Category Home Improvements

Saturday morning Cindy was doing a spin class so I decided to go into old school chore mode.  I was outside in the brutal heat and humidity until almost 11:30 weeding, weed whacking and attending to other outdoor to do’s.  After lunch I went back outside to apply the chocolate colored stain/waterproofing I used on the rain shelter last week to other wood structures in the yard that were in need of it like the small shed ramp, dog deck frame, and the jump table in the bar park.  In total I changed my shirt three times during the day after I sweated through them.

Late in the afternoon I decided I wanted to tackle the only remaining project on my mental list, installing a shelf over the big tv.  This is actually something I did once before around 2003 when I had the 61 inch Sony projection tv.  At that time it was used to house the AV equipment.  When I bought the 73 inch DLP TV and the tv stand for it to sit on I had to rip the shelf out because it was too low.  When I pulled the shelf I actually put the boards in the large shed toi be used again on a rainy day.  Well that day came Saturday, some 8-9 years later.

The reason I wanted to put a shelf up was to have a good spot for the center surround speaker.  With the 73 inch tv and now the 70 inch 4K set I had that speaker on the surface of the tv stand in the middle.  Well with the new TV if I put it in the center it blocked the IR receiver for the set.  I thought I would be creative and place the speaker behind the tv.  The problem was since the speaker was partially obstructed, the dialogue for shows, which usually comes through the center speaker was somewhat quiet, requiring me to turn the volume up higher, making loud portions of a movie/show overwhelming.

Having that speaker right above the set seemed like a much better option, plus it would help fill up that gap of dead space to the top of the nook.  When I tried to explain my plan to install the shelf to Cindy she was a bit unsure of how well it would work.  I assured her I did it once before successfully and I could do it again.  Having the shelf and trim board from the old shelf still available meant I didn’t have to worry about measuring or cutting new ones.

Cindy used the palm sander to clean up the old lumber.  Sitting in a storage shed for that long had made the wood dirty and dingy.  I used 2×4’s as the side supports for the shelf.  Getting the shelf to look right is all about getting it even so I did a lot of measuring and leveling to ensure the boards on either side were right where they needed to be.

After a couple hours of work the new shelf was in place and looking good.  Having the speaker up there was definitely an improvement, I could now hear the dialogue coming from the tv without cranking the Yamaha surround to concert levels.  It was quite a busy Saturday but I felt good getting so much accomplished.  Of course I shot video of the work.  If you would like a more detailed view of how it went down, look here.

On Sunday morning I bugged Cindy about going out to run.  It wasn’t because I loved the idea of running in the miserable heat and humidity.  I just did not want to lose the small amount of progress I have been making with my running.  Last weekend with Supercon and construction projects I did not get out to run at all.  If I missed a second consecutive week I felt like I would be back at square one.

We did not start our first lap around the track until after 8AM so the sun was already high enough in the cloudless sky to start broiling us.  I felt pretty miserable the entire run but I expected to.  We completed 13 laps around the track at a 9 something per mile pace.  I was beyond drenched with sweat by the end of it but I glad I put the time and effort into getting out to run.

Sunday had a definitely more relaxed pace to it.  I did a few things including washing the Tacoma, during which I recorded two videos.  One regarding a shift delay I sometimes experience going between reverse and drive and the other being a 2500 mile review of the truck.   It seems like anything I post regarding the 2016 Tacoma is getting a lot of views on YouTube.  The one video has almost 500 views already which is a TON for the first day.

Speaking of my YouTube channel, things have really been accelerating since I crossed the 1000 subscriber line.  While the first 1000 subscribers took me some 8-9 years to accumulate, I have gotten my next 100 in about a month.  I also am less than 20,000 views from a million total on my channel, another big milestone for a small time YouTuber like myself.  My content may not be universally popular but it definitely does fit a certain niche.  I am following the advice of Casey Neistat, a very popular You Tuber when it comes to how to grow your channel.  Just keep uploading.

Sunday night we watched the Peanuts movie.  I have always been a big Peanuts fan all of my life.  The holiday specials and the cartoon strips were some of my favorite things growing up.  Seeing the way they animated the characters for the film was odd.  Most everything in the film was 3D rendered which honestly looked disturbing in some ways, like the hair on Charlie Brown and Linus’s head.  However the facial expressions were done in an old school way like the old specials.  For the most part it worked and did not mess with the feel of the movie.  I thought they also did a good job of getting voice actors that could perfectly replicate the characters as they sounded in the 60’s and 70’s, something that was not the case with some of the more modern Peanuts specials that were produced.

Despite the pressure of it being a feature length film, I think they did a good job of making the story authentic, touching, and fun in a similar manner to what made the characters so endearing to us as kids.  Although I had no desire to spend theater type money to see Peanuts on the big screen I was quite happy it arrived in it’s Netflix envelope.  I pity kids today that have no modern day equivalent of Peanuts to look to.  Most are far too busy being mesmerized by their portable screens to appreciate someone like Charlie Brown or Snoopy.  The movie is a quality B+ addition to the massive Peanuts collection.

We started watching The Preacher on AMC, another comic book based show.  AMC did great with this formula with The Walking Dead and it appears they have another winner on their hands.  It is bizarre, crazy, and cool.  Check it out.

I figured a long 5 day weekend needed to be recapped now instead of later to conserve brain cells.  The main reason I took Thursday and Friday off was Cindy needed a ride to the Cape Coral VA hospital because she was having a MRI done.  She was going to take a valium to ease some of the anxiety the MRI process can cause so with me being there we could head home without first waiting for the valium to wear off.

I brought my Warcraft book and also had a Kindle version of Lenny Dykstra’s book I could read.  Instead I wound up playing Hearthstone the couple hours I was waiting while watching the Buzzr channel which is nothing but old game shows.  I forgot just how much I enjoyed shows like Match Game and Family Feud in my younger days.

Cindy emerged from her procedure intact and only a little fuzzy from the valium.  By the time we got home it was mid-afternoon.  Cindy was really tired and tried to nap.  I putzed around the house doing a few things, including removing the dealer emblem from the back of my Tacoma.

I designated Friday as the day to get the rain shelter built on the side of the house over the water equipment.  I have had most of the raw materials to do the project in the shed for a couple of weeks and I was ready to get it out of the way.  I got outside relatively early.  I had some grand delusion that I would have most of the shelter done before the heat of the day set in.  Yea, right.

