Busy bee, WTF no water park, Beagles, awful ending

Ali was away Friday evening and most of Saturday so that left me solo to do as I pleased.  I decided to make my Friday evening more productive than normal by heading outside and do the weeding awhile, one less chore for later.  Friday night I stayed up way too late watching Breaking Bad episodes, I think I turned the tv off around 12:30 am.  It’s such a good show.

Even with my jump start on the chores Friday I still found my Saturday pretty encumbered.  It was like 70 or 71 in the morning so I took advantage of it by opening up the front screen door, the first time I have done so since April probably.  The dogs were quite happy to have an unobstructed view into the front yard.

I headed outside with the weed whacker to complete the grass maintenance the I started on Thursday night.  It had been at least 3 weeks since I whacked weeds so I was overdue. We had a few dry days which allowed the majority of the water that was still above ground to soak in so I hopped on the tractor as well to knock down some areas that were previously submerged.

I then headed inside to continue.  After doing my normal robot assisted floor cleaning I decided to pull out the steam cleaner to go over the rugs.  As always it had been too far in between sessions and the carpet needed it.  The dogs hate when I do this chore and banish themselves outside on the lanai while it is done.

I had to go down to the running store to pick up entries for an upcoming race we have Thursday evening.  By the time I got back Ali was not far behind.  After having a Tivo and pizza session we dug into the pile of paper entries to get them in the system, we worked right up until bed time.

Sunday morning Ali got up early to go do her last long run (8 miles) before her marathon next week.  I told her my plan was to ride my bike down to the water park where she could meet me to do some swimming.  I decided to break my ride into two parts.  I first did the 10 miles to Dunkin Donuts where I enjoyed a small coffee and a donut.   I was quite surprised that I was able to pull off my fastest pace ever on a ride of that distance, averaging over 20 mph.

The reason I was surprised was I had not done any “hard” riding in quite awhile dating back to a couple weeks before the Ireland trip.  I had some favorable wind during the first 2-3 miles of the ride that allowed me to pace 22-23mph for a good chunk of it as well.  Make no doubt it though I was working hard once I saw that I had a shot to do the 10 miles in under a half hour.

For the last 9 miles of the ride after DD I didn’t push the pace quite as hard but I still wound up averaging 19+mph over the entire roughly 19 mile ride, I was quite pleased with my unexpected speed.

I arrived at the water park maybe 15-20 minutes before they normally open at 10, Ali wasn’t there yet.  I parked my bike near the playground and went inside, looking for something to try to muscle up on.  For some reason this playground and the entire park for that matter, has no plain old straight bar.  The closest thing I found was some rectangle shaped curvy tracks that some plastic things slide back and forth on.  The shape of the “bars” prevented me from either getting a false grip or being able to rotate my wrists around it so I got stuck at the top. Oh well.

So when I made my way back to the main parking lot it was a couple minutes after 10.  I saw the Camry was now parked out front.  The weird thing was the Camry was almost the only car parked out front, there were 2 or 3 more but this seemed very odd.  I know that by this time at the very least the vehicles of the waterpark staff will adorn the back rows of the lot.  They were not there.

I didn’t give it much thought right then, instead I loaded my bike on the car and changed my clothes.  I mentioned to Ali that it seemed odd that it was so empty.  Yea the October weekends last year were not very busy but nothing like this.  As we turned toward the park I was now aware something was up by the lack of the sound of flowing water.  As we got closer we saw the curtains at the admission window were pulled down, f me, it’s closed.

On the window was a sign saying the last date they were open was September 25th, last weekend.  DAMN IT. Evidently the water park determined that it was not cost efficient to stay open weekends during October anymore.  That really sucks.  I actually quite enjoyed having the park nearly to ourselves last year at this time.  Even though I can understand the financial reality that would have made this change necessary, for selfish reasons I was pissed off about it.  I mean we are in south Florida, the weather in October is still great for water activities.   Oh well.

Since swimming was now off the agenda Ali asked if I minded meeting Michelle at Wal-mart.  Her and Ali wanted to buy dirt cheap sweats they could wear the morning of the race since it was supposed to be cold in Chicago with temps in the 40’s.  They wanted to be able to just pull the sweats off and toss them when they didn’t them.  Michelle had her two little boys with who were acting like little boys, high energy and crazy.  It was funny.

Sunday afternoon was consumed by watching the Eagles implode once again.  Unbelievably for the 3rd game in a row they relinquished a large lead.  It was just an awful game.  The team just has no guts at all.  Juan Castillo seems like a great cheerleader but when it comes executing a defensive scheme and changing it up as game conditions change, he blows.  The team is in total disarray.

