Category Home Improvements

Saturday morning it was cool outside, a forecast that looks to be the case for most of the upcoming week.  In the morning we went out to run errands.  Most of what we needed was picked up at Rural King including bird seed, top soil, and a few more odds and ends. After eating lunch I felt adequately ambitious enough to finally take on the brake shoe replacement on the rear drum brakes on the Tacoma.

I have had the new shoes at home for a couple weeks but I was in no rush to tackle the job.  I worked on the drum brakes of my Mom’s Rav 4 years ago and it didn’t go well.  I didn’t pay enough attention when taking them apart and as a result had a hell of a time getting everything back together correctly. The rear brakes on the Tacoma had not been touched for years and years.  I bet 100k miles have ticked by since they last received attention.

Recently the brake warning light on the dash has been coming on periodically and the pedal seemed to not be grabbing until it traveled a short distance, both indicators to me that the brake shoes on the back were probably ready to get replaced.  Of course I intended to video the entire job as my automotive maintenance videos are among my most popular on YouTube.  People seem to like my honestly amateur approach to the work where I am not afraid to show mistakes I make along the way so others can learn from them.

I took provisions this time to make sure I had adequate visual references.  I pulled the drums from both rear wheels so I could always refer to the other side if need be, even though it is reversed.  I also took close up pictures of each drum brake assembly to further assist me.  While this is helpful, there are parts of drum brakes that are not clearly visible when everything is put together.  Those aspects just needed to be mentally observed and noted.  As I started tearing down the driver side wheel I laid out the parts I removed on the ground roughly in their position in the brakes to further assist me in the reassembly process.

The most difficult part of getting the brake shoes off is the main long tension spring.  I used a combination of a flat head screw driver and my locking needle nose vise grip pliers to brute force the spring out of it’s mounting point.  Once it was removed the rest of the parts come off pretty easily.  The first thing I noticed on the old pads was they had more brake material on them than I expected.  After all they had been on the truck forever.  When I looked at them more closely later it appeared the pads were glazed over pretty badly which results in poor stopping power.

So once I got old shoes off I pulled out the new brake shoes I ordered online from AutoZone.  I immediately spotted a big problem, literally.  The brake shoes I just removed were much larger than the new ones I pulled out of the box.  Apparently I was sent shoes that are for non Pre-Runner Tacomas which are approximately 8 inches in length.  Pre Runners use shoes that are a little over 11 inches long.  My reaction when I see this was caught on tape and is pretty funny.

So I had no choice but to drive to the nearest AutoZone and swap out the pads.  I was worried they would not have them in stock.  Fortunately luck was on my side.  Not only did they have the pads, they were a couple bucks cheaper for some reason, despite their larger dimensions.  I headed back home with the proper part, eager to complete the project.

The 90 or so minutes it took to get the new shoes resulted in a few hiccups when I was putting stuff back together as I forgot how a spring on the back of the one shoe was positioned.  After some trial and error I got it figured out.  Getting the brakes back together was a bit of a grind, the biggest issues of course being reattaching the high tension springs which again I mostly used the vise grips to perform.  Tearing down and replacing the shoes on the passenger side went much faster after cutting my teeth on the driver side.

Drum brakes have a self adjusting mechanism.  Basically when you go in reverse with the brakes applied it is supposed to keep the brakes adjusted.  Normally you are supposed to manually adjust the shoes when you replace them so the clearance is tight and allow the self adjuster to take over from there.  In my case I only manually adjusted the brakes a little bit, hoping the self adjuster would take out any remaining slop.

I spent a couple minutes in the driveway pulling forward and backward to hopefully let the self adjuster do it’s thing.  However when I took the truck on the road in a steady rain I still felt too much pedal travel so I pulled it back into the garage.  I jacked up the rear end of the truck once again and slid underneath the wet and dripping undercarriage.  On the back of the brake assembly is a small adjustment hole covered by a rubber plug.   It gives access to the brake adjuster, you basically spin it with a small screw driver.

By this time it was dark outside so I was awkwardly trying to hold a shop light while I spun the adjuster.  Basically I spun the wheel, adjusted the gear and then spun it again.  I repeated this till I got just a little bit of resistance on the wheel.  On the next road test the brakes felt tons better, the best they have felt in years.  Sure in total I spent something like 5 hours (including drive for parts) getting the job done but it is another chapter in my growing book of successful automotive tasks.  If you have a half hour to kill you can watch the whole ordeal below.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I wanted to get out to do a run to help negate in at least to a small degree the caloric hit we were sure to take from the Super Bowl party.  I came up with the idea of running the loop down around King’s Lake, an area I ran years ago when Ali and I started running down here.  I knew the loop was somewhere close to 3 miles.  The temps were quite chilly in the 50’s with wind which I actually prefer to running in 85 degrees with 85% humidity.   The run was scenic and done at relatively slow pace but I didn’t really care.  It worked out to be a 1/4 mile short of 3 miles which was good enough for me.

We got home just shortly after Katie and her boyfriend picked up the second of my old furniture pieces.  It was the bigger sofa piece which had been sitting in the garage for the last few days.  I have been liking our new set from Rooms to Go but only time will tell how directly the correlation between it’s relatively low price and durability will work out.

Once we got home we got busy plowing into party prep.  While Cindy was inside I was outside trying to get the back yard in order.  The chickens have been on another hole digging kick recently, excavating a number of holes in the small hill by the pool border on the door side of the cage.  I bought top soil and a roll of green plastic chicken fencing to stop the behavior.  After back filling the holes I cut the fencing to length and laid it on top of the area, pinned down by heavy patio stones on either side.  It surely is not what I would prefer the hill would look like but it’s better than being filled with chicken created potholes.  I really wish we could come up with a way to permanently keep the chickens out of the pool border, they just make a mess of it.  When I see them digging around there I often will go set the sprinklers to fire off in the border to scare them off. Of course it works for a time being but in order for it to be effective we need to be more consistent so their little chicken brains associate digging in that area with getting wet.

Besides taking a brief time out for lunch Cindy and I were busy pretty much right up to the arrival of the first party guest between 5 and 5:30.  There are just so many moving parts to hosting a party for almost 20 people.  Almost everybody showed up that we expected and they did so before kick off.  In the past we had some people screw around in the back yard before the game but the cold and blustery conditions curtailed that this year besides taking a few people out back to say hi to the chickens, since they are a new addition since last year.

At the party’s peak the great room/kitchen area was packed.  In addition to the two sofas we had our portable ottomans, dining room chairs, two bean bags and a couple large floor pillows in use to provide adequate seating arrangements.  There were so many people it was difficult to hear much of what was going out of the surround system, despite me having the volume cranked pretty high.  Between the noise and Cindy and I attending to party needs we got to focus very little on the game during the first half.

