Category Home Improvements

So last night I was working on putting entries in for the race I am timing today and my cell phone rings.  I see it is my neighbor from across the street.  He told me he was on the road but had just gotten a call from his wife that their one rear sliding door exploded.  She was freaked out and was scared somebody shot at her or something.  He asked if I could run over there until he got home.  I said of course, and headed right over.

I was a bit nervous when I knocked on the front door and no one answered.  I then went around the back onto their lanai when Carol came out.  I saw the shattered glass, it sure look like it had been shot.  However a quick inspection of the screen around the pool cage showed no rips or tears where a projectile could have entered.  Also the curtain behind the slider was intact.

Carol said when it happened she was literally sitting right next to the slider, it understandably scared her to death.  She had already called the police.  The police showed up, a full three cars worth, a minute or two before my neighbor got back home.  When we described what happened the first thing they did was ask how old the house was. (16 years old)

They said this actually is something they have seen multiple times, especially with older construction.  The single pane glass eventually fatigues.  This process is amplified by the difference in outdoor Florida heat and humidity and the chilly indoor temps many people keep their AC cranked down to.  Having one side of the glass hot and the other cold, over time, with older glass, can result in the implosion like my neighbor saw last night.

I asked my neighbor if he wanted any help with the clean up process or sealing the hole temporarily, there was glass everywhere.  He said he would be fine so I headed back across the street to continue my race prep.

Last night in addition to my salad and veggie wrap, I decided to cook some broccoli.  My cooking abilities are extremely handicapped.  Not because I can’t do it, just because I never had to do it.

I had prepared some broccoli a couple times recently by nuking it in the microwave.  It was edible but not much beyond that.  Well on the way home I called my mom to ask for broccoli stove top prep instructions. After all the less nuking of food I do, the better.

Mom said prep was pretty straightforward.  You basically dump some water in a pot with the broccoli, add some salt and bring it to a boil.  Once it boils you turn off the burner and cover the pot, letting the broccoli cook in the steam/hot water.

I was quite pleased with the end result, broccoli came out much better than my previous nuked attempts.  Broccoli is the second item that I discovered comes out much better when cooked conventionally.  Gortons grilled tilapia was the first.  Gordon Ramsey better look out.

After I finished all the prep for the race I am timing this evening it was almost 9pm.  I decided to flip on the debate as I was folding laundry in the bedroom, despite my intentions to not even bother watching it as I knew all it would do is deepen my disappointment in the American political system.

The actual words that came out of the two men’s mouths were pretty predictable, with a lot of “you did this”, “you said that” and lots of  loose “facts” that were meant to discredit the other.  However I focused more on other aspects of the debate, a lot of non-verbal things.

Mitt’s eyes looked like he came off the set of Walking Dead, bloodshot and tired.  It was interesting how Mitt chose to direct his comments towards Obama as opposed to the camera.  Likewise it was interesting how Obama for the most part spent the majority of the time Mitt was speaking with his head down, taking notes. Conversely, most of the time Obama was talking Mitt had a ridiculous looking grin on his face that to me, came off as very disrespectful.  I have little doubt that both candidates had planned this body language ahead of time.

I felt bad for the moderator for whom the most part got stomped on by both men who repeatedly ignored the efforts to keep their answers within the time constraints laid out for the debate.  He would ask them to stop talking and the candidates rambled on, acting like there was a ghost in the room.

Tonight I have an oddball Thursday evening.  I go straight from work to time the club’s only evening run of the year.  This race is typically a bit of a mess since there are tons of exercise novices and children that participate.  They aren’t familiar with a race environment so typically there are tons of human related errors that pop up for the event.

So when I was in the middle of flood insurance fiasco, communicating with a rep from Firserv-Lereta, I told him that if he managed to get the flood insurance requirement dropped I would be happy to send him a case of beer.  I was somewhat surprised when he actually seemed interested in my offer.

