Category Fitness

As predicted my weekend was busy since it was my first official weekend since returning from the trip.  On Saturday a bunch of my time was consumed by working on the van exhaust pipe problem.  Early in the morning I headed to Advance Auto to pick up a flange repair kit.  I didn’t know the diameter of my exhaust pipe but the kit accommodated up 2.5 inch pipes, I figured I would be good to go.  I grabbed oil and a filter while I was there to do the oil change on the van which was necessary after 5500 road trip miles.

While I was out I made another stop at Wal-mart to pick up random items like a new watering can to replace my old which is falling apart, a container to hold bird seed to keep cockroaches and other undesirables out and a bag of weed and feed.  The weed and feed purchase was the one that got my attention, even meriting a FB update where I said:

One bag of generic weed and feed was like $30.  If I were to buy enough of the stuff to sufficiently cover the grass just on the house mound and immediate surrounding area I would spend a small fortune.   Unfortunately the dollar weed is starting it’s annual attempt to overtake large portions of the yard so I have no choice but to lay out a kings ransom to combat it.

So when I got back home my work on the van began in earnest.  As is often the case with my repairs and projects I had a loose game plan in place but I rarely expect things to go as planned.  This was once again the case.

So the flange on the muffler had one bolt intact, one bolt that had half remaining after I beat on it and a third bolt that was broken off inside the hole of the flange, with only a small amount left.  I figured this should be my first target as it would be the easiest to remove. The flange repair kit I bought at AA proved to be useless, the exhaust pipe was much bigger than what the kit would handle.

At first I had my cordless DeWalt drill and two of my generic metal/wood bits to use to drill out the small remaining portion of the stud.  I used my big floor jack to raise the side of the van to give me as much space as possible since the car ramps didn’t do much that far back.  Even with using the jack, it was quite awkward trying to apply pressure on the drill while laying flat on my back. I used vice grips to temporarily hold the joint together and give me something solid to drill into.

Before long it became obvious that the cordless drill was not going to have the staying power needed for this job as it seemed I was making minimal progress.  I pulled out my new DeWalt corded drill and ran a long extension cord down to where I was working.  I also pulled out other bits I had that looked to be about the right size and have a non-masonry head.

I tried all of them with my high power drill and got nowhere.  I burned up two or three bits before I gave up and resigned myself to buying a new bit designed for metal.  So for the second time in a few hours I was back out on the road running errands.  I incorporated additional to do’s into the second run as well, emptying my two oil containers and stopping by my mom’s work as well.

Mom had called me on Friday and told me she had her front end clipped of her Rav 4 by a big flat bed that changed lanes without seeing her, hitting her front end with their big tire in the process.  I stopped by to survey the damage.  This was the first time I have seen the shop where my mom works.  I was familiar with Flamingo Island but had not been there in over a decade.  I wasn’t quite sure where in the complex the store was so I just fast stepped it looking at store signs rapid fire until I stumbled across her store since I didn’t ask my mom for directions ahead of time.

So I found mom and she took me out to her Rav 4.  The bumper on the passenger side was intact but sitting a couple inches low.  The passenger side fender and trim piece had some damage as well from the impact with the tire.  I laid down on the ground at took a look inside to see if any supporting braces were bent up.  They all seemed intact.  I grabbed the bumper as my mom protested, and was able to get it back in place.  The only thing it would need to keep it there is fixing a mount where the bolt secures it.  From 15 feet away you can hardly tell anything was wrong with it. I told mom she still needs to get a quote from a body shop for the damage since the truck driver is responsible for whatever it would cost to repair.

So I got a brand new drill bit at Home Depot as well as some bolts and nuts to hopefully be utilized in the repair, assuming I was successful punching through the stud.  When I got home I returned to my uncomfortable position under the van, loaded in my fresh bit and had at it.  This time I utilized lower rpm’s as I read online was the best way to utilize a metal bit.  Even with the new bit and the slower drill speed I was seeing precious little metal shavings dropping out of the hole.  I was really fcking frustrated.  At this point I spent at least 90 minutes under the van between the two sessions and had absolutely nothing to show for it.

I took a break from the drilling that was seemingly going nowhere and grabbed my big center punch and mini-sledge and started pounding on the stud, it was more of a stress reliever than a technique for stud removal.  Again my flat on my back orientation made hammering difficult.  As I hammered away, with each impact reenforcing an obscenity in my head, it felt like I finally had some movement on the frozen stud.  A few more whacks and the tiny stud remnant popped out, finally….

Examining the stub nub revealed all that work was to punch out something that was barely a half inch long.  The splines on the stud confirmed it was pressed/hammered into place however many years ago it was installed.  I used the hardware I bought to firmly attach one of the three flange holes.  I had hopes of threading a nut onto the one full stud that remained however multiple attempts to do so failed because both of the substantial rust that had accumulated on it and the damage I had caused to the end of the stud while pounding on it initially.

I started the van up and listened/looked at the joint.  It sounded quiet, the combo of a fresh gasket and at least one bolt securely tightened seemed to be an adequate but less than ideal band aid for the problem.   I am sure a muffler shop could pop out those other two bolts with significantly less effort than I expended.  It’s all about the tools.

Despite being pretty spent from fighting with the van I had more yet to do.  The grass which has been unmowable due to standing water had to be addressed, despite ample standing water still spotting the yard.  I used variable mower deck height to get the job done, raising the deck to max height when I would be going through underwater sections.  These ponds also required me to have a good head of steam before hitting them.  If you go slow you wind up getting stuck on the slimy ground below.

The mower was a disgusting mess by the time I was done but I at least got a good portion of the grass mowed.  Unfortunately the forecast calls for another few days of significant rain which will submerge things further. My Saturday of work/chores didn’t really end until after 6pm.

