Category Home Improvements

This past weekend has been one of the most dreary and waterlogged as I can remember in quite a long time.  It basically has been raining to some degree since Friday.  The end result is our property has once again turned into lake front.  There are standing bodies of water all over the place.

On Saturday morning I wanted to get the weeding done and I didn’t care if it was raining.  When I stepped outside it was a light, tolerable rain however the intensity went up and down the entire time I was out there.  At a few points it was an outright downpour.  I was already soaked all the way to my underwear so I didn’t even bother trying to escape the deluge.  After weeding I had my first of three clothing changes during the day due to wetness.

While I was weeding I pulled this huge mutant grapefruit that was in the orchard.  It had split open.  After slicing it with the machete I saw the fattest rind ever.  Unfortunately the fruit did not look appetizing at all so after it’s photo op the monster grapefruit was tossed in the compost bin.

After drying off Cindy and I went out for what is a pretty normal weekend shopping circuit of Dunkin Donuts, Home Depot and Rural King with a Pinch A Penny stop for good measure.  We grabbed five more 50 pound bags of sand for the chicken run.  In total I bet we have dumped a couple thousand pounds of sand in there.  The goal is to eventually have a few inches of sand in the entire 8′ x 12′ run to make clean up easier as well as raising the elevation slightly, something that became an apparent need this weekend.

On Saturday I introduced Cindy to the world of Periscope, an app I only recently discovered myself courtesy of Bubba talking about it on the radio.  Periscope is a way to basically instantly get yourself broadcasting video live.  There are already have been many ways to do this for several years ( I used JustinTv to broadcast live 5 years ago) but somehow they way Persiscope handles it just feels slicker and easy.  When you like what you are seeing a viewer taps his screen and it generates a heart which is the Periscope equivalent of LIKE.  It’s twitter integration and seamless notification system allows you to grow an audience pretty easily.

It is also like Snapchat in a way, something I never used.  You have an option to make the video stream only available live and even if you do archive it, it is still only alive for 24 hours on the Periscope servers until it goes away.  I guess it adds a sense of urgency to viewership. If you want to see the content you better watch it now. The only broadcast I still have alive is some WoW footage.  Better watch it soon, it goes away in 3 hours. 🙂

So Cindy and I took turns shooting silly Persicope videos at various points during the day, the longest of which was sitting in the car before we went into the movie.  It’s a weird thing how a bunch of random people would instantly jump into your broadcast.  A handful of them would use the chat function but the vast majority are silent voyeurs. What they were hoping to find is beyond me.

So after a tasty meal at Olive Garden Cindy and I went to see Southpaw, a boxing movie with Jake Gylennhall.  The lobby of the theater seemed pretty empty so I was looking forward to an equally empty theater.  This was opening weekend for the film, for most big name movies Coconut Point will have a 7:00 and 7:30 showing.  Southpaw only had a 7:20 showing which meant it was not getting big film positioning.  The theater it was showing in was one of the mid-sized rooms instead of the big ones we are used to. This theater had the love seat layout which is nice but actually a little less comfortable than the seating in the bigger theaters.

Well slowly the theater started to fill up with a steady stream of patrons filing in during the previews.  I bet the theater was 75% full, normally unheard of during the summer.  Of course the more people that are in your nearby vicinity the more likely you are to have an annoying asshole in range.  This time it was a hispanic woman that had no understanding of talking quietly during a movie.  Every time she spoke it was at full volume.  It didn’t take long until she drew stinkeye glances from Cindy who said she was ready to yell “Callete su boca!”  If our only option to see movies was in theaters that were this level of population I would stop going to the movies as much as we do.  The more human beings, the less fun, is my general rule of thumb.

So the movie itself was good.  Jake got himself into incredible shape for the film.  It had a real Rocky flavor to it which in my book is a good thing.  Sure it was predictable but that isn’t such a bad thing with this kind of film.  Jake seems to be a lot like his deceased co-star of Brokeback Mountain, Heath Ledger, in that he really tries to transform himself into the character he is portraying.  He did an equally good job of turning himself into a mega-creepy dude in Nightcrawler. Anyway, I would give Southpaw an A-, just try to watch it out of range of the annoying people.

When we checked on the chickens via the security dvr we saw that all of them were in place except Peaches, who decided to fly up to one of the shelves and sit in a box.  Despite having the chickens integrated for quite a few weeks, more often than not Cindy still has to go out there at bedtime and rearrange chickens which has to stop.  Basically what happens is Lucy decides she is not happy with having the younger chickens close to her and starts to peck at them.  Instead of retreating to any of the three lower perch bars the chicks instead have often used the side shelves or nesting boxes as a sleeping spot which we don’t want.  For clean up efficiency we need them all to stay on the perches.

We tried to address the problem somewhat by adding two half perches a few inches below the top perch so the birds could all be together without having to squish onto one bar.  Cindy also added additional screen hanging from the roof to block access to the top shelves.  Last night seemed to be the best sleeping outcome yet.  Not only did we not have to place the birds, Lucy actually allowed Stephie to cuddle up next to her, a first.

So Sunday morning I had hopes of getting out to do a bike ride since it was not raining when I woke up.  However a quick glance at the precipitation radar indicated we were just in a small break of the wet misery so we bagged it.  It started to pour shortly thereafter.

Like I mentioned, the  steady and at times torrential rain has drenched the yard.  One unfortunate casualty has been the ground underneath the coop deck, an area the chickens normally hang out in frequently.  It became pretty disgusting since obviously the chickens shit under there and we are unable to clean it conventionally.  It had a disgusting sewage like appearance.  The main chicken run was wet but much cleaner due to the additional sand that is dumped in there along with our normal daily poop pick up it remains relatively clean.  Unfortunately there is really nothing we can do about the ground under the deck until the water recedes.