It quickly became an all day affair with me laboring away in 90+ degree/ 90% humidity which is just pure misery.  Of course I had to go to Home Depot to grab some extra stuff I hadn’t anticipated which is nearly always the case with my home improvement projects.  At least it gave me a reason to take Sadie with.  Home Depot has quickly become one of her favorite places since we discovered it was dog friendly.

I was working on the shelter until almost 5PM and by the time clean up began my ass was dragging big time.  Despite drinking throughout the day I felt majorly dehydrated and exhausted.  Thanks to Cindy’s help I got the frame in place and stained.  The only thing that remained was attaching the roof panels but I needed some additional parts to make that happen so it was going to have to wait until Sunday afternoon or Monday morning.

Cindy had spent a good portion of Thursday evening and Friday working on her costume for Supercon.  She had decided late in the week she was going to go as Tracer, one of the heroes from Overwatch.  Of course the easiest thing to do when it comes to costumes is to simply buy one.  The problem with that is then you look just like everyone else that just bought one.

Cindy has always been good, very good actually at making costumes by hand.  She has an uncanny knack to just be able to take a bunch of raw materials and make very cool costumes out of it.  She uses a similar process in costume making as I do with home projects, start with a general idea and tweak it as you go.

She was stressing out late Friday, not thinking she was going to be able to get t all done.  She actually did not get it all done Friday, she did the finishing work Saturday morning, right up until the time we were heading out for Florida Supercon in Miami.  I opted to not do any special costume, declaring my Under Armour Spiderman shirt as festive enough.

We took the Prius across state opting for gas savings over the more comfortable cruising the 2016 Tacoma offers.  The drive went relatively smooth until we ran into some pretty serious traffic coming into Miami which is normal.  Our plan was to park in a garage that was in between our hotel and the convention center, both within walking distance.  The walk to Supercon was a few blocks which didn’t feel great in the heat and humidity.  We could tell we were getting close as we saw more and more people in costume going the same direction.

Cindy had planned for us to go to Supercon for a bit and then go back to the hotel for her to do her costume, hair and make up in the afternoon.  Once we saw so many people already dressed up and the long security line we realized it may have been better for us to be in full costume from the start instead of having to come, go and come back again.  It was our first time at an event like this so we had much to learn.

Like I mentioned the security line to get in was very long but luckily they had a lot of staff there so the line moved quick.  The time went quickly since everywhere you turned there was someone in an interesting or funny costume to look at.  It didn’t take long till I regretted not doing any sort of more formal costume.

I had never been inside the Miami Convention Center before.  I was impressed at how big it was.  Once we got inside the main show floor it was just wall to wall exhibits and people.  It was a nerd’s fantasy without a doubt.  We met up with our friend Kim and her two kids who also were over from Naples, we spent a good chunk of our time at the con with them.

Walking around was just amazing with one amazing visual after another.  It sort of reminded me of how I feel when I go to Vegas but in a different way.  If you wanted to, you could easily spend a few paychecks on merchandise.  They had anything and everything you could imagine.  Luckily I am not much of a collector so I didn’t buy anything.

You could also easily spend a small fortune if you were interested in getting an autograph or a photo with the diverse cast of B and C list celebrities that were there.  It seemed like the absolute minimum you would spend to get anyone’s autograph was $25 and another $10 if you wanted to throw a picture of you with the person as well.  The whole thing was a bit of a turn off to me although you were allowed to at least walk up and say hi to any of them without opening up your wallet.

They had two levels of celebrities there.  The upper tier was against one of the walls where each person had a roped off waiting area.  The not so famous people were plopped behind normal tables where you could just walk up to them.  I thought it was funny that even though this was “Supercon”, the array of celebrities were definitely not just from the super hero/comic book realm.  There were WWE Wrestlers and even cast members of Sesame Street signing autographs.

Ironically the one autograph we actually paid for was for Emilio Delgado from Sesame Street.   He was extremely friendly and down to earth.  He seemed to be a genuinely nice man.  It was amazing that the guy has been on Sesame Street  his entire adult life.  I clearly recall watching him on the show as a kid helping me learn my abc’s and 123’s.

The most interesting celebrity sighting for me was Henry Winkler, aka. The Fonz from Happy Days, one of my favorite shows growing up.  Henry looked about as far away from his famous character as you could imagine.  He is old, overweight and was wearing plaid pants with a pink untucked oxford.  I don’t think Henry has ever come out as being openly gay for whatever reason but it seemed pretty obvious to me that is the case.  He was nice enough to come out and greet people waiting in line and allowing people to take his picture without paying for it.

Cindy had a funny conversation with Bruce Boxleitner who she evidently met randomly when she was in high school.  Cindy thought he was the bomb and evidently gave him a flower way back when.  Cindy got red in the face as she told the story and Bruce laughed out loud as she told it.  It was pretty funny.  He is old now too.

So we decided it was time for Cindy to put her costume on.  We walked first to the parking garage to grab our stuff and then a few more blocks to get to our hotel.  It was admittedly a pain in the ass to walk there and we had to take a detour into a back alley due to construction that made Cindy nervous.

During check in I found it annoying that even though our room was supposed to be “paid in full” already, they tack on another 20 buck resort fee.  WTF, since when does PAID IN FULL not mean paid in full.  Our reward for the resort fee was two vouchers, one for a complimentary drink that we never used and another for the continental breakfast, yippee.

The room was nothing spectacular but fine for our needs.  While I laid on the bed and chilled out Cindy began the long process of doing her hair and make up for her Tracer costume.  Even though she estimated earlier it would take her 30 minutes to get ready I knew it would take much longer based on experience.  It wound up taking close to 3 times that. We thought it would be interesting to have the GoPro rolling to document the transformation.  I took the 75-80 minutes of video and condensed it down to around 14 minutes through the magic of editing.  Check it out if you have time.

The combo of the make up and outfit really made for a convincing visual.  The fact that we saw no other Tracer’s earlier made me think Cindy was going to get a lot of picture requests.  My prediction turned out to be very true.  To get back to the convention center we decided to dip our toe into the world of Uber, something we never tried before.  We figured walking 6 or 7 blocks with Cindy in full make up and costume would have sort of sucked.  Plus we were handed a card at the center to get an Uber ride for free so it made sense.