Now ironically the Eagles have a pretty established track record of being slow starters.  I can recall quite a few years where they came out like slugs but then would wind up the year stringing together a half a dozen wins or more together.  Well they are all set up to do that again I suppose.

There were a number of goats in yesterdays game.  That idiotic play at the goal line where Ronnie Brown runs into a pile and is in the middle of being tackled while stupidly trying to throw a pass was incredibly moronic and wound up being called a fumble.  At first I thought he ad libbed into that play but I later found it was designed to be a trick play, just not run quite that way.  A good team should not need to pull shit like that to punch the ball in the endzone, that is how bad the Eagles have been in the red zone.

The Eagles rookie kicker, whom I just had commented to Ali has been surprisingly good so far this year missed two easy field goals, either of which would have made a difference in the final outcome.

The vaunted Eagles secondary, the best that money can buy, has sucked, routinely getting beat for big play after play.  And of course the entire defense as a whole has been atrocious, unable to make stops when it matters the most.  Coming into the game the 49ers were the LAST rated offense in the league, DEAD LAST.  The Birds gave up 400 yards of offense to them.

This team is just a mess.  It seems like they are missing an emotional leader on both offense and defense.  Somebody on the field that can slap the team across the face and get them to bear down and focus instead of playing like brainless boobs.  Listening to Fat Andy talk after the game did nothing to make me feel any better.  What I came away with was “I don’t know what the F to do”

The only positive that could come out of continued struggles by this team of stars is Andy could actually finally be sent packing if he fails to make the playoffs with arguably one of the most talented rosters in the league.  His message is old and I never felt like he was good enough to take the Eagles all the way to the end (Like Donovan)  I really would love to have a coach in here with fire in his belly instead of just a belly, a large one.

After the game I had to go to the airport to pick up mom who was returning from a 4 day visit with my uncle who lives in the Washington DC area.  I took the van and brought the girls with as the official welcome home crew.  When I picked mom up I sort of expected her trip details to be negative, just because that is what I have come to expect in most situations from her.  However I was pleasantly surprised that her stories about the trip were all very positive, she had a great time, which I was very glad to hear.  It sounds like Randy really went out of his way to make the trip special for mom including arranging for an old high school friend of hers to join them for dinner the one night.

Sadie made herself right at home on mom, sitting on her lap for most of the ride back to her place.  I just dropped mom off since it was getting late and didn’t have the girls on leashes.

Ali had been cooking a monster soup in the crock pot for most of the afternoon.  It had a lot of stuff in it but the highlight were the huge collection of home grown black eyed peas some of which we have been accumulating for a year or two.  In addition Ali put a bunch of other vegetables in there like tomatoes, onions, carrots and more.  The soup was good, especially after I hit it with a bit of salt.  I had a bowl and a half.

I was quite tired Sunday night and had passed out after reading a few stories in Wired before Ali got out of the shower.

Well later I recalled having a weird dream.  I was watching some of my YouTube videos of muscle ups and they were making me nauseous.  Well eventually I woke up to realize I was actually nauseous.  I felt sick in my stomach.  I looked over at the clock which read 12:37 and moaned.

Well I laid there for awhile, trying to talk myself down.  I heard sounds emanating from my gut that were not good at all.  I tried different positions in bed but nothing helped.  I knew IT was coming.  I get out of bed and quietly head to the guest bathroom.  I took out my retainers to preemptively avoid them becoming vomit holders.

Well surprisingly I never vomited although I felt like all it would take was a quick finger down the throat to do so.  Instead I had a brutal session out the other end that went off and on for at least a couple hours.  It was pretty damn awful.  I would lay back down in the guest bedroom, exhausted only to urgently have to scramble back to the throne again and again and again.  It was right up there in my bad bathroom experiences of a lifetime.

Thankfully I eventually was able to pass out.  I slept until Ali came in around 5:30 when she heard my alarm clock and realized I wasn’t in bed.  I was out cold with the comforter wrapped around me burrito style.  The only thing I can attribute to the episode was something in the soup although Ali had no similar digestive issues.  Unfortunately the smell of the soup, specifically the onions, was still in the house last night.  The association of the smell with the bathroom nightmare will pretty much guarantee I will not be having any more of the soup, despite us having enough left to feed 20 people.

I fell back asleep until 8am and called off work.  The best word I can use to describe how I feel is “depleted”.