We have had a couple freak out moments with our neighborhood hawks.  The other night Cindy went sprinting out the door when a hawk was on the ground only a few feet from the open chicken run door, being much too brave for our comfort.  Cindy has been firing warning shots with her CO2 BB pistol I bought her to keep the hawk away when she sees it.  At Rural King we went a step further and bought a fake hawk and owl.  You place and move them periodically around the yard as a visual deterrent.

The owl seems more effective as it has a bobble head that spins with the slightest breeze, making it seem more realistic.  We filled them both with sand to make them heavy and resistant to the strong wind gusts that often blow through the property.  I sat the owl right on top of the chicken run. It is annoying to have a constant paranoia about the chicken’s safety when they are free ranging but short of having them live in a bubble it’s just a risk you have to accept.

So the miserable weather on Sunday resulted in me having one of the laziest days in recent history.  I played hours of WoW and enjoyed myself doing so. You may recall me talking about the requirements to unlock flying in the game with the latest expansion.  When I first saw them I knew it would be a lot of work/time to accomplish these requirements, I had no idea just how much.

For the last few weeks anytime I have had in the game has almost exclusively been utilized in accomplishing this goal on one character, which in turn unlocks flying for all of my other characters.  It just seems like it took too much time.  To just do the portion in the new content that was released recently you have a minimum of close to 3 weeks to accrue what is needed to fly.  If you had to do the other achievements in the older areas, like I did, that gets tacked on top.  It was an annoying, extremely repetitive grind that sucked most of the fun out of playing.  I am very glad that it is behind me.

The only real “work” I did on Sunday was to pay my bills, a very minimal chore.  Late in the afternoon we decided to finally film an eating challenge I proposed awhile back, consuming ghost pepper powder.

Unless you have been living in a cave you have seen/heard of ghost peppers.  They are one of hottest peppers on the planet, registering a blistering 2,000,000 on the scoville heat index. For reference, jalapeno peppers are rated at 2,500 to 10,000 heat units.  The powder version of ghost peppers supposedly is more concentrated. Well anyway YouTube is jammed full of ghost pepper eating videos and there is a good reason for it, people like watching other people suffer.  If you eat a ghost pepper you WILL suffer, there is no way around it.

Cindy was very nervous leading up to the challenge.  I was not nervous until the last few seconds.  At that moment I had a feeling similar to prior to jumping in the Arctic Enema at the Tough Mudder.  I knew there was immense discomfort to follow.

We decided to use the dining room table for the video, hoping it would offer the best lighting.  I don’t think that spot has ever been used for filming anything else.  Cindy measured the powder and put a 1/4 teaspoon in each of our conventional spoons.  We started the cameras rolling (Cindy simulcast it on Periscope) and after a 3,2,1 countdown cleaned the spoons of the powder.

We used different techniques when it came to cleaning the spoon.  I used a method similar to if I was eating cereal or a spoonful of peanut butter.  The end result was the powder adhering to mostly my upper teeth, gums, and inside of my upper lip.  In contrast Cindy turned her spoon upside down and deposited all of the powder on her tongue.

The first sensation is the taste of the powder which was not pleasant.  However soon all taste is obliterated as the heat from the ghost peppers starts to set in.  It took very little time until I was reaching for my large glass of water, even though it did not really help.  I almost immediately started hiccuping as the burn really set in.  The watery eyes and running nose followed closely.  The discomfort actually ramps up as time goes on and lingers.  It turned into more of a stinging sensation, almost like I had hornets in my mouth.  At one point I felt somewhat nauseous and was nervous since we had no vomit containers nearby.

Cindy of course was struggling as well.  She slammed a glass of almond milk, followed by water, followed by peanut butter and yogurt.  I only used water and peanut butter to help relieve the pain.  None of it was all that effective.  Basically you just have to ride out the burn.  After about 10 minutes or so things started to die down.  It was a stunt that I wanted to accomplish and now that we have, I have no desire to revisit the ultra-hot pepper genre ever again.

Sunday night we watched 50 Shades of Grey, the movie based on the book that turned so many women into sex craving maniacs.  I was recently separated when the book was  making waves.  I recall many first dates where the woman mention they read the book which I did not know was a good or bad thing.  I heard several accounts of the book turning women into sex starved maniacs, it turned them on that much.

So the movie had a lot of hype behind it obviously when it was released which I obviously did not share.  I only rented it on Netflix because Cindy was interested in seeing it since she started the book but never finished it.  Well if the movie’s main goal was to produce mainstream soft porn it certainly hit the mark.  There was more nudity and sex in the film than any feature film I ever saw before.   However at my age it takes more than sex scenes to keep my interest.  The man in the film had all of these hang ups whose symptoms were his bizarre sexual rituals.  I think the movie needed some more focus on why that was instead of end result of his weirdness.  Overall, even with all of the skin on skin I can’t rate the film more than a B, perhaps a sign of my advancement into the kingdom of old fartdom.

I have short 3 day week ahead of me.  Cindy is having some foot surgery on Thursday so I am burning a couple vaca days to be her transport/caregiver. I have a few to use up by mid-August.

So yesterday I expected blow back from my decision to run a couple miles at lunch despite the sore IT band pain I have been dealing with for several months.  Last night I could feel the soreness settling in.  Last night I made a couple movements that resonated soreness through my right knee.  A few times during the night I woke up when I again had the right leg in a position that was painful. This morning things hurt and I have a small limp.  However if I am being an optimist (which I am not), the limp is less severe than the last time I tried to run.  Getting old isn’t for sissies.

Last night I ripped out my old Sirius antenna and receiver and installed the new unit that I really didn’t need.  The simple air vent install kit was much cleaner and less obtrusive than the rig I had in there before.  The cable routing might need some further adjustment but overall I like the end result.

