Category Fitness

I’m not going to add my two cents regarding the awful shootings on Friday.  It’s a horrible, unthinkable act that unfortunately seems to be happening more and more frequently.  I prefer to keep Monday light.

On Friday night I thought I would swing into Costco to grab a few things. Woah, it was mobbed.  Luckily the store is so big that it can accommodate a large chunk of humanity.  I found myself back at the Green Machine aisle.

I noticed that the riding toy was actually rated all the way up to 180 pounds which I found encouraging since I tip the scales under that number.  Still, I didn’t pull the trigger.  I did feel a bit of concern that the number of Green Machines they had left were significantly smaller than just a week ago.

Friday I also received a box in the mail.  The Office Depot return address indicated it probably came from Randall.

I had to laugh when I saw the joke box,  which indicated I was the proud owner of an iArm.  However inside was a cool “Body by Duff” t-shirt.  It is a reference to the Simpsons and Duff beer but it serves a cool second meaning in my case. 🙂  He also included a Duff beer zip up bottle case.  Both gifts put a smile on my face.

On Saturday I wanted to do the best I could to clear my plate for Sunday so my birthday could be devoid of chores.  After knocking them out and giving the SSR a much needed bath I was ready to begin my first attempt ever at baking my favorite chocolate cake.

I thought the cake was so good that putting the process on video tape was a worthwhile effort so I could share the goodness with others in the cyber kingdom.   The early stages of the cake creation process were pretty straight forward.  I threw all the ingredients in the rarely used Kitchen Aid mixer and flipped it on.

When I went to pour the mix into the cake pan I realized why Ali always used a simple hand mixer instead.  The bottom of the bowl had a bunch of goopy solids.  That is the one issue with the Kitchen Aid, the beaters do not reach the bottom of the bowl.

So I wound up pouring the mixture clumsily from the stoneware pan back into the bowl and then hit it for a minute or two with the hand mixer.  I poured it back into the pan, hoping it was good enough.

So while the cake was in the oven I started on making the icing.  The icing is the star of the show with this cake and it requires some odd prep.  The first thing I had to do was blend milk and flour in a double boiler.

Now I don’t have an actual double boiler but I do have a set of nested pots.  I dumped some water in a larger pot and then placed a smaller pot inside it.  It just floated there.  From what I heard, using a double boiler is a way to prevent from burning something, it delivers an even heat.

So I flipped the front burner to the highest setting and waited a minute or two before I started stirring.  Well before long the water in the pot was at a full boil.   I assume I added too much water because as I stirred, scalding hot water started to erupt from the sides, covering the stove top in water and burning my fingers several times.  Less water and a lower temperature setting on the burner probably would have been advised.

Despite the mess, I wound up with what I think was proper icing base.  It had to cool before I could move forward with it’s prep.

So at this point I was just waiting for the cake to finish baking.  My mom had warned me that it typically takes longer than the 25-30 minute listed baking time.  She was right.  I pulled it out a couple times and it was still wet in the middle.

So I pulled the cake out a third time, by now it had probably been in the oven for at least 35 minutes.   The middle of it finally looked pretty solid.  I reached for a fork to test the middle and this happened.

I was startled and shocked.  Why in the world would the Pampered Chef stoneware cake pan all of a sudden crack in half??  My first theory was because the pan was warm and sitting on a burner that it wasn’t supported that well and broke.  Maybe stoneware is weaker when hot?

As my broken cake sat there I smelled and saw small wisps of smoke coming up.  Then it hit me.  I glanced at the front burner control and saw it was still turned on at setting 5, cool enough that the burner was not red but hot enough to crack a piece of stoneware.  I felt like an idiot. I could only laugh out loud at myself.

I quickly squeezed the pan together and sat it on the pizza stone.  At first I thought I would have to transfer the cake to something else.  Later I decided a simple duct tape job would suffice for now.  Obviously I wasn’t going to glue the pan back together.

Alison was not thrilled to hear I broke one of her prized Pampered Chef products.  Later that night I hopped on Ebay and bought her a replacement.

So ss the busted cake cooled I turned my attention back to the icing.  The goop had a cup of sugar and two full sticks of real butter added to it and blended together.  NOW you see why it tastes so good.  After mixing I did a quick taste test.  The icing was as I remembered which was exciting.

Finally when the cake cooled I applied the icing and this was the final product.  If you ignore the duct tape, it looks pretty legit.  Unfortunately I was not going to do a taste test of the final product until my actual birthday, anything else would be sacrilegious.

If you want to see the entire cake creation process, go here.

So Sunday arrived, bringing with it my 45th birthday.  I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel weird with my new living circumstances.

Ali needed me to watch the dogs on Sunday so we worked out an arrangement.  She agreed to bring them out to the house early and serve as my tractor driver for the death crawl.  I will cover the attempt more on Dufisthenics but briefly, it is a physical challenge I came up with where I would tow the tractor to the back fence line and back while in a bear (death) crawl.  I did this challenge once before with no load and it was tough enough.

The attempt had one glitch when the tractor popped out of neutral as I approached the fence.  I had to break form for a minute to put it back in.  However I did manage to pull the 500+ total pounds of weight the entire distance.  It got really uncomfortable towards the end.

If you would like to see the video of the attempt, which featured a unique two camera view, go here.

Later in the day I decided I had not beat myself enough and put in 100 pull up reps, trying to do it in the least amount of time possible.

Other than those two physical challenges, my birthday was pretty tame/boring.  Although I did receive a couple birthday presents in the mail, it was the first time in my life that I didn’t open a present on my birthday.  Yes it was weird thing to wrap my head around.

When Ali picked the dogs up we had some of the chocolate cake.  I was a bit apprehensive what I was going to be putting into my mouth after the cake breaking incident.  I was surprised that it was quite good.  It was probably a little dry because of the supplemental super heating that took place but when mixed with the icing and a cold glass of milk the taste experience was definitely positive.  Ali agreed that I did a good job.

Ali told me she started giving Nicki the the thyroid medicine again.  I could tell before she even told me.  As soon as I touched Nicki I felt her fur again had dried out.  She also did four or five number 2’s while she was at the house and was hitting the water bowl a ton.  It’s pretty incredible how quickly and drastically half of a little blue pill can take effect.

Ali knows I don’t approve but she is worried that not having the pill is hurting Nicki’s energy level.  After being on the pill for something like 5 or 6 weeks we can have Nicki’s numbers tested to see where she is at with her thyroid levels.  I have a feeling that number will come in sky high but we will just have to wait and see.

 

 

This will be a two cup of coffee entry I imagine.

I picked up Charlie at the airport early Thursday afternoon.  It was the first time I had seen him since we played in the Rumble in the summer of 2011.  He had never been to Naples since I relocated here in August of 2000.

Charlie had of course seen my house electronically many times but when he saw it in person he got a better appreciation of just how much I have to maintain.  I have lots to do, all the time.

We decided to do a run to the grocery store to pick up a few supplies.  We decided the rest of the night we would just hang at the house, drink beer and play video games.

Charlie and I have a long video game history.  We used to play FPS (first person shooter) games together all the time, dating back to Quake/Painkeep days.  Well I went back to the bedroom and pulled out a still in the plastic wrap copy of Call of Duty Black Ops.

No, this isn’t the game that was just released, this is the game that came out TWO YEARS ago.  I am pretty damn sure I got the game for Christmas in 2010, yes 2010.  It has sat in a drawer in my bedroom all that time.  I just hadn’t found the time/interest to crack it open in those two years.

Well having Charlie in the house couldn’t have been a more perfect reason to break the seal on the two year old game.

So both of our FPS background is almost exclusively on a PC where you utilize a mouse and keyboard to move, aim and shoot.  This combination allows a level of precision that I never have been able to imitate playing a shooter on a console with a joystick.  Charlie was exceptionally good in these games, much better than I ever was.

Well the lack of a mouse did indeed feel weird, it just felt awkward and sloppy.  What wasn’t sloppy were the intense realistic graphics of the game which was enhanced by skull thumping surround sound coming out of my Bose system. Despite fighting the controls, we both had a lot of fun playing late into the night on Thursday while drinking large amounts of beer.

On Friday I had asked Charlie if he had any interest in seeing Wreck it Ralph, the new Pixar movie that is about video games that I grew up with.  Sure the primary target audience for the movie is probably kids that are 35 years younger than I am but oh well.  Charlie said he was into seeing it.

The movie was mid afternoon.  We headed out early so I could give Charlie a sight seeing tour of the area in the SSR.  We drove down the ultra-rich neighborhoods of Gulf Shore Blvd and Gordon Drive passing one mansion after another.  Charlie was dumbfounded by the size of these palaces by the water.  We also drove by my office so Charlie could see where I have communicated to him from for the last decade plus.

The movie was at Silverspot.  I thought Charlie would like to see Naples high end theater, he thought it was sweet.

I really enjoyed the movie, not only because it brought me back to the games that I pumped endless quarters into as a kid but more because it was just well done.  After all it was a Pixar film, they always do a good job.  It was fun from beginning to end and gets a solid A.