On Sunday Cindy and I had intentions of doing a run/swim training brick.  The last time I ran was the 10K I did with her where I felt absolutely awful and wanted to quit which was at least 3 weeks ago.    Part of the reason I felt awful was we didn’t start running until the sun was well into the sky, not taking our first strides until around 8:30.

This time I suggested that we get up early and try to start around 7, missing some of the heat of the day.  We figured after we were done running we could fill in the dead time drinking coffee at DD until the pool opened.  I also suggested we run the square in a counter-clockwise direction.  Although the distance is identical, to me the run seems less mentally fatiguing when taken down in that way.

The two changes did make the run go better although the 9:44 pace was far from blazing.  Even with the early start it didn’t let us escape the humidity, my shirt was absolutely soaked from the 6.36 mile run.  I need to keep the long runs going for the next month or so since I need the cardio base for the Tough Mudder I am doing the first weekend of November.

So we headed to Dunkin Donuts, grabbed our go juice, and were sitting outside drinking it while playing with a bulldog puppy that a couple had with the them.  His name was Logan and he loved everyone.  As I looked at my watch I saw we had over an hour to go until the water park opened.  I said to Cindy we could be spending the time changing oil.  She was ok with axing the swim portion of the brick in order to get to her oil changing lesson.

Once we got back to the house I changed into my oil changing gear and pulled the needed equipment out.  Cindy always had wanted to learn how to change oil but never was in a situation where someone would teach her.  I was happy to give her a tutorial.

Even with the Miata up on ramps, there was precious little clearance to work under the car since it sits so low to the ground.  It was so low I had to abandon the Kreepy Krawly and instead just shuffle under the car on bare concrete.  I located the oil drain plug and filter.  The only thing I did was initially break the drain plug loose, after that I just gave Cindy guidance on what to do next.  She did great and was surprised how simple an oil change can be if you don’t mind getting a little dirty. I followed up with putting the van on the ramps to change it’s oil as well.  Once again Cindy did the majority of the work and loved doing it.

I pulled out the pressure washer to do some more work.  Tuki’s cage was in need of a good cleaning and I wanted to blow off the crust of sand, dirt and grass on the tractor as well.  A hose just does not do the job when it comes to tractor cleaning.  I used the floor jack to lift the front end of the tractor to get better access to blast away.  By the time I was done the driveway was covered in green sludge.

Sunday night I watched Django Unchained.  I thought the movie was extremely well done with a few caveats.  I was already prepared for the abundance of the n-word, a word I find repulsive when used in a racist context.  In the timeframe of the movie the word was commonplace so it’s use was merited although it certainly could have been used a little less without affecting the authenticity of the movie .  Tarrantino’s movies always seem to feature very graphic violence and this was the case once again with Django.  I thought some of the scenes were really gruesome, needlessly so in my opinion.

However overall I thought the movie was really, really good.  The acting in it was top notch and even though it was quite long, I never found myself bored.  The movie also puts a big spotlight on the days of slavery and just how horrific it was when looked at through a pair of 2013 eyes.  I found myself wondering how enslaving human beings was viewed as totally normal behavior by white people, treating slaves as objects that were discarded as trash when their usefulness ran out.  I also wondered if  someday some of our modern day prejudices/practices will someday be looked back on in a similar fashion, uncivilized, cruel and ignorant.

Anyway, I’d give the movie a solid A.  If you go into it knowing there are going to be some bumps in the road you should appreciate the film more.

So last night was the club social run.  It was a HUGE success.  I headed right over to the running store after work to help get stuff set up, the event didn’t start until 6.  Before the event even started we had already raised close to $3000 just from the online part of the fund raiser.

The event was free but participants were also encouraged to donate to the fund.  We also had a raffle where a number of donated items would be given away after the run.  Well as 6PM drew near a huge crowd developed.  At first I was working the donation/raffle table myself, thankfully Ali showed up shortly thereafter.  The donation line extended way out the door of the running store.

At first the thought process was the raffle/donation would kind of be a separate thing but it soon morphed into one.  People realized that if the money was going to the same place whether it was via raffle or a straight donation, they should just do the raffle.  It made sense, give to the fund and get a chance to win something.

Well since the tickets were $2 each or three for $5 we were quite busy.  We had people donating as much as $100 which translated into 60 raffle tickets.  I would count out the tickets and tear them in half, giving the the person their stubs.  Ali was in charge of tearing our stubs into individual tickets to be placed in the drawing box.  We had tickets, cash and checks flying everywhere.  We even enlisted three people to hand out tickets to people standing in line. It was crazy.

Ali said she was ok not running and would tend to the mountain of money that we collected.  I headed out with the crowd to do the run.  I might have covered 2 1/2 miles with Cindy. I didn’t have my GPS, but it felt like a pretty fast pace.  The one good thing about running quickly was I beat a good chunk of the crowd back to the store so I actually got some food this time, which consisted of a slice a cheese pizza and some tortilla chips.  I also managed to score one free beer which I basically chugged because the area I was in was so congested, it was driving me a bit nuts.

Ali had totaled the money that came in, it was an amazing $3000 +. When totaled with the online donations that meant the club had raised over $6000 for this girls family living expenses.  The generosity of all that participated was really incredible.  It felt good to know that I was part of the great core of people in our group that turned an email request for help into this event in about a week.  Online donations for Elizabeth are still coming in.  I have no plans to take it offline anytime soon.

My gym is closed today due to construction being done to the plaza it is housed in.  Instead of chalking it up as a day off I instead hope to head to the nearby parking garage and do an endurance set of alternating 10 push ups and 10 body weight squats for a half hour straight.