Night time is when the Philips Hue lights really shine.  We like setting the under counter strip lights to a slow color rotation that casts a cool glow.  I moved one of the color bulbs to a small lamp that we used to never use on top of the cabinet by the slider doors.  It’s position is good to light up the corner of the room in whatever shade of color feels good at the time.  Cindy is a big fan of purple.

I am sure most have heard about Donald Trump’s latest stunt where he gave out Lindsey Graham’s cell phone number after calling him an idiot several times (he is going to need a few fresh insults eventually).  Lindsey was another person that criticized Trump’s choice of word’s regarding John McCain and his war service which included several years in an enemy POW camp.  Of course Donald reacted as he normally does when he is criticized, in a juvenile manner with obligatory name calling followed by the disclosure of Lindsey’s phone number.

I found it quite funny how Lindsey reacted, by creating a YouTube video showing the destruction of his phone in various creative ways.  It was a witty way to not directly sling mud while poking fun at the original slinger.

So the Sirius radio I have in the Tacoma started working poorly a couple weeks ago.  It would not solidly stay connected to satellites. The audio would constantly cut in and out and the receiver would display the Acquiring Satellites message repeatedly.  The LCD display on the unit started getting flaky as well, showing a number of vertical lines across the screen.  Ok simple enough, I figured the receiver was just simply going bad.  Baking in the cab of the Tacoma for 8-9 years in the searing Florida summers is due to take a toll on electronics after all.

So I ordered the least expensive Sirius receiver I could find, less than $40.  I was not interested in spending any more than bare minimum on maintaining my Sirius account, a service that I have found less and less useful as Howard Sterns live show air time has consistently dwindled over the years.

The new radio arrived yesterday.  The first thing I did was find online where I could transfer my service to another radio.  The help document provided me the link but didn’t inform me that Sirius would impose a stupid $15 surcharge to transfer service to another radio, something that has a real world cost to them of zero dollars.  I had little choice but to agree to pay it although when it comes time to renew my annual service in October I am going to try to get that $15 credited back.  It’s just another layer of dislike I have for SiriusXM.

So I take the now activated radio out to the truck to just quickly hook it up to make sure it worked.  I plugged in the power and reused the existing antenna connection since it is a universal connection with all Sirius radios.  After initialization, the radio hung on Acquiring Satellites, son of a bitch.   I immediately realized that the problem with the old receiver was due to an antenna problem, not an electronics problem.  I temporarily hooked up the brand new antenna that came with the new receiver and had steady signal in a couple seconds, annoying. I looked at the bright side.  The new receiver is smaller and has an air vent mount, meaning I can pull out the big articulating arm mount that I have attached to the passenger side seat bolt in the truck.  It will be a much cleaner implementation.

So when I built the dog deck back in 2004 I utilized left over tiling materials to make a unique Nicki tile, complete with her paw print which she reluctantly let me press into the grout.  When I resurfaced the deck with composite decking years later I pulled out my crude art project since the plywood it was mounted on was rotting away.

When I pulled it out it cracked in many places but I was too sentimental to throw it out.  I carefully pieced it together and had it sitting undisturbed on a shelf in the large shed ever since, with the intention to eventually repair/do something with it in the future. Well the shed cleaning project put the Nicki tile back into focus.  Cindy said she would work on doing something with it to fix it up.  I appreciated her offer although I was skeptical of what could be done.

When I got home last night I was very surprised at just how great it looked.  She was able to patch the 15 or so pieces together and make it look like better than new.  I was really impressed with Cindy’s restoration skills.  It isn’t the first time she has demonstrated her creative and artistic qualities.  Since she has been living with me she has managed to create or restore several items in a way that makes them truly special.   This was just the latest evidence of her skills.

So while I was shopping at Costco after work on Friday I got a text from Cindy.  She said the woman she talked to from Dunkin Donuts that was interested in adopting Jaina wanted to come over to pick her up.  I told her it was fine.  I got home shortly after the woman arrived with her mom and two kids.   After I unloaded the groceries I went out back to join them.  Cindy was in the middle of giving them the chicken coop tour.

It then came time to collect Jaina.  I grabbed my large cat carrier to let Anna borrow for chicken transport.  At 10 pounds, Jaina is bigger than many cats.  Cindy and I were able to corral the bird and get her into the carrier. (even though Jaina is probably a rooster he is still a she to me)

It didn’t take me very long to feel sad.  We had Jaina on the ground in the carrier while we were talking a bit.  She/he started making the noises she always does when she is looking for the other four chicks she grew up with.  Almost instantly the four other “babies” came over to the carrier and actually started pecking at the carrier in almost a “hey let our friend out of there” way.  It sort of broke my heart to split them up.

I carried the carrier out front to their car and placed Jaina in the front seat.  Anna said she will take good care of the chicken.  Although at first she is going to be keeping Jaina in a modified doghouse, they have plans to build a real coop and get more chickens.  I couldn’t help but think about Jaina repeatedly over the weekend, imagining how upset she must be without her familiar flock close by.

So on Friday during the day Cindy had busted major ass around the house, getting done pretty much all of the outside chores that clutter the first part of my weekend.  Instead of using this freed up block of time for rest or relaxation I instead decided to just plug another project in there, cleaning the large shed. The shed has gotten rather messy and cluttered.  I probably have not given it a total cleaning/reorganization since I was actively married.  It was time.

The formula for the project was pretty simple.  Pull almost everything out and separate it into stuff you want to throw out, give away, and keep.  Cindy joked that I was a hoarder.  I would say a non-waster is more accurate.  A lot of stuff that was in there were left over materials from the endless home projects over the years.  Scraps of wood, pieces of gutter, leftover pots, and pvc pipe made up a large portion of what I pulled out.  The giveaway items got thrown in the back of the Tacoma and deposited roadside where almost all of it was picked up by neighborhood pack rats during the rest of the weekend.