On Friday evening we skipped the alcohol and just grabbed sandwiches from the near by restaurant.  We wanted to be sensible since we were getting up quite early to go to the Tough Mudder Saturday morning.  I set my alarm for 4AM so we could shove out by 5.

Charlie reported he had his second night in a row of minimal sleep.  He gets all worked up when he has big events like this coming up, the same thing happened before we did the Rumble.  Luckily I don’t start feeling nerves until closer to the actual event, I slept fine.

The drive up to the race went smoothly, it was actually the same exit I take to go to Siesta Key, the only difference being this time I headed east instead of west.  The entrance to the race was about 6 miles off the highway.  We pulled in a little before 6:40am and had no problem, unlike others later in the day, but more on that later.

Unlike last year where they had issues with their registration list, Charlie and I both were on the list this time and checked in with no trouble.  We spent the time leading up to the race kind of hanging out and checking out the immediate race area near registration..  The only hydration we did leading up to it was one 5 hour energy each, which was incredibly stupid, more on that later too.

So this year they changed a number of things besides the most obvious thing, the location.  Another change was how you got into the starting chute.  Last year when your wave was next up you walked into the corral area and went.  Well this year they put an 8 foot wall behind the start area.  The only way for you to enter was to go over the wall.

Ok that is kind of cool I guess.  However what wasn’t cool was the dumb idea that they could have teams pose for a picture one at a time before going over the wall.  There were just way too many bodies to do that.  The photographers were soon overrun.

Charlie and I had the same early 8:20 start time Randall and I enjoyed last year.  It really is the only way to go if you ask me for two reasons, parking and course degradation.  When you do the course early you can avoid the brunt of the parking nightmare.  Later in the day the parking situation became absolutely a disaster.  I heard that at one point the traffic was backed up for 18 MILES and some reported waiting 4 hours to park and another 2.5 to leave. Um no thanks.

The course is in much better shape when you do it early.  As thousands of bodies traverse the obstacles, many of which involved piles of dirt, it gets worn down.  Plus many obstacles can develop significant wait times the later in the day it becomes.

Finally, the temps are cooler in the morning, people that started around noon were dealing with temps around 80, not exactly great for traversing 11.5 miles with 22 obstacles along the way.

I was happy to see they had the same enthusiastic guy starting the Mudders this year.  Despite starting wave after wave of people every race he does a fantastic job of making you feel like you were THE special group.  He is just bursting with good energy.

Ok so we were off and running about 8:25.  One thing I noticed almost immediately was the ground was very treacherous to run on.  You could tell most of the path was just mowed for the race.  The ground was very rutty and uneven, exactly what a person with bad knees should NOT be running on.  I spent a lot of time looking down at my feet to try to find anything close to a stable running surface.  I wasn’t very successful.

Neither Charlie or I had really looked at what the obstacles were this year nor the order they were in.  I was hoping the dreaded ice bath would go down very early like last year so I could get it out of the way.  This year I had to wait a bit.

Before getting to the Arctic Enema we had to do a mud crawl under low barbed wire, wade through a lake and under 3 sets of barrels and do and over under log obstacle.  None of them were horribly difficult but it seemed like all three of them had very long runs between them.  This theme carried through out the course.

Last year there only seemed to be two or three long runs in between obstacles.  Most times when you did an obstacle you could see the next one off in the distance.  This year it seemed like there were 7 or 8 long runs with many of them having you running through fields where you saw nothing but others trudging along ahead of you.  I suppose part of this is because this course had 3 fewer obstacles than last year which would equal longer runs between them.  Whatever the cause, I really didn’t like having such long distances between obstacles, especially since the running surface was so hazardous.

Ok so we arrive at obstacle number four, the Arctic Enema (formally called the Chernobyl Jacuzzi)  Out of all of the obstacles last year, this was the most uncomfortable.  Also last year, although the water was VERY cold, there was hardly any visible ice in it.

This year the vats were stuffed with ice.  In fact when I took the plunge it felt like the top 18 inches or so was nothing but ice cubes.  Yes my skin instantly burned and my lungs contracted but I knew that speed was of the essence, I just got the fck out of it as quickly as I could.  Charlie emerged after me with a new appreciation of just how cold water can actually be.

Next up was something they called the Mud Mile which was series of smallish piles of dirt with water filled trenches behind them.  These were more annoying than challenging.  I think what made them more annoying was the long run between them, they didn’t feel like much of a payoff.  The only “challenge” to these was you didn’t know exactly how deep the water filled trenches were.  Some were quite shallow, a couple were knee deep.

Next up was the boa constrictor, an obstacle Randall and I had.  You get in a downward sloping drainage tube, dump out into muddy water and then have to climb another tube that goes up an incline.  This year they made it easier with a rope in the up pipe.  Last year we just had to inch our way up the pipe very slowly.  It did seem the angle was a bit steeper this year which is maybe why they added the rope. (or to address back ups for people that struggled)

Next was something called the Cliff Hanger which was basically a steep grassy hill with a pretty abrupt decline on the other end.  It was another ho hum type of obstacle.

Next up was the first set of Berlin Walls which is basically an 8 foot high wall you run up to, grab the top and pull yourself over.  I was able to pretty much just walk up to it, do a small hop and grab the edge.  My pull up prowness made getting over it pretty easy.  I wasn’t sure if Charlie would be able to get over without a hand since he is much shorter but he was able to run up and over it without a major issue.

Next up was something they didn’t have last year, the electric eel.  It was a low crawl obstacle on top of wet black plastic.  Overhead were straight, narrow rows of wires.  The goal was to stay low and straight.  If you failed you were nailed with a painful shock which we heard being delivered to several people.  Luckily Charlie and I managed to escape without being zapped.

Next up was the wood carry.  Unlike last year where you carried real logs on your shoulder through chest high water this year you carried sections of 12″ x 12″‘s along a 1/4 mile course through some woods.  The next obstacle was more wood based, climbing over and under some logs, followed by more small dirt piles and trenches, nothing too exciting.

Next up was the ball shrinker, I kind of like this one.  They have a metal wire wrapped in black pvc strung low across a body of water.  You hang upside down from the wire and pull yourself across to the other side.  As you get towards the middle of the wire it sags and your body gets more and more submerged into the water.  I was able to pull myself across without issue, Charlie had some problems with his head going under.

Right around this time Charlie started having issues with his calves cramping.  We stopped to allow him to stretch them out.  We realized how stupid it was to not plan for this ahead of time by making sure Charlie was well hydrated.  He has a history of cramping, including when we did the Rumble several times.

Not only did we do zero hydration the morning of the race, the night before I think all we had was one Diet Coke each.  It really was dumb of us to not plan better in this regard.

Well not only were Charlie’s cramps getting progressively worse, my right knee was a total mess at this point. I could hear noise in the joint with every stride and it was just one big ball of soreness. So although it was too bad we had to stop and/or walk a lot once Charlie’s cramping set in, with the way my knee felt I really didn’t care.

The next obstacle was the 15 foot high jump into muddy cold water, after the Arctic Enema this was not a big deal.

Next was a bigger set of Berlin Walls, 9 footers instead of 8.  These had a small, thin board you could use to push upward if you got the timing right.  Charlie mistimed it his first attempt, plowing into the wall.  On his second attempt though he cleared it, cramps and all, without any assist from me.  It was really impressive.

The next obstacle was another mud crawl under barbed wire, the repetition of obstacles was definitely a negative.  Crawling on my sore right knee was an even bigger negative at this point.

The next obstacle was the wounder warrior carry.  You are supposed to take turns carrying each other somewhere around 100 yards.  I carried Charlie but convinced him it would be stupid for him to try to carry me with the way he was cramping.  He still wanted to try but thankfully he listened to reason.

The next obstacle was a dark trench crawl where portions are pitch black, requiring you to navigate by touch alone.  I tried the best I could to do this on two hands and one knee as it was very uncomfortable at this point to be crawling at all.

We were now getting towards the homestretch.  We approached the Funky Monkey, one of the Mudder signature obstacles.  It is a set monkey bars that first go up before going down.  To make things more interesting they grease the bars.

I used the same strategy as last year utilizing the slower, but safer method of one rung at a time instead of going hand over hand.  Charlie used the same method for the ascending part of the bars but tried to switch to hand over hand coming down and wound up falling in the water.  He wasn’t happy about that.

The next obstacle was called balls to the wall.  It was a much higher wall than we faced earlier,  If I were to guess I would place it at 15-20 feet high.  It had small footing strips nailed across it and a large knotted rope to pull yourself up with.

For me the obstacle was easy, for many women, the upper body strength required made it very tough.  I helped a woman get up before I went by letting her use my hand as a modified seat until she could pull herself all the way up.

The only obstacles left were Everest and Electroshock therapy, two more signature obstacles.

Last year Everest gave both Randall and I trouble.  Not only is the 1/4 pipe high and steep, it’s slippery.  Last year I required the helping hand of fellow mudders to grasp onto me and pull me to the top.  This year I got a better run at it and found a section that was pretty dry, I was able to get to the top rather easily.

Charlie made it as well however as soon as he got to the top he laid down in pain.  Both of his calves were balled up in knots.  I just tried to move him slightly out of the way so he didn’t get run over by oncoming mudders.

