applies to fake boobs right? ( I didn’t use this analogy with mom)  We loaded up and headed back to her place.

After lugging the tree box inside I quickly went back outside and snapped on mom’s new wipers.  Then it was back inside to set up her tree.  I feared it would be a pain in the ass to set up.  I recall how old trees were set up branch by branch.  The fake Christmas Tree industry evidently has benefited from technology.  Setting up mom’s tree took all of 15 minutes, it wasn’t hard.  Having the tree pre-lit is also a huge time saver.  The tree fit the corner it was allocated to well and even without a single ornament on it, the tree looked ok.   Experiencing the ease of setup pushed me closer to jumping into the fake tree realm myself.

We snagged all of the ads from the paper and our leftovers to get ready to head back home.  We thanked mom for the great meal.  We will have Christmas out at our place.  We loaded up and headed home, both Ali and I were tired from the big meal.  Shortly after getting back Ali retired for a nap while I resisted and instead did some work on the running club website to update it.  We were both pretty full for the rest of the day.  For dinner I simply had a bowl of cereal.  I stupidly spilled milk from the bowl directly onto my Logitech G15 keyboard.  I quickly grabbed paper towels to soak up the milk.  Initially I thought the keyboard escaped damage as it continued to work just fine.  However after 10 minutes or so the LCD display started freaking out, soon after that various keys no longer worked.  I turned the PC off and flipped the keyboard upside down, hoping it would simply dry out and work again, I have had other electronics survive such encounters with liquids. 

I had decided I would officially dive into Black Friday.  Although Ali had to work on Friday, she indicated she would be interested in heading out to Home Depot with me early to check out fake trees.  She didn’t realize how early I had in mind.  Friday morning I woke up on my own at 5am, I knew that many stores were already open.  I had several stores on the list that I possibly wanted to visit.  Ali regretted her decision to join me when I was rolling her out of bed at 5:30.  The plan was we would drive separately so she could go right to work after Home Depot. 

We shot out the door around 6am and arrived at the store some 30 minutes later.  The parking lot wasn’t all that full.  We walked in and were greeted by a throng of HD employees.  The really were trying to cater to the crazy Black Friday shopper needs.  We told them we were looking at the trees.  Home Depot had a 7 six or seven foot high tree that was pre strung with LED lights advertised for a crazy $49.  They mentioned that those were sold out very quickly within minutes of their 6am opening.  Ali and I started walking around and looking at what they DID have available.  Some of the trees looked shitty, cheap and fake.  Some looked pretty damn nice.  Even though we were at the store, I was still mentally undecided if I wanted to give in and get a fake tree.  Getting a real tree has many positives.  A real tree is traditional, each year the tree will always be somewhat different than any other, and the smell of a fresh tree in a house is a welcome addition that only occurs one month out of the year.

On the negative side, selecting, transporting, and mounting the tree in it’s stand can be quite the challenge.  The trees often look different out on the parking lot than they do when you get them mounted inside your living room.  Trees dropping needles as they slowly die in your house is one of the biggest nuisances.  All of these things were rolling around in my head as we looked at the artificial substitutes. 

There were large influences pulling me both directions. On the pro-real tree side I thought about how much I like the smell of a real tree in the house.  I also though that an artificial tree was the “easy” way out, the convenient way to celebrate Christmas.  That concept did not sit well with me.  On the pro-artificial tree side were the thoughts of no more needles, minimal hassle and the reassurance of having a great looking tree year after year.

The deciding factor for me was a negative emotion.  It was the memory of the feeling each and every year of depression as I drug out the corpse of the tree that we so carefully selected and decorated with loving care only a few weeks prior.  To me it was like a funeral dirge as we removed the ornaments from the browning, stiff branches followed by unceremoniously dragging the dead tree out the door as it left a blood like trail of needles in it’s wake.  Yea it may sound stupid but it was remembering that feeling that made me pull the trigger on a fake tree.  We picked out a 7.5 foot douglass fir look alike.  Ali tried to ease the pain by saying we could get some candles that smelled like christmas trees.  Of course we picked out a tree that wasn’t on sale.

After the trauma of joining the fake tree club Ali was off to work and I was off to the next stop on my Black Friday check list, Circuit City.  I stopped at a Circuit City that was closing due to their financial issues. Ironically it was a store that only opened a few months ago.  I had heard from several people that there were some good deals to be had.  One of the things I was looking for was a replacement keyboard since my G15 still had some keys that did not work even after drying out overnight.  As I walked in the store I found myself looking more at things that I found interesting as opposed to doing shopping for others. The prices were decent but I wasn’t blown away by anything I saw. I wound up buying a new G15, albeit the new sleeker model.  It was marked down 30%. Merry Christmas, to me.