Well he got my flood insurance requirement dropped so I had to follow through on my end.  I bought three 6 packs of made in Florida beer and will be shipping them out to him today.  Did I mention how ridiculous UPS ground rates are at this point? Holy shit….

So my neighbors dropped off their two live trap cages to assist me in capturing the armadillo(s) that are turning our yards into a crater filled mess.   After backfilling the latest series of tunnels the bastard dug out I went about setting up the cages.  It took me a little while to figure out how to set each trap, each one was different.

I didn’t have any rancid meat, fruit or sardines handy so I baited the traps with slightly soggy celery, hoping I might get lucky.

So this morning I checked the traps and saw no wildlife inside them, both traps were still armed, meaning nothing even ventured inside.  However, like a big fat FU to me, the armadillo had dug a fresh hole about a foot from one of the traps.

That little shit.

So this week at the grocery store I plan to buy a pack of sardines and try baiting the traps with those instead since it seems armadillos have an appetite for anything disgusting.

This is shaping up to be a long and epic battle.  I will prevail however.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.  In the morning I have my routine dermatologist appointment, something necessary based on the five or six spots of basal cell skin cancer I have had removed in the last several years.

I don’t have any suspicious spots that I am aware of although I do have a weird thing that happens now and then.  I develop these little red spots one my back/chest that are sensitive.  When taking a shower if one of the water streams hits a spot it feels like I am getting poked with a needle.  Obviously this isn’t normal but like I said, these spots come and go.  I will mention it to the doc and see what he says.

Then tomorrow evening I am hosting the draft for our fantasy football league.  I will be rearranging the furniture, preparing food and playing the role of party host for the third or fourth year in a row.  Team owners don’t seem to mind the long drive out to my place because of the accommodations and the tech I utilize, connecting remote owners via Skype and displaying them on my 73 incher.

The first year I went crazy in the food prep, preparing a ton of items, requiring a ton of work.  Each year I have been trying to trim back on my food commitment.  This year I will be just heating up a pan of spanikopita and buying some pizzas, relying on other owners to provide some food items.

I actually have a favorable draft position this year, getting the second pick.  The past two years I was either the last or second to last to pick.

Last night the main objective was to de-hurricane the property, putting everything back that was put away.  Ironically it was actually quite windy last night, possibly the most wind I have seen from Isaac.  My trash bins blew over a couple times.

I noticed the storm did a nice job of finishing off the sections of pool screen that had tears on the spline, they are now ripped to the point where I HAVE to replace them in the near future, yay.

The process was straight forward although certain items that were put away wound up staying in the shed, such as the three plant stands that have sat on the pool deck, plantless, for a couple years, only seeing use as a pool barrier when I have the Dirt Dog out there.  I also tossed some old footwear of Ali’s, after getting her permission to do so, that had been sitting on the table out there. The act of tossing them out pulled on some emotional strings briefly.

The emotion shifted however as I walked up towards the fence and saw the fcking armadillo has been busy putting more craters and tunnels in the yard.  They can be VERY destructive.  My neighbor across the street has had the same armadillo(s) wreaking havoc on his property.  He said he actually saw one of them early one morning and it was HUGE.  The size he illustrated with his hands looked big enough to be a small pig.

I need to get these bastards off my property.  My neighbor has a more violent plan than I do, hoping to spot one in his backyard where he can use his rifle to end the problem.  I am hoping to catch the pest in a live trap cage and then release it far, far away.

My neighbor actually has a live trap cage that I am going to try first, although he is skeptical if it is big enough to hold these monster armadillos.  Also, apparently it is difficult to tempt an armadillo to even go into a live cage.  I looked on the net for what to bait the trap with and came back with disgusting menu items like, meal worms, maggots, spoiled meat, sardines, overripe fruit and fish.  Evidently armadillos like nasty smelling items.

If the neighbor’s cage proves to be too small I will have to invest in a bigger one.

When I had the armadillo problem a few years back they just sort of went away eventually.  However back then they just made a shit load of small holes.  This time there is some major tunneling taking place.  I am not looking for my yard to become an armadillo apartment.