We stayed up there for a bit while he tried to get the cramps to subside.  He used the two by four steps on the other side to help stretch out his legs as we slowly descended.  I felt bad for Charlie, I knew he felt bad about the cramps.

So finally we were at the end, facing the final obstacle, the famous electroshock therapy chute.  To be honest, last year I didn’t think the obstacle was bad at all.  I ran straight through with my arms as a shield and only received one shock on my arm.  The shock wasn’t severe, it kind of felt like a strong static shock, it burned but that was about it.

Well this year they made it much more miserable.  Instead of flat terrain in the chute they added small hills with water in between them.  There was no way to sprint through the chute without falling on your face with this layout, meaning you were more vulnerable to the shocks.

On top of this they apparently turned up the juice SIGNIFICANTLY this year. (or we just got a fresh set of batteries)  I got shocked three or four times on my back and they were major shocks.  Not only did they burn, my entire upper body convulsed as the current was delivered. It felt like someone plugged an AC cord into my body.  I managed to stagger out of the chute without falling.

Many people were not so lucky, going down after getting shocked only to be rewarded with another shock a few feet ahead. Charlie actually blacked out momentarily after one of his shocks and fell.  Yes, they were that strong.

We crossed the finish line, had some schwag shoved at us at grabbed our one free beer which we drank while sitting on a spot of open grass.  We were both beat up. Even though we just finished I could feel my knee blowing up like a balloon.

We had someone take a post race pic for us. I look to be in way better condition than last years race where I had dried blood on my face and dirt everywhere.  The black shirt I wore this year did a good job of hiding the dirt.

We did not have the luxury of being able to pay for a hot shower this year.  Instead Charlie and I had to try to get “clean” by spraying off with a garden hose.  It at least got the surface dirt off but we were both still pretty cruddy.

We then took a spin through the greatly expanded gift shop area.  Evidently picking up Under Armour as the new lead sponsor meant a lot more souvenirs.  I stayed conservative buying a glass, a window sticker and a luggage tag.  How that added up to $35 is beyond me.  Thievery.

Well by this time I was feeling very dehydrated.  Being offered a 12 ounce beer and nothing else to hydrate after a nearly 12 mile mud race sounds crazy doesn’t it?  Well that was the case.  There was NO free water to be had ANYWHERE.  The only way to get water was to wait in one of the two 30 person deep lines at a food stand and pay something like $5 for it.  That was fcking ridiculous, and hazardous.  I could hardly believe it.

The only free liquid I could find anywhere was at the EAS tent where I inhaled a bottle of chocolate muscle milk.  I was really pissed they had no free water.

Seeing those long food lines discouraged Charlie and I from eating there, it would have cost a small fortune to do so anyway.  So the only thing I wanted to do yet was get another set of post Mudder pull ups in, hopefully building on the 18 reps I got last year.

They actually had two pull up bars set up.  One was being run by some sponsor where they were keeping score of the most reps.  However the bar was a shitty design and they were allowing absolutely awful form reps to count including half reps and full fledged X-fit style kipping.

I instead opted to use the same wobbly Air Force pull up bar I utilized last year.  Although they weren’t keeping official track of the most reps they were handing out prizes based on the amount of reps you could do.  I saw that the top tier of 20 reps scored a set of sunglasses so that was what I was gunning for.

I did the first 19 reps consecutively and then paused briefly before pulling rep 20.  If I hung I could have probably squeaked out 25 reps but I didn’t feel the need.  I beat last years effort and scored the glasses, good nuf.

I convinced Charlie to give it a try as well.  He knocked out a very solid full 13 reps, earning himself a towel.

We both decided we were ready to head out, we would grab some food on the way home.  We began the very slow and limp filled walk back to the truck.

As we left we saw first hand the horrific traffic situation that had developed.  The traffic was backed up all the way up to the interstate.  Some people had gotten out of vehicles and were running to the event.  I read later that many people simply were unable to get to the race site because of the delays and packed it in.  Imagine paying that kind of money to do a Mudder and then not being able to even get on site because of poor planning?

So as I was talking to Charlie about this year’s event compared to last years event I told him I thought this event was harder.  However as time passed I think my evaluation morphed a bit.  Physically, the toll the race took on me was greater but that was almost entirely because of the terrible running surface.  It literally destroyed a right knee that was shaky going in.

The two biggest obstacles from last year, the ice bath and electroshock were considerably more intense, however as a whole, the obstacles were not as good as last year and there were fewer of them, contributing to the many long and boring runs.

So although the race was “harder” for me than last year it wasn’t better.  When you add in the horrible delays with parking/traffic and the lack of any water for finishers and you have some pretty big warts on this years event.  I did like the upgraded Mudder headband and shirt though.

When we got home the first order of business was to take long hot showers.  As I I was thoroughly scrubbing, I was working my man parts when I felt a burning sensation.  I look downstairs and see what almost looks like a brush burn on the business end of things.

Like it wasn’t bad enough that I had a blown up knee and a couple dozen bumps and cuts elsewhere, now I had something wrong with my penis.

It looked bad, at first I had this horrible fear that I picked up some sort of crazy disease from the dirty mudder water and it infected my junk.  However when I told Charlie about it he suggested it probably came from the liner of my swimsuit which upon further inspection made sense as it was a crosshatch pattern that matched the liner.

There were a couple points in the race where I was perched on top of either a wall or logs that could have pulled the liner hard against my southern regions.  I wore the same shorts last year without incident.  I guess from here on out all Mudder attire will include compression shorts underneath the top layer.  Luckily it appears to be healing fast.

Saturday night Charlie and I crashed, both really beat from the race.  I took a nap with an ice bag on my knee.  When I woke up I ordered pizza from Hungry Howies.  This theme of bad eating continued throughout the weekend.

I introduced Charlie to Walking Dead, starting with episode 1 of season 1.  In total we watched something like 5 or 6 episodes while he was here.  It’s such a good show I totally enjoyed seeing it again.  Charlie thought it was very good as well.

Sunday morning we had some time to relax since we weren’t going to leave until around 2 for Titusville.  I went and picked up the dogs so they could hang with us until we left.  When we did head out we just left the dogs at the house, Ali came out after work and picked them up.

We decided to take a scenic route to Titusville, cutting up the middle of the state instead of taking the conventional I-75 to I-4 highway option.  Going the way we did actually shaves 60 miles off the distance although it takes about the same time due to the slower speed and going through various towns.  However we both figured what the hell, we are not on a timetable and we are cruising in the SSR, why not slow down and enjoy some scenery?

Speaking of the SSR, Charlie got some appreciation of why I find the truck so endearing.  I treated him to the occasional 5000-6000 rpm power shifts where the engine is just screaming a perfect beastly note as it presses you firmly into your seat.

Driving itself was quite the challenge with my bad right knee.  I literally could hardly bend it at all by the time Sunday  rolled around.  If I wasn’t popping Advil like candy I don’t think I could have driven at all.

The drive took us about four and a half hours with a couple stops, not too bad.  The Holiday Inn where Charlie reserved a room was quite nice as well, clean and modern.

Sunday night we enjoyed a dinner in the attached restaurant. We had one of our many “who is going to pay” disputes.  Charlie is such a nice guy he wanted to pay for almost everything.  At times I had to resort to sneak paying for stuff when he wasn’t looking.

This is a good point to break so you can digest the rest of the story at your leisure. Life at 18,000 feet is not so great….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was one of those weird times where the 4 days off actually felt longer for some odd reason.

On Wednesday night I went to bed very early, I was probably out cold by 9:30.  The reason for this was my alarm clock was set at a ridiculously early 3 AM for the Thanksgiving Race I was timing.  I had more responsibilities than normal for this event so I wanted to make sure I was there as early as possible.  I’d much rather have it done with time to spare than scrambling.

Well imagine my surprise when I woke up on my own at 1:36am.  I knew there was no way I would fall back to sleep as I instantly had race related details running through my head. So after checking my email, eating breakfast and announcing my awakening on FB, I finished loading up the truck and headed down towards the race site.

As I approached I actually came upon Matt the race director setting up some signs at about 3:15 am.  He had a bunch of stuff to set up on the course and I was tasked with setting up the registration area.  He followed me to the race location and directed me to the tents and tables he had stashed the night before.  I threw them in the back of the Tacoma, slammed a 5 hour energy and got busy.

I had given a decent amount of thought regarding how to set up the registration area to alleviate the congestion problem we have had in the past.  I set up two tents, facing the lot with 8 foot signs attached to each, one designated for the untimed runners/walkers and one for the chip timed participants.

It was sort of peaceful setting everything up by myself since I knew in a short time the area would be overflowing with humanity. By the time Ali showed up I had the registration area pretty much ready to go. I also set up the PA system at the start line as well as staging the finish line equipment.

The combination of the layout and Ali and others work on creating race packets ahead of time for chipped runners helped expedite the registration area greatly.  Despite almost 2500 total participants, the lines never got out of hand.

So race start time was approaching.  Around 7:15 Ali stepped away from the computer table saying she wanted to take a few pictures.  That left me to man the table to make any last minute changes.  After helping a couple people I knew I needed to get to the start line but Ali was nowhere in sight.  I grabbed the bullhorn and made an announcement for her to come to the desk but still, no Ali.