Yesterday my at home gym session was fun, it was squat and dead lift day, something I NEVER do at home typically.  Jeremy always complains he never gets to see my squat and DL form since I always do them at the gym where I don’t shoot video.  So now there is a full 10 minutes of footage to satiate his needs.

I followed up with a funny tribute to Lou, one of my calisthenics buddies who is particularly hard core.  Lou likes to attack work outs and is particularly adept at picking up heavy things.  His intensity is inspirational.  Here is my tribute video followed by one of Lou’s.

Yesterday’s at home class was ok but was covering a lot of subjects I already knew a decent amount about.  I wound up doing a lot of multitasking, mostly working on a ton of running club related work.  A lot of people think you just time a race and be done with it.  There is so much background legwork that both precedes and occurs after a race for me.  It really can pile up.

I also was working on an annoying problem at work while attending class.  I was able to diagnose and implement a fix from the comfort of my home.  I really am going to push to see if maybe I can get at least one day a month as an official work from home day.  98% of what I would be asked to do does not require me to be physically in the office building.

I went outside and flew my wing yesterday morning before class.  I had two bungled launch attempts where the wing hit the ground, one of them including my index finger getting clipped by the propeller.  However once I got the plane up in the air it was a nice long 10 minute flight.  Instead of using full throttle the entire flight I went to about half throttle and got the wing up high, allowing it to float on the wind, increasing the flight duration.

During the day I had ideas of getting the weed whacking done when class was over.  Unfortunately it was raining quite steadily when the time came.  After I ate dinner I looked outside and saw it had stopped raining.  I then looked at the clock and saw it was 7PM, an abnormal time to weed whack but I had at least an hour of daylight left, why not?

Despite the very wet grass and diminishing sunlight I buzzed around the grounds, getting everything nice and tidy.  I assumed I was going to be destroyed by mosquitoes, even with wearing OFF but they weren’t bad.  I wonder if the exhaust, noise and flying debris created by the whacker is enough to keep the little blood suckers away.

Today I once again have the dogs to keep me company during class.  Nicki has already started her whining routine where she just looks at me and makes noises like she wants something although what that thing is never made quite clear.  It can get rather perturbing.

So on my way to work yesterday I stopped and got a battery for the SSR, with plans to install it after work last night.  All day I felt slightly bothered by the idea of the truck sitting out in the driveway, naked and disabled.

Of course about 10 minutes before I headed outside to perform the battery install it started to rain.  I didn’t care since I was going to be working under the truck, so what if my lower body gets soaked.

Replacing the battery was challenging because of the limited working space.  Once I got the battery in the lowered support tray I had to awkwardly try to push the tray up and then backward to it’s locking position.  Doing this with the weight of the battery on top of my hand was a struggle.  After a few failed attempts I was able to wedge my forearm/hand between the ground and the battery tray to fashion a human jack stand while I wiggled the tray into position with the other hand.

I bolted on the battery cables and figured I should hop in the truck to make sure I had solved my no-start problem.  The truck fired right up although the engine sounded abnormally noisy so I turned it off immediately.  My theory was being parked on the incline of the driveway for the last 24 hours allowed all of the oil to drain towards the back of the engine/oil pan.

Once I buttoned up the rest of the battery box I drifted the truck down to the flat portion of the driveway before starting it again.  It sounded normal this time and I quickly pulled the truck back into the garage as the rain was picking up intensity.  I was relieved that the problem appears to only have been the battery.  The battery I pulled was an AC Delco brand, a good one with a 7 year warranty.  Unfortunately I have no way of knowing if it was the battery that came with the truck in 2005, which would be pretty amazing.

On the way home last night I stopped by the running store to pick up a computer, normally an odd place to pick up such a thing.  Awhile back I had set this computer up for the store to use to sign up people for races. It didn’t get enough use to merit the space it took up on the counter so it was just sitting disconnected in a back room.  My plan was to put it back to use as a replacement for mom’s aging laptop.

This system, although a few years old has much better hardware specs than mom’s laptop with 4 times the memory and a faster processor. It also has Windows 7 on it which will be a nice face lift from XP for mom. To really speed it up I bought a small SSD drive to install in the desktop as well which should show up tomorrow.

I set the system up on the kitchen island to work on it.  For network access I strung a long ethernet cable up over the pot rack and kitchen cabinets to the cat 5 jack by the telephone.  It looked pretty bad but it worked well.

Since the computer had been turned off for a long time there were literally 200+ updates that needed to be applied.  I let the system up and running all night letting it update itself.  Once I get the SSD drive installed I will set it up for mom, I think she will like it.

Today is my last day with the dogs as Ali returns from her latest trip this evening.  Nicki has eaten like a champ the entire time she has been with me.  Her overall state of being has seemed better too, surely because she is eating better.  She was wrestling with Sadie, as well as she can wrestle anymore, and has generally had a dog smile on her face the entire time.  It’s a nice change from the mostly mopey demeanor she was sporting during other recent visits.

I need to lose weight.  Last night before my shower the scale clicked in at 183 pounds.  Although I certainly don’t have love handles, I can feel the extra weight on me during my various body weight exercises.  There was a period of time, probably damn close to two years where my weight was hanging in the low 170’s.  Although I looked rather gaunt at times, I also felt more efficient both at endurance and body weight training.  Less weight also was a good thing for my troublesome, twice operated on knees.

Now some people would suggest the added body weight is from added muscle, particularly lower body muscle from my increased dedication to exercises such as squats and dead lifts.  To a degree that could be true, but I always find myself assuming any higher numbers on the scale are pure fat.