The next stop was Sam’s Club.  The had Wii Fit prominently advertised in their flyer.  Ali had told me that she had been trying to find Wii Fit online and every outlet was sold out.  She told me if I ran it across it during my travels I should just snag it.  I hoped since Sam’s had it so prominently featured, they might actually have a decent amount of them.  I knew the fact that I was arriving there after 7 am did not bode well for me since they opened at 5.  I walked in and saw a big display of Wii bundles but no Wii Fit.  I asked a clerk if they had any of them left.  She said they sold the five they had in the first 10 minutes.  I felt like saying “WTF, you guys feature Wii Fit in your circular and only have FIVE to sell?”  It was classic bait and switch, get them in the door so they buy other stuff.  I question if they had any of them.  I wound up walking out of the store with two gallons of milk and a Zone Bars two pack, yay.

I had other stores I was thinking about visiting but I decided to just drop into Super Target on the way home.  Thus far I had bought absolutely nothing for anybody else but me, not exactly my plan.  I didn’t really know what I was looking for as I entered the store.  I wondered back towards the electronics department.  As I glanced behind the counter my eyes lit up as I saw a stack of five or six Wii Fits!  I was in disbelief.  I asked the clerk behind the counter “Are those Wii Fits actually for sale?” “Yep” he said.  Wow, what luck.  I stumbled across an unadvertised stash!  I actually entertained the idea of buying more than one and selling the extras on Ebay since I knew I could make a few extra bucks doing so.  I decided to not be greedy and was content with just scoring myself one. While I was there I actually snagged some gifts for OTHER people as well.

I headed home content with my Black Friday experience.  It was sort of fun to head out there before the sun came up looking for deals. Yea it’s kind of sick.  Once I got home I worked on getting the tree set up.  Getting the basic tree up was very easy.  I was pleased to see that it had a cool little foot operated switch that could be used to turn the lights on and off.  However when I looked at the tree it didn’t look like what I remembered at the store, the branches didn’t fill in very well.  As I looked closer at the instructions I read that I needed to shape each “branch”.  The tree comes shipped with all of the branches tucked in tight.  I had to bend each and every branch up, down and sideways in a manner to fill the tree out and make it appear more life like.  It was a bit of tedious job that Ali helped me finish later.  It made a big difference though.  By the time we were done the tree looked good.  From 10 feet away you would have a hard time discerning it was made mostly of wire and plastic.

On Friday I had received an electricity usage meter that I bought off Ebay. Basically you plug it into an outlet and then plug whatever you want to measure into the device.  Within seconds you can find out how much current is being drawn and if you leave it connected for awhile you will get a reading of the kilowatt hours used. Our electric bills are chronically high so I wanted to try to get a handle on what devices are drawing the most power.  The first thing I measured was the UPS that had the two Roombas and the christmas tree plugged into it.  Both Roombas were already charged, they pulled about 1/4 amp total.  I was surprised when I hit the power on the tree and saw the meter spike up to 3 amps.  That is some major current draw. 

I systematically went around the house and tested various things, my computer, Ali’s computer, the server and more.  I came up with some interesting observations.  My computer pulls a steady 2.5 amps when running.  That is a lot.  Quite often when I am home I would just leave my computer running so I would have quick access if I needed it.  That practice has a high cost penalty.  Even with the computer off I was pulling about a third of an amp from the external sound system and external hard drive.  I reworked the layout of my stuff so the UPS is now sitting on my desk behind the monitors.  Now when I am done working on the system it gets turned off and the UPS is turned off as well, new power draw = ZERO.

I have two network switches, and 8 port and an older 12 port model.  The 12 port switch pulled a decent amount of power as well as being quite noisy.  I’d be better served to get one 16 port switch to replace the two.  The server pulled about an AMP of power, I expected it to pull more.  I discovered that the Roombas pull much more power when actively charging, about a half amp per unit. They definitely put a dent in our electricity budget.  I discovered that the Tivo that is in the fitness room, that we never use actually was not working anymore.  It was just sitting there taking up space and sucking up power 24/7.  I removed it. 