Well finally I could not wait any longer and I started over to the start line.  As I did I finally see Ali whom ironically appeared to be at the start line being asked where I was.  I was obviously annoyed as I ran past Ali to the start, she said I didn’t have to wait for her.  I was under the impression she was only going to be gone for a minute instead of nearly 10 so obviously there was a miscommunication.

So I run towards the start line and had some club members unroll the timing mats while I got the box up.  Evidently Matt was freaking out because he didn’t know how to work the PA system to make announcements and no one else in the area did either.  I turned up the volume dial on the mic and we had sound, magic!

So I immediately could tell Matt was in freak out mode which is never good.  He starts giving me a countdown to the start of the race, regardless of my readiness or not. He starts playing the Star Spangled Banner on his trumpet which was a like musical timer.  I am scrambling to make sure I had the timing box cleared and synched.  I manage to get it done a few seconds after the song finishes and Matt is now desperate to start the race, like there was a guillotine above his head.

I tell him the box is up and ready and he starts the race.  Well in the mad rush to start I neglect to check my atomic watch for the official start time and to hit the button on my stop watch to start the time.  Matt immediately starts in on me saying this can’t happen, he NEEDS me there on time….

I was REALLY angry.  I told he had to chill out and that rushing the start caused problems (for the second year in a row).  He should only start his pre-race deal once I gave him thumbs up.  I have never had a race out of the hundred or more that I have timed where the race director is interested in starting a race before I was ready.

This isn’t even taking into consideration all the other aspects of the race that I was handling beyond the actual timing.  He was ultra-focused just that the race didn’t start 3 seconds late instead of the much more important concept of the race starting accurately.  I didn’t have time to go Hulk Smash mode on him.

I was planning to use two of the timing mats I used at the start for the finish which in retrospect was problematic.  With a race this big there were a number of late stragglers so I wanted to leave the mats down a bit to catch them.  Then when it came time to pull them up we had to get the herd of fun runners to get out of the way.

I had two of our guys lug two mats to the finish area.  I fast walked by the registration area carrying the start line laptop.  I yelled to Ali that I needed the main laptop taken to the finish line.  I was still fuming from the start line fisaco and told Ali the reason I was held up was because I was waiting for her to return.  She didn’t agree and I knew it was of little consequence now anyway.  I just had to fix it.

So I get to the finish line and start a mad scramble.  I dig into the start line times file to try to get a decent estimate of what the race start time is.  As I am doing that Ali delivers the laptop to the table, and walks away, obviously pissed at me.  I look at the laptop and see it is the wrong one. FCK!  So now things are getting really desperate.  I leap up from my bucket that doubled as a chair and sprint back towards the registration area.  I see Ali along the way and tell her she brought me the wrong laptop.  I snag the correct one and run back to the finish line at an even faster pace.

I slap the computer on the table and quickly make the connections.  I set the time on the timing box, clear the history and get the finish line mats up with about 45 seconds to spare before the lead runner came across, around 21 minutes after the race start.  Man, that was way too close for comfort.

As runners started to stream across the mats I just sat there with my head in my hands in disbelief that for the second year in a row, timing this race was a Chinese fire drill, despite all my efforts to make sure it wasn’t.   I felt bad about getting short with Ali, which I later apologized for.  In the end the race got timed and we had actual chip start times so it was an improvement over last year although the actual race start time was fuzzy, which I am not happy about. The start line fiasco will not happen again, one way or another.

By the time the race was over my 5 hour energy was wearing off, I felt beat.  After breaking down everything I loaded up the truck and headed home, very glad the monster event was over.

When I got home I had to quickly get the results processed before getting ready to head right back out.  I  caught absolutely NONE of the Macy’s parade.  I think it may be the first time as an adult that I have not seen any of the parade, that was kind of a bummer.  Mom had agreed to host Thanksgiving Dinner, we invited Ali as well.

I met Ali at her place and the dogs and I piled in her Volt for some gas free transport.  Mom had prepared a nice meal including Tofurky, something I know mom isn’t thrilled about but I really have come to enjoy. As much as I like the tofurky, the star of the meal is this pineapple casserole type thing that mom makes, it is so good.

We didn’t stay that long at mom’s.  Both mom and Ali were attending secondary Thanksgiving celebrations, I was closing out my Turkey Day at home.

At first I was sure I would pass out when I got home.  The big meal combined with the 1:30 am wake up is a deadly combination.  However somehow once I got done putting the race equipment away I got a second wind.  I actually cleaned and weeded during the afternoon.  I did collapse in bed shortly after 9PM, what a day.

So Black Friday arrived.  I had loose plans to maybe dip my toe into the shopping madness although nowadays much of the hoopla starts Thanksgiving evening so I would already be late to the game.  I headed out in the truck around 7:15 or so with my primary goal being grocery shopping.

On the way to Trader Joes I stopped at the Super Wal-mart, I figured there was not better place to observe Black Friday madness.  Well it wasn’t so mad.  Yea there were more shoppers than normal but it was far from chaotic.  I bought some softener salt, a few houseplants, and my first self Xmas gift, an inexpensive Daisy BB Rifle along with 600 BB’s.

The prior week the idea got into my head that it would be kind of fun shooting empty Diet Coke cans off fence posts.  They had a sale going on these lower end 650 FPS guns so I jumped in.  I plan to wrap it up and put it under the tree (oh I DID set that up too) Merry Christmas to me.  I’ll try to act surprised when I open my self-gifts.

I then headed to Trader Joe’s, Sam’s and Publix, in that order.  At Sam’s I did some perusing of their Xmas deals but nothing thrilled me.  If I needed a TV, this would definitely be the time to get one.

Ali planned to work on Friday so I picked up the girls on the way home so they could hang with me.

Despite my prior edict that there would be no or very minimal Xmas decorating this year I got the urge to to do just the opposite.  I hung lights outside and even set up the Xmas tree.

Now I went far less subdued than years past, only lighting up the two front palm trees and running the rest of the LED lights along the fence line.  Inside, besides putting up the tree, all I did was hang my monster stocking as well as Tuki’s, get out the snowflake dish towels, the black lab holiday area rug and the pine tree smelling candle.

It’s hard for me to explain why exactly I decided to do some decoration, other than not doing anything felt sort of like giving up, and I don’t like the feel of giving up, ever.

Later Friday afternoon I loaded the girls up to head to Home Depot for garden replenishment supplies.  Ali had agreed to come out and help me with the project on Saturday.  I loaded up a flat bed with many bags of garden soil and compost.  Before doing so I had grabbed a reciprocating saw blade and laid it on the flat bed.

Well when I checked out it was hidden from view and I had forgotten about it.  As I unloaded the dirt at the van I saw the blade laying there and realized I had just shoplifted the item successfully, unknowingly.  I could have easily just say “F it.  I spend a small fortune at Home Depot annually, what harm does not paying for a $12 saw blade do?” However my conscience took over, I marched back into the store and paid for the blade at the self checkout register.

The weird thing was when I left the first time, the security system at the door did not trigger.  I assume the large metal flatbed absorbed the EMF field that typically triggers the RFID security tag.  When I walked back in with just the blade in hand it blared loudly.  However since I was walking in instead of out, no one cared.

Black Friday I also got around to installing my new LED back up lamps in the SSR.  What should have been a ridiculously easy procedure became problematic when the passenger side bulb did not want to release conventionally.  I wound up extracting it using brute force.

So Ali came out to the house late Saturday morning.  I had all the bags of dirt piled by the garden ready to go.   Her primary role was to pitch fork the empty beds and do most of the planting/seeding.  I followed her forking with the rototiller, turning the soil over.  Then I dumped the new soil into the beds and tilled them again.  Finally I grabbed the hand rake and tamped down the soil lightly.

This winter’s crops are more kale, red lettuce, carrots, beets, peppers, tomatoes, sweet onions and two broccoli varieties.

After the garden work we worked on the unpleasant job of going through the Xmas ornaments.  I had the Rubbermaid containers piled on the lanai for us to go through.  We carried them inside and started the miserable task.

I knew it was going to be hard for both of us to do this.  Ali got particularly emotional when it came to our shared destination memory ornaments.  It got to the point where I asked her if I should just do it myself.  I told her I would just keep all of those shared ornaments to make it simpler which she was fine with.

We also used it as an opportunity to donate some unwanted decorations and throw out some we just didn’t need/want.  I told Ali I was fine with keeping anything really tacky or ugly, I kind of like a sense of humor in my Xmas tree.

The way it wound up, we took 80% of the Xmas stuff to Ali’s place, which was fine with me.  I filled the back of her Volt with containers and loaded the girls up in the party van to take them back.

Ali invited me to stay Saturday night to eat dinner and watch Wanderlust, something she had wanted to see.  We watched the movie while eating a Trader Joe’s meal I donated.  Although this isn’t the kind of movie I would seek out on my own, it was quite funny.  It had many comical and awkward moments, some of which I covered my face just because I felt embarrassed for the character on screen.  You would like the movie as long as you aren’t too uptight about penises being front and center.  B+

Sunday I had a very open schedule.  Anything I wanted to get done had already been done.  Ali again was working so I picked up the dogs after a coffee pit stop.  We had a very laid back day except for maybe a half hour period where I decided to set a new personal pull up best.

