Category Home Improvements

The past few days I have noticed that right around dusk a small rabbit has been hanging out right around the large shed.  I am pretty sure there is a rabbit hole under there.  Well last night the chickens were still walking around as the sun was setting.  We had their coop open.  The rabbit saw that as an opportunity to go into the coop and start chowing down on pellet food we give the chicks.  Two of the chickens saw this and came running up to the coop, watching the rabbit eat their food with what I assume is a chicken “WTF” expression on their face.

I got an email from the company that processed the party van donation on behalf of the Humane Society stating that it was sold for $1100, meaning the HS will get a nice little chunk of dough.  I am sure it was wholesaled.  I am curious if it will be back on Florida roads soon.  If so I hope the new owner wears their seat belt.

This weekend is one of the club’s bigger races, a 10K that is held at Artis-Naples.  I am having to get creative with the disposable timing bibs we use to time races.  I only have around 540 of our normal timing bibs left and we currently have a little over 500 10K runners registered, meaning I will run out of bibs by race day.  To get by I am going to have to redeploy timing bibs that were left over from last year’s Thanksgiving race.  It’s not an ideal scenario but one that came about because a new race was added to the club schedule after we made the last bib order, throwing our usage number estimates out of whack.  Using the leftover bibs turns into a lot of extra work for me since they are not sequential.  I need to do a lot of manual tracking and assigning of bibs to make sure all the numbers jive at the end.

In a couple weeks Cindy will be breaking away from the chains of a normal 9-5 job.  The big goal is for her to get her trainer certification complete which she has been working on for a month or so.  The timing of the change will actually work out well for the house flooring project. She will be able to be home while the installers are there, meaning I won’t have to burn tons of PTO to get the project done.  Cindy also has a list of home improvement/chores that she wants to work on while she has the time.

She will of course be working at least part time down the road but hopefully it will be something that offers flexibility and is more in line with Cindy’s strengths and abilities.  Personally I would be ok with her being my full time house slave.

I forgot to mention that we watched Dumb and Dumber To over the weekend.  Of course it could not live up to the original which was one of the funnier movies I have ever seen.  Still I thought they did a decent job although Cindy would probably not agree with the overall B rating I am giving it.

So I spent my vacation day trying to finish up the shed build.  The first portion of the morning was spent trying out to figure out a way to make the two front doors close securely.  Because of the misalignment of the floor layout the right door was a fraction of an inch high, causing it to get hung up on the frame.

My remediation involved several modifications. I did a lot of hacking and cutting at the mount for the right door hinge.  I cut out the floor to allow it to slide more to the right which in turn would cause the top edge of the door to drop down slightly.  I also inserted a shim in the right side of the front gable to give me another few fractions of an inch of clearance. At the end of my hacking, slashing, shimming and wedging I was able to completely close the right door and utilize the slide latch.  Doing so takes a little extra effort but it’s functional.

The remainder of the build was straight forward where I installed the windows and translucent skylights that are on the eave of the roof.  I finished up the shed build late in the morning.  All that was left to do was to secure the shed floor to the wood platform with lag screws.

Yesterday I also worked on finishing up Cindy’s pull up bar.  The 4″ x 6″ post was cemented in place on Saturday, it felt quit solidly secured to the ground by yesterday.   Since I have built a number of bar structures at this point, adding a 7 foot high bar to the collection was not all that difficult. I had to buy a long bolt for the pull up bar as well as the lag screws for the shed at the local hardware store.  I was surprised how expensive lag screws were at nearly $3 a pop.

I finished up the bar install.  The 7 foot bar is too low for me to do pull ups comfortably but should work out great for Cindy.  I recorded the install on video.

I then drove the 8 lag screws into the shed floor, locking it in place with the wood platform.  I would like to do some additional bracing to lock the walls to the floor although the shed supposedly has a wind load rating of 65 mph as is which should hold up to most storms short of hurricane strength.

Cleaning up the scattered tools and supplies from the two projects took a loooong time.  I bet in total I spent close to two hours.  30 minutes alone was spent cutting up the huge shed boxes with a utility knife so they could fit in the recycle bins.  By the time I officially called my outdoor work as done it was 5PM.

I did get a chance to check out the shed for leaks when a pretty strong afternoon storm blew in.  I got inside the shed as the wind and rain banged off the walls, windows and roof.  The roof looked 100% dry which I was quite relieved about, especially with the two large skylights up there.  Despite some gusty winds the shed walls appeared rock solid.  I felt no movement whatsoever.

When Cindy got home she was quite happy with the fruits of my labor. She was relieved that my hacks were able to compensate for the floor layout problem and she loved her new pull up bar.  It felt good to be done with what was three of the hardest days of labor in recent history.  I can hardly wait to get back to the gym today so I can rest.

I also made a video documenting the platform and shed install if you find that sort of thing interesting.

This is going to be brief because I still have many hurdles to clear this fine Monday.

Sunday morning a second member of our flock of four started crowing, Curly, indicating we had yet another rooster.  Unfortunately we are all but sure that Kathy, the biggest  of all of the chickens is a rooster as well based on her huge feet and feather layout.  Cindy and I are both very frustrated as we have grown attached to all the chickens  at this point.  We don’t enjoy swapping them out like they are a bad light bulb.  We both want to get our next birds, preferably chicks from a place that actually sexes the birds scientifically.