My diet definitely has been less strict than my 170 pound days where many of my dinners were just veggie wraps and juice.  My amount of endurance training is a few clicks down as well which doesn’t help matters.

So anyway the plan is to enlist more dietary discipline while trying to turn my exercise intensity dial up a click or two.  If I am not careful I could find myself back in my rather defintion-less, 195 pound shape I was sporting 6 or 7 years ago.

I think losing 6 or 7 pounds would put me at a sweet spot.

So Saturday morning I skipped the club run.  I didn’t feel like getting up early and both of my knees felt varying degrees of ouch.  I also had a very sore lower back from my 110 back extensions the day before.  Instead I directed my energy towards chores, lot and lots of chores.

I did just a ridiculous amount of things.  For fun I wrote down everything I did, it added up to close to 20 different to do’s.  Most of my effort was outside.  I decided to address a lot of pruning and trimming that needed to be done on various trees and bushes.  We are in the absolute epicenter of horribly humid and hot Florida summertime weather.    I literally felt like I was melting as I toiled in the yard.

The amazing thing is with all of that work, I still felt like I had left stuff on the plate yet to do.  I found all of this work despite having mowed the entire property during the week, which was a good thing since standing water has returned in force thanks to multiple deluges the past few days.

I originally had hopes of spending some f around time on Saturday playing video games or trying to fly my wing but there was just no spare time to be found before heading out to the movies.

We saw the new Wolverine movie.  Despite it being opening weekend, Coconut Pointe once again delivered a sparsely populated theater, even with us walking in right at the 7:30 showtime.  It was the 3D version but to be honest I am having a hard time remembering exactly what was 3D about it.  Perhaps I am just so accustomed to 3D now that my brain hardly even recognizes the difference.

I liked the movie,  I thought it was very solid from start to finish.  Hugh Jackman is REALLY jacked nowadays, he is built like an NFL linebacker.  There were two little odd things I noticed in this Marvel film.  If Stan Lee was in there for his customary little cameo, I totally missed it.  I don’t recall seeing him at all.  Marvel films also are known for putting a little bonus scene at the VERY end of the credits that reveals what is coming next.   There was a short scene about a minute after the movie ended but we stuck it out another 10 minutes till the actual end of the credits.  There was nothing there, damn it.    Anyway, it gets a solid A from me.  The little bonus footage made me anxious to see the next film, it looks like the X-men are reassembling.   🙂

On Sunday my knees still did not feel great so instead of a brick I wimped out and did just a single exercise, swimming.  I figured since I was only swimming I should go longer than I normally do, both in my segments and overall distance.  The water in the lap pool area was really warm, if I were to guess it was easily in the upper 80’s.   Warm water is nice to soak your feet in, it is pretty lousy to try to swim distance in.  I felt like I was lapping in a bath tub.

Despite the warm water I was strangely faster than normal in the pool, averaging a minute per 50 yards, completing each 500 yard segment in right around 10 minutes.   I did a total of 4 segments totaling up to 2000 yards in the water.  I wasn’t quite sure why I was faster, I guessed it might simply be because I did not pre-fatigue myself with running or biking beforehand.

Even with just doing the swimming, I emerged from the pool thoroughly spent.  The faster pace and warm water did a number on me.

Once again Cindy had a run in with a clueless individual.  This time some guy decided he would exit the diving pool area by flailing across the lane Cindy was swimming in, once again causing a near collision.  Cindy stopped abruptly and asked him what he was doing.  His explanation was he thought he could beat her across the lane before she got there.  Unfortunately this behavior is a by product of trying to swim laps at a public pool, the dumb asses are on a very loose and long chain.

The dogs seemed to be having a good weekend with me, despite the property being overrun with mosquitoes which made an outdoor excursion a swat fest.  They both got baths and Nicki has been eating her revamped meals quite eagerly.  The addition of boneless chicken thighs seems to be the trick.

Sunday morning I spent some time remote controlled into mom’s laptop.  She had been complaining of overall poor performance for awhile.  I have done various tweaks over the years trying to extend the usefulness of the 7 or 8 year old laptop but I think we have reached the end of the road.  Today’s internet assumes you are running hardware with a big blob of memory and a fast processor.  512 MB just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

I have a spare PC that I may be able to add enough memory to that I am thinking about giving mom.  If for some reason it doesn’t work out I will just buy mom a new or lightly used pc to replace the old laptop.

Sunday afternoon I still found myself with stuff to do, part of which was replacing the door speakers in Cindy’s Miata to accompany the new headrest speakers that were installed the weekend prior.   I had to do some creative engineering to get them mounted in a way that was more secure than the horribly low effort way the old shitty speakers were thrown in there.  I would really like to meet whichever prior owner that did some of the “upgrades” on the car.  I have a feeling he has a large stockpile of duct tape somewhere.

Sunday evening a good friend of Cindy’s came out to the house to hang out and watch movies with us.  He happens to have Corvette, a less than a year old beast.  I saw an interesting photo op with a real Corvette behind my SSR that sports a 2005 Corvette LS2 motor in it.

I use my Xbox 360 as a dvd player.  A couple weeks ago I made the mistake of agreeing to participate in a beta program with my living room 360.  Basically they are testing new versions of their operating system, presumably as part of the roll out of the new Xbox One this holiday season.

Well as a result I am getting tons of these huge, slow to download updates every time I turn the damn thing on.  Before we could watch a movie last night I had to sit through yet another at least 15 minute download/update.  It’s very annoying.

We watched Idiocracy (again).  I made sure to  have 3 BLP’s in me before watching.  Despite this being my third time watching the movie I still laughed at it, a lot.  We followed it up with The Campaign, yet another Will Ferrel comedy.