Speaking of rats, we discovered an active field mouse nest in the shed.  It was carefully created behind the plywood storm shutters and came complete with a mouse.  When I leaned the board back he was down there looking up at me.  I lifted the one board to try to encourage him to take off.   When I heard a crying noise at my feet I realized I inadvertently pinned him under one of the boards.  I lifted it up and he scampered towards the back of the shed.  I then saw him running along the framing up near the roof of the shed.  I was able to scare him out of the shed and over to the pond area.  I have little doubt he will take up residence inside the shed again at some point.

So after most everything was pulled out Cindy worked on sweeping out all of the sand and dirt while I worked further on separating and sorting.  As expected the process had a number of “wow I didnt realize I had this” moments as well as little memory triggers the various items presented when tied to the projects they were from.  One cool item was a small can that I got from either my grandfather or great uncle.  It turns out it was an 85 year old film canister from the 30’s.  It was holding left over fasteners.

Putting the “keep” items back in the shed took much less time than the pull out phase since we were returning significantly less stuff to the 12 x 20 shed.  The AFTER picture of the shed shows the dramatic reduction of items in there.  It’s odd how simply cleaning or organizing a space can dramatically change the feel when you walk in there.  All of a sudden I felt good walking into the shed instead of annoyed.

Shed cleaning is a project that I would normally reserve for the cooler and more pleasant winter months.  After sweating through it Saturday I plan to return it to as a winter solstice only activity.

On Saturday night Cindy and headed out to go see Ant Man, a movie I was excited to see, a feeling Cindy did not really share.  Despite it being opening weekend we got to enjoy a sparsely populated theater with no more than 30 people sharing the large space with us.

I knew of the Ant Man hero but I can’t say I ever read any of the comics.  However at this point, Marvel has my blind trust when it comes to movie making.  I knew nothing about Guardians of the Galaxy and came out of it thinking it was one of the best movies all saw all year.    I can’t tell you the last Marvel film I saw that I did not enjoy.  I’m happy to say the Ant Man has continued that streak, taking a small (pun intended) facet of the Marvel universe and turning it into a thoroughly enjoyable film.  I also liked how they tied it into the current Marvel films with tie ins to the Avengers and Shield.  Of course as is the case with most Marvel films be sure to sit through the end credits.  It was a solid A film and I am happy to say Cindy wound up enjoying the movie as well.  She was pleasantly surprised.

Sunday morning Cindy and I got on our bikes for a Dunkin Donuts ride.  We didn’t get on the road until close to 9:30 meaning we were going to be well into the heat of the day.   I let Cindy lead the entire 10 miles west.  I told her to go whatever speed was comfortable.  I didn’t have my GPS with but my internal effort meter indicated that she was pushing the pace.  She told me her Cats Eye showed we were 20 mph + for a good 5-6 miles straight.

On the way back I pulled the entire way into the mild headwind.  I stayed on my aero bars and kept my pedal cadence speed up.  I managed to average in the 17’s for the return trip which wasn’t bad.   As soon as we got home I jumped in the pool for a rapid cool down of my highly elevated body temperature.

Before too long I was in the backyard filming another exercise session.  I had decided I wanted to do some backyard deadlifting, something I had not done since 2014.  Since joining Planet Fitness I have not been doing any deadlifting, they just dont have the equipment or space to really accommodate it.  For whatever reason yesterday I wanted to see what I was still able to pull.

I kept my amount of reps at higher weights low as my goal was to see just what I could still pull off the ground with no deadlift training at all.  I was surprised I was able to use a normal pronated grip up to 345 pounds although part of the reason was I was only single repping at that point.  I only went mixed grip for my final pull at 370 pounds which I barely managed.  Getting twice my current bodyweight off the ground was good enough for me with my lack of training.  I filmed the session, something I haven’t been doing much of lately.

I followed up with my second video of the day, this time utilizing my GoPro and Amazon Echo in another head shaving video.  It’s an odd thing how after automotive repair videos, head shaving occupies the second most viewed segment of my YouTube channel.  There is a weird cult head shaving enthusiast underground out there.  Shaving my head in the kitchen without a mirror in front of me full time was annoying.

So over the weekend Donald Trump’s big mouth got him in trouble again as he said that John McCain wasn’t a real war hero and how he prefers war heroes that do not get captured.  It was a pretty outrageous and ridiculous comment for a presidential candidate to make.  However if you have paid any attention to Trump over the years you know he has a long history of saying pretty stupid things.  Despite his enormous wealth, he reacts like a teenager when somebody disagrees with something he does/said.  In this case Trump was angry that McCain didn’t like Donald’s, Mexicans are rapists, verbal brilliance a few weeks back.

Few fellow republican candidates said much about Donald’s anti-mexican rant as they did not want to draw the immature insults that would surely be reflected back at them as a result.  However the ant-McCain comments has drawn bipartisan criticism.  In true Trump behavior, he refused to apologize for the remarks and instead tried to steer the heat back at McCain.  I wonder how many of those Trump bandwagon jumpers that grabbed on to his anti-immigrant talk have jumped back off that wagon and are now walking down the sidewalk with their hands in their pockets and whistling, trying to act like their support of his candidacy never actually happened.  I never thought for a second that Trump had a snowballs’s chance in hell of being nominated but I didn’t think his mouth would derail him quite so quickly.

In an attempt to address what feels like a perpetual sleep shortage I have moved my weekday alarm clock from 5:30AM to 6:00.  The 5:30 alarm time is something that dates back 10 years or more and was established when I was letting out the dogs, making my breakfast, packing my lunch and cleaning up every morning.  Since Cindy started living with me three of those four things usually are taken care of by her yet I continued with the 5:30 alarm.  The extra time was basically just used surfing my Facebook feed.