So both Saturday and Sunday were just overflowing with work.  I knew building a raised 8×10 platform and shed was going to be time consuming and hard work.  I didn’t think it was going to be quite this hard however.

The platform build went relatively smoothly.  The construction process started out in the driveway where I hoped to find an 8′ x 10′ flat piece of concrete to build the frame on upside down.  That proved to be more challenging than I expected.

Once I had the outer frame together and four of the legs attached it was already getting heavy, we figured we needed to move it to the back yard while Cindy was still able to lift it.  The way we got it to the back yard would have made for a funny video clip.  We lifted one side of it onto the back of the Tacoma.  The frame was far too big to fit on there so I got behind and became the human trailer.  As Cindy drove slowly around the back of the house I walked behind holding the other half of the frame.

Once we were in the back yard we got busy.  I built the entire platform using my mental plan which was modified several times on the go.  After digging the holes and putting the frame two feet deep into the ground we used the two bags of concrete we had which was not enough to fill everything.  That was ok since we could pick up more when we went to Home Depot to get the plywood for the top of the platform.

We filled up the truck with three more bags of cement and a bunch of wood.  In addition to the three sheets of plywood we bought additional lumber for cross supports as well as a big 4″ x 6″ post to be used as an addition to my bar park.  Since I had all the stuff already out to sink posts I figured I would add another bar to my set up which is lower and more accessible for Cindy.  The Tacoma sunk as all of the heavy construction supplies were dumped into it.

We spent the rest of the day, almost until dark getting the platform finished up as well as the pull up bar post in the ground.  It was bust ass work but the platform felt strong and flat, the two most important things.  Cindy and I were quite tired, sun burned and sore.  The great news was we got to do it all over again on Sunday.

We started Sunday with a trip to Home Depot to get the pipe and flange that would be used to make Cindy’s pull up bar.  It also gave us a chance to fuel up with some Dunkin Donuts coffee for what was sure to be another hard day.  When we returned we jumped right into construction.  Just getting the two big shed boxes to the back yard was hard work, their size and weight required a lot of grunting and straining to get them into and back out of the Tacoma.

When we opened the boxes it was a bit intimidating, there were just endless amounts of parts.  it didn’t take long until I recognized why online reviews of the shed were critical of the instructions that are included, they just were not as clear as you would like.  Certain things that were potentially very important were included in small print as a note that was easy to miss or overlook.  This bit us in the ass more than once during the project.

We utilized my race timing canopy for as long as we could to provide us some shade to work.  The sun felt ridiculously hot for March.  The chickens were out free ranging with us the entire time and loving it.  They especially loved walking under the truck for some reason.  The two big birds have grease streaks down the middle of their backs to prove it.

So Cindy and I plodded along making slow and steady progress on the build.  With the shed, I took the exact opposite approach that I did with the platform, I wanted to make sure we followed the instructions exactly.  A few times Cindy made assumptions about how certain things went together that turned out to be incorrect.  None of them were major deals until we were in the home stretch of the shed build.

We were trying to install the right door of the shed but noticed there was no hole in the floor for the hinge to rest in like there was for the left door.  I immediately knew something was wrong.  Well after re-reading the floor layout instructions there was another one of those small little notes that point out that there was a certain way the floor panels had to be oriented which Cindy missed.

Of course I was very frustrated and Cindy felt very bad for the error.  At this point we had the shed built out even further than the picture you see on the left.  If I wanted to floor to be oriented correctly we would have to literally undo 4-5 hours of work by taking it all down.  I started to do just that until Cindy stopped me, crying.  She said there had to be a way we could make it work without dismantling everything.  She reminded me that I am McGyver after all, adept at making things work even when they don’t want to at first.  So I stopped unscrewing and started to formulate a plan to make what we have in front of us work.

The plan involved cutting out a piece of the floor to accommodate the hinge pin in a less than perfect fashion.  I tried to get the mounting hardware the same distance as the left door was from the sidewall which had the proper floor cut out under it.  The end result was us being able to get the right door in in a less than ideal manner.  That door is one of the hurdles I still need to clear today as it does not close correctly, yet.

So after the floor problem Cindy exclusively let me be the direction reader.  Even so, there were still a lot of struggles getting the roof in place.  There was a lot of banging, pulling, smacking and swearing involved.  Part of the problem was a cross support that we later found out we had mounted incorrectly.  It was mis-aligning the center truss.

Cindy and I slammed down some food we had delivered and headed right back to shed work even though the sun was setting.  We wanted to try to at least get the roof done.  We took out a bunch of my race lanterns to light up the inside of the shed quite well.  We managed to get the roof completed, sans a few skylights in pitch darkness as the mosquitoes swarmed us endlessly.  We did not step back inside the house until almost 9PM.

Both Cindy and I were just beat up physically.  We were sore everywhere and sunburned.  Our hands took quite the beating from screwing in literally hundreds of screws during the build.  My hands feel swollen and arthritic today.  I will be popping some aspirin before continuing on.

Today’s agenda is to complete the shed as much as I can with one person.  The big focus will be to somehow tweak the right door so it closes without using a screw driver to wedge it in place.  Hopefully I will have some time left over to get Cindy’s pull up bar up and running too.