Last night was the monthly running club board meeting.  For the first time in quite awhile I didn’t follow it up with a trip to South Street for beers.  I have a bunch of stuff to get done at home since I will be on the east coast for most of the upcoming weekend.

One of those things I needed to do was unbox my Neato. I used a big chunk of my Amazon spiff points to score one.

My house already is well staffed by a large collection of cleaning robots.  I have 3 currently functioning Roombas along with several more in need of some TLC.  I also have two Scoobas to handle the hard surface washing duties.  I love my robots.

The Neato is my first non-Irobot unit.  It utilizes some interesting tech to get the job done.

Roombas sort of use a brute force attack to clean a room.  It has a bumper in the front and some sensors underneath that give it some feedback but even so it is akin to putting a blindfold on and walking around.  You bump into something, you stop, you turn and then you walk again until you bump into something else.  Now thanks to some algorithms that randomize a Roomba’s movement it still manages to normally cover an entire room, albeit in a scattered manner.  Some spots may be swept multiple times, some spots once and some spots possibly not at all.

A Neato takes a much different approach and uses much more tech in doing so.  In addition to a front bumper that will let the robot know it ran into something, it has a laser, yes a laser.  No the laser is not used to attack pets or burn holes in your walls, it is used for navigation.

When the Neato starts in a room you will see it pause, turn and pause again.  During this time it is using it’s laser to complete a map of the room and the obstacles within that room.  Once it obtains that information it goes about the room systematically, hitting every area thanks to it’s tracking data.  It handles sweeping in a similar manner as you would take mowing a yard, it is actually quite fascinating to watch, at least for someone like me.

The other thing I immediately noticed about the Neato in comparison to the Roomba is it has a MUCH stronger vacuum.  It sounded like a mini-jet as the impeller spun up.  Even though I ran the Roombas the day before, the Neato pulled a bunch of debris out of the carpet during the roughly 45 minutes it was running.

Scheduling the robot is very easy via the easy to use LCD screen.  I also like that it is software upgradeable via a USB cable to fix bugs and/or add features.  If the Neato has a large house to clean it actually is smart enough to drive itself back home, gas up and go back out to finish where it left off.  I watched it drive from the back slider to the front corner of the house to it’s charging dock without a hitch.  When a Roomba runs out of juice it is done, plain and simple.

The Neato also supposedly doesn’t suffer from the same maintenance issues as a Roomba.  The brushes in the Roomba are famous for getting all wrapped up in shit, especially out by the bearings which can cause big issues if it isn’t cleaned regularly.  The Roombas also inadvertently deposit tons of dirt, lint, and scuzz up into the body of the robot due to it’s design.

The Neato doesn’t have a bristle brush and from all reports has very little issue with the debris getting wrapped around the beater bar.   I took a look last night after it was done and didn’t see anything wrapped around it at all.

The high power vacuum and increased tech require more juice.  The Neato actually has two separate battery packs as opposed to the single battery that powers a Roomba.  It will be interesting to see how long the factory battery lasts as the battery costs are always the biggest expense to cleaning robots.

So anyway, so far, I am quite happy with the Neato.  It has definitely taken the top spot as far as geekiest item in the house.  It really sucks!

Tonight I have a jam packed night ahead of me.  The hope is to quickly grab groceries on the way home and then hop on the mower to do a bare bones speed mowing session.  Then I want to try to get all my ducks lined up so I can shove off for Tracy’s place as quickly as possible after work tomorrow.

When I got home last night I headed out back to repair screens.  When I got out behind the pool cage I noticed there was a 4th panel that starting to tear along the spline, great.  I started work on the worst panel, a low panel that was never touched before.

This panel was sandwiched behind two rose bushes so it was a rather large pain in the ass to work on.  Eventually I just learned to ignore the pain from being stabbed repeatedly by thorns.  By the time I was done with the panel I was already sweated through my shirt.