I think applying that extra 30 minutes to sleep will be a far more beneficial utilization of my time in the long run.

Last night the woman and her son that we hoped could be our chicken caretakers stopped by.  They live less than 5 miles away so that is a nice plus.  It took very little time to figure out that they were good people that were worthy of trust.  We gave them an introduction and tour of the grounds.  They both were impressed with our backyard and specifically the chicken accommodations.  You could tell Alex found the chickens interesting.  He even held a couple of them.  It seems like they are on board with being our animal support team for two weeks although there are some details to work out, for example we didn’t even talk about money.  I have a figure in my head as to what I am willing to pay, hopefully it jives with what they feel it is worth.  Cindy will be the primary liaison in getting those details handled.

My second shipment of Hue bulbs arrived yesterday as well as of the LED strip lights designed to mounted up under a cabinet or ledge.  When the Hue system is tied to the Echo and the incredible power of IFTTT you open up a Pandora’s box of possibilities.  I am just starting to scratch the surface of what I can do.

This was another weekend of labor. Hot, sweaty, annoying gnats buzzing your face labor. It started unconventionally on Friday night when our friend Tricia came out to the house with her sister Judy.  Originally they were talking about shooting an exercise video with Cindy for FitFarmChick channel.  They wound up showing up later than they expected so instead they just got a quick tour of the grounds and stayed to eat some Friday night pizza with us.

Judy is a real deal power lifter.  Even though we didn’t put her to the test you could easily tell she had a powerful build that would be able to move a lot of weight.  She also just recently became a certified personal trainer which is what Cindy has been working towards.  Judy is a good source of advice in regards to how to prepare for the test.

On Saturday I did not feel like getting up but Sadie had other plans.  I had a long list in my head of things I wanted to get done so I drug myself out of bed to get the day started.  After weeding the property I jumped straight into running the weed whacker.  By the time I got done with both tasks the heat of the day had started in earnest and I was soaked with sweat.  I turned my attention to the chicken coop/shed which was getting yet another of a seemingly endless amount of tweaks.

Since summer started the interior of the shed has been getting pretty brutally hot during the day.  Even with all of the windows and front doors open the thermometer would get up to around 105 degrees.    Although the chickens are out of the coop most of the day either in the run, under the shed platform or free ranging, it still is too damn hot in there.  Lucy goes in during the day to lay an egg plus I have several hundred dollars of electronic equipment in the coop that doesn’t enjoy temperatures in the triple digits.

After touching the roof from the inside of the coop a couple weeks ago and burning my hand almost instantly I determined the dark brown color of the roof was the primary culprit in super heating the space.  Dark colors absorb heat.  The simple solution, paint it white.  Now a white roof sort of messes with the the color coordination of the coop but I was willing to sacrifice esthetics for function.  After doing some research Cindy and I found some paint that is designed to be used on plastic.  While I was at the timer conference Cindy painted the back half of the roof.  I tackled the front.

It took some trial and error to find a spray pattern that laid down the gloss white in a more or less even manner. Cindy had masked off the edges of the roof along with the two front skylights for me.   I had on my sunglasses and a dust mask to protect my airway from the paint fumes.  Unfortunately because of the heat, breathing became quite challenging with the mask on.  My long arms were quite useful in reaching the upper areas of the roof.

When I was done the roof looked a bit odd but not terrible since the chicken run has white roof panels as well.   The mismatched color scheme was forgotten when mid-afternoon I was able to put my hand on the roof and keep it there.  It was only warm, not hot.  It seems like the simple color change on the roof has lowered the temperature in the coop during the heat of the day by around 10 degrees.

On Saturday my Philps Hue starter pack showed up.  The Hue is an intelligent lighting system that allows you to do all sorts of lighting magic thanks to a smart, web connected hub in addition to smart bulbs that talk to it.  It also integrates with the Amazon Echo, allowing you voice control of your lights which is cool to me of course.

I was able to get the Hue set up in less than 5 minutes, it is very, very easy to do.  I put one bulb in the kitchen and another in the bedroom and named them by location.  After pairing the Hue with the Echo I was able to turn on, turn off, or dim the lights in either location via a voice command.  It was very Star Trek-esque.

I was confused why I was unable to get the bulbs to change color.  After doing some digging I discovered that was because my starter kit has the Hue Lux bulbs which are white only.  If you want bulbs that can change to any color in the rainbow you need to spend triple what the white only bulbs cost.  Even without the Echo integration the Hue system is pretty damn cool.  Using your smart phone there are nearly countless ways you can customize and tweak their actions.

Speaking of the Echo, Cindy and I are still discovering what it can and can not do.  The one frustrating part is the somewhat limited access the Echo gives you to info compared to Siri.  Some of this has to do with the difference in providing information via voice as opposed to a screen but it seems like there is still a lot more power they could add to the device.  Many free form questions like “What movies are coming out this weekend” will generate a generic, I’m sorry I do not have an answer, response.  They are constantly adding features to the Echo so I am sure her sphere of knowledge will continue to expand.  In addition the platform is open architecture, allowing for 3rd parties to utilize the hardware which will only mean more and more power available to the little black cylinder.

On Saturday night we stayed home and finished off our 2nd generation Star Wars trilogy Netflix marathon, watching Episode 3.  After completing the second set of Star Wars films I can’t say my opinion of them changed significantly for the better or the worse.  They still are vastly inferior to their predecessor but are entertaining to a B+ degree.