I could have paid $300 to have the shed built for me by a crew that does it full time.  In retrospect it would have been money well spent.

Yesterday I finally got hard dates for my flooring project set up.  When you have both tile and carpeting going in the tile always needs to go down first if the two surfaces touch anywhere.  The tile job is scheduled to start April 14th.

The installer said that this is a large job and could take 3-4 full days to complete and that is assuming they don’t run into problems.  I already know they are going to have some issues with areas of the foundation that are not flat.  I know there are a few waves here and there that I can feel through the carpet. The carpet in the office and bedrooms is scheduled to go down a week later on the 21st.

Although the house is going to be more or less a disaster area for around two weeks, having the job split into two areas and two dates will make furniture moving more manageable.  While the tile is being done in the main living area we can slide all that stuff into the bedrooms and vice versa when the carpet is being laid.  It’s still going to be a TON of work and mess.  I am just going to focus on getting to the finish line, confident that all of the effort will result in a much more durable, attractive, and appealing interior of our home.

So yesterday I had a voicemail from the owner of the Florida Tarpons, Dave.  I have talked to Dave a few times on the phone since the team came into existence a few years ago.  He has told me of some of the struggles he has endured trying to get the team into something other than the money bleeding operation that it has been.

Well the reason for his call last night was to see if I wanted to renew my season tickets for this year.  I had planned to renew but I did not plan to have the owner of the team calling me personally to do so.

So I told him I was going to renew.  There are only four home games.  When he told me the total would be $200 for the two tickets I paused a bit.  $25 per game per person is pretty heavy considering the level of play, but our seats last year were pretty primo near midfield in row 3 or 4.  But then I considered that last year they gave us those season tickets for free to make up for the cluster fck of a 2013 season that had a bunch of rescheduled or cancelled games.  I figure I at least owed them one season of paying full boat for the seats.  The first home game isn’t until the end of April.

I took this upcoming Monday off to give me a three day weekend.  The extra day is not for relaxation but for labor.  My goal is by the end of those three days to have a raised platform in the middle of the back yard with the new 10′ x 8′ shed resting securely on top of it, fully constructed.

Like most all of my home construction the informal process and plans I am following are completely in my head.  For the most part this unconventional approach to construction has served me well over the years.  Hopefully the streak continues.

All day yesterday I was worried about the new hen’s safety in the coop with our new flock bullies, Curly and Kathy.  Although there is a decent amount of room under the coop and run for her to escape if need be, I was still afraid I would come home to her being in bad shape.  I was very relieved to step out the back door and see four chickens looking back at me.  I opened the coop and let them out to play.  The new hen was mostly side by side with the other chickens, hopefully we are past the most difficult acclimation time period.

I had to get changed and head directly back out in the Tacoma.  Earlier in the day I called the Naples Sam’s Club as instructed to see if they got any of the sheds delivered overnight.  They said they had four of them scheduled to be delivered but again they were unsure of when.  She said it looked like it might not be until next week.  It took me about 15 minutes of time on the phone to get this answer.

So just for the hell of it I called the next closest SC which is in Fort Myers.  They said they had six of the sheds in stock, cool.  I figured I would just grab it after work to not risk them running out of stock again.  I hopped in the Tacoma after chicken checking and headed north.  I was surprised that the GPS predicted I had roughly an hour drive ahead of me.  It turned out to be slightly more than that thanks to traffic.

So I walk in the store which appears to have a similar layout to the Naples location.  I walk over to the area where the display was in Naples but found no shed there.  Maybe this store didn’t have a display built.  I figured I would go to the customer service desk and ask them how to proceed since I had the item number in my phone.  The large 10 foot by 30 foot desk had exactly one woman behind it.  There were two other people in line with me.  The girl behind the counter was ignoring all three of us, I heard her yell over to another woman that she was in the middle of doing some sort of work that evidently did not involve helping the customers in front of her.  After more than 5 minutes of being ignored I mumbled “this is ridiculous” and walked away, looking for somebody else to ask.

Well I spotted the shed on the opposite side of the store.  I walked over and saw they had the tags you can simply take up to a register to pay for the item which I did. After paying for the shed the cashier said I could just wait by the exit door for them to bring it out.

So I stood guard at the door scanning for two large boxes coming my way.  Of course as I stood there I had ample time to observe the Sam’s Club patrons pushing their flatbeds and carts of crap out the door.  As I stood witness it did not give me much hope for the future of humanity.  It was pretty damn depressing.

So after standing by the door for at least 15 minutes the manger comes and tells me that it would be better if I drove my truck around the back to the vendor door.  He said the boxes for the shed were buried under some other things that had to be moved first.  I said fine, jumped in the Tacoma and drove around the back looking for a Vendor sign which there was none.  I did see a garage door and a regular door with a buzzer so it seemed like the logical spot to go.

For some reason I assumed someone would already be waiting for me out there which was evidently a poor assumption.  I waited for a bit for someone to pop their head out.  When that didn’t happen I went over to the door with a buzzer and rung it.  When nothing happened I pulled on the door and was surprised it was unlocked.  It led to a waiting room outside of what looked like a receiving office which had nobody in it.  I looked around for any signs of life but saw nothing, great.