Finally I went out to the entertainment center and took a reading.  With everything “off” it was pulling a steady 1.5 amps.  Now the HD Tivo needs to be always on and that alone pulled about a half amp.  However I discovered that the DirectTv receiver pulled nearly that much even though it was supposedly turned off.  I unplugged the unit and left it that way.  I figured I can simply plug it in on Sundays when I use it for football.  

It was a bit of an eye opener seeing how much power devices are actually consuming.  I’m ok with sacrificing some convenience in order to trim down our big electric bills.  I also cut down on the amount of time the pool pump is running each day as well as looking into replacing my big rack mount server with a small footprint, energy efficient PC like the Lenovo A61E.   It’s tough to be a gadget geek and be green.

Even though I vowed to not care about the Eagles game Thanksgiving night, I reconsidered during the day and decided to call Comcast to have them turn on the NFL Network for me so I could see the game.  It turned out I was glad I did.  Apparently Donovan plays well when he has a chip on his shoulder.  He played very well.  It was the first time I saw him make several plays with his legs for first downs in quite awhile.  I’ll never understand why he decided it was somehow degrading to be a running QB.  It was a part of his game that used to give defenses fits, Why would he want relegate himself the past few years to being primarily a pocket passer?  Anyway they took the Cardinals to school.  I was exhausted from getting up for the race so I only stayed awake to the end of the third quarter but by that time the outcome was pretty much determined.  I was happy to see the 48-20 final score.

While we are talking football, let’s talk fantasy football.  Once again my team lost.  Once again I had a strong point total, 97.  It was the last game of the regular season and the loss was huge.  It meant that I went from winning the division to being a wild card which has a big penalty both financially and seed wise in the playoffs.  I am dumbfounded by my teams horrific 6-7 record after starting 5-1.  I just could not buy any luck the second half of the season.  This last game was a perfect example.  The team I played got 21 points from their KICKER.  I mean WTF, 21 points is unheard of for a kicker.  That is the way things have gone, it seems every week the team I am going against plays way over their heads. I have the second most points scored in the league and yet somehow found myself with a sub 500 record. It makes little sense.  Now I have to hope to catch some lightning in a bottle and knock out a team with one of the best records in the league in the first round of the playoffs.

On Saturday I decided I would tackle the chore of setting up the Christmas lights outside.  I wanted to go well beyond the minimal lighting I did last year because my dad, step mom and brother will be down shortly after New Years for a bit.  I wanted the place to look nice.  I went into the process with a good attitude, part of the more positive outlook I am trying to embrace.  It didn’t take real long for that to go into the toilet.  Christmas lights are maddening.  I don’t know, is it just me or should someone have been able to invent lights that don’t fail constantly at this point? 

I first strung lights across the front fence and roof line.  For this section I used the expensive lights that I bought a few years ago.  They seem more resilient than the typical light set.  When I moved to decorating the palm trees out front I was forced to delve into the remaining light sets that had unknown status.  It quickly became an effort in frutration.  It seemed like every single set of lights I pulled out had only half of the lights working.  On these sets I tried to quickly find the problem bulb(s).  In a few cases I was successful in finding and correcting the problem, most times I wasn’t.   I tried to be resourceful.  In some situations I just left the dead half of the lights on the ground and strung up the working half.  In other situations the unlit portion of the lights served as an extension cord to reach other areas. 

Adding to the frsutration was the fact that these trees are getting tall.  Tall enough that even a ladder is not enough to reach certain areas.  I addressed this by utilizing the pole saw as a make shift holiday decoration instrument.  It worked but not without much stress and strain.  I spent almost a solid three hours out there f’ing with those lights.  I got done shortly before Ali got back home.  I had taken the left over lights inside and was determined to go through them and fix any broken sets.  I got four sets working before I gave up and threw the rest of the lights in a huge rat nest pile that was deposited in the trash can.  My positive attitude took a beating during those few hours.

Saturday night we watched two movies.  The first one was the latest Mummy flick.  I enjoyed the first two.  I heard this one was a stinker but I held out hope that it was just the opinion of a harsh critic.  I should have known it would suck when I saw they replaced Brendan Frasier’s cute wife from the first two movies with the woman that used to play a nurse on ER.  The movie is in a word, stupid.  It lost me early when Brendan decides the best way to stop the resurrected “mummy” was to jump on the back of one of his iron skinned, lava filled horses and give chase.  The whole movie was much of the same, just stupid, over the top action scenes that I found myself not caring about.  The best part of the movie were the yeti’s that saved the day more than once. I’d give the film a C-.