Being an Uber virgin I had no idea just how efficient it was.  After installing the app and requesting a ride we literally had a car waiting for us outside in a couple minutes.  We didn’t expect it to be quite so fast and had to haul ass downstairs to the lobby.  Just as we were walking out my phone rang with a call from the driver letting us know she was there, wow.  Now one of the big perks you hear about Uber is you don’t tip.  Even though I knew that, old habits die hard and I pulled the few singles I had in my wallet and gave it to the driver.  I was amazed at just how smooth, efficient and clean the service is. It was so impressive that I suggested to Cindy she should look into doing part time Uber back home.  Her personality and schedule would be a great fit for it.

So once we got to the convention center it took absolutely no time until the fruit of Cindy’s labor became apparent with people asking to take their picture with her.  Her costume was pretty damn spectacular.  We didn’t keep official count but I estimate she had no fewer than 50-75 people that asked to take their picture with her.  There were some other people dressed up as Overwatch characters that made for some good photo ops as well.

I was mostly a passive part of the experience and was happy to be so.  This was Cindy in her element, with a smile and happy words to share with anyone that wanted a picture.  She said her face literally hurt from smiling so much by the end of the night.  It was pretty crazy but in a good way.

We had an unfortunate incident during the afternoon when they evacuated the building.  Evidently a smoke alarm was tripped from something other than a fire. It did give us a chance for Cindy to get a funny picture with a guy dressed as one of the crazy guys from Mad Max.  We were only outside for maybe 15 minutes before the all clear was sounded and were allowed back inside.

Cindy posed for a 3d rendering of herself that was set up.  They basically take your picture from something like 40 cameras simultaneously and can stitch it into a 3d model that you actually have produced into a statue.  Cindy got the GIF version of it for free.

A short young girl approached Cindy and asked if she could take her picture as she was apparently a Tracer/Overwatch fan.  Cindy quickly realized it was Briana Hildebrand who was in Deadpool.  She was one of the celebrities at the show.  We thought it was kind of awesome she asked to take a pic of Cindy.

We spent the majority of the rest of the afternoon and evening just walking around and taking everything in between picture requests of Cindy.  It was just fun and the entire building was filled with a very positive energy.

The only formal thing we did was attend the costume contest (that Cindy should have entered)  It was not as much fun as I had hoped.  The theater was packed and I was seated next to a guy that had a definite creepy vibe.  He was easily in his 50’s but had his Nintendo 3DS in hand and was playing some stupid looking game that seemed targeted at 5 year olds for a good portion of the show.  He also seemed to clap the loudest for the costume contest participants dressed as or played by young girls.  I felt an repeated urge to deliver a sharp blow with my left elbow to his nose.

The contest was too long, running over two hours.  The majority of the participants were dressed as characters from games, shows, or comics that Cindy and I had no familiarity with.  Plus we were too far away from the stage to get a great view of anything.  I had a much better time checking out the costumes as we walked around the con.

By the time we got out of the costume show it was late, after 9:30.  The main exhibit area was closed at that point but we went upstairs were the video games were set up to hang out a little bit with the diehards before heading out.  We met so many great people during the Supercon that it actually made me eager to experience it again.  Like I said, just seeing Cindy so happy was worth the price of admission to me. We said goodbye to Kim and her kids before hailing yet another Uber to get us back to the hotel.  We were exhausted but glad we made the effort to get there.  It was something neither of us experienced before.

On Sunday morning we headed out after our decent continental breakfast. We hailed our third Uber in two days to run us back to the parking garage instead of us lugging the stuff.  I felt a bit lazy doing it this time but it had rained earlier and we didn’t want to get caught in the rain again while hauling our stuff.  After fueling up with some DD coffee we headed back across Alligator Alley towards home.  The drive was without incident.  Our Sunday once we got home was filled with mostly chores associated with returning from vacation, even short ones.  We always have anxiety about the chickens well being when we aren’t home.  I also worked on getting the long video of Cindy’s Tracer transformation ripped which took quite awhile.

Sunday night we watched my latest Netflix dvd, Creed, a movie we wanted to see in the theater.  I thought it was good but was curious why it wasn’t called Rocky 6.  Sure Stallone isn’t the fighter in this movie but I think the film totally revolved around him.  I thought he did a really good job and I liked the movie overall, regardless of how improbable the outcomes were. A-

This morning I knew I had the rain shelter project foremost on my plate.  Once again I hoped to be able to knock it out early and again I ran into complications that made that not happen.  I underestimated the amount of roofing screws I would need to attach the panels and had to go back to Home Depot for the third time during my extended weekend to get what I needed.  I finally got the project finished up around lunch time and had a nice hard downpour to test it with later in the afternoon.  Just as I hoped, the shelter kept the equipment dry.  When the sun came back out I verified the temperature under there felt a ton more bearable than when the bare sun is beating on you.

If you would like to see the rain shelter install process chopped down to a 24 minute time capsule, look below.

I also had a small side repair that was annoying me.  The pool filter has had a small leak for quite awhile.  In an attempt to stop it I bought a new lock ring and O ring for it.  When I installed both I was rewarded with a leak that was worse than before.  I then got some O ring lubricant, hoping that would stop the leak.  It slowed it down somewhat but it was still dripping.  I decided I would attach the top of the canister filter with it turned about 90 degrees from it’s normal front facing orientation.  That simple change addressed the drip.  Water no longer was running down the side.  It’s an unexpected simple fix but a fix is a fix in my book.

The rest of my day has been consumed with editing the rain shelter video you see above as well as writing this blog entry which has been fueled by three Miller Lites.  Yea sure I wish I had a couple more days where I had less to do but that always seems to be the case.  It was the first time in close to a decade that my 4th of July didn’t start off with timing a very hectic, hot, and humid 5K for the running club.  I can’t say I missed the experience even a little bit.

So yesterday in the mail I received a letter from Comcast.  As I scanned through the letter I got angry very quickly.  In a nutshell the letter said something to the effect that Comcast has been giving me the “HD Technology upgrade” for free and will no longer be doing that as of July 28th.  If I wanted to continue to receive HD programming I would need to contact their office and agree to pay an additional $9.95 per month.  What in the fck are they talking about?? My bill for last month was $192, are they seriously going to try to slap another 10 dollars on top of that?  Why is HD an add on option in the first place in 2016?  That is utterly ridiculous.

So I looked at my bill online and confirmed that my “Double Play” package already included the HD fee. I was pissed.  I called and after giving up on their maze like phone menu I just kept repeating “speak to a representative” until a human being picked up.  Of course this human being was located halfway around the world in India, immediately adding to my frustration level.