After about 10 more minutes of waiting around I finally see a guy on a skid loader approach whom I wave down.  He said he had to unbury the boxes and it would take a couple minutes, the same thing I was told 20 minutes ago.  He said he would bring the shed out the garage door, great.  Finally, around 45 minutes after I paid,  the garage door was raised and the skid loader emerged with  two very long boxes on it.  I was glad the boxes were narrow enough to fit in between the wheel wells.

The guy carefully inched the loader forward until it was a couple inches from the cab.  The back end of the truck sagged under the 500 pounds plus of weight.  Even though the weight of the shed alone was probably enough to keep it from going anywhere, I used my ratchet strap to lock it in place.

By the time I navigated the long drive home it was after 8:30.  Getting the boxes out of the truck and into the garage was a bit challenging.  I pulled them down one at a time, each weighing at least 250 lbs.  Their long length and weight made moving them difficult, even with my hand truck.  Cindy and I managed to get them into a corner of the garage and leaned them upright against the wall.  They just cleared the 8 foot ceiling. After picking up a couple 2 x 10’s I will have everything I need to start construction.  Some of it may occur after work this week but more than likely things will really take shape over the weekend.

Tonight Cindy and I are hoping to take a mental breather from all of the upcoming project work we have on our plates by going to the county fair a mile down the road.  It’s one of the very few sources of entertainment available to us in close vicinity.   We both enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of the fair.  Of course we love interacting with the animals and the people watching opportunities at the event are top notch.

So when I got home on Friday evening it was to a totally empty driveway, meaning the party van was picked up by the towing company to be repurposed in whatever way possible to raise a few dollars for the Humane Society.  It felt very weird not seeing the outline of the party van standing guard in front of my home like it has for the last 6 years.  I guess I’ll get used to it.

Originally the dogs were going to get dropped off back at Ali’s place on Saturday morning however Ali had plans to work all day Saturday.  I figured the dogs would have a hell of a lot more fun staying out at the house all day with us than alone in an empty townhouse so I asked if we could drop them off on the way to the movies Saturday night, which Ali was fine with.  Well we wound up not going to the movies Saturday night and it turned out the dogs were with us until this morning, as I dropped them off on my way to work.

We love having the dogs obviously but we pay a severe sleep penalty when they are over most nights.  Sadie is a light sleeper and is ready to go out on the lanai at any time of the night.  If she is on the bed and awake, many times her breathing is heavy enough that it sends a constant vibration through the mattress which makes it near impossible to sleep.  Nicki, who sleeps soundly a good portion of most days, saves her nosiest time for nights.  In her old age she will randomly make wretching sounds as well as do heavy, loud panting that keeps both Cindy and I awake.  After five nights of this we both are feeling rather Walking Deadish, which may partially explain my bad mood yesterday.

So Saturday morning I heard Cindy say “I knew it!” loudly.  I was on the computer and had no idea what she was talking about.  She was referring to her suspicion that Nona was a rooster.  Her suspicion was confirmed when Nona started crowing at early morning sun.  Nona has been showing rooster personality traits, starting fights with all of the other chickens and just being generally aggressive.  In addition Nona’s wattle was bigger than all the other chickens and his feet were quite large as well, although Kathy and Curly have rather big feet as well, which has us concerned. (more on this later)

So we knew Nona had to go, we had expressed our concern about some of the chickens being roosters to the woman we got them from.  She told us then that if any turned out to be roosters we could return him.  We called and left a message letting her know we definitely had a rooster.

Even though Cindy and I knew a rooster would not fit into our backyard chicken formula we felt very sad about the idea of ejecting Nona from the flock.  Nona was the chicken that was sick very early on, laying weakly on Cindy’s lap as she rubbed him.  Nona was also the chicken that spent a night in our guest bathroom.  It’s weird that s(he) turned out to be the dominant rooster.  We hoped to hear from Anna soon so we could get the return over with, we didn’t hear back on Saturday.

Saturday morning Cindy and I did a three mile run, based out the Dunkin Donuts parking lot.  I never felt comfortable during the run.  We got a late start, meaning the warmer temps and humidity were more of a factor.  The 9:11 pace I averaged felt like an effort level of at least 45 seconds a mile faster.  I just was not enjoying myself.

After doing a shit load of yard work which included full lawn maintenance which had not be done for at least a month, we headed out for some errands with the dogs along for the ride.  We took the Prius which will be the defacto dog transport vehicle most of the time.  I tried to make it somewhat party van like for Nicki by laying the comforter that used to be on the bed in the van across the trunk area of the Prius.  The dogs seemed fine back there but I still felt guilty for taking their van away.

One of the places Cindy and I stopped was Sam’s.  When I was shopping there on Friday I saw these 10’x8′ sheds they were selling for a reasonable number.  Instantly a light bulb went off in my head.  Either this shed could be the new coop or it could be used to hold the stuff in my smaller shed, allowing that to be turned into a coop.

Cindy liked the shed a lot and seemed to favor making it the coop building since it’s polyethelene shell (with a steel frame) would make for easy clean up and more sanitary conditions.  For a mounting surface I figured I could make a slightly raised 8×10 wood platform that is concreted into the ground for stability and to keep it out of water during wet season.  We both agreed it was cool but did not pull the trigger on a purchase quite yet.

