Staring, dropping

Today is one of those days where I stare at the screen and try to find the motivation to dump some words on a page.

Last night when I got home the girls came out the front door to greet me.  I was concerned about Nicki since my neighbor said she threw up when she let them outside around lunch time.  Nicki seemed ok to me thankfully.  I speculated that she may have just sounded like she threw up.  Nicki has always had an issue when drinking water, it makes her sort of gag.  As she has gotten older, especially in the last year or two, the noise she makes does sound like she is puking her guts out. I can see how someone that isn’t used to it would think she was puking.

Last night I attended to a number of duties, the majority of them related to the race I am timing this upcoming weekend.  I had to load up the codes for the bib timing devices into the system, download race entries and prepare an email promoting the race.  I also did some work trying to set up my Logitech Harmony remote to incorporate my Blu-Ray player and HDMI splitter into it’s configuration.  I was mildly successful.

Yesterday I officially announced I was no longer going to be organizing and running the monthly fitness challenges on the Bar-barians forums, something I have been involved with for close to four years.

I have spent a lot of time, money and effort supporting the web presence for the group over the years.  In the last 6 months or so there has been some shake up in the Bar-barians that resulted in some of the guys I worked most closely with, leaving.

Since they have left the web site I worked on was scrapped and relaunched, sort of.  The new web site was under construction for 2-3 months and even now that it is “open” it is woefully incomplete.  One of the things missing is any link to the forums that I have continued to run which has contributed to a steep decline in the participation in the contests.

The drop off in participation coupled with my drop off in motivation to keep it going contributed to me pulling the plug on the contests, at least contests I am responsible for.  There is a part of me that feels guilty in doing this as my personality lends itself to trudging on with something out of feelings of responsibility even if that responsibility is not deservedly mine.

Running the challenges can be pretty time consuming.  Coming up with the ideas, watching all of the videos, updating the results and sending out the prizes adds up to a good chunk of personal resources.  Judging the attempts can be frustrating as sometimes there is blow back when I point out a problem.  I have had  to deal with various degrees of BS ranging from minor griping to outright personal attacks from people unhappy with my evaluation of their efforts, despite my attempts to always try to be supportive even when delivering criticism.

So anyway, once this month’s contest concludes that will be the end of it.  My involvement in the contests got me connected with literally hundreds of people in the bar community, many of which help to fuel my motivation, which I am eternally grateful for.  It’s been a good long run but just like everything in this world, things change.

I forgot to mention that Cindy utilized a second home grown resource in addition to the eggplant she prepared over the weekend.  She used our large supply of blackberries to make a blackberry crumble desert which we have been enjoying the last few days.  There is something very satisfying about eating what you grow yourself.

Ali is still in a holding pattern with the closing on her new house.  Hopefully today is the day, having the majority of your possessions in the back of the truck for days is not a very good feeling.