When I tried to explain to “Nelson” the letter and how it made no sense, he was clueless.  He had no idea why I would have received it.  He verified that my account package already includes the HD stuff. Yea, no shit.  Throughout the conversation he addressed me as “Mr Shawn” repeatedly, adding to the lunacy of the situation.

So the guy had no idea what the letter was about or if I would actually lose my HD access on July 28th if I didn’t hand over another 10 bucks monthly.  His advice to me was if I lose HD access on the 28th I should call them back and they will restore it.  I asked Nelson if he understood why that was a terrible answer to a customer?  The letter tells me to call in to address the issue.  I called in.  You don’t know anything about the letter and your answer is for me to spend more of my time calling in later if something happens?  “Yes, Mr. Shawn”

I knew I was not going to get anywhere with the guy.  In an attempt to demonstrate how serious he was about my “satisfaction” , he gave me his clerk id like that was going to get me anywhere.  I am sure if I call back in a month and say “Hey Nelson in India said I shouldn’t have had to pay 10 bucks for HD” I will get immediate results.  All I know is if I do actually get HD yanked next month I will be on the warpath.  Charging an HD surcharge present day is nothing short of thievery in my opinion. It’s like charging extra for an automobile to be able to run on higher octane gas.

Yesterday I got back my home DVR from Night Owl.  I found it funny that their repair facility is actually local, less than 5 miles from where I work.  You may recall my difficulty in getting the RMA initiated however once I did the process went smoothly.  I was sent a postage paid shipping label and they sent out a replacement unit the day they received the old one.  I was pleasantly surprised when I realized I unknowingly got an upgrade in the process.  I sent in a 4 channel 1080P system and got an 8 channel 1080P system back.  I wish more things worked that way.  If you count our two Ring doorbells we have a total of 14 cameras around the property keeping an eye on things.  I don’t think anyone will be sneaking up on us anytime soon.

Friday night Cindy finished off her 22 kill push up challenge where you do 22 push ups per day for 22 days to bring awareness to the PTSD epidemic with US veterans and the corresponding high suicide rates.  On the final day she actually did not do any push ups and instead concentrated on the real reason the movement started, showing the pictures and names of 22 veterans that are no longer around as a result of PTSD.

She originally shot the video in her phone using the Facebook Live app. I thought it was really touching stuff so I extracted that video and turned it into a YouTube video.  Even though I am actually a pretty emotional person, I don’t express it outwardly very often.  Cindy on the other hand has the gift of not only being an emotional, caring person, but also being able to reflect that out to the world around her.  I think the video is a perfect example of it.

Saturday morning I was out early getting the weeding done before I once again had to drive into the office to work on a server issue.  I managed to get home right around lunch time after getting the issue handled.

Saturday afternoon Cindy and I headed out to the coop to install the upgraded surveillance system. We replaced the Samsung 4 channel 720P box with a Night Owl 8 channel 1080p system. The Night Owl is backwards compatible so I could leave the existing Samsung 720P cameras in place and just add the four new 1080P cameras to the system.

In total it might have taken us around 90 minutes in the hot sun to get the new system online.  Now we have full camera coverage of the back yard as well as a view of the bar park and the west part of our property towards the road.  Of course the cameras are not going to prevent a coyote attack but will make sure we know exactly how/when/where it happened.

Saturday night we got out to see the new Independence Day.  I was mostly a fan of the original even though it had a some dumb moments.  Well somehow 20 years have passed and the movie follows that timeline in real time.  The 20 years gave the Earth time to prepare for a new attack using the alien tech left over from the first film.  Unfortunately the 20 years evidently was not used to hire some good writers.  The movie was really, really dumb.  Early on I thought the film was going to be decent with it reusing most of the cast from the original except for Will Smith.  The special effects are as cool as you would expect but nowadays that is expected.

The story, dialogue and acting in the movie is pretty much atrocious.  I described in Facebook as seeming like the target audience for the film were People of Walmart subjects.  Repeatedly during the movie I was laughing out loud, not because of humor but because of stupidity of what I was seeing/hearing.  Let’s just say I was very disappointed in the film and would not recommend anyone laying out additional cash to see it.  Catch it on Netflix in a few months while you are drunk. It gets a C-.  Before the movie we at least had a nice dinner at Stir Crazy so it wasn’t a total washout.

On Sunday I started off with a run on the treadmill.  I didn’t feel like slogging through the humidity.  Cindy was heading out early for an all day cycling seminar for a possible job opportunity down the road.  After taking a shower Sadie and I jumped in the truck for a trip to Rural King.  I had the GoPro along so Sadie got to star in her first vlog entry during the drive.  I was going to Rural King to take a look at their electric fence supplies which turned out to be pretty extensive.  If I decide to electrify the fence I will probably get the majority of the stuff online but it’s good to know I can run out and get stuff to fill any gaps at RK if needed.

When we got home I rolled into a number of chores including weed whacking the yard.  I did 5/6 of the yard with my new battery powered DeWalt unit.  For the majority of the yard it works well however trimming along castle stones is not one of them.  For whatever reason the trimmer head on the DeWalt spins counter clockwise, the opposite direction my gas powered trimmer spins.  With the way I hold the trimmer and the direction I normally go it just doesn’t do a great job against the uneven stone surface.  When the battery died I switched to the gas trimmer and was apply to knock down the castle stone barrier with ease.  Even though the cordless trimmer has good power it doesn’t approach the brute force the gas trimmer can apply to targeted areas.  I’m ok with having both in my yard arsenal.

I was a sweaty mess after working in the hot sun so I went in the pool to cool off which of course Sadie was excited about.  When I go in the pool when she is around we play the “splashy, splash” game where I go side to side in the pool and splash water on her as she runs around the deck.  After splashing her for awhile the deck was quite wet.  I was moving to the opposite side when I heard a splash from the deep end.  I turned and saw Sadie had slipped in and had just gone completely underwater.  I was concerned for a split second and quickly moved in her direction however she popped up and immediately started swimming towards the steps on the other end.  I praised her repeatedly as I dried her off for getting out on the pool herself.

Even though I spent a good portion of the day doing chores both inside and outside the house solo I didn’t mind much.  Sometimes I am most productive when I am in that situation.