On Saturday we squashed the idea of going to the movies.  We were both tired from dog sleep deprivation plus we had Nightcrawler sitting in the Netflix envelope.  It was a decent flick.  Jake Gyllenhaal does a fantastic job at playing a really creepy and deranged character.  His acting performance gets an A, the movie gets a B+.

So Sunday we headed out to do several things.  We visited the course for the 10K I am timing in a couple weeks to mark the halfway point where I intend to have Cindy running the split timing for me. We had decided we were going to go with the shed from Sam’s.  I stopped at Home Depot to grab the stuff I would need to build the platform, well at least the frame of it.  I would go back to get the pressure treated plywood cut to size once I had the frame built.

We pulled into Sam’s ready to load up the shed as well, wanting to take advantage of the special in store pricing which was something like $500 less than what it showed online for the same shed.  Well we were bummed to hear they sold their last in stock unit on Saturday.  They said they would be getting more but could not tell us when.  The advice was to just call the store each day to check, that’s convenient.

We finally heard back from Anna on Sunday, she agreed to call us back a little after lunch to set up a meeting.  She said she had a hen from the same lot we could switch out.  Originally Cindy and I weren’t even concerned with getting a hen in return but since it was offered we were ok with it.  Well we didn’t get to meet up with Anna until later in the afternoon.

Rounding up Nona was depressing.  We got the other three chickens back in the coop and then tried to grab Nona.  He was freaked out and hyper ventilating as he paced rapidly in front of the coop, just wanting to be reunited with the chickens on the other side.  I finally was able to grab him.  I held and petted him as I walked over to the cat carrier to put him in.  I felt pretty terrible. On the ride to meet Anna Nona was making noises that Cindy and felt like he was saying “I don’t want to go”.  He was going to be going back to a much more congested chicken environment that will surely not be up to the standard he has become accustomed to in his month or so at our place.  I was frustrated that we were in this situation because he was misjudged as a female in the first place.

We have additional anxiety because we have bad suspicions that possibly two of our three chickens might also be roosters, although they haven’t crowed yet.  Both of them, especially Kathy have large feet and bodies that seem more rooster like.  If we have to go through this again it is going to suck.  Cindy said it was like waking up one day and having your pet undergo a sex change.

So the chicken Anna had for us in exchange was definitely a hen but again not what we thought she would be.  Anna said she was from the same buff orpington  set of chicks the others were from.  This hen was much more reddish brown.  At best she could be a buff/rhode island red cross breed but definitely not a pure orpington.  We already knew we had another misidentified bird at home, Lola, who is probably at least half americana.  All of this gender and breed screw ups with the chicken lady make me not want to use her as our chicken lady going on from here.  I think the next chickens Cindy and I will get will be sexed, baby pullets from Rural King where we can raise them from scratch, making them much less scared of us.

So we put Nona in a cage in the back of their van and put the new hen in our other carrier.  I felt really bad giving Nona away but tried to just focus on why it had to be that way.  The new hen was very scared and did not make a peep on the way back to the house.

When we got home I wanted to just let the chickens out of their coop so they could mingle with the new hen in an open space.  Cindy thought we should put the new hen in the coop right away so she would know that was home base.  I was worried this could be problematic as chickens can be territorial.  Well it was a problem.

Instantly there were menacing sounding noises and body language from Kathy and Curly.  They cornered the new hen and started bullying her, even pecking at her a few times.  I instantly pulled the run away from the coop so the chickens could come out.  Even with 4 feet of open space Kathy and Curly were staying put, acting aggressive.  Cindy and I were not happy.  This aggressive behavior by the two chickens (Lola didn’t care) added additional weight to our fear that we have at least one if not two more roosters under roof.

Eventually the chickens came out from the run and started exploring.  The new hen came out as well but was very scared and nestled herself in one of the landscaped areas for quite awhile.  The other chickens went after her quite a bit early but as time passed the aggression lessened somewhat.  The new hen started to calm down a bit and started roaming the yard, following the other chickens around.  Of course if she got too close the two possible roosters would take a few aggressive steps in her direction which would send her running away.

Cindy and I were worried that the chickens would not allow the new hen to come up into the coop to sleep at night.  We made provisions by covering the run with a comforter so if need be she could sleep down below.  The three chickens went up for bed while the new chick was out wondering around.  After Cindy and I carefully steered her into the coop we crossed our fingers she would be allowed to go up top.  It took awhile but just as the last rays of daylight were expiring she slowly and cautiously made her way up the ramp.  I didn’t hear any squawking which was a relief.  Cindy and I are hoping a night sleeping together will mean they will be more amenable together during the day today.  I have to admit I am nervous leaving them alone today and wish I was home to chicken sit.

Late in the day I did some beginning work on the frame for the shed, cutting the frame support 4×4’s to length.  My hope was doing some work would help take the edge of my mood that was undeniably irritable.  I was not very pleasant to be around and unfortunately Cindy got to catch some of the thorns of my bad mood.  After apologizing later I told her I think it had to do mostly with having two large projects looming over my head, the house flooring and the chicken coop construction.  When paired with poor sleep and the chicken related drama it just added up to a bad day.

Last night we had yet another highly interrupted sleep session.  Cindy and I wound up moving to the guest bedroom at 3:30 am, leaving the dogs to their own means so we could at least get a little sleep.  Tonight we should sleep like logs hopefully.