I stood up, looked at the two other problematic side panels and reclassified them.  The tears are not down the entire spline yet, only a small portion.  This enabled me to reclassify them as something I need to worry about in the future as opposed to right now.  I put my repair supplies away and headed inside for dinner.

Last night was spent as most evenings the past week have been, watching some of the Olympic coverage.  Last night the beach volleyball match between the US and Chinese women was REALLY good.  Both games were close and jam packed with back and forth rallies with Misty and Kerri pulling out the win in dramatic fashion.

I was too tired from my 3 AM wake up Tuesday morning to watch much after that.

Have you caught the new season of Breaking Bad yet?  I have been watching it via Xfinity’s Xbox app.  The show is so damn good.  The constantly morphing relationship dynamics among the characters is just so compelling for me.  Walt’s transformation is the most compelling of all.  It’s too bad this will be the final season.

Tonight’s activities will probably include mowing the grass, yay.  I just realized we are now well into August and I still have not had any standing water on the property this summer.  I’m not complaining, believe me but that typically is a future indicator of a drought filled winter.

Last night after work I got to meet Bentley, the new puppy my neighbors across the street just adopted.  He is an adorable 8 week old yellow lab puppy.  They had to put down their long time family dogs a few months ago and swore they were done with dogs because of the intense pain when they were gone.  I am glad they reconsidered.  I am sure Bentley will be the source of much love and happiness for many years to come.

Last night I also went outside to survey the screen repairs that will be needed as well as simply replace some dry rotted spline that was hanging out after the pressure washing session.  It looks like I have two side panels that are ripped along the spline plus the one roof panel.  I may tackle the side panels after work this week or tack that on to the weekend work list.

Right now I am on a holding pattern with the bogus, bullshit FEMA flood insurance request from my credit union.  I have a county flood expert corresponding with the bank on my behalf, pointing out the error in their data.  If this works I will be off the hook.  If the bank still clings to their error then I will have to get an elevation survey to prove my house is 4-5 feet above the level of the road.  This entire situation is ridiculous. There are a number of people in my area that are all in the same boat.

So Saturday night I fell asleep at 3 AM.  Last night I found myself waking up at the same time.  I could tell I wasn’t going to be able to just doze off easily so I drug my ass out of bed.   I filled the roughly 3 hours of time with various activities like emptying the dishwasher, watching Freddie Wong videos, doing some race maintenance work, updating the Bar-barian Challenge scoreboard and playing through a few levels in Diablo 3.

I am sure I will pay for my early rise time this evening.  I expect zombie mode to hit me pretty early.

Well this weekend didn’t follow any traditional blueprint.  I had gone into it with two goals, get the oil changed in all three vehicles and pressure wash the pool deck/cage, one of my least favorite home maintenance tasks.

I tried to clear out some of the chores ahead of time by heading outside Friday evening and getting the weeding done.  While I was out there I snipped off some kale.  I figured I would try throwing it on top of my Friday night pizza.  I simply washed it off, cut it up a bit and threw it on top.  It actually turned out quite well.

So Saturday morning I tried firing up the pressure washer.  It didn’t want to start.  I have had this pressure washer for probably close to 10 years.  It already had a long term oil leak problem so I decided I was just going to get another washer.  After all, I had the mental target of getting the pool area cleaned so I had no choice, right? 🙂

I also told Ali I was going to pick up the dogs for the day.  Before I went to her place I stopped and got my oil change supplies which were substantial, in total I needed 16 quarts of oil and three filters.   It added up to a good chunk of change.  I softened the blow by utilizing 20 of my Autozone spiff dollars.

I then picked up the girls in the Tacoma and headed to Lowes to look at pressure washers.  I had a 10% off movers coupon I scammed off the Lowes website that I planned to use to save me a few bucks.

I found a Troybilt 3000 PSI model with a Honda motor that looked good.  It turned out the only one they had left was the display model.  I was a little leary about taking the display unit but the Lowes guy assured me it was just put together a couple days ago and should be fine, ok great.