On Sunday morning I did a rare solo bike ride.  Cindy had a sore neck that would not have been helped by the hunched over riding position her triathlon bike utilizes. I decided to do a 20 mile ride but not to Dunkin Donuts.  Instead I road 10 miles out Oil Well Road towards Ave Maria and then turned around.  I got out on the road a little later than I would like on a July morning, not cranking my first pedal revolution until a little after 9AM.

I hit head wind immediately as I turned onto Immokalee Road.  Head wind was a near constant factor for most of the ride.  Even after turning left onto Oil Well Road I had an angled wind slowing me down that somehow managed to follow me to a degree even after I turned around.  The only time I had a true tail wind was the final two miles after I turned back onto Immokalee Road.  I struggled pretty much the entire time.  I barely averaged 17 mph overall for the ride despite working at what felt like a high level.  The heat radiating off the road sapped my energy reserves and desire.  When I pulled back into the driveway I was soaked and panting.

Part of motivation for going out on the ride solo was I just got done flipping through a bunch of pictures from my 30th class reunion that went down Saturday night.  I have never attended a single class reunion since graduating high school.  I also have seen an amazingly few amount of high school classmates in person since 1985, my only contact with most is if they hooked up on Facebook.  If you would ask me why that is I would not have a clear and definitive answer for you although I am sure it is somehow tied into my hang ups regarding aging, which I have many.  If I would have paid attention more to the date of the reunion I could have easily tied it into my attendance of the RSU conference earlier in the week.  However I did not do that.

So anyway as I flipped through some of the pictures it did not take long until I grabbed my senior year book.  I was surprised how many faces that I had absolutely no idea who they were.  Weight gain, loss of hair, and just plain aging had transformed some of my former classmates enough that I no longer could match my 1985 version of them to the present day.   Of course I found this unsettling and made me feel even older.

From all accounts from the people in attendance, everyone had a FANTASTIC time.  I am relatively confident that once I got over the initial shock of seeing people that in most cases I had not seen in 30 years I would have been able to settle in and just enjoy the fact that we made it this far.  Of course alcohol would have been a key ingredient in making that happen.

I sometimes am curious of what my classmates think of my online presence which has a pretty large footprint at this point.  In school I certainly was not very loud or outspoken.  I would describe myself back then as mostly quiet and not the type to be outwardly seeking new personal connections or looking to draw much attention. (pretty much the same now)  That contrasts itself with my YouTube channel with nearly 600 videos as well as my personal blog that has been running for going on 13 years where I spill tons and tons of personal thoughts, opinions, and experiences for the world to digest. It’s an odd dichotomy.

I spent a decent amount of time editing some additional footage for Cindy’s YouTube channel over the weekend.  She now has over 25 videos posted, not bad for only being in existence a few weeks.  I have supplemented her channel with some excerpts from some of my Bar-barians challenge videos that she participated in.  We also posted some baking, exercise, and hot pepper eating videos.

On Sunday I had a few more tasks to complete.  I quickly threw together a small platform to house a nesting box for Jaina, the monster cornish cross hen.  She is too big to perch like all of the other chickens.  The stand was to house a dedicated nesting box that is supposed to serve as her bed at night.  Last night she was only mildly successful in using the box.

I also grabbed my tube of Scratch X to remove some marks on the back of the SSR that mysteriously happened while Cindy had the truck parked in a lot a couple weeks ago.  I have used Scratch X before to remove what seemed like pretty formidable paint blemishes.  Once again the product did it’s job.  After a few applications and a bit of elbow grease a casual passerby would never know there was a problem.

Later in the day my to do list was finally cleared and I could just veg out.  Cindy shot some cute video in the evening of the chickens hanging with the dogs.  It’s so cool that they all can hang together without conflict.

Last night on my way home from work I was on Goodlette Frank Road, a major artery with 3 lanes per side.  All of a sudden I see a bunch of cars in front of me nose diving as they are slamming on their brakes.  In front of these vehicles is a straight body delivery truck with it’s BACK UP LIGHTS ON.  The truck was about 50 feet past the entrance to a development that they evidently missed the turn for.  Instead of going to the next intersection and turning around, this moron thought coming to a dead stop in rush hour traffic and backing up made much more sense.  It was fcking unbelievable.

I was amazed that there wasn’t an accident.  As I swung around the guy he got a generous serving of horn along with a big thumbs up.  I wish I paid more attention to what company he was delivering for so I could have let them know they have an unadulterated moron behind the wheel of one of their vehicles.

Yesterday we sold off one of our excess chicken coops, selling the small one we bought at Rural King about a month ago.  We sold it for 125 bucks meaning it only costs us 70 bucks to use it for a month, a good deal.  I am still holding on to the chicken tractor.  It’s rugged design will allow it to sit unused in the yard behind the coop without significant degradation.  I think it would be good to have secondary housing available in case we have to separate chickens for some reason in the future.

Hey who wants to go on a Greek vacation?  It seems pretty amazing that a non-3rd world country has managed to find it’s way into such a dire financial situation.  It sounds like a coin flip as far as what is going to happen next.  If Greece gives a big middle finger to the banks and drops out of the EU not only will it be chaotic within it’s own borders, it could very well set a precedent for other runts in the EU that are having severe debt issues to follow suit.

On my way home from work I picked up the dogs for another long weekend visit while Ali is out of town.  They had to share space on the back of the Prius with groceries from Costco, including two large bags of softener salt.  During the night Cindy and I both had off and on sadness about Lola passing away.  I have a hard time processing when something is here one moment and gone the next.

On Saturday morning I wanted to get started with the ethernet to coop project.  I wanted to get the attic work out of the way before it became a sauna.  Earlier in the week I had cut and put an end on the network cable I was going to extend outside.  My plan was to come out of the attic with the 200 foot ethernet cable via a hole that is already punched in the cinder block where cable, satellite and phone lines are located.