We got through the weekend without any further chicken incidents, continuing our revised free ranging schedule that keeps them in the coop longer in the morning and back in the coop earlier in the evening.  Our hope is shortening that window will keep the chickens out of harms way during dusk/dawn timeframe when the attack on Cocoa occurred.

I have a short week coming up, being off Thursday and Friday as well as having Monday off for the 4th of July.  I hope to get my shelter constructed over the sprinkler controller and water cleaning equipment during that time.  We also will be going to the Miami Supercon on Saturday, staying overnight and returning Sunday so that will be a different type of experience for sure.

Yesterday my Airsoft AK-47 arrived.  I had Cindy throw the battery on the charger while I was at work so we could try it out when I got home.  I have to tell you, I was very surprised by the gun.

First of all it looked very realistic.  If you did not notice the orange Airsoft band around the muzzle of the gun you would think it was the real thing.  Not only does it look real, it feels real in terms of weight.  I could not believe it weighed between 7 and 8 pounds.  A good portion of the gun appears to be metal. It comes with two ammo clips, each capable of holding over 300 plastic bb’s so if you fully load each one you have a long time between fill ups.

Installing the stick battery that powers the gun is a bit clumsy but I eventually got it all in place.  I went out front and leaned a pretty thick cardboard box I had in the garage against one of our oak trees.   I stepped about 40-50 feet away and took a couple shots in semi-auto mode where you get one shot per trigger squeeze.  I was immediately impressed by the power of the gun which is advertised as 495 FPS, far exceeding the single shot, spring loaded Airsoft gun I bought awhile back.

I then flipped the selector to full auto mode and squeezed the trigger.  I was amazed at the fire speed for this “toy” gun.  It ripped into the cardboard box, quickly filling it with dozens of holes in a few seconds.  Damn this thing was no joke.  Not only is it powerful, it’s pretty accurate as well.  Later Cindy was in the backyard picking off small targets from 90-100 feet pretty easily.

I have no doubt that if we have an opportunity to use the Airsoft gun against a chicken predator it will quickly be running/flying the other direction.  I saw some videos of dumb kids shooting each other with similar guns with less FPS and they had real nasty, painful welts as a reward.  Check out the video if you want to see what it looks/sounds like when you squeeze the trigger.

At the end of the video I reiterated my viewpoint on real assault weapons which may seem hypocritical since I bought a toy version of one.  I would never suggest that the Americans should be denied the right to own guns.  My problem is with the availability of weapons that are clearly for offensive versus defensive intentions.

Yesterday I discovered Virtual Box, a free virtual machine product from Oracle.  The reason I discovered it was after I wasted a couple days trying to get a virtual Windows 10 machine running on my Windows 7 workstation utilizing Microsoft’s VirtualPC.  When I would try to run the Windows 10 install it would bomb out saying I had insufficient memory and CPU power even though I allocated virtual resources far above the minimum requirements.

After a lot of frustration I found other people did what I was looking to do easily with Virtual Box that evidently doesn’t have the same limitations.  I downloaded and installed the product in a few minutes and a few minutes later I had the Windows 10 installation successfully running.  If you are looking for a flexible and powerful VM solution definitely give Virtual Box a look.

I woke up this morning to see that Britain voted to officially leave the EU which is sort of a big deal.  It was a divisive issue very reminiscent to American politics of the last 16 years.  Both sides thought the other were idiots more or less.  My thoughts as an outsider are mixed.  In theory the EU seems like a good thing, free trade between nations with minimal restrictions should be good for an economy.  The standardized currency, the euro, that the majority of EU countries use was again an attempt to promote trade free of exchange rate differences.

Well the downside for Britain has been a loss of direct control in other areas. Being a member of the EU meant some important decisions that affected citizens of the country were being made by non-elected EU officials based out of Brussels.  Some of the most polarizing of these is the requirement for Britain to accept immigrants based on EU requirements which has created a very American-like resentment of these immigrants being granted benefits in the generous British system.

The vote to leave certainly was not a landslide, winning 52% of the vote.  Shortly after the vote, Prime Minister David Cameron who was on the pro-EU side announced he would be stepping down in the fall in a very gracious speech.  The process to leave the EU will be a slow one but it will be interesting to see if it proves to be a smart move down the road.  Britain’s exit could give legs to movements in other countries to leave the EU such as France.

This weekend I will be busy.  I purchased the 8 channel security DVR to upgrade the surveillance of the coop/backyard so I want to get it up and running.  I also would like to take a harder look at electric fence options although that will be a longer term project.  I still have the raw materials in my big shed to build the cover over my wi-fi water sprinkler controller and water equipment but I think I need to wait to get that done until the stitches are out of my shoulder.

On the fun front hopefully Cindy and I can get out to see the new Independence Day.  I was a big fan of the original.

So Cindy’s daughter picked up Tank last night.  Tank was in the backyard playing with Sadie for awhile before they left.  It was the first time I saw Sadie running around at full speed with another dog since the last time she was with my dad’s dogs.  Ever since Nicki lost her mobility Sadie really didn’t have a playmate to run with.  It brought a smile to my face to see them both running around the yard.

The departure of Tank brought tears to Cindy’s face as I knew it would.  She really loves Tank and liked having him around for company the last 10 or 11 days.  Sadie will have to step up and fill the void.

The chickens made it through another day intact but both Cindy and I have a terrible sense of paranoia about another potential attack.  We both spend a lot of time looking out the rear windows at the fence line, scanning for any movement.  Our Airsoft AK-47 arrives today which will allow us to spray any potential predators with high speed plastic projectiles at a rapid rate.  I am also considering upgrading the 4 camera security dvr in the coop to an 8 camera model which will allow me to put pretty much the entire back yard under surveillance.  I also still plan to look more at electrifying the rear fence line to provide more predator deterrence. No matter what we do, anything short of encasing the back yard in a bubble will fall short of giving us 100% peace of mind.

So as soon as I got home last night I went out in the backyard with Sadie to look at the aftermath of yesterdays coyote attack on our chickens.  Seeing the large collection of feathers near the rear of the coop made me sick to my stomach.  The trail of feathers lead towards the east side of our property where the coyote evidently jumped the fence.

I went outside the fence line with Sadie hoping to find more evidence of what direction he/she went.  I saw a few feathers  on the path I just had mowed leading towards the back of the property but that trail died out after maybe 25 yards. I was hoping if the coyote den was nearby Sadie and I would be able to hear/see something.  A few times I heard sounds that in my mind almost sounded like Cocoa although I knew that was just wishful thinking.