One of my main concerns was managing the betting board, making sure bets like first penalty, first td, first coaches challenge, etc… were all documented properly so the winners of each bet could be identified. After half time there was a mass exodus of people as most individuals were not as fortunate as I was to have taken off Monday from work to recover.  For most the second half of the game we only had maybe a half dozen people hanging with us so I got to pay more attention to the game itself.

Of course one of my core activities during the game was drinking.  I bet in total I knocked down somewhere between 7 to 9 Miller Lites.  Of course the generous consumption of alcohol lead to me consuming obscene amounts of food.  I sampled pretty much everything in the huge spread at least once with multiple trips to several items throughout the night. It was pure gluttony.

I was happy with the outcome of the game as I was really pulling for Peyton Manning to get a Super Bowl win to close out his spectacular career.  Peyton was really a minor player in the victory, it was the Denver defense that really controlled the game, battering Cam Newton from start to finish.  It reminded me of the way the Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl teams felt.

Cam got chastised after the game for not diving on a loose ball after it got knocked out of his hand.  To me I think the criticism  is a bit overblown.  If you watch the play it seems to me Cam stopped himself from diving because he saw his offensive lineman already mid-dive in front of him.  Diving on top of your own player in a loose ball scenario rarely helps matters but evidently for appearance sake, the media thinks otherwise.

I was surprised to hear the negative backlash about the Super Bowl halftime show.  It was basically crucified but perhaps it was in a way similar to the Cam Newton thing.  Once a negative opinion gets legs  people love to pile on.  I am personally a Cold Play fan and even though I didn’t think there was anything spectacular about the halftime show I thought it was entertaining and well produced.  Apparently I am in the minority.

After the last people left Cindy and I dug into clean up duties, trying to get as much as we could done before retiring to bed.  As you can imagine there is all sorts of collateral damage when you have that many people jammed into a living space.  By the time we collapsed in bed closing in on midnight we were both exhausted.

On Monday we both hoped to have a good portion of chill time available.  Somehow it didn’t work out that way.  I rolled out of bed feeling hungover but not horribly so.  I slowly worked on breaking down the table we had in the great room to house drinks.  I then worked on emptying the coolers which included giving away large amounts of beer to two of our neighbors.  The Miller Lites I have left in the fridge would probably satisfy my drinking needs for the next 6 months or more.

We headed out to get some coffee and hit the bank.  Once we got back I had it in my head I wanted to set up my recently refurbished inflatable arch.  You may recall I sent it down to a place in Texas for them to replace some sections and rebrand it for Green Machine Timing.  Even though I saw a picture of it inflated down in Texas I had not blown it up myself since getting it back.  I am going to be renting the arch in a couple weeks for a race so I figured it would be a good idea to blow it up as practice and to see the refurbish work.

Cindy helped me get the arch up.  We both liked the new look of the arch with the new black/green color scheme with the GMT badging across the top and both legs.  I decided I wanted to pull out all of my race gear and take a few pictures that I can use on my web site to help promote both my timing services and equipment rental.  Right now I only have the stuff needed to time a small event.  My further acquisition of stuff will depend on how things progress.  I am certainly in no rush to rapidly expand my workload as for the near future I would like to enjoy not having anything race timing related to worry about or focus on.

Somehow despite our noble intentions to chill out a good portion of the day we instead kept busy for the majority of it.  I needed to tend to the automatic chicken door once again.  It was in the down position Monday morning instead of opening up at 6AM as it is supposed to.  I found out the fishing line we used to fix the door last time had snapped.  I went to the local hardware store and bought some more robust braided string to use this time around.  I think it will hold up much better.

I also gathered up all of my tax paperwork to submit to my accountant during the afternoon.  I am expecting a less exciting than normal tax refund this year because of more race timing revenue, $1000 in Google Ad dollars combined with my cashing out the dependent IRA I received as part of my mom’s estate to pay for the flooring upgrade.   I am hoping some of the additional race timing expenses I had during the year will help even things out at least a little bit.  I guess as long as I don’t have to pay in any taxes it is a win although for the last 15 years I have counted on my tax refund as an indirect savings plan that is normally used for some home improvement task/item.  Hopefully that streak does not end this year.

I had a horrible night of sleep last night, waking up first at 1AM and then rolling around restlessly for at least a couple hours.  It’s frustrating and a negative on my overall well being obviously. Despite the poor sleep, all in all it was a productive/fun 3 day weekend.  The best news is I get another one in four short days. 😉

So the Rooms to Go delivery truck showed up nice and early yesterday.  I knew about it almost the same time as Cindy did thanks to my notification from the Ring doorbell.  I watched the two delivery guys wheel both pieces up to the door.  The top half of each seat gets put together once the furniture is inside the house.  As the guys were doing that the driver noticed this gap between two of the seats.

He flipped the couch forward and immediately found the cause of the gap, the frame in that area was bent.  Apparently at some point the sofa was subjected to an impact.  The delivery guys said it was no problem, they would leave the sofa for now and deliver a new, straight one tomorrow.

I wish I could say I was surprised.   My bedroom furniture was bought from Rooms to Go some 14-15 years ago.  I had multiple pieces damaged upon delivery back then.  I also have heard similar stories from friends that bought from RTG.  For some reason they have a hard time getting stuff in the door that is not damaged.

So anyway a supervisor was supposed to call back Cindy to confirm the delivery of the replacement sofa.  That call turned into a bit of a circus as Cindy had to deal with multiple people, one of which almost pointed the finger of blame at Cindy, asking her why they left the damaged piece.  Eventually Cindy got a confirmation that a new sofa is supposed to arrive today.  She is hoping to score a delivery credit from RTG for the inconvenience of having to rope off two days to allow for delivery a second time.

Despite the damage, the new sofa and love seat look very nice in the great room, a much better compliment to the upgraded flooring we installed last year.  The dark brown contrasts nicely with light color on the walls.  Last night we did further testing how the sofa worked for our typical dinner/dvr activities.  It was comfortable and much more supportive than the well worn set it was replacing.

This weekend I get to enjoy three days off work.  I took a vacation day, something I have found is worthwhile after hosting a Super Bowl party.  Of course I plan to put the extra time to good use.  I have a list of winter projects that have not been getting crossed off as quickly as I would like due to the f’d up weather and other circumstances.  What is even cooler is I have ANOTHER three day weekend next week thanks to President’s Day, awesome.

This morning before work we did some shuffling around to prepare for the new sofa and love seat that is arriving today.  The first prep was to remove the retractable screen door hardware by the front door as it can cause tripping and clearance problems.   Second Cindy and I lugged the old sofa out to the garage so it was out of the way yet still available to be picked up by Cindy’s daughter.  The sofa was heavy and unwieldy, I felt badly having Cindy carry the one end of it.  We used the furniture sliders to get it to the front door and then brute force carried it out to the garage.

Cindy and I started watching the new OJ series on FX last night.  It has a star studded cast and based on episode one is going to be a pretty interesting series.  Of course most of us remember the OJ murder trial well, even though it went down 22 years ago at this point, which seems hard to believe.  If episode one is an indicator,  there is going to be a lot of detail about the murders that the general public may not have been aware of.  Set your DVR.