Anyone in IT that has been burned by hardware failure, viruses or plain old user stupidity knows how important data back ups are.  My back up strategy at work has become very disjointed and manic over the years.  For awhile we invested heavily in traditional tape back up systems with three robotic libraries teamed up with Symantec Backup Exec.  Tape back up has some major disadvantages, even with the the advances in hardware over the years.  The two biggest problems are speed and reliability.

A tape is a linear device, so if the data you are looking for just happens to be towards the end of the tape you need to spin through the entire spool to get there.  This process is rather slow, especially when compared to hard drive access.  Tapes and tape drives wear out.  More than once I have had a tape that had data I needed be bad, causing all sorts of headaches.

I also have a real issue with Symantec, I basically can not stand their business model.  They nickel and dime the fck out of you, charging you all sorts of add on pricing to be able to back up a typical network with applications like SQL, Exchange, and Sharepoint on it.  When a new Windows operating system comes out, you can already assume that Symantec would not give you a small patch file for free to be able to back it up. No, their solution is for you to pay for a complete software upgrade if you want to back up anything newer.  It’s very, very aggravating.

Well my present day back up solution for the network was a hydra, with two Backup Exec servers, three tape libraries, and multiple NAS devices which are both direct and network connected.  It has been sort of a mess for quite awhile.

Well yesterday I brought a new Unitrends back up appliance online, something suggested to me by our trusted sales rep. It is a 1U rack appliance that uses amazing software, high end hardware and data de-duplication to make network back ups significantly faster, more reliable and hands off.  The company is entirely US based and their customer support philosophy is simply awesome.  Basically whatever you need from them is what they will deliver.  In addition, if you pay for your 3 yearly maintenance cost up front, at the end of those three years you get a FREE upgrade to the latest and greatest appliance hardware.

Last night we backed up everything, a job that used to be split in between 4 different back up solutions.  The Unitrends appliance tore through the data, in three hours everything except one server was finished.  To do the same thing with our old set up would take 12-14 hours.   It’s early but so far I am very impressed with Unitrends.

The party van should be pulled out of my driveway sometime today.  Everytime I have looked at it the past couple days it has been with sadness and reflection of  the good times it has been part of.  I almost feel like I am shooting a horse with a broken leg.  As I got in the Tacoma this morning I looked upon the van for what is likely the last time in my life and said “goodbye” out loud.  Yes I suppose it is odd to feel emotional about the van leaving but I never claimed to be normal.

Luckily last night the dogs slept soundly, allowing Cindy and I to sleep straight through.  They will go back to Ali’s place tomorrow.  Cindy and I are wondering how they will react when all of the flooring in the house is changed.

This weekend I have a lot of stuff I would like to get done, what else is new?

I don’t feel very chatty today, not a great thing with a weekend recap to do.

Saturday was not bad as I mixed in a modicum of outdoor chores with a lot of screw off time in the afternoon.  Later in the afternoon we headed down to the running store as I needed to pick up the race bibs for Sunday’s race.  We took the van for the drive along with my AC recharge kit.  My hope was for the compressor to kick on at some point during the drive which would allow me to add refrigerant to the low pressure side of the system.  Unfortunately the entire 45 mile drive the AC was dead so my attempts to remedy the problem were dead as well.  I am planning to take the van to this place I used years ago for AC work.  They were very reasonable.  If I can get the AC cranking in the party van without dropping a large wad of money I’ll make the investment.

The timing of this Sunday race sucked.  Sunday races in general suck in my book, I would always much rather get it out of the way on Saturday and have the last half of my weekend to myself. However this race date sucked more than normal since it coincided with the the clocks going forward, meaning my normal 4AM race day alarm was actually more like 3AM.  Somehow I actually woke up on my own about 15 minutes before the alarm went off Sunday morning.

On Saturday night we tried something that at first I thought had no shot of being successful, packing the Prius with the race gear.  I figured there was no way we could get 7 timing  mats, 3 timing boxes, 4 laptops, 8 lanterns and a bunch of other crap we lug to races in the back of the sub-compact gas sipping hybrid.  I was wrong.  Yes it took very careful placement and eliminating one large Rubbermaid bin in favor of a bag but we got it all in.

So we got on the race site about 5:20, a little ahead of the 5:30 time that most people show up for a 7:30 race.  I have stuff to do anyway right away like drop off equipment at the start line before unpacking the rest in the registration area.  I thought it was odd that after we had the Prius totally unpacked there was not a single other vehicle in the parking lot even though it was now 5:40.

When 5:45 came and nobody was there, most importantly the equipment truck, I was genuinely concerned.  This was a first year race, is it possible that nobody told Bill our equipment guy that there was a race that day?  Finally another vehicle pulled in, it was one of our core volunteers that had Bill’s phone number, something I did not have in my phone.  He called Bill to see what was up as he was surprised he wasn’t there yet.

It turned out Bill and others were told by the race director that there was no need to show up before 6AM since this was a small race. (we actually had over 400 pre-registered which is pretty big)  Of course I found this annoying.  We have had an unwritten rule in place for as long as I can remember of starting set up two hours before the posted race start time.  Second, if the time the truck was showing up was changed, it should have been mentioned to me since everyone in the club knows I am typically one of the first people on site.