A lot of Will’s recent films have been a mild disappointment to me with most of the funny moments shown in the previews with precious little else to make me laugh beyond that.  Well I found The Campaign very funny, possibly assisted by my mild drunkenness. Perhaps it was also the direct smacks in the face of the likes of George W Bush or the slimy Koch brothers. Regardless, I laughed out loud, a lot. I would give it an A-.

So when Alfred left I hopped in the SSR to pull it back in the garage.  It had been sitting in the driveway since I pulled it out to work on the Miata.  As soon as I slid in the seat I knew something was fishy, no interior lights popped on with the door being open.  When I inserted the key my suspicions were confirmed, it was dead as a doornail.  WTF.  How could the truck go from starting a few hours ago to COMPLETELY dead.  Perhaps something was ajar or the ignition switch wasn’t completely off, allowing the radio to still be on?

Well whatever the reason I wanted to get the SSR back in the garage.  The solution seemed simple, jump it.  I pulled the Tacoma next to the SSR and grabbed my jumper cables.  The SSR is a bit of an oddball when it comes to the battery, it is located under the truck, in the rear in a box.  However they try to make jumping the vehicle less of a pain by having remote jump start terminals in the engine bay.

So as I was working in the open air I was getting absolutely mauled by hungry mosquitoes, freshly hatched in the once again abundant standing water.  When I slid back in the SSR to try to start it, the blood suckers followed me, it was pretty maddening.

I was baffled when the interior of the truck still seemed totally dead except a very faint glowing of the check engine light.  I got back out and reattached the cables, this time I got a spark and some life from the interior.  I tried starting it but only got a partial turn followed by clicking.  I told Cindy to bring the RPM’s up on the Tacoma to try to increase the amperage from it’s alternator.  Still, I got a couple turns but not enough for the truck to start.  DAMN IT!

So my next plan of attack was to try to jump directly on the SSR battery.  I crawled under the truck with my stick light and removed the side panel which gave me access to the terminals.  I was getting bit non-stop by mosquitoes but at this point my frustration was masking the repeated pin pricks.

I exposed the battery terminals, reconnected the jumper cables and had the same level of success as under the hood, half turns followed by clicking.  ARGH.  For whatever reason I was not getting a solid enough connection with the cables to support the amp draw to start the SSR , mother f….

Ok well maybe I can at least get my beloved truck in the garage, out of harms way.  It was on the incline part of the driveway leading up to the garage.  For some reason I thought that possibly I would be able to push the 5000 pound vehicle up the hill and into the garage.  That was an epic fail of course, as soon as Cindy released the brake it started rolling backwards, despite my efforts to move it the other direction.

Ok I was officially out of options.  I once again returned under the back of the truck and dropped the battery box as I was getting riddled by mosquito bites, pulling the battery out so I could get a new one today.  I am crossing my fingers it is JUST the battery.  Despite having a number of batteries goes from good to dead since moving to Florida, the symptoms I saw with the SSR make me think something else could be in the mix.  I’ll find out tonight after work.

So Thursday was the club’s big holiday 5K, our biggest 5K of the year.  I knew it was going to be a mad house so I wanted to get on site extra early, not that it did me much good.  I was on site about 4:25 am but the equipment truck didn’t get there until closer to 5.  I made the use of my alone time dropping off my timing/registration equipment at their respective locations since the registration area, the start and finish line were in three different spots, each several hundred yards apart.

The night before I had sent out an email asking the board members to try to get there as early as possible and they answered the call.  We had many more bodies on site at 5AM than normal, we put them to good use.  We got the registration area up and ready to receive the roughly 1000 participants that were going to be converging shortly. As expected the parking lot became a beehive of humanity.

Ali and I were swamped with people signing up that morning, we had something like 120 entries to type in before the race.  Ali finished up the data entry as I hurried to the start line.  The starting line crowd extended down the street close to 100 yards, it was quite the scene.

Timing the race had a potentially big bump in the road.  While I was running the finish line Ali was also updating some of the participant information in the system which in theory, should have been ok.  While I was in the system checking a couple things I noticed I wasn’t seeing an average pace number for some of the finished runners.  I thought it was odd but printed out a stack of results to have someone post for me anyway.

Well as I looked more at the results I saw something was f’d up.  A bunch of the women were all showing the same finish time, oh geezus.  This is the sort of issue that crops up time to time and the kind of issue that can only be handled via experience.  Without dropping a bead of sweat I erased all of the results from the race and imported them via a secondary method, hoping it would correct the problem.  Luckily it did.

I could only assume that having the participant data modified while results were coming in caused the problem somehow so I had Ali stop the work.  The rest of the race the times flowed in normally.  All in all for being the largest 5K the club has ever put on, things went very smoothly.

I was both the first one on site and last one to leave as I recollected my equipment from it’s various collection points.  I didn’t mind at all, it gave me a moment to reflect on how cool it is that I witnessed the venue go from empty, to crushed with people, back to empty with hardly a hiccup.

Some guy was flying around his quad copter with a HD camera mounted to it during the race.  Check out the video he compiled here, it’s pretty cool.

I was quite pooped the rest of the 4th of July and didn’t even entertain dragging myself out to see any fireworks shows.  There were a few houses close by that provided mini-versions of pyrotechnics that was enough for me.

On Friday I fast forwarded my weekend chore list, trying to get everything done ahead of time.  Part of that list included my two headed grocery shopping at both Costco and Publix.  I took the SSR out for the errands to make them a lot more fun.

On Saturday morning I decided to go to do the normal club group run.  I wanted to try to do the 7 mile route, a distance I have not covered since I did the stupidly long 16 mile jaunt with Tracy several months ago.