When we got home I wanted to tackle the oil changes first.  All three fluid swaps went smoothly.  It’s funny how vehicles feel like they run better right after an oil change.  I’m sure it’s just my imagination though.

Next up was the shitty pressure washing, although having a new pressure washer to tackle the job admittedly made the job seem less arduous.   Well that feeling quickly faded and turned into frustration.

For the first 5 minutes of pressure washing I was really impressed, the new pressure washer felt noticeably stronger.  The higher pressure H2O was doing a great job of blasting green and black mildew off the white aluminum cage.

I had decided to do the outside of the pool cage first.  As I got around to the back side of the cage I noticed the pressure washer was acting strange.  When I would squeeze the trigger the engine would start to labor and the rpm’s would drop until I released it.  If I held the trigger long enough the motor would eventually shut off.  The longer I ran the washer, the worse this behavior became.  Eventually I could only blast water a few seconds at a time.

Well of course I was frustrated.  I got the new washer with the expectation it was going to make life easier.  Instead now I had to figure out what was wrong.  So I looked at a few things.  The water inlet looked clear and free of obstruction.  The oil level was a bit low so I added some.

The manual also said that having the water feed hose being longer than 50 feet could be a problem.  Well my hose was like 150 feet long but I never had an issue using a long hose with my other washer so I doubted that was the problem either.

So after checking out these things I started the washer back up and it ran great, for 2 or 3 minutes. Once again the erratic behavior returned.  I punched the off button angrily, knowing that there is SOMETHING wrong with this unit, damn display models…  The knowledge that I had to make a return trip to Lowe’s to address the problem did not make me smile.

It was now getting later in the afternoon and I had only scratched the surface of the pressure washing ahead of me.  I loaded the girls and the pressure washer back up in the truck and headed back to Lowe’s.  I told them there was something wrong with this one but I already know they didn’t have another one for me to exchange it with.  I figured I would just be getting my CC refunded and I would need to get one somewhere else.

The customer service rep checked with the Lowes in Estero and said they had 6 of them in stock.  She said I could go up there and get another one, not exactly convenient, but ok.  I was able to leave my problematic washer in Naples and headed up to Estero with a Lowes gift card they gave me to use to get the new washer to avoid having to redo the transaction on my credit card.

I threw my new in the box Troybilt in the back of the Tacoma, hoping to get better results although I knew I would not get time to try it out until Sunday. After dropping the dogs back off at Ali’s place I headed home.  I had time to put the new, new pressure washer together but that was it before I had to hop in the shower to get ready for a fund raiser.

The fund raiser was for the brother of a local triathlete/running club guy.  Actually it was to help raise funds to help his family travel to London to watch his brother compete in his first ever Olympic games in wrestling.

The event was very nice and turnout was strong.  There was a keg of beer and two pans of paella.  I actually watched and later helped a little bit in the paella preparation.  It was interesting to me to see how it all comes together.

I made sure to get my fair share of Bud Light throughout the evening as well.  I actually almost forgot to eat at all but eventually I grabbed a plate of the paella which was quite good.

I wound up spending the vast majority of the event outside helping out.  Compared to the other option of milling about and making small talk it was definitely the better option for me.

Ali was there, actually she was the one who told me about the event in the first place.  I really didn’t see/talk to her very much at all until the tail end of the evening.

At one point Jake got up in front of the crowd and gave a little presentation about his brother’s journey to the Olympics.  It was quite touching as he got choked up several times talking about it.  Obviously Jake is VERY close to his brother.

I stuck around to the very end of the event, helping with clean up duty, figuring it was a good idea to allow some time to pass before driving since I had a decent amount of Bud Lights.  Sean, my running club buddy with the same sounding but differently spelled name told me a bunch of people were going over to South Street, the place where I typically will hang out after board meetings.  Hmm well it was already after 10 at this point but I had no major plans for Sunday besides labor so I figured why not?