So when I got separated Ali took the sleeper sofa and oversized leather chair we had in the great room.  I wound up replacing it with a used sofa and love seat I bought from Craigslist for a whopping $200.  The set was well used and had some warts but I have been fond of it regardless as it was pretty much the first thing I bought once I embarked into post marriage life.  I have always had intentions to eventually replace the Craigslist sofas but I just haven’t pulled the trigger, until yesterday.

Cindy had mentioned how she saw some good sales on Rooms to Go sofa pairs over the weekend.  Yesterday she stopped in at the local store and checked one of them out, sending me the picture on the left.  Well seeing her happy face while reclining on the sofa was enough to trigger an impulse buy.  I told her to buy it, saying it would be nice to have the new set for our Super Bowl party we are hosting this weekend.

By the time I got home one of the two old sofas was already out of the house, Cindy’s daughter was happy to take possession of the old stuff.  She will come get the bigger sofa hopefully today.  It seemed weird to have the sudden change in seating arrangements, something that was not even in the ballpark of my intentions 24 hours earlier. The new stuff is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow.  It will be nice to have some decent furniture that will be a better fit for the massive flooring upgrades we completed last year.

Timing-wise the purchase is not ideal.  The past several months I have spent a bunch of dough.  Cindy’s daughter’s boyfriends car is getting the door fixed that I backed into as we speak and I have another potential 4 digit expenditure that is on the horizon as well.  Luckily my income will allow me to stabilize things if I can get through a couple months of normal spending.  Lately it just seems like the normal up and downstream flow of dollars has been consistently in the downward direction.

The extreme standing water we had yesterday morning only accumulated throughout the day, bolstered by the unrelenting storms.  When I got home the visual was pretty unbelievable.  It was the most standing water I have EVER seen on the property outside of a tropical storm or hurricane.  The fact that it was the end of January seemed surreal.  This just doesn’t happen.

There was just a ridiculous amount of water in the front and back yards.  The chickens of course were soaked but didn’t seem to care all that much.  The big shed that they often like to hang under was totally flooded out underneath.  The standing water seems to be wreaking havoc with my internet connectivity in the coop.  Although the coop has power it seems like the buried, ground rated ethernet cable isn’t getting very strong signal out to the back yard, making some of my tech out there malfunction. I drove to work today in a steady light rain and I saw a chance of showers still in the forecast for tomorrow.  Please, make it stop.

Warning a couple paragraphs of WoW talk follow.

A little while ago WoW introduced something called Timewalking Dungeons.  They are basically a way for current players to play old 5 man dungeons that have been part of the 11 years of WoW’s existence.  Last night I did one of them from the Cataclysm expansion which was something like 4-5 years ago at this point.  I ran it as the “tank” aka. the guy that leads the group and tries to get all the bad things to attack him.

Despite not setting foot in this dungeon for approaching a half decade somehow “muscle memory” kicked in and I was able to know exactly where to go and what to do as a result of running through this dungeon dozens upon dozens of times when it was current content.  It almost felt similar to how I feel when I am back in the Reading area, still able to more or less get around despite not living in town for over 15 years.  It just felt weird in a good way.  Anyone that has played WoW and only someone that has played MMORPG’s like WoW will understand that playing these games is literally like living in a different world, complete with it’s own set of road maps, hot spots and rules.

So you may recall a week or two ago I mentioned how Cindy was getting a heavy metals blood test based on some health issues I heard Howard talking about on his show.  It turned out his fish heavy diet had resulted in him having high mercury levels.  Cindy has been having a lot of issues that most people would quickly write off as just the side effect of getting older.  However our diet was very heavily seafood based with us having seafood for dinner 5-6 times a week and possibly a couple more times on the weekend in the form of a tuna wrap for lunch.

Well after a long wait the test results came back earlier this week, Cindy’s levels were indeed high.  The test results are going to result in a change of our diet where the majority of our protein will come from plant based sources instead of seafood.  Fish is ok to eat in moderation and there are certain types of fish that are much more prone to high mercury levels than others.  However in our case we need to take steps to remove the heavy metals in our bodies that become embedded in many organs which causes a myriad of problems.  Over time the metal leaves your body through body fluids but it is a good idea to kick start the process as much as possible.

I already assume my heavy metal number is elevated as well since for the most part I eat whatever Cindy eats although perhaps because of my larger dimensions I am affected to a lower level.  I do have memory issues at times and my eyesight has definitely gone downhill dramatically since seafood became my main animal based protein.  It will be interesting to see how the next few months go as we try to “get the lead out”.

This has been the oddest winter weather I have ever experienced since moving to Florida.  At first it was like there was no winter at all with highs near 90 degrees for extended periods of time.  Recently we have been having summer-like storms as well including the storm last weekend that cancelled the half marathon. Last Friday’s storm was bad enough that it actually placed standing water on our property, something that has NEVER happened in January.  Usually this is the the heart of the dry season where the time between precipitation is measured in weeks or even months. On Saturday we had extreme amounts of wind as a cold front blew through with some gusts topping 50 mph.

Of course our weather didn’t hold a candle to the massive snowstorm that pounded the northeast.  I saw pictures from my old stomping grounds in PA with snow 2 1/2 feet deep with drifts much, much higher.  I was also shocked at the pictures of many of the Jersey/Delaware shore areas I used to vacation in under water from terrible flooding. Despite the bad weather we have been experiencing locally, pictures from the NE this weekend make me feel quite glad to be 1200 miles south.

We picked up Sadie for a weekend visit after an errand run that included stops at Home Depot, Rural King, and Pet Supermarket.  While we were at Rural King we saw they got a new shipment of baby chicks.  I joked around with Cindy about picking up a couple Sicilian Buttercup chicks that looked particularly cute.  We could accommodate a couple more birds if we had to but I hate to mess what seems to be a pretty good balance with our chicken family now.  I also think we are forgetting just how much maintenance the chicks required while they were in the house.

When we got home I decided to finally rip into the Tacoma which has been sitting in the driveway all week.  I had my new set of plugs and wires that I ordered on Amazon.  The winds had not only continued but intensified at that point.  My tools and supplies were blowing around everywhere.  The hat I was wearing got thrown in the garage after it blew off my head four times.

The first step was to gap the 6 new plugs.  Since the Tacoma uses dual electrode style plugs gapping them takes twice as long as normal.  I then got under the hood and got busy.  My plan was to do one wire and the two corresponding plugs as a set to make sure I don’t get any coil/wire connections screwed up.

Normally any automotive project I do I will film as they are some of my most viewed entries on my YouTube channel.  Unfortunately with the amount of wind going on I knew it would be pointless as either you wouldn’t be able to hear me or the camera would get trashed from blowing over.