When I walked out the door at 5:20 am I noticed my weather station showed an outdoor humidity level of 99.7%.  I felt every point of it during the run.  All in all, I held up ok to the longer distance run.  I ran it with Mitch, the club president, and Steve.  Luckily neither of them was looking to push pace as we averaged around a 9:20 mile which was plenty for me at that distance.

By the time the run was over my cotton shirt was absolutely drenched.  Thank goodness I have some water proof slip covers in the back of the SSR to accommodate such a situation.

Early Saturday afternoon Ali stopped out with the dogs.  She brought a bunch of empty bins with her.  The purpose of her visit was to collect various dinnerware/bakeware items that have remained at the house.  They stayed there because Alison didn’t have a place to keep them.  Since we set her up with the big Ikea shelving set that was no longer the case.

Ali had not been out to the house in a long time, at least a month, maybe even closer to two.  As we went through the house collecting various things for the bins there were various swells of emotion that rolled in, something that I think is unavoidable, regardless of how much time has passed since the separation.

We hung out with the dogs in the back yard for a bit during a break in the process and Nicki seemed quite content as she laid sprawled out on the carpet with mommy and daddy under the roof of where she spent that majority of her life. It made me smile but feel sad at the same time as I looked at her.

There were too many crates to all fit in Ali’s Volt so I threw the excess and the dogs in the van and went back to her place to help her unload.  Some of the crates had enough weight in them that she would have struggled hauling them up two flights of stairs.

The property has remained bogged down from excessive rain.  Despite the various bodies of water around the yard I tried to at least cut a small portion of the increasingly ratty looking grass, basically mowing the mound the house is built on.  I am hoping for a solid 2-3 rainless days so I can get out there to knock the rest down.

I saw a couple movies over the weekend.  The first one was Life of Pi, a movie I knew little about but had heard was quite good.  I knew it involved animals and little more.  Very early on I got a sense the movie was a Forrest Gump / Castaway hybrid although as things rolled along I realized the film had a personality all of it’s own.

I became very attached to Richard Parker, the tiger, despite his ornery ways and inclination to kill things.  Speaking of killing, there were several scenes of animals, albeit make believe CGI versions of animals, getting killed in ways that I found disturbing.   If you are an animal lover like I am you might want to have your finger close to the fast forward button for a few scenes.

All in all I found the movie touching, deep and meaningful.  It gets a very solid A in my book.  This appeared to be a film that would have been worth seeing the 3D version in theaters.

Last night I watched Jack Reacher on the Xbox, yet another Tom Cruise action film, a role that no one can dispute he excels at.  Despite seeing Tom in this sort of role again and again, I never seem to tire of it.  I enjoyed the film and was ok overlooking a few moments of absolute sillyness.  I’ll give it an A-.

Yesterday morning I went to a duathalon/triathlon but not as a participant.  My initial goal was to go there to talk to and shadow the guy that times their events, John from Endurance Sports Timing.  John and I are in contact a bunch since we both time races and use identical hardware and software to do it.  We often will compare notes, trying to help each other when needed. Cindy decided to sign up for the run/bike/run duathlon since I was going to be there anyway.

The race was staged by Elite Events a father/son team that started putting on events in our area couple years ago.  I had heard various things about their events, mostly negative but never had seen anything first hand.

It was interesting being on the sidelines of a race, observing the loosely controlled chaos instead of being in the middle of it.  I could see where some of the complaints about their events were coming from.  The race started late, there seemed to be inadequate race staff directing participants at key areas of the course and the race results were delayed and had a number of errors.

The registration and finish line area had no bathroom facilities at all.  If you had to relieve yourself you either went in the woods or walked around 3/4 of a mile to the other side of the park, a major f up.  You needed to have at least a couple port-o-potties out there.

On the plus side, the organizer has some good equipment to make the race come off as more professional with nicely branded signage and equipment.  They had a nice PA system with a wireless mic that allowed a lot of flexibility.  I can tell that they have good intentions but perhaps lack the manpower to address the needs to pull off all aspects of a race successfully.  Having races that combine duathalons and triathlons lends itself to scoring problems.  I think simpler would be far better in their case.

On a positive note, Cindy had a great race, winning the masters division, something she never did before.  For her efforts she received a personalized beer glass and a finisher medal.  Unfortunately she was one of the victims of the scoring problems and did not get announced as the masters winner.

During Sunday afternoon I headed outside for a prolonged outdoor workout session, my best outdoor session in months, despite the blazing sun and thick, muggy air.  I knocked out 100 pull ups, 100 push ups along with a number of other calisthenics training on both the bars and my set of rings.

During the workout we had to be very aware of fire ants.  Because of the wet ground they have been migrating closer to the house and it’s higher ground.

I decided to do my first set of push ups in the grass.  Prior to getting into the plank starting position I inspected the spots where my hands and feet were going to be, making sure they were ant free.

As I got to around rep 20 of 25 I started feeling burning on my stomach.  I ignored it and quickly pumped out the last 5 reps.  Well when I glanced down, my white shirt had a couple hundred ants on it and the burning on my abs grew rapidly.  I ripped off my shirt and start swatting and plucking the bastard ants from my mid-section.  I was quite thankful that the elastic band on my shorts was tight enough to discourage the ants from traveling south before chomping down on me.  The rest of the push up sets were performed on the dog deck for safety sake.

All in all I bet the outdoor workout was close to an hour.  I felt tired but accomplished at the same time.  The dip in the pool felt fantastic.

I got my electric bill in the mail.  It was much higher than I have become accustomed to, around $165.  When I looked at the average daily kilowatt usage it was something like 7 units higher per day than the same month last year, which didn’t make any sense, until I thought about it.