I felt the need to redeem myself for the shitty Mummy movie.  I suggested to Ali that we watch Wall-E, the animated Disney/Pixar film about a garbage collecting robot of the future. It was GREAT.  We both loved it.  At first you would think it was hard to make a movie where the main character doesn’t “say” more than few words.  They pulled it off.  There have been so many animated films recently that they all sort of run together, very few stand out.  Wall-E stands out.  Rent it, download it, buy it, you’ll like it. It gets a shiny A.

The weather on Sunday was very uncharacteristic for the end of November.  It was almost like a mid-summer day filled with rain and VERY strong gusty wind.  My idea for our “fun” activity for this weekend was to go out and check out or land in Lehigh Acres in the party van.  We figured it would be fun for Nicki since she loves rides and we thought that maybe there had been some change around our lots since we hadn’t been out there in quite awhile.  We were disappointed to see that absolutely nothing changed, nada, zippo.  The area was plain old depressing, just like our area, lots of places were for sale or abandoned. 

Seeing the lots also opened up the unwelcomed reality of us being stuck with these two plots of land.  When we bought them they represented a bold step by us.  We were jumping on the real estate bandwagon.  Everyone was making money hand over fist.  For the first 6 months after we bought the land we looked like f’ing geniuses.  Lots in our area were routinely selling for over double what we paid.  I had visions of using the insane profit to pay off both our equity line AND our primary mortgage.  When prices started to flatten out and then slowly sink we held the lots, figuring it was just a temporary bump.  Why sell for 55k if we could make 75k?  Well prices went from descending like a feather to plummeting like a cannonball.  People panicked and flooded the market with lots they wanted to dump.  We saw the light too late and by the time we listed the lots there was just no demand.  Today they are probably worth somewhere between 30-40% of what we paid for them.  Anyway, revisiting that financial life lesson was not all that much “fun”.  Lesson learned – if you can double your money on an investment, take it and get out for cripes sake.  We drove home and got ready for part two of the Christmas decoration project.

Much like the lights outside, we wanted to go all out with the inside decorations for the house.  The fake tree had tons of branches to hang stuff off of.  We were able to unload our considerable Christmas ornament arsenal on it and still had branches to spare.  Ali’s grandfather’s tree that we set up last year as our makeshift main tree was set up in the living room to serve as Nicki’s tree this year.  Ali adorned it with all of our Peanuts ornaments, it looks cute.

Much like what I experienced outside on Saturday, we expereinced inside on Sunday.  You hit the decoration wall.  You get sick and tired of deciding where to put everything.  We have about ten containers filled with stuff.  Somewhere around the two and a half hour mark Ali was ready to pack it in.  I was as well, you just get burned out on it, espeically if children are not involved.  I think the house looks nice and festive.  I’ll take some pictures this week.

One of the things we normally do to assist in the decoration process is throw in our Christmas cd’s.  Ali loaded up the Bose but had a problem getting it to work.  She would stick the cd magazine in but the unit would just make a nasty grinding noise when it tried to access them.  I hoped she was doing something wrong so I sat down and tried it myself, same thing.  Shit.  this is the same unit I just sent out to Bose to fix the audio cut out problem in August.  When I sent it out the cd player was working as far as I know.  This was the first time I tried the cd player since getting it back.  So now I have to send the unit back AGAIN, yay.

Over the weekend I started taking melatonin at bedtime, it is suppposed to help promote restful sleep.  Well it does seem to help me sleep soundly.  Each night I have taken it I fall asleep quickly and don’t wake up during the night.  The weird thing is I have been waking up on my own somewhere around 5 to 5:30 am each day without an alarm.  So the sleep I am getting is solid but it’s not quite as much as I would like.  I’m going to keep taking it for a while and see how things progress.

Speaking of progression, my forearm issues are not doing much positive progression.  Today at the gym I again could feel it getting tweaked trying to do chest and back.  I decided I need to strictly avoid working body parts that introduce more strain to my forearms.  That means I am going to try to just do basically abs, legs and cardio for a couple weeks and see if things get better.  One of my biggest “fears” throughout all of this is my inability to do my maintenance 300 workouts. I already had to miss the one I was scheduled to do last week.  I fear it causing me to have to layoff the work out long enough that I will no longer be able to complete one in it’s entirety.  I have been trying to use positive thinking though, telling myself that taking a couple steps backward might be necessary in order to fully facilitate the healing process.

Hopefully this entry is long enough for you…