The plugs on the passenger side are easy to get to.  Once you remove the intake rubber tube there is nothing in your way. The driver side is much more annoying because the intake plenum looms above the plugs.  I ran into various problems with the driver side plug/wire removal.  I had to use my long extensions with a swivel attachment to get on the plugs.  Plug six, in the right rear of the engine compartment was especially tough to get swapped out for a couple reasons.

I had mentioned last week the entire reason I went down the plug/wire path to address my cylinder 4 misfire was I discovered the terminal in that wire was falling apart.  Well when I pulled the wire for cylinder 6 once again the insulating boot stayed down in the hole, requiring another tedious fishing session with my hooked small wire so I could pull it out.  I am really disappointed with the quality of these Duralast wires that I bought from Autozone,  I installed them maybe three years ago.  To have two of the three wires fall apart already was very aggravating.  I have used Duralast parts for many other repairs and have had good luck.  I won’t be getting their plug wires ever again, that is for sure.

I also had an issue with my spark plug sockets.  I had two 5/8″ sockets, one from my big socket set and an Autozone socket.  I had different problems with each.  The one socket had a loose rubber boot that is used to keep the plug in place as you stick it back in the hole.  The end result was after I would get done torquing the plug back in the socket would come back up sans rubber boot, it was stuck on the plug terminal.  So I had to jam the socket back on, back out the plug and try again.  The Autozone socket had a maddening precise fit, making it very difficult to get the spark plug securely inserted.  In total between the two socket issues I bet I wasted another 20 minutes of futzing around.

So finally I had all six plugs and three wire sets replaced.  I hopped back in the truck and turned the key, hoping to hear the engine roar to life.  Instead it fired up for a split second and then shut down.  I was not happy.  I jumped out and did a quick survey under the hood, hoping I just forgot to reconnect something.  Luckily I quickly spotted a coil connector on cylinder 5 that I forgot to snap back in.  After clicking it together the truck fired back up and sounded normal.

Now last week during my testing the truck also sounded normal briefly until I got it out on the road so I knew I was not in the clear yet.   I took the truck east on Immokalee Road and was encouraged that I did not feel the chugging engine the truck had when the misfire was present.  In total I did a 10 mile test and the Tacoma passed with flying colors.  I drove it a few more times over the weekend and to work today without a problem so I feel confident declaring the issue as fixed.  I feel very fortunate that the simpler solution fixed the problem this time.  Replacing fuel injectors would have been a much, much larger pain in the ass.

On Saturday night we decided to stay home and plow through the remainder of the Making a Murderer.  If you are looking for a happy ending out of this documentary, look elsewhere.  The story is such a bizarre collection of situations all cross contaminating the other.  The theme of the documentary is basically how Steven and his nephew Brendan are unjustly in prison for a crime they did not commit, largely in part to shady activity by the local police department.  Although Steven’s guilt or innocence is a bit foggy, it is crystal clear that Brendan had nothing to do with the crime, yet he is in prison until the year 2048 at the earliest.

My friend Cheryl found this well thought out explanation that does a good job of unwinding the various evidence and points the finger in a direction not really touched on in the documentary.  After you watch the series, read this explanation.  It makes a lot of sense and connects a lot of dots.

We woke up Sunday morning to some cold for Florida temperatures in the upper 40’s.  We decided to go out and do a short run, something I have note done for at least a couple of months for a myriad of reasons.  Our goal was a simple two miles around the middle school track.  I really like running in colder temperatures, I just feel better.  Cindy does not, the cold air can make her lungs feel like they are closing up.

Despite the cold Cindy was actually the pace setter, I constantly was a stride or two behind her, working to keep up.  I was surprised when Cindy said we averaged right around 9 minute mile pace, 30-45 seconds per mile faster than what we were carrying for a normal pace for most of our runs in 2015.  Of course it was only two miles of running but still it felt like a minor accomplishment.

I added two more pieces of tech to the chicken coop on Sunday.  The first thing was adding a Ring doorbell to the front of the run.  It allows us to take advantage of the coop based wi-fi network to monitor back yard motion and do two way communication if one of us is in the house and the other in the yard.  Is it overkill? Yes.

The other addition was another WeMo smart outlet that is used to control the LED light in the coop.  The light is used at dusk to provide light in the coop so the hens can get themselves situated on their perch.  Since the chickens like to push their bedtime right until the edge of darkness, without light in the coop they would be nearly blind in there.

With the WeMo switch I now have the light on a precisely controlled time cycle that is controlled by my phone.  I can use the phone to also turn the light on and off whenever I chose from anywhere I have internet service.  Plus the coolest thing of all is we can control the light with our voice via the Amazon Echo.  A simple, “Alexa, turn on/off the coop” gets the job done.

Early Sunday afternoon I was debating if I wanted to tackle the rear brakes on the Tacoma.  I really hate taking on an automotive project on a Sunday.  I decided to be productive in another way, hopping on the tractor (after jump starting it with the Tacoma), and mowed the front and back yard.  Nearly a month of no mowing with ample precipitation had left areas looking somewhat ratty.  A couple hours later things were looking much more uniform.

I got to catch a good amount of the Patriots/Broncos game.  It was what you would hope out of a conference championship.  Although I was pulling for the Broncos for Peyton Manning’s sake, there was no denying just how great Tom Brady and Gronkowski are.  Brady got hit CONSTANTLY the entire game yet somehow managed to convert on a do or die 4th down situation twice to put the Patriots in the position to tie the game with time running out.  Only a deflected pass on the two point attempt halted the epic comeback attempt.  It was a hell of a game.  The Panthers/Cardinals game was a different story with Carolina winning in a blow out.  The Carolina offense versus the Denver defense should make for an interesting Super Bowl.

This week I begin my final week of preparations as the running club timer.  To have the finish line so close is intoxicating.  To have it all wind up with the race Ali started in Nicki’s honor seems fitting as well.  By this time next week this chapter in my life will be written and I can move on to whatever comes next.

So with the bad forecast for the half marathon I came up with an idea on Friday to make timing in stormy weather more feasible, rent a box truck.  I secured a 16 foot truck for $35 a day and 99 cents per mile, far less than I expected.  With that size I would have plenty of room to set up two or three tables loaded up with the computer equipment used for race timing.  The only thing that would be left outside would be the timing boxes themselves which are able to be operated with their lids closed, making them pretty weather resistant.  I picked up the truck on Saturday after getting permission from the running club to do so.

When I rented the truck I had a funny interaction with the guy that ran the office.  When I walked in he had a gamer headset on and he appeared somewhat annoyed I interrupted him.  After I took a look at the monster PC he had on the desk which I immediately recognized as a gaming rig I asked him questions about it, letting him know my computer background.  Once he knew he was talking to a fellow computer geek the conversation flowed.  He told me about the specs of his big full tower box that he built himself which were impressive.

We exchanged stories of our gaming experience.  I found out he was an old WoW player and a quite high level one at that.  He played the game the first three years it was out.  I told him I have been plugging away for a solid 10 years.  In addition to completing the paperwork for the rental he took the time to show me some details of Fallout 4, which is what he was playing when I walked in the door.  It was a geeky interaction out of nowhere that I appreciated.

