Mummified, bailed, Ethanol free, day race

So the other day a box arrived that contained three stackable jumping platforms that are intended for gym use.  However I bought them to be used by the running club as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place award platforms.  One of them is 18″ high, another is 12″ high and the shortest is a mere 6″ tall.  I figured I may as well get around to unpacking them, little did I know it would take me a solid 15 minutes of hacking, slashing and yanking to make it happen.

The difficulty began immediately, just trying to open the box took awhile due to layers of criss-crossed packing tape. Once I finally cut/tore the box apart the real chore began.  The legs of each platform were fully encased in bubble wrap which in turn was encased in a virtual spider web of packing tape.  Sure I appreciate items being safely packaged but this was ridiculous.  I half wondered if this was somebody’s idea of a joke.

With normal packing, you cut the tape at a couple key points and the item is easily freed from it’s protective packing.  Well this mummy style pack job required me to go leg by leg with my knife hacking away non-stop.  I actually had worked up a sweat by the time I was done.  Crazy.

Last night I got into the final encounter for end boss in WoW.  Unfortunately by the time the group was formed it took 45 minutes.  I had to bail in the middle of it because supper was ready.  I think if I am going to finally complete it I will need to allocate a solid two hour block of time, whenever I may find it.

On my way to work I stopped at a brand new Racetrac to fill up the Tacoma.  I was pleasantly surprised to see they actually sell ethanol free gas.  Ethanol is one of the bigger crocks of shit of our time.  It is a product produced from corn and added to gasoline.  Ethanol is basically just another subsidy to the corn industry.

The thing is adding ethanol to gas makes the gas suck.  Anyone that runs gas powered lawn equipment or has vehicles that sit for an extended period of time is probably familiar with the downfalls of this mutant gasoline.  Ethanol has this nasty habit of turning into a gelatinous substance over time.  When this happens it clogs fuels lines, fuel injectors, carburetors and other parts of the fuel system.  When you add gas stabilizer to fuel that is to combat this very annoying ethanol characteristic.

So anyway, seeing gas without ethanol put a little spring in my step.  The spring collapsed a bit when I saw they charge a 42 cent premium for ethanol-free.  I still elected to dump some ethanol free in the Tacoma, I imagined for the truck it would be like breathing fresh air.

Today is that odd day of the year where I have to leave work early to set up for our only evening race which starts at 6:15.  I am so glad that we stopped chip timing the event last year.  The race is billed as a Corporate Run/Walk where the goal is to get a number of people that don’t normally participate in 5K’s exposed to it.  Hell most of the people probably don’t even exercise on a regular basis. People join as a member of a team where that team is typically a business or group.  We don’t hand out awards based on time, it is based on participation, the team that brings the most people, wins.

When we chip timed the race it was a huge mess since so many of the participants had no idea about the logistics of a race.  I would lose more timing chips at this race than all of the other races combined and the amount of human error that would occur made getting accurate scoring nearly impossible.  Now that is is a “fun run” I still have many responsibilities to handle but sorting through the mistakes of race “noobs” is not one of them.

The numbers for the race for this year have swelled considerably from last year which of course is always a good thing.  In the big picture the goal is a light bulb get turned on for some of these people that never exercise, hopefully inspiring them to continue on with a more health focused lifestyle.