30 pull up reps is a HUGE milestone, especially for an old guy like me, but I will talk about this more on Dufisthenics.

Ali didn’t come out to pick up the dogs until after 8.  The dogs and I had a very chill day which included a two hour mid-afternoon nap.  I had felt tired ever since Thursday,  not all that surprising.

There was no disappointing Eagles game to clog up my Sunday.  Instead I get to pollute my Monday evening watching what is likely to be another poor outing.

I am not very happy that I spent much of my weekend walking around with a slight limp since I am doing the Tough Mudder in a few days.  I believe I injured myself doing the all out laptop sprint with no warm up on Thanksgiving.  It hurt it some more yesterday when an excited Sadie stepped on my flip flop while my right foot was still in it.  I turned but my foot didn’t move, sending a jolt of pain through the joint.

Of course it matters very little if my knee is healed or not by race day.  I will grind it out and deal with consequences later.

 

 

 

So during the nights last week I started doing the prep work for the painting of the master bedroom.  That work included stripping the room and the walls as well as pulling large furniture items away from the walls.  I took off from work Friday and Monday to make time for the actual painting process as the area I was painting was the largest I ever had tackled myself, by far.

Thursday night I went around the room and hit discolored spots on the white walls with Killz.  The walk in closet was the worst spot where years of throwing shoes and bags left various scuff marks.  Unfortunately Killz has some pretty serious fumes.  I went to sleep in the midst of them.

On Friday morning I didn’t waste much time before getting started with the meat and potatoes project, I was getting busy by 8am.  First up was the dreaded taping portion of the job.

Taping is a very important part of a painting project.  If done well it can dramatically improve the end result of the painting as well as making it go faster when you are painting since you don’t have to try to paint an edge slowly by hand.  Taping also is tedious as hell. It took me about two and a half hours to tape everything.

I then cracked open the paint can and got to work.  First I painted by brush along all of the taped areas and then got out the roller to hit the wide expanses of wall real estate.

I have commented before on just how tough of a full body workout painting a room is.  Pressing a roller hard into the wall from 6 inches above the floor to 8 feet high will hit your core from about every angle imaginable.  I just barely had enough paint to cover everything with two coats, full two cans.

I was slopping paint on the walls until 5:30.  By the time I was done removing tape, touching stuff up and doing basic clean up  it was damn close to 8:30, twelve and a half hours after I started.  I was beat but glad to have the damn thing knocked out in one long day.

The color looked good in the room although I already knew it would since it has been utilized in most areas of the house already.  The bedroom feels classier and warmer, if that makes sense.

You can see all the pictures I took along the way here.

Saturday morning I took care of putting the shelving back in the master closet and the window hardware back on the walls.  Ripping everything out of the closet was an opportunity for me to do some house cleaning of both clothing and things that were stuffed in the closet that I didn’t need.  I had a large trash bag of stuff to donate when I was done as well as a pile for Ali to go through to see what she wanted. I also took the old pictures off the wall, figuring it would be therapeutic to replace them with something new and fresh.

Saturday afternoon I wanted to get my used Ebay radio installed into the Tacoma.  After my experience installing another Pioneer radio in my SSR and it taking upwards of 20 hours of my time doing so, I was nervous about the install despite what I found on the internet, making it seem like it should be pretty easy.  Imagine my surprise when it actually was easy.

Getting access to the radio just involved removing one panel.  The adapter harness I bought worked perfectly and the wire connections were very straight forward. In the course of two hours I had it all done, a minor miracle.

The radio doesn’t have all the features the 930BT does which is in the SSR.  The 310BT doesn’t support a back up camera, Bluetooth music streaming, direct Iphone integration and has a smaller screen but still it is a huge upgrade from what I had in there.

The menu system isn’t very intuitive either but with a brief glance in the manual I figured it all out in short order.

I videoed the install to add to my growing list of 99 Tacoma how to clips. Here it is.

Saturday night I wanted to go grab a new pair of flip flops, my old pair started to fall apart.  I figured I would take a run up to the Miromar Outlets.  I asked Ali if she felt like tagging along, she said she would, she hadn’t been to the outlets in a long time.

We grabbed some food as well while we were up there.  I bought some sandals at Oakley, a couple $10 shirts at the Gap outlet and a pair of dirt cheap wide receiver gloves at the Under Armour outlet to be used for bar work.

There was a funny/awkward moment as we we were driving back into Ali’s complex.  It is gated and after a certain time of day the gates close, requiring  you to use an access card at a sensor.  Well a car had just entered a hundred yards ahead of us so I hoped I could sneak through without flashing my card as well.

As I got close the the gate started to close.  Ali blurted out “Honey!!” as a warning and then quickly corrected by saying, “I mean, Shawn.”  I laughed and told her I knew who she meant.

Sunday morning I had a race to time.  It went pretty well although the three distances at once (2 mile walk/5k/8k run) presented a few challenges.  After the race I followed Ali back to her place.  We talked about bringing the dogs out to the house with Ali so she could bird sit while I pressure washed Tuki’s cage, which hadn’t been done since Ali moved out.

Ali actually didn’t show up to the house until after noon, she took a nap since she was exhausted.  When she got there I didn’t waste anytime pulling Tuki’s cage out in the driveway and blasting away.

Ali stayed to watch the Eagles game, lucky her.

That game was a complete ass beating from start to finish.  Everyone’s hope was the defense would come alive with the insertion of Todd Bowles as coordinator.  Instead it imploded, allowing the Falcons to drive up and down the field repeatedly.  I think they allowed the Falcons to score the first SIX TIMES they touched the ball, just an incredibly inept stat. They were in a word, terrible.

Once again they could not generate any pressure on the QB, registering two oh by the way sacks (one was a fall down) later in the game.  How a team that lead the league in sacks last year with basically the same core of players suddenly can’t get there this year is a mystery to me.

The offense was basically inept as well.  Vick, although he actually didn’t turn the ball over (a minor miracle) was mediocre at best, just like he has been since the short streak in 2010 when he took the job away from Kolb.  It is crazy that there is serious talk going on about replacing Vick, one of the most overpaid players in the NFL, with a third round pick rookie QB.  Talk about desperation setting in.

This also was a rather historic loss in another way.  For the last 14 years, Andy Reid had NEVER lost a game following a bye week, NEVER.  Evidently having an extra week to prepare always meant the Eagles were prepped and ready to go.  Well obviously that streak smashed into a brick wall Sunday.  Not only did they lose, they were crushed.  At no point during the game did the Eagles look like they even should be on the same field as the Falcons. It was that bad.

So what is wrong with this team?  By all experts accounts they are one of the most talented teams in the NFC.  Why can they not find a way to utilize all that talent in a consistent, effective manner?  I don’t know the magic pill but I do know if this team flounders it’s way to another break even season or worse where it misses the playoffs, we all may finally get a belated Xmas gift when Fat Andy is finally set out to pasture.

Monday I had a pretty much clean slate since I busted it up to that point.  The weather outside was pretty amazing with cool temps and low humidity, prompting me to open the front door and windows for the first time in roughly 6 months.

I did need to get something productive done so I weed whacked the property, something I avoided for the last 3 weeks.  Luckily the grass has started to move into it’s slow growth period as we head into the holidays.

I headed out to run a number of errands, enjoying my new radio as I did.  By the time I got back it was lunch time.

I decided to head outside to do some work on the bars.  I started off well, setting a new personal best in weighted pull ups, managing to pull chin high with 90 extra pounds hanging on me.

I thought I would round it out doing a 90 pound weighted dip.  I never had tried weighted dips at home before.

Because of the height of my parallel bars, when I do dips (unweighted) I sort of hop up and back to get into position.  Well without thinking, I did the same thing with 90 pounds between my legs.

Well as I hopped I started a pendulum movement with the weights that kept amplifying.  Within a second or two I lost control and came crashing forward.  As I did my right upper arm crashed into the top of one of the 4×4 supports.  When I landed I did a quick physical inventory and looked at my arm.  It looked like a nasty brush burn but it felt superficial.  I am very lucky I didn’t tear something.

At first I was going to bag it but I was now pissed off and decided to hop up there again after a couple minutes.  I was able to hop up without crashing but stalled out trying to push back up.

If you would like to see the crash as it took place, look here.

As time passed the impact area got pretty nasty looking as you can see here.

The rest of my Sunday I just sort of chilled out, literally.  With all the windows open the house literally got chilly at one point, enough so that I closed them.

It was a very productive weekend that started out high effort but ended coasting in gradually, just like I prefer.

Man the storm in the NE was horrible.  Seeing some of those pictures of Atlantic City and NYC were shocking.

 

 

 

 

Last night after work I headed out back to my bars and set a new PR in pull up reps, netting 27 reps, two more than my prior best.  It sort of came out of nowhere, I had not done more than 23 reps since I managed to get 25 reps a few months ago.

I also messed around with another pole hold that I saw done before but never tried myself.  I was surprised that I was able to hold it pretty cleanly the first time out.