On Friday after work I went over to the running store where I stayed until packet pick up wound up at 7PM.  I worked on getting current with any entries that came in during the day. On Saturday afternoon I headed back down there to do the same.

Now of course the potential for bad weather was on everyone’s mind.  The weather forecast for Sunday was consistently bad but the time frame seemed to be shifting around.  Unfortunately it seemed like the worst weather was forecast to hit during the time everything would be set up.  The plan was to show up as normal and if the weather conditions were really bad we could slide the race start time back to accommodate it.  Cindy and I used the 16 foot truck to hold most of the stuff which was a good thing since I had the most equipment I ever used at a race with four timing systems and 24 one meter mats.  We went to bed early, hoping to compensate for the 3AM alarm I had set for Sunday morning. Unfortunately I wound up waking  up somewhere around 1AM and not really falling asleep afterward.  During my tossing and turning I heard several bursts of storm activity outside.

When we got up I immediately looked at the latest weather conditions.  I was not happy to see a tornado watch had been put in place that ran until 8AM.  I called the race director who was already in the process of setting up the course just to let him know about the watch and suggest we wait until that watch clears to start the race which was scheduled for a 7AM start. Cindy and I pulled out our race caravan with me leading in the box truck and Cindy following in the Tacoma.

On the way to the race I got a message that they were officially postponing the start until 8 to give the weather a chance to clear, a good move.  When we got there the roads were wet but it wasn’t raining and the wind was minimal.  However when I looked at the radar before leaving home I saw Naples looked to be on the tail end of a long line of storms that was moving northeast very rapidly.  It was not a matter of if the storm was going to hit but when.

Cindy and I started working on setting up stuff.  We dumped the timing gear at the start and finish lines.  I parked the big truck in position by the finish line and set up tables inside of it.  I looked at my temporary timing shelter with a weird sense of pride for coming up with a way to get the job done despite the very challenging weather conditions.  We started setting up the registration area over by the bank under a covered parking area that we hoped would provide shelter if the storm got really bad.  With the one hour delay we suddenly had a much longer window to get everything set up.

So Chris, who was there to help me do data entry had his iPad along.  On it he had the live radar view on loop which showed the line of red was almost on us.  The wind started to pick up along with the rain so the group of us around the registration area took cover.  As the wind and rain picked up it started blowing in so we quickly pulled all the tables and computer equipment that I already had set up back as far as we could to minimize it’s exposure to the elements.

The storm was bad but didn’t seem like anything beyond a typical Florida summer thunderstorm, until it wasn’t.  All of a sudden there was a few minutes where the wind ratcheted up to an entirely new level.  The huge flag that hangs over Cambier Park sounded like it was ready to be ripped from the pole.  I stood up and leaned on the huge, heavy wood tables in front of me for fear they could actually be blown around.  The sound of the wind, which was reported to be 80+ mph,  was dangerous.

So we all huddled underneath the overhang for around 15-20 minutes while the worst of the storm blew through.  I honestly felt a bit exposed there and had my eyes scanning for any flying debris that could come our way.  We took a look at the race banner hanging over the start line in the street.  We saw a mangled mess as one of the tether lines snapped from the force.  When things started to die down we did a brief survey of our immediate area and things seemed more or less intact with just some palm fronds down at various spots.

Just as we were getting ready to start drying stuff off and resume preparations we got word from the volunteer coordinator that the race was now cancelled.  Evidently there was much more extensive damage on the course with not just branches but entire trees down, severe flooding and even power lines down.  There was no way the event could take place with those sort of hazards on the course.  Later we were told that this storm had the characteristics of something called a “meteotsunami”, which very quickly and dramatically pushed a wall of water from the gulf on shore which caused the flooding.  The hurricane force winds were just the icing on the cake.

After we were told of the cancellation I just sat there for a few moments, shell shocked.  There has never been a race cancellation due to weather conditions, for it to happen with the biggest event the club puts on just seemed unbelievable.  I immediately felt very badly for the race participants, many of whom travel from out of the area to be here for the half marathon. I thought of all the preparation that went into the event by both myself and others.  To have all of that nullified by a 15 minute storm seemed crazy.

With a race of this scope there is no rescheduling possible so basically people are just SOL as “acts of God” do not qualify runners for refunds.  While I was on site I remote controlled to my home computer so I could quickly get information posted to the official race website.  Luckily the majority of racers had been following the updates and did not show up on site.

So the undoing of the race prep began with the crew of volunteers and ourselves picking up everything that had just been laid out.  Luckily for me I had not fully set up all my stuff at that point.  We packed up the stuff we set up at the registration area and I then took down the tables in the back of the box truck.  We drove the truck back to the start line to pick up the timing equipment we set there.  I was surprised to see some of the very heavy rubber mats had gotten blown off the stack. As we were throwing the wet mats into the back of the truck a reporter from the Naples Daily News snapped a picture of Cindy and I as we were standing under the mangled half marathon start line banner.  That picture wound up on the front page of the sports section of Monday’s paper which was unexpected.

On the drive home we saw all sorts of damage with tons of branches on the roadways along with a ton of uprooted trees.  When I saw substantial wind damage at the developments near our house I was quite worried about damage at our house, especially to the chicken coop.  We both breathed a sigh of relief that other than some smaller things scattered around the yard our property escaped basically unscathed.

I’m sure the chickens were scared to death. Having the shed/run pull through such extreme weather intact made Cindy and I feel good about the extra work we put in to make sure both structures were built to be as storm resistant as possible.  The one nuisance we did have to deal with from the storm was a power outage which lasted around half the day.

By the time we got home the weather seemed almost nice.  I pulled out the 24 wet mats and laid them out to dry, one side at a time.  We had some other stuff that needed to dry out as well.  All day I couldn’t help but feel weird about doing all of that prep and not actually getting to time the race.  After the huge timing disaster we had at last year’s half marathon I was really looking to make things run like clockwork this year, despite the conditions.  Since this was also the last half marathon I was timing for the club, not getting the chance to get that redemption was a little depressing.

The rest of our day Sunday felt incredibly long, a byproduct of starting your day at 3AM.  After getting all of the race equipment dried out and put away I turned my attention to the Tacoma.  While we were driving to the race Cindy told me the truck was acting weird and shaking.  When she first mentioned it to me I thought she meant just a tire vibration which I wrote off as no big deal.  I then got a clarification that it was an engine related problem.  The truck was missing and Cindy said she really couldn’t go any faster than 50 mph.  The check engine light had come on as well.

I hooked up my car computer scanner and got a P300, P304 and P304 error code which meant that cylinder three and four were misfiring.  I cleared the codes and took the truck out for a very brief test drive.  The misfiring was still there and the CEL came on again, great.  So I did some research about the issue on my phone as Cindy drove us home after we dropped off the box truck at the Penske lot.