Well I had never been to South Street on a Saturday night, wow.  It was PACKED.  It was hopping with live music and alcohol flowing everywhere.  Our group had scored a table in the corner of the back room.  I sat down and just did some people watching, there was a LOT to see.

It was so loud in there it was difficult for me to carry on much conversation.  They had the Olympics showing on a number of the tv’s so that got a lot of my attention.  I also spent some time hanging on the outskirts of the bar with Sean.  The circle of people he knows is simply staggering, he is a true social butterfly.

Later in the night I was sitting back down at the table and was talking to Jake’s girlfriend.  Ironically, although I heard her earlier in the evening, it was only until later, when things quieted down a bit that I realized she had a British accent.  She seemed very nice.  She told me how her and Jake were heading over to London to see his brother compete and then are following up with a visit to Italy.  It sounds like a great trip.

So it was getting later and later and I was still there.  I had taken a 5 hour energy earlier.  I have to tell you, those things work.  I have used them several times in the last few months and without fail they seem to really combat the normal drowsiness that would hit me at anytime past 10PM.  It was now after 1AM and still was feeling human.

Well eventually everyone from our group had packed it in, leaving just myself and Sean to close things out.  Which we literally did, not leaving South Street until 2AM, a normal occurrence for Sean, a first for me.  Like I mentioned before, Sean has the gift of gab, something that helps him quite a bit when it comes to dealing with women.  My lack of this gift definitely is a negative in this regard, perhaps I hope that I can absorb some of Sean’s gift via osmosis.

We talked about various things to wind up the night.  I actually drank very little over that roughly 4 hour period.  I had one Miller Lite and half of someone else’s unwanted beer.  I dropped the top on the SSR and headed home with my Pandora Smashing Pumpkins channel playing loudly.

When I finally got home instead of going directly to bed I instead answered email, which made little to no sense.  Finally the 5 hour energy wore off and I drifted to sleep somewhere around 3AM.  Did you know they have Olympic coverage on NBC at 3AM? Neither did I.

I woke up Sunday morning in disbelief when I looked at my clock.  It was 10AM.  I don’t sleep till 10AM, ever.  On a typical summer Sunday by 10AM I will have biked, maybe run and be ready to hop in the pool to swim.  To just be cracking open my eyelids at that time  was bizarre and not exactly a welcome feeling.  I really don’t like starting my day late.

So I got up and looked at my perspective day.  I knew it was going to sort of suck.  My pressure washer merry go round episode the day before meant I had hours of wet work ahead, plus I hadn’t even touched the stuff inside the house that needed to get done.  If you know me at all you know that I HATE having my weekend back loaded with work.

So I drug the new pressure washer onto the pool deck, filled it with gas and crossed my fingers that what I experienced with the display model was an isolated incident.  Evidently it was, I spent 4 solid hours out there blasting away.  The new washer performed quite well. making the job slightly less annoying.  Unfortunately the washing process revealed a few screen trouble areas.  There are several sections that are torn along the spline, including one roof section, meaning I now have screen repair to do as well.

I have never tried to to replace/repair a section of screen on the top of the cage.  I am not sure if I want to try it or not.  I have these visions of me falling through the cage that aren’t very appealing.

So finally I finished up with the pressure washing.  My reward for completion was to head inside and knock out the indoor chores.  My mood was not light and fluffy.

One of the things that had to get done inside was my weekly bill paying session.  Part of this process once a month is pulling out the credit card receipts from a year ago (they are kept in a folder for each month) and shredding them.

Well last August was the epic Ireland trip so in my hands were all the credit card receipts from the adventure.  Instantly I was transported back there, each receipt had a back story to it.  It seems hard to believe that a year has passed already since the trip, the memories all felt so fresh.

Of course it is inevitable that reliving those memories delivered a sobering shot of pain.  The trip was filled with so many great experiences and fond memories, to contrast it with what is now our much different reality was just sort of sad. I allowed myself to dwell on it only briefly before I shredded the evidence.