After striking out on foot I took my search to the air, bringing out my DJI Phantom.  I did big circles in the area around the back of our property, once again hoping to scare the coyotes out of their hiding place if it was nearby.  I carefully reviewed the 9 minute video looking for anything significant but once again saw nothing.

Last night we put the chickens back into their run earlier than normal as we read that if a coyote does hunt during daylight it is typically going to be closer to dawn or dusk.  We also plan to not let them out as early in the morning to again avoid additional opportunity for the coyote.

I spent some considerable time educating myself regarding electric fence options.  There are a lot of options and it seems most systems are designed to electrify fence lines MUCH longer than what we have.  There are also different fence energizer options.  Along with varying power (shock) levels, you can power them via AC power, a 12 volt battery, or even stand alone solar.

My initial assumption was the best place to put a hot wire would be across the top of the fence posts.  However in a situation where the animal is jumping a fence, if it hits the hot wire while not grounded it has no effect whatsoever.  I read about another configuration that may be more useful where you mount the hot wire about a foot off the ground on the outside of the fence.  The wire goes on insulators that hold the wire a few inches away from the fence.

Typically a predator like a wolf or coyote will pace back and forth by a fence line looking for it’s weakest point.  With this configuration the animal would get zapped before it even thinks about jumping which in many cases is enough to make it steer clear.  So I think for maximum protection a hot wire down low and across the top of the fence line would be best.

This morning I also made another addition to our non-lethal arsenal, buying a high powered, battery powered Airsoft gun.  It is a high end gun with semi and full automatic modes.  In full auto mode it can unload bb’s at a rate of nearly 10 per second traveling at 400-500 FPS.  It should be a very effective way to turn around any potential chicken predators if they show their face when either of us are around. Hopefully our efforts will be successful.  If we would lose more hens they might just have to be locked up for their own safety.

Cindy and I got to watch this week’s Game of Thrones last night.  Wow that was an INCREDIBLE episode featuring the death of a character that I was as happy to see bite the dust as when Geoffrey did.  It is just an epic show.  This weeks episode was as good as a full feature film.

So on Saturday morning I felt I needed to get the mower deck on the tractor put back together.  The grass was already at a shaggy state and in need of mowing.  I was a bit worried about doing the work with the stitches in my shoulder but most of the tension and pulling I felt in the area had faded by that point.

I had bought the stuff to replace the spindle and pulley on the other side of the deck as well.  I decided mid-repair to not bother doing the second pulley since it was was working just fine.  I had a number of challenges putting stuff back together, mostly due from a week passing from when I took it apart.  The time passed was enough for the details of how it all went together to become fuzzy.  Multiple times I pulled the SD card out and reviewed the week old video to remind me of what went where.

It took awhile but I finally got everything back together and functional.  Processing the video I shot of the repair was actually more problematic than the repair itself.  I had to make no less than 15 attempts over two days until I finally got the video ripped.  For some reason Camtasia was bombing out during the process and falsely reporting certain files as being corrupt.  I finally had to do a tag team process to get it produced, doing part of it in Camtasia and the last part in Movie Maker.

We did a run to Rural King Saturday morning even though it wasn’t really necessary.  It was an excuse to let Tank walk around the aisles and have fun.

Saturday afternoon I gave my repair an extensive test.  I decided to mow pretty much EVERYTHING, taking advantage of the lack of standing water on the property.  In addition to mowing the area around the house, I mowed the large back yard area including the parts of the property outside the fence line.  In total I was out there closing in on 4 hours, sort of crazy.  I did notice that my repair seemed to make a dramatic difference in mowing performance.  I have no idea how long the pulley was stripped but the end result of it would be the blade spinning at less than it’s intended speed which meant less cutting power.  I was able to rip through the high grass, in most cases not needing to make a second pass like I have been become accustomed to.

I was worried that I may have torn my stitches when I was moving the 200 and 300 pound tire out of the way to mow.  Both tires were heavier than normal due to the standing water laying in both of them.  Ironically the incident happened when I was trying to lift the lighter of the two tires.  I initially tried to lift the tire just with my right arm to protect the stitches on my left shoulder.  Well as I lifted the tire started to fall towards the left and I instinctively grabbed it with my left hand.  The moment I did I felt a pain and stretch in the incision area.  I was seriously worried I tore some of the stitches loose.  I was relieved when I looked in the mirror later and saw they all seemed to be intact.

Saturday night we stayed home and watched Everest, my latest Netflex rental.  It is a true story about a bad tragedy on Mount Everest where a number of climbers died after being trapped by a massive storm.  The movie did an incredible job of depicting just how harsh and unforgiving the conditions are on the mountain.  Why anyone would want to subject themselves to that sort of torture is beyond my sphere of logic.  Since it was a true story that means that happy endings are not guaranteed as in man-made story lines.  I did find it very difficult to hear some of the dialogue with the repeated scenes involving horrible weather.  It’s a B+ flick even without hearing everything.

On Sunday morning I wanted to get out and run, not wanting to lose the momentum I had from the prior week where I ran three times.  Cindy was feeling lousy after Tank kept her up pretty much all night with his placement in the bed.  I told her I would just go to the track and get a quick run in solo.  I was literally solo as nobody else was at the track the entire time I was there. I didn’t wear a watch but I felt like I ran at a similar pace as I have been in the mid to low 9’s.  By the time I was done with the 13 laps I was soaked from the humidity.  It felt good to get the mileage in although I didn’t feel particularly good doing it.

When I got back we headed out after I took a quick shower.  We stopped at Ali’s place to pick up Sadie who is staying with us for a couple weeks while Ali is away on a trip.  We brought Tank with.  He had a blast going through the four dog toy baskets pulling out as many toys as possible.

Since it was Father’s Day I was hoping to mostly take it easy during the day.  Of course I am not a father in the traditional sense but I am the closest thing the chickens, Tuki and Sadie have to a dad.  I was pretty successful, only doing a few chores during the day.  I bought myself a Father’s Day present at Home Depot later in the afternoon, a 20V DeWalt impact driver which should help me when high torque is necessary.

Last night we watched 13 Hours, the movie about Benghazi.  Perhaps I was just really poorly informed but I knew nothing about the attack on the secret CIA operation that was a mile from the embassy.  I also had no idea that soldiers from that operation were at the embassy beating back the initial attack.  The movie was an eye opener on several levels.