The easy causes of the problem are stuff like bad wires, coil, or plugs.  Tacomas have a different coil arrangement.  Instead of having one coil there are actually three of them, each one drives two of the plugs.  The recommendation was to swap coil packs around to see if the problem follows the coil.  I swapped the coil pack on cylinder three assuming it also drove cylinder four.  After clearing the codes and doing another test drive the misfire was still present although I only got a P304 error this time.  After feeding these test results into Google it seemed like a more likely cause of the misfire could be a failed fuel injector, something very much in the realm of possibility for a vehicle with 186,000 miles on the odometer.  Unfortunately changing one involves pretty extensive tear down, similar to what I had to do to change the valve cover gaskets.  I called it good for the day with the intention to resume diagnostics on Monday.

On Sunday night we watched True Story, our latest Netflix rental.  With no naps during the day I knew I risked nodding off during the movie, which I did several times.  The drowsiness was not because of the movie which was interesting, seeing Seth Rogen and James Franco play very serious roles in a true life story about a man that killed his family.  I had Cindy help fill in some of the blank spots while I nodded off laying on her lap.  It added up to a solid B+ film that is a quality rental title.

Having Monday off was quite welcome after the events of Sunday.  We headed out relatively early to go pick up some oil change supplies.  Both the Prius and Tacoma were overdue for oil changes.    We also dropped off the left over race bibs from the race at the running store where runners were able to pick up race shirts and medals since they would go to waste otherwise.

I dug into the oil changes early Monday afternoon, completing both oil changes in the span of 45 minutes.  I then resumed my diagnosis of the Tacoma.  One of the things I did not do on Sunday was pull the plug in cylinder four to take a look at it.  When I pulled the spark plug wire something didn’t feel right.  When I looked at the boot of the wire something didn’t look right, the attachment terminal was missing.  A look into the spark plug hole revealed it was still attached to the spark plug.

This scenario was good and bad news.  The good news was that possibly the misfiring could have simply been caused by a defective spark plug wire.  The bad news was I now had to figure out some way to get the broken terminal off the spark plug so I could remove the spark plug itself.   This turned out to be a VERY challenging task that tested the limits of my patience.

At first I tried using a simple needle nose pliers to grasp the broken terminal.  Because of the lack of space it was impossible to get a grasp on it.  I then began a long and arduous session with a long flat head screw driver.  I stuck it into the plug hole and tried to work the terminal back and forth so it would loosen up.  I then tried to pin it against the side of the hole so I could pry it upwards.  After a couple dozen attempts over the course of 45 minutes I got it to pop off the top of the spark plug.  I was able to fish the terminal out of the hole with my retractable magnet.

I then confidently stuck my spark plug socket in the hole, ready to finally remove the plug after all that futzing around.  Despite removing the terminal it still felt like my socket was just spinning around on nothing.  WTF?  I brought out my stick light so I could get a better view down the hole.  What I saw was a circle of rubber on top of the spark plug.  Not only did the terminal of the spark plug wire break off, the rubber boot that normally surrounds it was down there as well, awesome.

This discovery lead to another incredibly aggravating session of trying to get the rubber removed.  I was able to spin it around with my screwdriver but not remove it.  I alerted Cindy to my issue and said I needed a small wire hook to snag the rubber.  She found an old wire plant hanger in the shed.  I was able to snip off one  of the wires and then bend the end into a very small hook.  As I stuck the wire into the hole my eyes were watering as I tried to focus, it was very hard to see.  Finally, finally I snagged the rubber boot and managed to lift it out of the plug hole.  Instinctively I said “f you” out loud to the remains of the spark plug boot as I removed it.  It was the end result of close to two hours of digging around in a little hole with no clearance and the wrong tools for the job.  I finally was able to get a socket on the plug and remove it.  The plug itself looked ok but I ordered a complete new set of plugs and wires on Amazon.  My hope is the misfire was all wire related and I can avoid ripping off the entire intake of the truck to do injectors.

After the Tacoma work I suggested to Cindy we take out the mountain bikes out for their first test ride of Bird Rookery swamp, something we had wanted to do for a little while.  The cool air in the low to mid-60’s left us both feeling quite chilled on the 3 mile ride to the trail head.  Once we got off road both of our bikes felt good on the mostly grass trail.  In total we went around 2.25 miles into the swamp before turning around.

Doing the trail on a mountain bike is different than doing the same by foot.  You obviously cover territory at a much faster clip.  I think you also get to see less since you need to concentrate more on the ground under you to avoid obstacles while riding.  We stopped several times so Cindy could take some pictures of especially scenic locations.

By the time we started the return ride out we were both feeling some aches and soreness.  Mountain bikes are double the weight or more of the road bikes we are used to riding,  Riding them over uneven terrain introduces a new sort of effort level which also carries a discomfort penalty for your rear end, back, and hands.  By the time we rode the 3 miles back to the house we were BEAT.    Our eventual goal is to do the entire 12 mile circuit in the swamp which when added to the ride to and from the house will be around 18 miles.  The way we felt doing the roughly 10 miles yesterday makes me only imagine how we will feel when we take on the whole deal. The rest of our Monday, the little that was left of it was more low key with us enjoying a nice dinner and dvr’d tv content to wind up the 3 day weekend.

Of course I saw the news that the Eagles hired a new head coach, Doug Pederson, who was the offensive coordinator for the KC Chiefs.  I wish I could say I liked this hire.  Eagles fans remember the name Doug Pederson.  He was the starting QB VERY briefly right before the Donovan McNabb era began.  I remember feeling very unexcited back then when we were told that Pederson, despite not having much actual NFL play time, had been a back up in good programs which somehow meant he should be decent by osmosis.  Well the reality was he was extremely unimpressive  in his Eagles stint.  His starting record as  a qb was something like 3-14.

Well Andy Reid always liked Doug and eventually brought him on staff as a coach.  First as an “offensive consultant” and later as a QB coach for the Eagles.  When Andy was fired from the Eagles he took Doug with him to KC and named his as offensive coordinator.  During his three years there the Chiefs offense was ok, but certainly nothing dynamic.  Plus since Andy Reid is very much involved in the offensive play calling, being an OC on an Andy Reid team means you aren’t really calling the shots.

The overwhelming consensus is the Pederson hiring is underwhelming.  I read an ESPN article that said out of the 6 coaches hired this off season, Doug is the least impressive of them. I assume that Jeff Lurie is hoping that somehow Doug will be Andy Reid-esque since he has been in his company for a long time.  We saw how that “greatness by association with greatness” theory worked out in Pederson’s QB career.  I have a bad feeling his head coaching career could follow a similar story line.  Hopefully I am wrong.

Cindy has a rare trait, she actually loves to clean and organize.  Yesterday she got went on one of her kicks where she targets various areas for clean up.  She reorganized the kitchen pantry and our walk in closet.  The closet work was extensive since it involved pulling in one of the chest of drawers from the spare bedroom and relocating it to the closet where it will house a lot of Cindy’s clothes that to this point were residing inside of some wash baskets.  She put a lot of time and energy into the work just like everything else she does.  I’m lucky to be the ultimate benefactor from her efforts.