Well as I surveyed the hole from the outside I realized that I had precious little space to get another cable through there.  To make matters worse the hole is not straight through the wall, instead they are offset by 8-10 inches from the inside to the outside, making it even more messy.  After doing a lot of pulling and tugging I realized that it just was not going to work that way.  So it was time to look for alternative exits.

After some thought and further examination I decided to punch through the soffit next to the conduit used to route the pipe to the AC compressor.  It allowed me to hide the cable for the most part as it goes down the wall.  I jammed the cable through the hole from the outside and had Cindy hold it while I struggled to crawl into the corner of the attic where I could barely snag it with my fingers.

Now the fun was beginning, getting the cable routed all the way out to the chicken coop.  I used two tools to get the cable into the ground, a hand edger to cut a slice into the turf and my window spline tool to push the ethernet cable into the ground.  It’s a slow process as I only move the edger about 6 inches at a time between each cut.

For part of the cable run I went into the border around the pool, pulling back the weedblock and shoving the cable underneath.  It was not fun either but easier than cutting through the lawn.  After close to an hour I finally had traveled the roughly 150 feet to the shed.  I drilled a hole in the front corner of the shed floor and had Cindy fish the cable up to me.  I connected the cable in the attic and to one of web cams while I held my breath.  I exhaled with relief when I saw the connection and activity lights snap on as they should.  The coop was now hard wired.

I added in a spare wifi router I had laying around to create a backyard hotspot.  I hard wired both web cams into the router to maximize bandwidth to them.  When I checked the video feeds with the new set up it was clear and fast, just as I hoped.

My shirt was soaked with sweat which I addressed with a quick jump in the pool.  I didn’t want to stink while Cindy and I ran some errands, including a stop at Rural King for chicken supplies, a nearly weekly occurrence.  This time the dogs had to share the back of the Prius with a 50 pound bag of chicken feed and three 50 pound bags of sand.

When I got home Cindy and I were back outside, her on the tractor, me on the weed whacker.  Of course it was hotter than hell in the middle of the afternoon but we wanted to get it done.  When I finished up weed whacking I had a few other things to attend to.  One of them was coming up with a way to block the skylights in the coop.

The heat in the coop during the day is pretty oppressive.  When I checked it at one point on Saturday the thermometer hanging from the truss read almost 110 degrees. Having two skylights pumping more radiant energy into the coop just was not necessary.  The coop has plenty of other windows to allow light inside.

I grabbed some pieces of white corrugated plastic that is typically used for signs.   The pieces weren’t quite large enough to block the area completely but it was close.  Before long the temps dropped into the upper 90’s inside, still hot but not horrendous.  Cindy is going to buy some bigger panels which will completely block the area.  We are also talking about painting the roof of the shed a lighter color that will reflect some of the sun.  The current dark brown native color is a heat magnet.

Saturday night we were exhausted from busting ass all day.  We stayed in watched Episode 1 of Star Wars, yes the Jar Jar Binks episode.  I put all three of the second generation Star Wars films in my Netflix queue.  I just felt like watching them again, maybe as a build up for the new Star Wars that comes out around Xmas.

Watching the movie reenforced the good and bad from second trilogy.  Jar Jar Binks seemed just as stupid as ever and the films over reliance on CGI and little focus on story was still apparent.  If I was to give it a current day rating it would have to be B+ at best.

On Sunday we bagged a bike ride.  Cindy woke up with her hands feeling pretty bad, something a 20 mile bike ride would only make worse.  Instead we got busy with various things.  One of those things is me working on getting Cindy’s YouTube channel up and running with Google AdSense so she can starting making some ad dollars.  Her application was rejected twice due to lack of content on her website.  After adding some additional content it made it through stage one of the application process, now we have to cross our fingers it makes it all the way through.

I also did another dry run of race timing on Sunday, a less intensive test where I just had one mat set up in the dining room that I walked bibs across.  It served it’s purpose and exposed a couple other operational gotchas I need to look out for.

Of course there was a lot of chicken related activities over the weekend.  The current main drama is sleeping arrangements.  Lucy has still been bitchy and pecking the other chicks if they get too close to her.  Cindy built a secondary perch at a right angle to the main perch, hoping Lucy could claim it for herself.

Well since the secondary perch still connected to the main perch structure Lucy still was able to slide down and peck away at the babies.  Last night Cindy tried to address the problem further by stringing some netting that created a slight barrier between her and the rest of the flock.  It seemed to work ok but we can’t really be at ease until all 12 birds put themselves to bed and wind up in their respective spots without us putting them there.

Last night Cindy finished up applying the chip timing device to 1200 bibs we have ready for Saturday’s 4th of July race.  Only 1800 more to go. 🙂  It’s not a fast process but I am confident as time goes on we will fine tune things to consume less resources.

My 200 feet of bury rated ethernet cable showed up yesterday.  I wanted to see if I would be able to pull up the cable from the unused jack in our bedroom.  I was up in the hot and itchy attic while Cindy was in the bedroom.  I had her tapping on the ceiling so I could home in on which cable I was looking for.

Once I found the wire, which was smack underneath some AC ducts, I gave it a tug to see if it would be possible to pull the wire up the wall.  There was no give at all in the wire.  I recalled when we wired the house we secured the CAT 5 to the metal studs so I wasn’t surprised I couldn’t pull it up.

Plan B was to cut the wire in the attic and put a new cat 5 connector on it, something I haven’t had to do for many many years.  I dusted off my old metal tool case that had all of my cabling tools and printed out a diagram as a reference for 568B wiring since the pin out order is something I forgot long ago.  After some tedious work I was able to get the wires into the connector and crimped in place.  I brought one of my timing boxes out to the garage, connected it to the wire and was able to ping it through the network meaning my surgery had been successful.  The next steps will be this weekend where I hopefully can snake the wire out the side of the house and all the way to the coop in the backyard.