I caught the tail end of the debate before hopping in the shower.  I felt uncomfortable having the two candidates so close to each other on the table, it was sort of odd. I missed Obama’s zinger where he reminded Mitt the military doesn’t use bayonets and horses any longer.  I did catch some of Mitt’s overuse of the word “tumult”.

If you were relying on the results of the last debate to make up your mind on who to vote for I suggest you go do some more research.

For instance, if you are one of those that thinks Mitt knows all about building businesses and making money, so he must be good for the economy,  I suggest you take a look at this article.  It is written by David Stockman, who was Ronald Reagan’s budget director.  You will get a thorough understanding of exactly what Bain really did to make it’s billions and why it is no blueprint for any sort of future economic plan.  Equating “building” a leverage buyout firm with a sound economic plan makes as much sense as declaring the US is going to start exporting diabetes.

Saturday morning I timed a regional cross country meet, the third year I have timed this particular event.  This was the largest event to date with 33 teams and 857 kids signed up.  Before the race some of the kids that were assigned to help out were given a task.

There were big envelopes made up for each team.  Inside each packet was that team’s roster along with the chip numbers assigned to them.  To make this process easier, I sorted the teams so each team had a contiguous block of numbers assigned to them.  I thought this couldn’t get much easier, you look at the first name and last name on the teams list and the numbers they are assigned, you then simply pull out all of the chips in between those numbers and drop them in the envelope.

Well despite explaining this process pretty thoroughly, even though I don’t think it warranted a thorough explanation, it somehow got messed up.  When I looked over at the table a few minutes later it was covered with chips strewn about.  I walked over and asked what happened.  The one girl said that someone was “confused” and messed up what I thought was a fool proof procedure.

I was pretty worried about the wrong chips getting into the wrong hands and the timing headaches it would cause.  Luckily they eventually got it all sorted out.

The finish line for this race is in the school’s football stadium which is always kind of cool.  The only thing that isn’t cool is the real turf that it is made out of has millions of tiny little rubber pellets which quickly fill your sneakers and adhere to anything placed on the ground when the field is damp with morning dew.  The good thing about real turf is I had zero issues with kids tripping on the finish mats since it is short and uniform in height.

I had a bit of a scare during the girls varsity race which was the first of four.  About half way into it the timing box started beeping continuously.  I looked at the indicator leds and saw there was an issue with one of the two timing mats.  I was really surprised because I was actually using two of the brand new timing mats I had received a a few weeks ago.

So I quickly cycled power on the timing box, hoping it was just some sort of weird glitch.  No dice.  I looked up at the clock and saw I was at about 12 or 13 minutes.  I was considering if I wanted to try to quickly replace the mat.  I imagined a nightmare scenario where a girl would be streaking towards the finish line I was still f’ing around with the mats so I decided to just let it go and rely on the one mat that was up and running.

Luckily it seemed to work out.  After the first race I swapped in another mat and it worked fine, confirming that my brand new mat was indeed dead.

After that excitement to start the day the rest of my timing duties went down pretty smoothly.  Despite the huge volume of kids I had relatively few problems.  The biggest problem was the roughly dozen timing chips I did not get back that we have to now try to get back with threats of a bill of $20 per chip.

I didn’t get off site until after 11:30.  I had to rush home and quickly post the results before heading right back out.  I was supposed to go pick up Ali to go look at cars, specifically a Chevy Volt.

Ali has been concerned that the Camry was getting up there in both years and mileage (it crossed 100k miles a few months ago).  The idea of getting smacked with unplanned repair bills wasn’t something she was real keen on.

I had been following the Volt for a long time.  It is a techolover’s dream car.  It takes what I think is an ideal approach to green travel, upping what the Camry does to an impressive degree.  Although the Camry is also a gas/electric hybrid, it utilizes both pretty equally to squeeze out it’s mileage numbers of 35/40 mpg, quite good for a sedan.  The Camry actually can be driven short distances in pure electric mode at speeds of up to 42 mph which we always thought was kind of cool.

Well the Volt can go around 40 miles of normal driving using nothing but battery power which is awesome.  If you are going on a long trip there is a gas engine that can be utilized as well so you don’t have to worry about being stranded if the juice runs out like you would if you had something like a Nissan Leaf.    The Volt potentially can avoid all use of gas for long periods of time if your daily driving requirements are not huge but is flexible enough to be used for long road trips as well.

Toyota actually makes a plug in Prius now but it only can go a maximum of 6 miles on pure electric mode which seems kind of silly.

I was the one that pitched the idea of a Volt to Ali since I saw they were offering huge incentives on the car since sales have been far less than hoped for.  She asked that I accompany her to the dealership since I worked as a slimy car salesman for 16 months in my early 20’s.

I called ahead to the local Chevy dealer to verify they had a Volt to test drive.  The sales guy executed sales 101, telling me he wasn’t sure if they had one (he knew they did), but he would check and call me back if I gave him my number.  Now, innocently he has obtained a contact number where he can hound me incessantly if he chooses to.  After probably reading a magazine for a few minutes, he called me back with the good news, they had one on the lot we could drive.

As we pulled into the dealership we were greeted by Jason, a friendly younger guy.  When I was looking at Camaros I had stopped in there and the place seemed to be populated with nothing but old stereotypical car sales guys.  I was glad we didn’t get one of them.

Jason grabbed the keys to the car and handed them to Ali.  I told her there was no reason for me to drive it even though I certainly would have liked to.  It is a geek’s dream.  Sitting behind the wheel reminds me of sitting in the one of those wrap around cabinet video games, there are just bells and whistles everywhere.

The test drive went fine, you couldn’t really tell you weren’t consuming any gasoline although the lack of typical engine noise was a good clue.  Ali liked the car.  There was one issue though, Ali didn’t want the options on this particular Volt.  Most Volts are equipped with leather seats, something Ali would never go for.  This Volt also had upgraded chrome wheels and a couple other things Ali didn’t care about.

The sales guy said he would go inside to do a search of other dealers inventory for something that was what Ali was interested in.  While he did that Ali got to look over more of the interior of the car in detail.  Luckily Ali approved of the cup holders, one of the most important things when it comes to buying a vehicle.

So we went inside and Jason showed us what he found.  The two cars that had the exact options Ali wanted were in two colors Ali did not want, red and blue.  Ali much prefers neutral colors like tan or the silver of the car she drove.  There was a silver Volt that had what Ali wanted minus the navigation system.

At first this seemed like a big negative to Ali but when Jason said the car comes with 3 years of free Onstar service which included turn by turn directions (minus a map on the screen) it seemed like less of a negative.  I told Ali she uses the NAV in the Camry very rarely and if she needed a map it already will reside on her Iphone. Jason said he also expects there will be a 3rd party smart phone app, similar to what is out for the Camaro that allows her phone to basically replace an in car system, displaying Iphone map data on the car’s AV screen.

Ok, so now we were landed on a vehicle that Ali would like.  Jason asked if we could get numbers that we were happy with if Ali would buy the car.  She said yes, although it would be a big stretch.  When Jason was running back and forth checking on things, he had left the print outs of the prospective vehicle on the desk.  I took a look at it and had to laugh a bit when I saw the print out included the dealer invoice.  I already knew approximately what the invoice was but I don’t think he intended for me to have it quite so accessible.

Ok so now they had to take a look at the Camry to see what it’s worth.  The Camry is still in great shape, it’s biggest wart is the high mileage.  I had run wholesale numbers on it’s worth prior to coming to the dealership so I had realistic expectations. Well Jason’s initial number did not come close to meeting those expectations.  They were obviously trying to “steal” the trade initially, another very common tactic.  They never expect a person to accept the first offer but if they are dumb enough to do so they make a killing on the trade so they always start very low.

I told Jason that number was way low based on the numbers I saw.  Of course he disagreed with my numbers and asked if he could bump the trade a grand if we could do a deal.  I told him that I had already been in contact with another dealership in Estero that was very interested in selling us a car.  I also said we were considering taking a look at a new Prius.

Basically, the most important thing you can do in a car sales negotiation is establish that you are not married to buying a car and are willing to walk away.  So, after some more staged back and forth talk about the numbers we arrived at a trade number $2500 above what we were initially offered.  It was higher than the black book values I found.  I backed this up by quickly checking retail prices of high mileage Camry Hybrids on AutoTrader which were not good.  It was a decent trade offer.

What made up for the median trade offer were the amazing incentives they are offering on the Volt.  2013’s have a $2000 rebate AND 60 month zero percent financing, wow.  If that was not enough to knock your socks off, come tax time, Ali will be receiving an ADDITIONAL $7500 back from Uncle Sam for the Volt purchase.  So basically you are getting a $10k spiff and free financing, it is pretty crazy.

So it was easy to figure payment numbers no interest to worry about.  The numbers still came in a bit high so Ali and I did some quick on the spot discussions related to divorce financial issues where we would utilize the majority of the remaining joint funds to help her knock down her monthly payment.  I agreed to do so in good faith, trusting that it will be accounted for cleanly when the time arrives to do so.  Even now, I was excited to help Ali to get into cool, new wheels.