It is obvious that the embassy was woefully understaffed from a security standpoint.  I also didn’t understand why the “safe room” wasn’t all that safe.  That thing should have been air tight and bomb shelter tough.  The movie also depicted why it has to be maddening for soldiers to operate in the region.  There is no easy way to tell the bad guys from the good guys.  You never know if the guy smiling at you has a gun under his robe, ready to turn your lights out.

The movie was long, dramatic, and a sad reminder of the tragedy of war.  The lessons it teaches just never seem to be learned for long.  I give the movie a very somber A rating.

So this week the presidential primary season came to a close with Hilary winning the Washington DC primary.  Although Bernie has still not formally conceded it seems like he has committed to helping the democrats win the election as opposed to him running under a third party which would fragment the vote.

Bernie Sanders has accomplished an incredible amount during his presidential run, going from being an outsider that was an afterthought to the American public to a game changing candidate that generated the most excitement, the biggest crowds, and the biggest upsets.  The fact that he did all of this with grassroots fundraising that was 100% devoid of SUPER PAC mega-dollars such as what funds the Hilary Clinton battleship is amazing.

Regardless of you agreeing or disagreeing with some of his policy ideas, the one thing that you can’t dispute is his honesty and desire for the greater good.  I have never seen a candidate that I found to be more likeable or in politics for all the right reasons.  It would have been amazing if he would have been able to secure the nomination but old school politics and big money made that nearly impossible due to the corrupt super delegate system which makes absolutely no sense to me.

I can only hope that the support he generated turns on the light bulb for the political establishment.  I only wish he would have thrown his hat into the presidential ring a decade or two ago.  Even if Bernie would have won the nomination his odds of being able to implement many of his ideas would have gone nowhere unless somehow term limits in Congress were implemented to get the career politicians out of the way. Fresh ideas could actually be nurtured and flourish instead of being sprayed with Monsanto lobbied weed killer to die on the vine.

Somebody brought my attention to some false flag conspiracy regarding the Orlando shootings.  It revolves around a video clip of two men carrying a third guy with red shoes that has a bandana around his thigh covering a supposed gunshot wound.  Some websites went over this clip with a fine tooth comb, pointing out that the men were carrying the “injured” person towards the club and not away from it.  Another clip showed that once the two men thought they were no longer on camera they sat the “injured” man down and were laughing.

The point I seemed to be getting from this was the shooting was “staged” in order to build more support for gun control measures.  Or to further simplify, “Blame Obama!”.  I think there is a far more obvious and simple explanation.  These were three assholes that thought it would be funny to act like they were heroically carrying away an injured patron for the cameras.  In this social media addicted society, staging of things happens all the time with the intent of personal gain.  Calling it a “false flag” is pretty idiotic in my opinion.

This is not to say that there is not legitimate deception going on about the incident.  I have heard multiple accounts that there was at least two shooters involved and a third person blocking an exit door to maximize casualties.  Who knows if we will ever get the 100% truth.  In a related story, did you know for about $100 you can easily transform any AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon. Wow that’s neat.

Cindy and I played some more Overwatch last night.  She has found a new character that she likes to play, D. Va, a little tiny girl that controls a serious pink mech.  We played several team matches last night and had a lot of fun.  If you ever enjoyed first person shooters during your lifetime you NEED to try Overwatch.  It is such a good game.

Today out of the blue my coffee maker at work died.  For some odd reason I felt a small degree of loss in it’s passing.  When I bought the $10 small appliance over a decade ago I never expected it to last long enough to literally make me thousands of cups of coffee over the years.

I will be replacing it with an equally low budget Mr Coffee unit that will hopefully carry me through till retirement age.

This weekend I need to be a little conservative with my physical activity due to my stitches.  I still would like to try to get a run in and I really need to get the mower deck back in a functional state.  My box of replacement parts for it arrived yesterday.

I also received the mile marker signs I ordered for the timing business yesterday.  They will help add a degree of professionalism to events I am involved in as well as getting my branding out in front a lot of eyeballs.  Although I am not interested in aggressively pushing or growing the amount of race timing I am doing, the events I am involved with will get my best effort to make sure they are run well.

So I finished up my week of at home training Friday.  I was happy it ended up mid-afternoon, giving me a slightly longer weekend. During the day on Friday I got a head start on my weekend chores getting around the house to weed the property.  I wanted my weekend as open as possible although I knew that more than likely I would find a way to fill that time with more work.

Sadie, who we picked up Thursday night had a dog companion brought in the house when Cindy came home with Tank, her daughter’s dog.  Tank is a french bulldog.  He had surgery done to help alleviate problems that plague the breed with breathing and swallowing.  Cindy had offered for us to watch him for a couple days as the vet said it would be good if Tank was separated from their other dog as they like to roughhouse and play like most dogs do.  Tanks was supposed to keep “calm”.  Well that lasted all of 30 seconds.

You would have never known Tank had pretty serious surgery the day before.  Other than the spot on his front leg that was shaved for a catheter he seemed pretty much fine.  We were a bit concerned how Sadie and he would get along but it wasn’t much of an issue.  Sadie made sure to emphasize she was the main dog when it came to my attention and Tank was content emptying out dozens of dog toys from the basket.

Originally Cindy planned to have Tank sleep in his crate at night despite him normally sleeping in bed with her daughter when he is home.  I told Cindy he could stay in the bedroom with us although it was rather crowded until Sadie jumped down to sleep on the floor.  Tank does not sleep soundly, my last few nights of sleep have been interrupted on a regular basis.

On Saturday morning we thought it would be fun to take Sadie and Tank to our two dog friendly stomping grounds, Rural King and Home Depot. We brought a towel and let Tank cruise around in a cart while Sadie walked conventionally.  Tank seemed to enjoy the experience and other shoppers seemed to enjoy him.  French bulldogs are cute in a bizarre sort of way and garnish a lot of attention.

During Saturday afternoon I got out on the tractor and mowed the grass.  We are now getting to the time of year unfortunately where weekly mowing is required to keep the yard from looking ragged.  Originally we had plans to go see the Warcraft movie Saturday night but I suggested we postpone due to Tank being there and the fact that we had a Netflix disc in the envelope to watch.  Cindy endorsed the plan.