I could hardly believe my replacement Ring showed up already yesterday considering I ordered it Saturday afternoon.  I guess having an Amazon warehouse in Florida does have some advantages although I don’t like having to pay sales tax on most of their stuff now.  You can see what my video feed from the Ring looks like since it took a shot from my falling ladder.

My plan is to put the new Ring at the front door.  I will try to first take apart the damaged device to see if I can somehow get the picture back in focus.  Even if I can’t I will redeploy it at a different location for shits and giggles.

Tonight I will start working on getting the half marathon numbers organized.  This race has more demands when it comes to bib number assignment than most.  The first 200 bib numbers are “special” and are assigned to elite runners.  Then there are random numbers that are permanently assigned to  “lifetime” race members, something they offered years and years ago.  Finally you have the meat and potatoes of the race field which get assigned to numbers 201 and above which then are sorted alphabetically and assigned in numeric order.   This will be just the start to a very data entry intensive few days.

Just like the last several years, I once again did not watch one second of the college football championship.  I just can not make myself interested in college football for reasons unknown to me.  Maybe it’s because I only attended college for three months.  However to keep my man card I did feel required to at least know who won the game and a few highlights of how it happened.  Go Bama…

So this was definitely one of the most memorable New Year’s Eve celebrations I can remember for quite awhile.  When I got home from work I changed into the same suit I have owned for something like 25 years.  You would think a suit of this age would be in poor shape but since I wear a suit so infrequently it is still in pristine condition.

We arrived on site for the wedding at the Ritz, a place I never visited, about 15 minutes before the 7:30 wedding was scheduled to start.  My hatred of valet parking made me try to seek out a spot myself until a valet flagged me down and said it is valet only.  He addressed my dislike by letting us know there was no extra charge for valet for wedding guests.  I unparked myself and then had to wait in a lengthy line for a valet to be handed our keys.

Once we went inside I instantly admired the beautiful hotel interior, made even better by the lavish Christmas decorations.  We quickly saw a bunch of familiar faces since a large portion of the guests are local members of the running club.  After a short wait we were escorted out to beach where the ceremony was being held.  There was a beautiful lighted stage that the ceremony was going to take place on along with seating for 200-300 people.  I couldn’t even begin to imagine the costs involved in putting on such an event.

Despite a beautiful ceremony I managed to find myself feeling annoyed and angry.  The anger was from people a short distance down the beach that did not have the common sense or courtesy to stop firing off their fcking fireworks during the ceremony.  I mean really, how is it possible for people to be that inconsiderate?  I really felt like sprinting over there, suit and all and inserting a bottle rocket down their throat.  I mean wtf, is it really that much to ask them to wait 20 minutes until they fire off their shitty fireworks?

The much warmer than normal December weather made for some sweaty conditions during both the ceremony and the cocktail hour afterward, both of which were held outdoors.  Once alcohol was available I didn’t waste any time downing a couple beers in quick succession to help take the edge off my normal social anxiety.  Cindy drank early on but was our designated driver so she stopped early in the night.

We were then lead into the main reception hall which was exquisite.  There were a couple cool high tech spots.  One was a digital picture wall where wedding guests could draw their own wedding wishes and have them saved.  There also was a digital photo booth which had increasingly funnier pictures as more alcohol was consumed during the night.

I was drinking pretty steadily all night, mixing alcohol types, never a great idea.  I had Bud Light, white wine, champagne, and some of Cindy’s vodka and cranberry cocktails.  I was drunk for sure but not incapacitated.  Of course as is often the case when I drink, Cindy drug me onto the dance floor where I make a fool out of myself but care very little about it.

Before I knew it, midnight had arrived which Cindy and I rung in with the traditional kiss along with popping a number of the balloons that were dropped from above.  Normally after the ball drops NYE parties start to dissipate but when they are combined with wedding receptions that wasn’t the case.  We were probably there until close to 2AM.  Not only did Cindy get to drive me home we also dropped off another couple that were on the way home, they were both pretty hammered.

Like I said I was drunk but not smashed, but much like last year after the Oktoberfest, I had a very bad reaction once I got put in the passenger seat of the car.  It wasn’t Cindy’s driving but for whatever reason I seem to get acute car sickness once I drink a significant amount of alcohol anymore.  A couple times I had her stop the car so I could potentially “purge”, but I never did.  Instead I managed to get home intact by laying the seat back while Cindy drove with my window open.  The fresh air seemed to help subdue the nausea.

We didn’t actually fall asleep until something ridiculous like 4:30AM which is my latest bedtime in maybe forever.  The record setting late bedtime resulted in an equally record setting late wake up.  After letting the chickens out of the coop about 8AM I collapsed back in bed and did not rise again until 11:40AM.  I could not believe I slept half of the day away.  It was not a feeling I enjoyed and I immediately wondered how some “party people” do this sort of thing regularly and enjoy it.  I felt like death.  Even so, I was thankful for Jake and Colby allowing us to be part of their beautiful wedding ceremony.  It was certainly a night to remember.

Even though I was dehydrated and groggy I had to be somewhat productive on Friday.  I hated that I slept so late.  During the afternoon I drug myself outside and did some yard work.  Cindy and I headed out to run some errands as well.  One of the places we planned to stop was Costco.  We were surprised to see they were closed New Years Day.  No big deal, we figured we would just stop at Sam’s instead.  I was even more surprised to see it was closed as well, considering the Wal-mart right up the street was open.  Oh well.

On Saturday I still was feeling like crap.  I actually danced around like an idiot enough at the wedding that my knees hurt, ruling out any endurance training.  Instead I decided to knock another item off my winter project list, weed whacking the entire fence line.  Before I tackled this project I did the normal weed whacking which takes an hour alone.  By the time I tacked on the fence line I was out there a ridiculous 3 hours.  I had to refill the spool three times along the way, fence whacking chews up line like mad.  Since I do the fence line so infrequently it was very slow going in spots as I beat down thick and high growth of unwanted weeds.  Some areas took tons of back and forth passes as I knocked down the shit in stages.  It was miserable and did a good job of adding to the stiffness and inflammation I was already feeling in my lower body.

During the afternoon we decided to try Costco again.  It was open but it was also obliterated with people.  The store has a HUGE parking lot and there were actually people mongering for parking spaces.  I had NEVER seen the lot this full.  Despite knowing what I was in store for, a frustrating sea of humanity, we parked and headed inside.  It was so bad that there were hardly any shopping carts by the front of the store.  Cindy and I grabbed one of the last few available, once they were gone the flock of people descended on the parking lot cart attendant who was pushing another dozen in like hungry vultures.  It was awful.