So after confirming with me that I thought it was a good deal, Ali shook Jason’s hand and became the proud owner of a new Volt.  She should be picking it up tomorrow once it arrives from the dealership where it is currently housed.  Ali is hoping to employ my tech savy to get the Volt dialed in once she takes possession.

I walked away from the deal with the odd feeling of being jealous of both Ali’s living arrangements and future transportation accommodations.  She will probably save $100 + a month in gas at the current prices and can use the $7500 government spiff to fund her car payment budget column for quite a long time if she needs to.

When she posted about her Volt purchase on Facebook, her brother, whom has been on an anti-Obama jihad for some time now, immediately jumped all over the Volt.  He accurately pointed out that the Volt is HEAVILY government subsidized.  Not only will Ali get that huge spiff for buying a Volt, GM gets a spiff for making it, a big one.  He finds this egregious.

I don’t look at it in quite the same way.  I think the world needs to be pushed, pulled and dragged into a life where fossil fuels become a consistently smaller piece of the energy pie.  I think the Volt is the perfect compromise of both worlds.  Now the problem is, this tech can not yet be made available to the public at a price point where it will be widely adopted.  These government incentives are an effort to do this.  I think it is a big picture idea that is going to take time.  Unfortunately we live in a very short term, me first, fck you world where so many people care about themselves and themselves alone.

The Volt is also an effort to kick start domestic production of the massive battery packs that are used to power the car.  The last two decades have seen these type of technologies consistently farmed out overseas where they can be built cheaper.  I love that GM is relying on an American company to make these battery packs.  Ali’s brother was more concerned about the recent story that the battery plant has been nearly idle because of the slow Volt sales.  Again, big picture versus little picture.

The hope is that with the government footing a large portion of the Volt bill, this car, and others like it will become more and more mainstream.  The more mainstream they become, the less expensive they become as the technology is more widely adopted.  It’s a seed that was planted.  The government is watering it daily right now until it grows large enough to be self sustaining.  Will the plan ultimately be successful?  I certainly hope so but even if it would ultimately fail, I think it is a fight worth fighting.

I am a real fan of the greater good concept.  It is in everyone’s best interest to get away from fossil fuels both for economic and environmental reasons. (unless you are a fan of Exxon)  If you don’t agree with that basic premise and that in order to do so is going to take a massive financial effort to drag us away from the slimy tentacles of big oil, I would suggest you are sadly mistaken.

Saturday night I  headed downtown to meet up at a post race party for an 80 mile relay run that was held during the day.  I had a good time getting relatively drunk and hanging out with good people.  I got home just before midnight.

I had plans to run Sunday.  When I woke up right before 8am I almost immediately dismissed them, I felt shitty. Immediately the internal discussions start up, the taskmaster reminding me that if I blow off the exercise I will be annoyed with myself.

After I had my Pop Tart breakfast I felt a little more human so I started leaning back towards grabbing my sneakers.  My mind was made up when I saw it was a very comfortable 66 degrees outside, a temp I have not had the pleasure of running in for probably 7 or 8 months.

I drove down to the water park and decided to do the big 10K Oakes loop.  The first half mile or so I felt pretty shitty, questioning if I wanted to continue running for almost an hour straight.  Eventually things settled down and felt better.  I completed the 10K with no stops for water or a breather in what felt like a decent pace, I didn’t even bother to bring my GPS.  Mentally, I felt better for making myself get out there and do the work, even when I really didn’t feel up to it.

I picked up the dogs on the way back home since Ali was going to work and I was going to be home doing chores.  Since the Eagles were on bye this week I had all day to buzz around.  The lion share of my time was consumed by mowing, I spent well over four hours on the tractor since I mowed the back yard as well.

The weekend was over in a blink of an eye.

I doubled the time of this upcoming weekend thanks to the use of some of my vacation days.  By this time next Monday rolls around I hope to have the bedroom painted and the Pioneer stereo installed in the Tacoma.

 

I was very, very tired yesterday.  So tired that I was considering just blowing off yoga class.  I had already missed the past two weeks so I felt like I really should go.  Class doesn’t start till 6 so I drove there right after work and just reclined the seat in the Tacoma and closed my eyes for a half hour.

For whatever reason the class was lightly attended, I think there were only a total of six people there, including myself.  I was the only male in the room.

This class usually starts and ends with things like chanting, meditation and reading.   This is something I didn’t look for when I started yoga.  I was more interested in the tangible benefits like greater flexibility and strength.  However I have come to enjoy the non-physical aspects of the class as well, not because it has offered me any dramatic spiritual awakening, it just feels good.

I really like the woman that runs this particular class, she is also the owner of the studio.  She has such a good and positive energy, it’s nearly impossible to walk out of the class not feeling better then when you walked  in.

In most yoga poses, especially anything that involves hip, shoulder or knee flexibility I am woefully behind everyone else in the class but it is no big deal. The only stuff I can hold my own at are hand balancing/strength holds. I am making slow progress in the other stuff which is all I am looking for.

When I got home I fought the urge to just nuke a quick dinner, instead baking tilipia in the oven and backing that up with some broccoli made on the stove top.

I was thinking I am going to need to get instructions from either my mom or Ali on how to make my favorite chocolate cake.  If someone bakes me chocolate cake I get to enjoy it for a week.  If I learn how to bake it myself I get to enjoy it for a lifetime.

 

I started off my weekend at 4:30 am, dragging my tired ass out of bed to go run with the club.  If I didn’t have the Tough Mudder coming up on the calendar I would remained firmly in bed.  In my mind I felt like at some point before the race I needed to get the “long” course under my belt which is about nine and a half miles.  I figure if I can run that distance continuously, running the roughly 12 mile Mudder course shouldn’t be a problem since there are tons of breaks for the obstacles thrown in there.

I wasn’t really planning to do the long course yet, especially since my knee was bothering me just running 6 miles the week before.  I told Matt I would see how I feel once we hit the water stop at 3.5 miles and make my decision then.

We headed out at a pretty quick pace, something like 8:15 miles, faster than I would prefer if I was going for the long haul.  Eventually we throttled it back a bit.

Saturday was the first morning where it actually felt somewhat “cool” .  The temperature was right around 70 which is still high for 6am, but the humidity level felt much more tolerable.  I definitely could feel the difference when running.

When we reached the water stop I did a quick knee assessment.  It actually felt pretty good so I told Matt I was down for doing the long run.  So instead of turning right and heading back towards our starting point, we went left and ran another mile and a half to the end of Gordon drive before heading back.

My legs were feeling it pretty severely for the last couple miles, they had not been pushed to do this distance at this pace since I ran the Hooters Half in March.    My overall pace actually was almost exactly what I did in that half, no wonder I was tired. It felt good to get the long run under my belt. I would say the run combined with the 200 pull up lunch break qualifies me as being officially ready for the Mudder.

I took the SSR to the run, something I don’t normally do.  With the top down and the wind whipping around I was actually on the cool side, I had the heat blowing on my legs.

So when I got home I had a long list of things I wanted to get done.  I had already tried to get a head start by weeding the property on Friday night.  The first thing I wanted to get done was spraying Weed B Gone on the entire yard, at least everything that is close to the house.

I have had an uphill battle with weeds in the yard forever.  There are three weeds that like take over my lawn, two of the three I don’t know the name of, the third is dollar weed, or Creeping Charlie as I like to call it. I have been trying to keep the weeds under control by applying granular weed and feed in bag on a semi-regular basis.  That stuff is VERY expensive and overall I have not been pleased with the results.  It will normally hold back the dollar weed for a bit but it always returns.  The stuff doesn’t seem to touch the other two weeds that dominate the lawn.

Weed B Gone is a more direct approach.  You attach it to a hose end sprayer and blast away.  Unlike the bagged weed and feed, this stuff is designed to work fast, killing the weeds in a matter of days instead of weeks while leaving the grass intact.

Not only is this stuff more direct, it is also more dangerous.  When you read the directions there are a number of warnings, like don’t apply on a windy day, don’t apply within 25 feet of stuff you don’t want to die, don’t let pets on the grass until it is thoroughly dry, don’t let it run off into sewer systems, etc…

Well I didn’t pay much attention to one of the warnings which says to apply while wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt.  If some of it gets on your skin, you are advised to wash the skin for 15-20 MINUTES with water which sounds ridiculous.  I applied the solution with a steady breeze wearing shorts and a t-shirt, I definitely got some of it on my legs, arms and hands.  I rinsed myself at the end but only for a few seconds, hopefully I don’t drop over dead.

I am hoping the mass extermination of weeds combined with our going into dry season soon will allow real grass to fill these spots in a density enough to choke weeds out in the future. Time will tell.

I then grabbed by loppers and shears and got busy trimming and pruning a few things around the house.  This is a nice warm up for the hellish, November cabbage palm mass pruning that I will have to do.  You have no idea how little I am looking forward to that miserable job.

Next up was some tractor work.  The blades on the tractor, although only a couple months old had already dulled.  The cutting performance while mowing was pretty awful.  I decided to pull them off and try to sharpen them.

Luckily with the Craftsman mower, removing the blades with the deck on the tractor is much more doable than it was with the Cub Cadet which required me to yank the deck to pull the blades.