There are two possible explanations I can come up with.  Last week I noticed that one of the off stops on my timer for the pool pump had fallen off.  That means instead of running 3 hours a day it was running more like 14-15 hours a day.  I am not sure how long it was screwed up.  If it was for a couple weeks that would be a pretty solid explanation.

The other suspect is my AC system.  A few times I have noticed that the outdoor compressor is making an electrical buzzing/humming noise, a noise I don’t recall hearing before.  The AC system however seems to be functioning otherwise, the house is being kept cool overall.  What I am wondering is if the low speed/power part of the compressor is not working.  The low speed feature of the two speed compressor is a big energy saver, if that is screwed up I would imagine my electric usage could creep up considerably.

I am going to have someone come out to check it.

So the eating issues with Nicki were still front and center last night.  When my mom arrived yesterday she put back down Nicki’s untouched breakfast and it remained untouched the entire 4 hours my mom was there.  When I got home the plate was clean but I am sure that was due to Sadie swooping in.

So I figured last night Nicki would be famished.  I put down her food which was a mix of her hyopallergenic stuff and the Merrick she used to get.  She ate all of the Merrick chunks but left the other stuff alone.  Eating roughly half a can of dog food a day (plus treats) just isn’t going to get the job done.

Nicki and her mental hangups about various things can be extremely frustrating to try to untangle.  For months she has been totally fine eating the vet food and now out of the blue she acts like it is poison.  Ali is back today so hopefully Nicki will settle back into normal eating.  She seems to be more out of sorts than normal when Ali isn’t around now.

Last night after work, despite menacing skies I headed out to the bar park for a little work.  First I did another attempt at this month’s BB challenge, then another try at elbow planching on the pull up bar and finally some silly things with one of my big tires.

Last night when I was out with the girls I was stopped in my tracks by just how beautiful the skies looked.  The storm clouds had started to break up and the awesome sunset colors were poking through in such a way that made me just stand there and admire the awesomeness for a good long while.  This morning I was treated an almost equally incredible sunrise.  Although there are a number of disadvantages to the location of the house, being able to enjoy such awesome sights with nothing but the sounds of birds in the background is something I truly appreciate.

I have managed to plow through all of season one of the Sopranos in less than a week.  Season two here I come.

Last night I decided I wanted to try a move that I never did before, elbow planching on a bar.  I wasn’t able to hold it as steady, as straight, or as long as I would like but it was a good start.  Here is the video of my various attempts.  I will talk about it more on Dufisthenics.

Last night I had a brilliant idea, spurred by the death of James Gandolfini.  I was going to finally watch the Sopranos!  I saw maybe one season of it’s 6 year run so there is a ton of tv gold waiting for me to enjoy.  It just so happens through the magic of HBOGO on my Xbox I can access every single episode of the show via streaming.  It looks like a month or so of late bed times are going to be on the schedule…

This weekend will be the first of what is a typical 6 month summer weekend.  I’ll be mowing grass, cleaning and attending to other chores.  On the exercise front, I hope to run with the club on Saturday morning and follow up with a bike/swim brick Sunday.  Finally, for entertainment there will be pizza/Tivo Friday night backed up by catching World War Z Saturday evening.  Nothing spectacular in that list, but a combination that will blend work/exercise/recreation in a way  that works for me.

I had the Tacoma up on the highway this morning doing 70-75 and the vibration was pretty much gone, sweet.

So I was hoping to get the grass mowed last night.  I was thinking the odds of this happening were slim to none while I was driving home in the second afternoon storm as in many days.  However shortly after I got home the rain stopped and the sun came out. I messed around a little bit inside first on Iron Lou’s parallelettes and then more back lever attempts, neither of which were very successful.

I then ate my dinner while watching part of the Celebrity Apprentice finale allowing another hour or so to pass.  Somewhere around 7:20 I decided I was going to shoot outside and try to speed mow the property before daylight expired.

I hauled ass around the yard, assisted by the fact that some areas of the property had minimal growth, allowing me to fly over them at a high rate of speed.  I got finished around 8:15, just as it was getting really dark, mission accomplished.

I saw some of the pictures and video from the awful Oklahoma tornadoes.  The destruction is just incredible and sadly the death totals are very high, including a number of children.  Yes tornadoes are an ever present threat if you live in that area, hell they are commonplace.

I could hardly believe an interview with the mayor of the town that was hit, he relayed stories of how people on the streets were generally in good spirits and how he was quite confident the town would recover fully from the disaster because they have done it before.  Moore Oklahoma was hit by a tornado with the highest ever recorded wind speeds something like 15 years ago, topping 300 mph.

Whenever I see stories about tornadoes I always think about our road trip a few years ago that took us through Greensburg Kansas, a town that was more or less wiped off the map by a mile wide tornado.  The power of a tornado is staggering.  At least hurricanes frequency can be counted on one hand over the span of a lifetime.  Living in an area where tornadoes pop up by the dozens year in and year out would be enough for me to pack my bags and head for calmer pastures.

So after work on Friday I went straight to mom’s place.  We had arranged to do an early Mother’s Day celebration.     I took the SSR to work for the occasion.  I took a few pictures of the truck through out the day.  This one came out the best.

I took mom up to Hemmingway’s in Coconut Point.  We had a nice meal in their outdoor seating area facing the water. During dinner I utilized tech in a way that even made me, a certified geek, appreciate.

Mom had asked me last week if I could pick up a supplement she uses at Costco.  Unfortunately when I went last week they were no longer carrying it. Mom was bummed. However technology came to the rescue.

I whipped out my Iphone, loaded my Amazon app and found the supplement, available with free two day Prime shipping no less.  I placed the order, arranged for it to ship to mom’s place and was done in the span of three minutes.  Tech is so commonplace nowadays I lose appreciation for just how powerful the internet is since it is used so frequently.