Of course trying to push the cart through the store was miserable as well.  I actually did very little verbal complaining during the ordeal.  I knew damn well it was going to be a mess the second I pulled onto the lot.  If I decided to subject myself to the madness I had no real basis to complain.  The grand frustrating finale was trying to get checked out.  There was a river of people trying to do the same, so many that they back filled one of the main shopping aisles, further clogging the flow of traffic through the store.

As I stood in line I tried to create a theory as to why it was THIS horrible.  Most of the time I come to Costco it is a bad shopping experience but this set the bar to an entirely new level.  I decided what we were experiencing was the rush of snowbirds that flock back into the area as soon as the holidays over for their 3-4 month nesting season.  They are in dire need of large amounts of toilet paper, paper towels, and other bulk items and all choose Costco as THE source to fulfill those needs.  After maybe 20 minutes of waiting we finally got the fck out of there.  I will never shop at Costco on January 2nd again, bet on it.

When we got back home I decided to tackle installing one of the two WeMo smart light switches I received for Christmas.  Despite not being officially supported in a 3 way switch configuration like I have in the kitchen, I decided to put one there anyway.  The switch will function correctly as long as we don’t touch the second switch to control the light.  I was surprised when I discovered there is no way to just kill the circuit for the kitchen light without killing power to the entire house.  After shutting down my home network server I pulled the plug.

Installing the WeMo switch was not all that difficult.  After about 10-15 minutes I was ready to flip the power back on and test it out.  I was very pleased when I was able to turn the large overhead kitchen light with my iPhone and then a few minutes later with my voice using our Amazon Echo.   Later on Sunday I installed the second switch in our bedroom giving us voice control over a good portion of the lighting in our house.  The geek factor is high within our walls.

On Saturday night we both felt beat, still feeling side effects from the NYE gala.  We veg’d out and watched Ted 2 on demand.  It had enough dirty humor to keep the rating at a B+ level.

On Sunday we wanted to do a bike ride however the skies looked menacing, it was windy, and a bit chilly with temps in the mid 60’s.  I proposed an alternative ride to Cindy where I would ride my new mountain bike along with Cindy on her road bike over to the nearby bird rookery swamp.  I just wanted to see how it felt.  Pedaling a 40+ pound mountain bike with big fat tires and regular pedals requires a lot more effort to achieve 15-16 mph than it does on a road bike.  The last section of road before the swamp turns into a combo of asphalt and lime rock.  Cindy was hesitant to traverse it on her Cervelo but managed to do so without popping a tire.  Once Cindy gets her mountain bike we will ride back there and do some real off road riding.  The round trip to the swamp entrance is 6 miles so if you combine it with the roughly 12 miles you can ride inside the swamp you have a very tough potential 18 mile ride.

Sunday afternoon we multitasked, preparing race bibs as we watched the Eagles win their last game of the year.  We plowed through 2000 bibs, a huge number for two people.  The Eagles offense played well, the defense did not but came up big at the end to secure the win.  I found it interesting that the first game without Chip Kelly resulted in the Eagles having a number of long scoring drives, the longest of the year.  The win cost the Eagles 7 spots in draft position so they may have actually been better off losing the game but with their recent history of draft performances I don’t know it matters much anyway.  It will be quite interesting to see who the Eagles entrust the coaching duties to in 2016.  Sean Payton or Bill Cowher would make me pee my pants in joy which is exactly why it will never happen.

The weather during the day turned wet and raw with the temps dropping into the 60’s.  When I went out to do afternoon chicken duties it was a wet and goosebump inciting experience.  Last night we mostly chilled out with me catching up on some virtual WoW to do’s.

Over the weekend Cindy got a chance to try out another out of the blue Xmas gift I bought her, a camping hammock.  We set it up between one of the palm and pine trees.  Cindy really liked just chilling in the nylon hammock for a little while.  I hope she takes more time to use it more regularly.

Yesterday the guy from the water company came out.  His name was Danny, a good ole Florida cracker whom installed our water equipment originally.  He let me know that the pressure tank was indeed bad.  He said he would hook me up with a new tank, a new pressure switch and service my sulfur cleaner while he was there.  Cindy got to meet Danny as well and gave him a dozen fresh eggs as a tip for his good work.  Last night when I showered I could feel the pressure felt higher than I was accustomed to, something Danny said might be a positive side effect of the work.

On Tuesday Cindy took my brand new mountain bike back to Dick’s Sporting Goods for me.  When I got the bike home over the weekend I immediately noticed the brake stopping power was very poor, the opposite of what you expect with a disc brake set up.  After doing some quick research on how they are adjusted I discovered the adjustment fitting for one one of the pads was seized, almost like it was cross threaded.  Well since it is a brand new bike I wasn’t going to fck with it, let them fix it.

Cindy told me yesterday she got the call it was fixed so I grabbed it on the way home.  A quick squeeze of the brake levers verified I now had over the handlebars stopping power if I need it.

Yesterday I had my first data from my Automatic dongle collected.  The app collects a lot of trip data as well as detecting if you have hard accelerations or decelerations that negatively impact gas mileage.  I think it will be very interesting to get more insight into my driving activity as a larger data sampling over time accumulates.

Yesterday I received an email from the SportsVb Yahoo group, wishing me Happy New Year.  I get this wish every year and every year it makes me laugh, because I am the one that set it up.  When I lived in PA I used to participate in volleyball tournaments run by a guy named Paul.  He badged the events as “SportsVB”.

Not only did Paul run conventional outdoor grass tournaments, in the winter he ran indoors doubles tournaments, something very unique.  Indoor volleyball is almost always played in groups of 6 per side, not doubles.  We would use heavier outdoor balls and play with outdoor rules.  The other unique aspect was these indoor tournaments would start at night.  Quite often they did not finish up until midnight or later. It was kind of nuts but a lot of fun.

Well Paul did not have any web site expertise and I had a little bit.  As I often did around that time of my life I volunteered my services to not only create the Yahoo group for him to get tournament info out to players, I also made him a website that was online for a period of time.  Technically, the website is still alive, hosted on Tripod one of the original free web hosts.  I was surprised to see they still had the lights turned on.

So anyway I put a lot of time into the website and thought I made a pretty snazzy site for the 1999-2000 era.  Of course I did all of this work gratis.  I considered using a picture of myself as the focal graphic of the site as payment enough. SportsVb faded away shortly after I moved to Florida but my late nights in the Lancaster gym were some of my favorite volleyball memories of all time.

I have never been one to actively pursue doing anything much to celebrate the New Year.  It just never appealed to me.  Out of my 25 or so years as an adult I bet I only formally celebrated it in a group 10 times or less.  Most years I am quite content to watch a movie on New Years Eve and then flip over to ABC to watch the ball drop.

Well this year is definitely going to be different.  We were invited to the wedding of some running club friends of ours which goes down tonight.  Combining a New Years Eve and wedding celebration on the same night is more than likely a once in a lifetime occurrence so I may as well enjoy it.

Of course I will be doing my traditional year long recap entry but as always it demands it’s own space.