So after nearly a half hour of standing around we got to start unloading the truck.  I immediately felt behind the curve, a feeling I don’t want on race day.  Yes typically that extra half hour of set up time translates into us being up and ready well before the first runner shows up, but there is a reason for that.  If something does go wrong we have some slack time to address it.  If I have learned anything in nearly a decade of race production, having everything set up early is a good problem to have. On the plus side, this race involved the Naples band so there were a ton of students recruited to be extra hands to move crap around.

Once set up began I found out that the course was changed on Saturday, again without my knowledge.  The start line equipment we dropped off was about 250 yards north of where the start line was moved to.  I was buzzing around trying to get all the tech online when I found out.  Thankfully Cindy was able to go throw the stuff in the Prius and move it to the new spot while I kept working.

So we got everything up and running and had a good group of volunteers handling registration so things flowed pretty well.  I headed down to the start line and got my equipment set up.  We then had another problem.  The police were under the impression the route was on the other side of the road that I was set up on.  They wanted us to move all my equipment and the nearly 400 runners over to the other side to start.  Instead we suggested that the police divert the runners into the other lane about 200 yards up the road at the first median crossover.  They agreed to the plan but said they needed one more officer to make it happen.  They said it should take a couple minutes.  It took almost 15.

So as the runners were restlessly waiting for the race to start the Naples band was belting out music full blast, starting at 7:15.  I wondered how many noise complaints were called in by the numerous near by condo inhabitants.  I have no doubt they were numerous.

Finally the other officer arrived and the race kicked off.  From that moment on my day got better.  I had zero timing issues, in fact as best I could tell I had 100% reads at the start and finish line with 385 runners clocked in at both timing points.  All of my tech worked great except for my back up timing box which ran out of battery power before the race finished which was unexpected.  Cindy and I had the Prius repacked and rolled off site by 9:30. When we got home I worked until around noon getting results posted, the web site updated and the finish line video processed and posted to YouTube.

I decided to rip the timing box that had a battery failure apart as obviously the problem had to be addressed.  Pulling it apart wasn’t very technically challenging.  After removing the guts from the case I found that the box actually has two batteries instead of one.  A quick search online resulted in a set of replacement batteries being ordered via Amazon that will cost $45 shipped to my door, cheap. I saw this as yet another opportunity to post a how to video to my YouTube empire. The rest of Sunday I spent a lot of time just screwing around in WoW, a good way to for me to take a brain vacation.

The chickens got to screw around outside as well, walking around the yard.  Cindy and I have decided that Lola, the smallest chicken by far is actually not a buff orpington chicken.  She may be a cross breed between a buff and something else but she is definitely not a pure breed.  Cindy thinks she could possibly be an americana.  If she is, that could mean she will eventually lay blue eggs.

We also had a lot of discussion about permanent coop options.  With a near total home floor replacement on the horizon, coop construction is not on the top of the to do list.  However we are both committed to building a permanent structure that allows for more capacity, safety, and room for the chickens to roam.

Last night we watched St Vincent, a movie my dad had recommended to me where Bill Murray plays a grumpy and generally disagreeable old man.  The movie has laughs and some unexpected tears.  It was a role Murray seemed very good at playing.    It checked in with a B+ rating in my book.

So yesterday in addition to chatting with Jeremy and Randall regarding my home flooring project I also talked to my buddy at work, whom I know has a good sense of interior decor.  I described to him my two current options, tiling the entire main living space in tile or leaving the front dining room and office carpet.  I told him how I like the feel of carpet under my feet and since I spend so much time in the office I would really prefer carpet there.  I showed him my floor layout which I had with me.  I told him that I didn’t really care if the dining room was carpet or not.  He suggested I just tile everything but the office, end of problem.  Having the dining room changed to a hard surface makes more sense, I think the only reason I didn’t include it was I thought it would look imbalanced having that tiled while the office is not.  In retrospect I don’t think it is a big deal at all.

So I contacted my guy at Home Depot and asked him to have the estimate tweaked for the fourth time.  I told him I was sure he was sick of my requests by now.  He said absolutely not, it was his job and he wants us to be happy and comfortable with our decision.  That attitude (and my being able to knock $3500 off the estimate by doing stuff myself) is the reason I wanted to give him my business.

He reworked the numbers a final time and called me back.  I ok’d the deal and we got the ball rolling.  The process will not be quick, Anthony said 4-6 weeks until completion would be a normal range which was fine, I’m not in a rush.  The materials now get ordered.  Once they are all at the store I pick everything up and drop it in my garage.  Once that happens the installation is scheduled which leads to what hopefully will be a pretty dramatic transformation.  Cindy and I are excited for the change.

Last night I did a remote meeting / phone call with a guy that is a dealer for both Ipico, the timing system I use for the club and Lynx, the company that makes the camera based hardware that was used at the track meet I observed on Saturday.  He was giving me information and advice about the Lynx system and how it is used for both track meets and road races with it being integrated with the Ipico chip timing systems.  I also got some pricing on various aspects of the system as well.

The dollars are not cheap and could not be justified until GMT is producing more dollars.  The demand for track meet timing is quite high in our area so it definitely is something I could grow into, the question is if I want to dedicate the time to do so.