After dinner I asked mom if she needed anything else while we were out.  She asked if we could stop over at the nearby Super Target to try to find another ion bracelet similar to what I bought her a couple years ago for Christmas.  They didn’t have  that exact model anymore although they had something similar.  Mom wasn’t interested in the alternative.  I dropped her back off at home and made plans to take her to Trader Joe’s some night this week.

I had an early Saturday morning planned.  Alison was one of the organizers for an all girl 5K that was being put on.  Even though it wasn’t an official GCR event a number of our people showed up to help.  It was a good thing.  Things were pretty chaotic early on.  My role was much different than it is on a typical race day where my nose is mostly planted behind the screen of a laptop.

I wound up on the crew that was setting up the course, using my truck as the transport vehicle.  There was some confusion regarding the course layout so we wound up using the Tacoma odometer to do it along with some guesstimation.  It turned out the course was around 3.2 miles, a little long but pretty damn good for figuring it out on the spot.  After laying the course out I was recruited once again for my truck, this time to take the course marshals out to their various spots.

I got back to the registration area with only 10 minutes to spare.  Luckily the only thing involved with timing this fun run was activating a stop watch at the start so I could set the finish line clock.  Those ideas I had about chip timing the run would have never worked out.

There was a decent turn out for the race, over 150 women signed up.  The number is very good when you factor in that the race was only organized a couple months ago.  A nice chunk of change was raised for the charity the race supported and the women all seemed to have a good time.

Saturday afternoon I was dragging from the early wake up call.  I cut some corners with the house chores, something I don’t normally approve of but it felt like a smart move.  One of the chores was tending the garden.  I pulled a MASSIVE carrot out of the ground, it may be the biggest ever.  It looked like a couple different carrots may have grown into this singular monster.

Saturday night I watched my latest Netflix dvd, John Carter.  This Disney movie made a lot of noise when it was released for both it’s huge production costs (about a quarter of a BILLION dollars) and it’s relatively small box office numbers (only 73 million domestic gross).  Still, it looked like something I would find entertaining.  I did.

The movie was not horrible at all although it certainly did not merit the kind of money that was spent on it.  It seemed like they were definitely trying to hop on the Avatar band wagon in many ways.  John Carter certainly is not a movie that leaves any sort of lasting impression but for at least 2 hours it did a good job of keeping me entertained, B+.

On Sunday morning I did my first endurance training in a looong time, I had not run a single mile since the 16 miles I logged with Tracy a month or so ago.  It has not been a deliberate avoidance of endurance work, just other things have gotten in the way.

Well I went full boat yesterday, combining a run, bike ride and swim.  I paid the price.  The weather yesterday was summertime muggy.  Even with starting relatively early I was sweating my ass off after the 4 mile run.  The bike portion didn’t feel any better, especially after the turn around point where I was pedaling into a slight headwind.  My legs just were out of gas.

I also decided to not wear bike shorts for the ride, instead thinking my running shorts would suffice for the 12.25 mile ride.  I regretted that decision greatly during the last 4-5 miles. My nether regions felt raw.

I was totally spent by the time the swim segment of the workout came up.  When I hopped in the pool, despite very warm water, I had heat exhaustion style goosebumps going on.  The first 400 I swam felt very difficult.  I kept my ass in the pool until I covered an additional 800 yards.

I emerged from the workout exhausted but glad that I completed it.  I need to get more consistent with my Sunday tri training.

Sunday afternoon I was doing my bills.  Part of it was reconciling my credit card statement.  I came across the charge for my visit to Zookies when Troy was down.  I noticed they charged me $6 more than I had authorized.  This pissed me off of course.  There are lots of stories of this going on, restaurant staff padding the charge, assuming most people are too lazy to look closely at their CC statement.

Well that amount of anger was nothing compared to what I felt when I saw the next charge, $599 at UnderArmour Direct!!!!  What the fck??!!  So I immediately call the CC company and report the charge.  I also hopped on to their website to verify that I didn’t see any other bullshit charges, nope UA was the only one.  Someone bought a shitload of athletic clothing on my dime.

Now I have to go through all the bullshit of them cancelling the card, sending me a new one and then my having to update every situation where I have stuff billed directly to the card.  There are a lot of them.

Once I hung up I was doing more head scratching.  The overcharge at Zookies was two days before the Under Armour charge.  I wondered if whomever was brazen enough to pad my food bill also was the person that made the UA purchase.  All they would have needed was the info on the card in many cases.

I called up Zookies and asked for one of the owners, neither was there but they said they would let them know and have them call me.  I got a call back shortly from Mrs Zookie, whom I have talked to several times at the bar, she is very nice.  I explained to her about the overcharge at the bar and my suspicions that it could be connected to the massive UA charge two days later.

She was very concerned by my story.  I told her I have no way of knowing for sure if they are connected but wanted to make her aware that one of her employees could be dealing in CC fraud.  She said she would review the receipts from that night to see whom cashed out the bill.  I thanked her for her effort.

I actually plan to try to do a little investigation on this myself.  Far too often banks basically ignore this fraud and write it off as a cost of doing business.  They won’t even try to prosecute the criminal perpetrating the fraud.

I am going to try to contact Under Armour and get details on the order, specifically what address it was sent to.  Since it was done in my name with my CC I am hoping they will give me this info.  If they do I will pass the address along to Mrs. Zookie to see if it matches up with the address of one of her employees.  If so, BAM, gotcha.

I also have a phone call to make to Comcast.  My promised 49.99 rate seems to have been smoke and mirrors, this months bill was $68. I really dislike Comcast…