It’s times like these that really make me feel like I need a total reboot of my situation.

Years ago when I was at Charlie’s place we we sat down in front of his sofa which had a coffee table in front of it.  We had some sandwiches to eat.  All of a sudden he lifts lightly on the table top and it smoothly elevates upward and towards us, putting it in a very good position to eat off of.  Well I thought this was super cool and filed it away mentally as a “someday” thing.  Well yesterday was “someday”.

Since the split I have been randomly checking Craigslist to see if I could score a nice deal on a used lift top table.  Well I found such a deal yesterday.  The listing was actually a couple weeks old so I was skeptical if it would be available, it was.

After doing the mandatory CL discount I was quite pleased to score the table I dreamed of for not much cash at all.

I headed over to the sellers place on my way home.  It was an older couple that were quite nice.  The husband especially had a fantastic, open, engaging, friendly persona, something I always desired I had more of.  He is the type of guy that you can’t help but like.

Anyway after verifying the table was in good shape, the husband helped me carry it out to the Tacoma and load it up.  He said he could try to find something for me to cover it with since the skies looked menacing but I told him I would roll the dice.  Well of course you can already guess, I rolled craps.

I drove through varying intensities of rain on the way home.  Luckily for most of it I was moving at highway speeds which provided a substantial wind barrier on top of the table.  The top of the table had some drops on it but nothing severe by the time I got into the driveway.

Getting the table off the truck and inside by myself was a bit awkward and ripe with potential for back injury.  The table wasn’t all that heavy but it was sizeable.  To carry it inside I basically put the table into a psuedo bear hug and squeezed through the doorways.  The dogs were quite interested in the new addition, assuming of course it was somehow intended for them.

The table fits the space pretty well.  The wood grain matches my 50’s style end table, kind of.  But who cares, what matters is it is cool.

I put the table in place and gave it a gentle touch on the top.  It raised up into a great position, useful for eating, holding my beer or sticking my laptop on.  It also is on wheels so it’s very easy to move around if I am kicking back on one of the recliners as well.

I tried out the table during the evening, plopping my laptop on there for some Diablo play time.  It worked out quite well .  Needless to say I am pleased with my latest and greatest Craigslist score.

So yesterday I received a letter from my credit union whom hold my mortgage.  The letter indicated that I was now required to buy flood insurance based on the new FEMA flood maps.  I sort of knew this was coming as my neighbor received a similar letter from Bank of America a couple weeks ago.  I also knew this was utter bullshit.

Depending on your length of readership here and how much attention you pay to my rambling, you may recall that during the tail end of 2011 I attended a workshop regarding the new flood zones.  Basically you went in, gave your address and they told you if you were in a flood zone with the new maps.

When I was there it was explained to me that the initial remapping of our area by FEMA had put our area in zone AH, which would require flood insurance.  However there was additional, more detailed elevation imagery submitted that actually took into account the three to four foot tall mounds of dirt that houses in our area are built upon, which make flooding of the dwelling basically impossible short of an end of days scenario. I was told this enhanced imagery was what the final FEMA determination was being based upon and that showed my house is in zone X, which does not require flood insurance.

My place is where the dot is.  The orange color is zone AH, the yellow is zone X.

I told my neighbors that they should not require flood insurance either but they opted to pay $150 to get an official elevation survey which told them the exact same thing, they don’t need flood insurance.

Well I am not willing to eat an unnecessary $150 expense so I will be making some phone calls today.  I am not quite sure why the banks are working off of old data but I will do whatever I can to “enlighten” them.

My Google AdSense/YouTube “business” is taking off.  After taking considerable time to monetize the majority of my YouTube library I am seeing my earnings this month skyrocket.  Last month I hauled in $18 and change in advertising dollars.  Today, the last day of the month I am right at 31 bucks and expect to finish the month close to $35, I made over $4 yesterday alone.

Yes I know in bottom line dollars we are talking about chump change but if we look at earning curves I am looking at coming damn close to DOUBLING the prior month’s total.  If that curve continues it doesn’t take a mathematician to see where it could be headed.