The blades were still more or less intact although the cutting edge was very, very dull.  I could saw away on my arm with one and not draw a drop of blood.  I decided to use my dremel for the job after locking each blade up in my table vice.

I have never tried sharpening with the dremel, the few times I did it in the past I used a grinding wheel attachment for my cordless drill.  I couldn’t find that attachment.

The dremel actually seemed to work pretty well.  The smaller grinding head gave me better control as I worked the cutting surfaces.  By the time I was done at least I could feel and edge on the blades.  It will be interesting to see how long my sharpening holds up.  I did a brief test cut and there was a definite improvement.

While I had the blades off I drug up the pressure washer and blasted the organic crud off the underside of the mower deck.  In the process I wound up splashing the wet, green/brown sludge all over me.

Finally I needed to give the SSR a bath.  The trip to and from SoBe last week had left the truck with a bug facial that needed to be cleaned up. After finishing up all the outdoor work, heading inside offered me no rest as there was cleaning and laundry to do.

By the time I was done it was after 3.  I was beat.  So beat that my original idea of going out to see Looper Saturday night got shelved, I was just too tired.  Instead I stayed home and threw in a Netflix dvd I had sitting around the house so long that it had dust on the cover, Underworld : Awakenings.

I have seen a number of Underworld movies.  They have a simple formula that works, vampires, werewolves, gruesome violence and Kate Beckinsale in tight leather body suits.  They stuck to the formula and once again it delivered a solid 75-80 minutes of brainless entertainment, B+.

So I woke up Sunday and was debating if I wanted to go for a bike ride or not.  Surprisingly, my right knee felt pretty solid despite running nearly 10 miles the day before.  Then once I decided I was going to get on the bike I was debating what ride I wanted to do.  I settled on doing the 17.25 mile Publix ride.

I pulled down the Dawes for the ride, thinking the aero bars would come in handy if I hit the sustained wind that normally is part of this route.  Despite it’s added weight, the riding geometry the Dawes offers is actually more comfortable than my lighter, higher end Trek 2.1.

For the first half of the ride I was hauling ass. I was over 21 mph for almost the entire time.  Of course I knew this meant I had a wind behind me, helping to push me along.  I knew this same wind would be my adversary on the ride home, I just didn’t realize how big of one.

Man once I turned back east it was miserable.  I knew there was wind, I didn’t think it would suck that bad.  I dropped a couple gears and got down on my aero bars, but only briefly.  I realized the elbow rest on the left side had shifted downward which made the position awkward and annoying.  Instead I grabbed onto the drops in my handlebars and stayed there for the majority of the ride home.

I struggled to keep my speed above 16 mph for most of the 8+ miles back.  My legs were totally gassed by the end of the ride where my overall average speed dropped to 17.7 mph.  I jumped into the pool with my bike pants and top still on to cool off.

After changing I hopped in the van to go pick up the dogs so they could hang out at the house with me.  I had cleared the slate of the majority of the chore list so I was looking forward to a day of relaxing, as much as I can relax.

Watching that Eagles game certainly did not relax me.

For the second week in a row the defense had the opportunity to win the game and for the second week in a row they failed to do so, in an even grander collapse.  However the blame for this performance certainly does not rest on the back of the defense alone.

Ok if you look at stats alone, you may think that Vick had a great game, well if you take away the blown coverage that allowed Maclin to run for a 70 yard td, Vick’s game was not good at all.  After making stupid predictions of next to no turnovers by himself the rest of the season, he was involved in 3 more turnovers.  Luckily for the Eagles, the Lions offense was awful for the majority of the game, was unable to turn any of those turnovers into points.

I addition to their stumbling offense, the Lions were playing horrible sloppy ball, committing an amazing 16 penalties.  If I told you a team had 16 penalties and failed three times to score any points off turnovers you would assume they lost the game.  You would be assuming correctly, unless that team happens to be playing the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Eagles scored a TD late in the 4th quarter to go up 23-13 with just over 5 minutes left in the game.  A good team does not lose a game when playing a team that has sputtered all day in that situation.  Well of course as well all should now realize, the Eagles are not that good of a team.  Instead they allowed themselves to be gashed up and down the field.  They actually tried to allow the Lions win in regulation after committing pass interference in the end zone.  Instead the Lions had to settle for a game tying field goal as time expired.

Overtime  was a total joke.  After Vick took back to back sacks the Eagles had to punt out of the back of their end zone, giving the Lions great field position.  The Lions easily gained the yardage needed to kick the game ending field goal.  What a fcking mess.

Let’s point out a few names since Andy refuses to do so, preferring to just take blanket blame for everything once again.

Let’s talk Mike Vick, whom at this point might be the most overpaid QB in the league.  Outside of his great 8 game run in 2010, his stats since have been mediocre at best.  His new found love of turning the ball over has made his presence behind the center a liability.  I have never seen someone that turns over the ball this much be allowed to keep his job.

Vick gets hit more than anyone else I can remember in recent history.  It literally seems that more plays than not, he is on his back.  The blame for this lies both with him taking too long to get rid of the ball and an offensive line that seems to generally suck.  They appear to be out classed each and every game.  Andy always seemed to understand the importance of a good o-line in the past.  Granted they have had injuries that have forced some not so qualified players to step into starting roles, but again, good teams are able to rise above injuries.

Ok let’s turn to the special teams.  They suck.  I can’t tell you how long it has been since there was a punt or kick off return that was anything significant.  Hell they even threw Desean Jackson back there for one punt and he promptly lost a couple yards.

Ok how about that defense that has collapsed when the game was on the line?  Well the most obvious flaw is the dramatic difference in sacks this year when compared to last.  It seemed like Stafford was basically untouched, it was like we had four Mike Mamulas on the D-line, always one step away from making an actual play. Jason Babin and Trent Cole are totally ineffective all of a sudden.

Who the F is number 27 and why the F is he allowed on the field?  He was involved in almost every big passing play during the Lions come back, blowing coverage repeatedly.

I mean maybe all of this bitching is because of the false sense of how good the team was after the Eagles built a 3-1 record to start.  If you looked at how they squeezed out those wins it was obvious this team was far from dominant.  Now they are following last years blueprint where they lose games that could have been wrapped up if the team was able to perform when it matters.

If this team stumbles it’s way to another .500 year I think it will be the rubber stamp that Andy’s methods of managing the team have finally run it’s course.

Oh during halftime I went out and hung on the bar with one hand.

I was feeling pretty funked Sunday night.  Maybe it was a hangover from the shitty Eagles loss, maybe it was a combo of other things on my mind.  I just know that the world did not feel very bright and shiny.

One of the guys that was at the pull up jam posted some footage he shot with his phone on FB.  It just happened to be while I was doing my pull up set.  You can get a good sense of the crowd that was gathered and why it was cool to have them cheering you on.

There were a bunch of professional looking videographers there that seemed to be filming everything.  I hope to find that footage at some point.  If you want to see the video this still was taken from, click here.

It seems hard to believe that October is here already.  That means that Halloween will be here in a blink with Thanksgiving and Christmas arriving shortly thereafter. (as long as the world doesn’t end)

I am dreading this holiday season for obvious reasons.  It will literally be the first Christmas I have not been in an active relationship with someone in something like 28 years.  Talk about a blue Christmas…

 

 

I forgot to mention the one annoying happening at the Barstarzz event on Saturday.  About half way through it some guy showed up at the beach whom was obviously chemically altered.  I’m not sure if it was alcohol or something else.

Anyway this guy was stumbling around the area, being loud and obnoxious.  He kept throwing his big bellied body up on the bars as guys were doing the competition.  A couple times some of the Barstarzz guys tried to get the guy to take a hint and cool it.  This guy was too f’d up to take heed.  He thought it was cool that he could act like a moron with a big crowd watching.

I felt like I should do something, maybe try to talk reasonably with the drunk, ask him nicely to move along, although I highly doubt it would have been effective.  Trying to drag him out of the area would have probably escalated into something worse.

Eventually the guy staggered away, thankfully.

Yesterday I ordered some chia seeds.One of my bar buddies had posted info about this super food and it caught my interest. Yes these are the same chia seeds made infamous by Chia Pets, one of the tackiest gift items ever made.

Chia seeds have huge nutritional benefits.  They are high in omega 3’s fiber, calcium, protein and more.  If you would like to read about them, take a peek here.

Chia seeds act like a sponge when exposed to liquid, absorbing up to 12 times their weight in water, turning into a gel-like substance.  There are lots of good ways to consume them.  My buddy at work mixes them with almond milk, hemp seeds and blueberries.  He said it is really good.

I will be using chia seeds instead of the flax seed tablets I have been taking for awhile.  Taking flax in capsule form is probably the least effective method anyway.  I hope to grab some hemp seeds and quinoa as well, some other great super foods that will help fuel my body without incurring a death sentence on another animal.

Last night I was back on the healthy dinner band wagon.  I was given an avocado from a co-worker which I utilized in my wrap.  This was the first time I tried the larger, green avocados instead of smaller black variety.  I found the taste and texture very similar.

I caught episode 2 of season 1 of Homeland last night.  I will be suspending my 24 viewing in order to get up to speed on Homeland.