My Cowboy loving ex-classmate posted this Eagle fan reaction video to the LeSean McCoy trade.  It is quite funny and utilizes more insertions of the F word than I thought were possible in a four minute clip.

So as I mentioned yesterday, Cindy and I headed back to Home Depot last night to talk to the flooring guy about more exact numbers associated with options.  The first thing we did was go over the quote where the entire main living space would be done in the ceramic tile that looks like wood.  As we went line by line in the quote we started crossing off grunt labor prep work as Cindy and I had decided we would just bite the bullet and do that part of the job ourselves. We also committed to be the delivery service for the raw materials, saving $300 HD would charge us to drop it at our door.

By the time we were done crossing out line items of expense it added up to a whopping $3500 off the original estimate which was pretty amazing.  We then had to price out the three options we were considering which are wood looking tile in the entire main living area and carpeting the bedrooms, wood looking tile in great room area and a strip leading from the front door, creating a visual separation for the dining room and office (carpet), or just re-carpeting everything that is carpet now.  Option A is most expensive and option C is least expensive with roughly $3000 between the two.

Anthony, our Home Depot guy was very knowledgeable and thorough in explaining our options and the way things are handled.  We left there with all the info we needed.  I told him we had to think about which option we were going to go with.

So when Cindy and I got home we tried to envision the options.  Cindy’s gut reaction is just to tile everything in the main area since she is a Florida native and ceramic tile is more widely used around here.  Being a PA native I have always lived in homes where carpet was the dominant flooring surface and I prefer walking around with soft carpet under my toes.  Tile obviously has more durability and next to no issues with dirt/staining, a problem I obviously have had with two dogs in the house.

I had a very hard time picturing the floor with the tile and had anxiety regarding how it would turn out.   The logical part of me realizes it should look great and will dramatically change the appearance of the space.  The new carpet we picked out is a darker color too so even just laying that down everywhere would have a less dramatic but still significant visual impact.  After some further discussion Cindy and I agreed that tile in the main area would be the better option, now it was deciding between the two options with doing so, including or excluding the front office and dining room.

Cindy’s initial reaction was to just tile it all.  I was wishy washy about it.  I was more of a proponent of a tile walkway leading from the front door to the great room area, creating a visual separation from the office and dining room which could still be carpet.  Since I like the feel of carpet and I spend such a good chunk of my time in the office, having new rug in there makes sense to me.  Yes, having carpet in the dining room where food is normally served is not ideal but our dining room is actually utilized for eating meals once or twice a year, tops.

Of course I have to think about the dogs as well.  From an owners perspective, tile is the way to go as it won’t care what sort of excrement is expelled upon it as well as not trapping the incredible amounts of fur that comes off the dogs.  From a dogs perspective it is mixed.  During brutal summers Nicki loves to lay on cool tile but she also loves soft carpet as well to sprawl out on a good deal of the time.

After some back and forth pro’s and cons with Cindy we agreed on the idea of the tile strip from the front door with the dining room and office getting new carpet.  As I am typing this out, as well as getting feedback from Randall and Jeremy, both of whom are in the “all tile in the main area” camp, I find myself pushed back into the pool of uncertainty.  Carpeting the two front rooms also has a price advantage of over $1500 but that is not the driving factor.  I just want to make sure that I am not choosing a flooring layout too heavily based on resale value as opposed to comfort and personal preference since I have no near term plans to sell my home.

So I was shocked to see the headline about the Eagles having a trade of Lesean McCoy to the Bills pretty much locked up.  The trade would send him to Buffalo in exchange for a young linebacker from Chip Kelly’s old school of Oregon, named Kiko Alonso. (never heard of him)

When I read the details of the proposed trade I didn’t feel much better.  Yes the driving force behind the deal is to clear salary cap space since McCoy was due to make almost 10 million dollars this year. But WTF, McCoy is one of the premier running backs in the league.  Alonso had a strong rookie season but missed ALL OF LAST year with an ACL tear, an injury that you never know how an athlete is going to recover from.  It almost seems like trading a Corvette for a Camry.  Sure your monthly payments are less but you are losing a lot of performance.

Yes McCoy underperformed last year, especially during the first half of the season where he did next to nothing.  However to trade him away for a 3rd year linebacker that spent his entire second year on IR seems pretty damn looney to me.  Some proponents of the trade will say this move as well as a few other cuts the Eagles announced (Trent Cole) will free up a bunch of cap space so the team can be aggressive in free agency.  My question is exchanging value for value.  Is dumping McCoy worth 10 million dollars in cap space?  I personally don’t think so.

Chip Kelly seems very interested in getting former Oregon players on the Eagles roster.  In addition to Alonso, rumors have been circulating that Kelly is trying to do whatever he can to get in a position to draft Marcus Mariota, the Oregon QB, despite the Eagles drafting in a position way too low to get him.  The speculation is Kelly is willing to practically give away the farm to get him which again makes me nervous.

Although statistically Nick Foles was not great before he got injured last year, he was still leading the team to wins, something Mark Sanchez was not as good at.  I think to dismiss Foles and mortgage the future for Mariota would not be very smart based on the long and fabled history of highly rated college QB’s falling on their face once they reach the NFL.

The Eagles off season is shaping up to be quite an interesting soap opera.