So this movie was Steve Jobs 2.0, where Michael Fasbender took a shot at portraying the tech legend after Aston Kutcher did the same a couple years prior.  I thought it odd that this movie picked up in the timeline pretty much where the first movie left off.  This film focused more on his relationship with his daughter but didn’t touch what I would think is the most interesting portion of his life, when the iWhatever devices started and the degradation of his health.  I think Fasbender is a better actor and did a better job, no pun intended, but the narrow focus on 15 years of his life just seemed odd to me.  I wonder if any Steve Jobs film in the future will try to portray his entire life instead of just portions of it.  I’d give the movie a B, a decent rental.

On Sunday morning Cindy was not feeling like running in the humidity.  I jumped on the treadmill and did 3 miles at nominal pace.  It’s not as effective as being out on the open road but better than skipping a run altogether.  We made a return trip to Home Depot with the dogs, this time in the Tacoma.  We tried to dog proof the cab the best we could.  We already have seat covers up front.  We draped the old SSR seat covers over the rear jump seats where Cindy and Tank sat.  We also had a large towel along for more protection coverage.  Tank seemed very happy to ride in the truck.  The back window was a perfect size for him to see the world.

We took the truck because I was buying construction materials for another project.   After installing the Rachio I decided I’d like to get some sort of additional shelter over the box and the water cleaning equipment that resides there.  I envisioned a simple design, somewhat similar to what I did for chicken run using high durability corrugated pvc panels.  I plan to attach a 2×4 high on the wall and support the front of the “roof” with two 4×4’s that are screwed into the concrete.  At first I had ideas about doing the project during the day but the oppressive heat and humidity put an end to that plan.

Instead I decided to take on another project which I envisioned as pretty simple, replacing one of the blade spindles on the mower deck.  Last week the one spindles felt like it’s bearings were going bad so I thought I would be proactive and replace it.  Despite owning the Craftsman tractor for somewhere around 5 years I have never had the mower deck off yet.  I am able to change blades without pulling the deck but replacing the spindle required deck removal.  Getting the deck out was not too bad, it’s mainly just pulling out about a half dozen cotter pins.

When I was unbolting the old spindle two of the four bolts securing it snapped on removal.  I was glad I followed the advice I received online and ordered four new bolts along with the spindle.  So after some grunting and groaning I got the new spindle on but noticed odd behavior.  Despite my having the bolt on the pulley that is attached to the spindle cranked down as hard as I could manage, the blade was spinning independently of the pulley.

After a few minutes of head scratching I figured out what actually happened.  If you look at the image of the pulley to the left you will see the hole in the center has groves that slide over the center spline in the spindle.  When I looked at the old spindle I saw the spline had been stripped and presumable the pulley had the same damage.  I’m not 100% sure how it happened but I suspect it had to do with the way I was changing the blades.  Instead of blocking the blade movement with a block of wood I would do it by having a wrench/socket on both the blade nut and the pulley nut.  I think I may have accidentally stripped it using that technique.

I was frustrated that once again a job I thought would be simple had now grown into something more aggravating.  I went online and ordered not only a new pulley but the parts to redo the other side as well as a new drive belt.  I figured while I have the deck off the tractor I may as well do both sides of the blade drive train equally.

Cindy and I decided to go and catch Warcraft as a matinee late Sunday afternoon.  As long as I have been waiting to see the movie, not getting out on opening weekend would have been a minor letdown.  The movie has been the victim of a lot of “me too” negativity, something very common nowadays.  People love to jump on the negativity bandwagon with films.  Batman versus Superman was a recent example of this, a movie that certainly was far from perfect but not at all deserving of the heaps of shit that was piled on it.

Warcraft had a bunch of negative reviews from people very quick to dismiss it as another bad video game based movie.  I, as a long time World of Warcraft player and fan, was very interested in seeing what the 160 million dollar film could do to depict the world I have experienced virtually for so long.  I have to say that I found myself swimming upstream from the current of bad feedback on the film.

Visually I thought the movie did an amazing job of bringing the up till now virtual world to life.  They obviously paid a ton of attention to detail.  The story line of the movie actually is prior to the story the game started at so even with all of my experience I was not familiar with the details.  I heard that the movie script has some major departures from official lore in the Warcraft books but I didn’t really care.

I think people that play the game had a major advantage as patrons of the film as a lot of the back story on the characters was already filled in for us.  I can totally see how somebody that was new to the Warcraft scene would have a hard time following what was going on 100%.  The two hours of the film was not nearly long enough to get someone up to speed on the deep and involved story.  Even so I think it was entertaining and interesting.  Cindy, who only knows a little bit about the game, mostly from watching me, really liked the movie.  The movie was far from perfect but I was not disappointed.  As a Warcraft player I give it an A, for the average Joe that is into sci-fi, Lord of the Rings type story I’d still go B+.

Shortly after we got home last night the skies opened up accompanied by a ferocious lighting and thunder storm which shook the house repeatedly. Both dogs were scared and looking for comfort as the strikes rained down.  I was glad I got the grass mowed the day before.

So of course I saw the news about the latest mass shooting at a gay dance club in Orlando.  The 50 total casualties set a dark and disgusting record as the largest mass shooting in American history.  There is sure to be a lot of blowback as the man that committed the murders was evidently the subject of two FBI investigations yet somehow landed a job as a security guard and was able to legally buy the assault rifle used in the attack.  I’m not quite sure how that is possible but it points a bright burning light on the just how screwed up the system is.

The shooting has of course fired up all sorts of ancillary debates some of which never really seem to lead anywhere like banning assault rifle sales.  I have yet to hear a reason why an individual needs to own an assault rifle that makes any sense.  This tragedy fans the flames on multiple fronts, the gun debate, gay bigotry, and muslim hatred.  There have been so many mass shooting tragedies the last decade yet none of it has lead to any substantial change in gun policies or enforcement of existing laws.  It’s gotten to the point where I almost have shoulder shrug response to it all.  Here we go again, mass shooting, outrage, calls for change on the left, calls for “they are coming for our guns” from the right and nothing ultimately changes.

If the country as a whole can not get behind finally doing something to make a discernible effort to at least making it more difficult for these type of situations to occur in the future we should be ashamed to be ashamed in words alone. Words without action mean next to nothing.  I am not sure what sort of tragedy it will ultimately take until some degree of change can finally be seen as reasonable by enough people to make it happen.  Hopefully the world doesn’t burn to the ground before that day finally comes.