So when I got home from work yesterday Cindy told me that Lola was not doing well.  She said she stayed in the coop all day and did not want to eat.  When Cindy told me she didn’t even eat a blueberry when it was offered to her I knew it was serious.  When I went out to see her it was obvious things were not good.  She had her eyes closed mostly and she periodically was moving her neck around and making noises that almost were like coughing.  The dramatic downturn was surprising, especially since on Wednesday Cindy said Lola was doing well (for her), eating and drinking quite a bit.  Hell Lola had a starring role in a video Cindy shot about cleaning chickens with dirty butts that same day.

Obviously Cindy was very upset and so was I although I told Cindy that I think we both knew this outcome was coming.  Lola first started acting sick at the end of April when she no longer was able to hop up to the nesting boxes or onto a perch.  When the symptoms persisted we took her to the vet when we were afraid she may have had Mareks disease.  We never found out definitively if she had it but we did find out she had parasites in her poop which we treated. After she was dewormed she had some mild improvement but never came close to returning to normal.  Despite her weighing less than a pound and a half she walked like she weighed much more.  Each step looked deliberate, labored, and slow.

So anyway I carried the nesting box Lola was sitting in outside, telling Cindy I think she would like that.  I gently petted her head as I carried her out.  I told Cindy we should keep her inside with us last night since it seemed like the end was near.  Cindy agreed we could bring her in after we ate dinner.  More storms were starting to roll in so we put Lola back in the coop before we went in to eat.

The storm was quite strong, dumping large amounts of rain in a short amount of time.  After it subsided I went outside to get the chickens settled into the coop for bed and to bring Lola inside.  When I opened the door to the coop I saw Lola had her head tucked down out of view.  I knelt down and touched her back while gently while saying her name.  She felt still and did not respond at all to my touch.  I moved her a little bit and still had no response.  When I picked her up the cold realization came over me that Lola had died in the brief time period we were inside.  Feelings of guilt and sorrow rushed in.

I held her in my arms, petting her while I walked out of the coop as Cindy was coming out to join me.  I gave her the sad news which of course devastated Cindy, who has spent countless hours and endless energy trying to nurse Lola back to health.  I cried not only over the loss of Lola but because of the pain I knew this was causing Cindy.  Lola was literally like her little feathered baby.

We decided to bury her right away.  We did so in the orchard at the base of the black raspberry bush, whose fruit Lola loved so much.  It was a somber evening as you can imagine and recalling these moments has made me grab the tissues once again.

Yesterday I left work a little early so I would have time to work on yet another chicken project at home, a new coop perch.  The perch we have in the coop was built by Cindy.  Although Lucy has been quite content perching on it at night it is constructed out of mostly 2 inch lumber which just isn’t very sturdy.  It was also made before we knew we would be housing a total of 13 chickens at night. Cindy had been looking at various other designs on the internet and settled on one.  She bought the lumber for it earlier in the week so I had everything I needed after she handed me the sketch she drew up with dimensions.

Pretty much the entire time the skies looked quite menacing.  We had some light rain dropping on us and had a serenade of thunder through most of the build.  I was in tunnel vision mode, I was going to get the perch done, pretty much no matter what.

The design Cindy found is good and with 2×4’s as the frame it is very solid.  In total there are 5 perches, each 46″ long, giving the chickens a wide variety of perching locations depending on where they are on the pecking order.  The angle design prevents chickens higher on the ladder from pooping on those beneath them, an important feature. I lost count of how many times Cindy said “I am so excited!” during the build process.

We had the baby chickens out free ranging with Lucy and Lola while the build was going on.  They seem to be integrating better and better.  For a period of time Lucy and Lola were inside the chick’s coop eating their food.  It was a funny visual.  Cindy was anxious to get the new perch done because she is feeling more and more comfortable with the idea of all 13 birds being together based on how things have been going the last week.

So yesterday I did the first steps in planning a potential 2015 road trip.  The plan is in a word, big.  The route I tentatively mapped out has five potential key destinations, Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone Park, Craters of the Moon, Bonneville Salt Flats, and the Hoover Dam.  To hit all of these destinations adds up 6000 miles plus of roadway which is a big number.

I have actually been to all of these places before minus the Salt Flats in prior road trips with Ali.  Despite that I am quite interested in revisiting them again because my first time through we had canines in tow which created pretty significant restrictions on what we could and couldn’t do. Plus the idea of showing Cindy some of these national treasures is exciting for me, she appreciates it so much.

There is a long list of hurdles to clear and ducks to line up before I can make this happen.  Not only do I need to steer clear of other reserved vacation blocks at work, I also have to dance around the races I am responsible for timing.  There is also the requirement of finding somebody very reliable and responsible to tend to chickens and Tuki while we would be gone.  Finally there is the monetary pressure what is sure to be around a two week trip would apply.  The fuel efficiency of the Prius is a big help in this regard but there will be tons of dollars involved in a trip of this size. I will start trying to knock down the hurdles one at a time today.

This weekend I have work to do outside of my normal circle of to do’s.  I have a server upgrade at work that needs to be handled and extensive testing of the new timing hardware that needs to be completed.  I plan to literally set up a race in my back yard with Cindy being my guinea pig.  Although I have timed something like 150 races, this will be my first time doing it with something other than Ipico hardware in the last 7-8 years.  I need to get familiar enough with the MyLaps hardware so I know how to handle at least the basic, common problems that can pop up during a race.

There is also a good chance that by the end of the weekend all 13 chickens will be housed under one roof.

Yes I read about the shootings at the church in South Carolina.  Yes it is horrible and another painful example of how sick the human mind can become.  Is there anything I can say to add insight or clarification as to why this happens? Nope.