I decided to skip the club run Saturday morning, instead deciding I would roll some running into my Sunday brick.  I wanted to get an early start on the house chores.

As I was out front weeding I heard the gate of Thina’s house open followed a few seconds later by seeing something moving towards me out of my peripheral vision.  I glance up and see Thina sprinting towards me, almost like it was a jailbreak, which unfortunately for her, it probably was.

She runs to my side and immediately flops down, wanting me to rub her belly which of course I do.  I hear her dumb ass owner calling for her which of course she ignores.  I petted her for a few moments and told her she was a good girl.  I then scooped her up and carried her over to Jose (or whatever his name is).  I felt awful handing her over. Evidently they were going somewhere and they actually took Thina with, putting her in the back of the SUV.

So after I got my first round of chores done I went to go pick up the girls since Ali was going to be working.

This past week Ali has obtained pet insurance for both of the dogs.  I agreed to help split the cost of the insurance with her, it isn’t cheap.  The thought process is with Nicki getting older and us wanting to do everything possible to make sure she is with us as long as possible, surprise vet bills could be more and more frequent. Anyone that has pets knows that animal health care can be nearly as expensive as their human counterparts.

This insurance will allow Ali to budget in a set amount for the dogs health care each and every month.  The policy is a zero deductible plan.  Originally Ali had obtained a 200 dollar deductible policy but I convinced her that the extra monthly cost for zero deductible would probably work out better in the long run.

One of our fears is with Nicki and joint problems.  I have noticed in the past month or so that she has seemed increasingly gimpy.  I said to Ali that I suspect the two flights of stairs at her place could be contributing to the issue.  Labs are very prone to joint/hip problems.

When Nicki walks lately it is a very slow pace and she will not engage in anything beyond a few steps of jogging, even when Sadie wants to play.  I said something to Ali about trying to carry Nicki up and down her steps but it would be too dangerous for Ali to do so.  The last thing I need is for both of them to take a fall down the stairs.

It actually seems like one of the more painful things for Nicki is simply getting up.  She didn’t even want to stand up in the front seat of the van when I put the window down, something she normally will never pass up.  When we got to the house I actually lifted her out of the passenger seat down to the ground to make it easier for her.

I am going to have the dogs for almost an entire week when Ali leaves for PA later this week.  I will be curious to see if a week without steps improves Nicki’s condition.

I still had to mow the grass.  It was the first time mowing with the new blades.  There was a definite difference, the cut was much more even and efficient.  When you put new blades on the tractor you want to keep them pristine as possible for as long as you can.  Well that time period was very short as I inadvertently chopped up a piece of loose cement that was by the driveway.

So I finished up just as it looked like it was going to start raining.  I go inside and smell the unmistakable stench of dog shit, oh no…..  I knew it was somewhere in the house, I just had to track it down.  My search ended in the doorway of the guest bedroom.  From observation and dog reaction, I am 90% sure it was Nicki’s doing.

It made no sense to me, why would she shit in the house?  They both went for Ali earlier in the day and I had them outside a couple times at the house before I started mowing.  Nicki may have been in the house for 90 minutes.  I scolded Nicki, well actually I just talked to her in my disappointed voice as she laid in her dog bed giving me sad eyes.  I don’t get what that was about.  Hopefully we aren’t starting a new trend for their stay at the house later this week.

By later in the afternoon Saturday I basically had everything done that was going to get done around the house.  I had the rest of the weekend to myself, a feeling I always like, not that I had any exciting plans for that time.

One of the things I did was finally finish normal mode of Diablo 3.  I had stopped playing the game, and any games for that matter, for a couple weeks but a few days ago I picked it back up.  The A/V experience in Diablo 3 is some of the best I have ever experienced in gaming.  Unfortunately despite that, it is hard to ignore the repetitiveness of the actual game experience.

When you “beat” the game, your reward is to do it all over again at a harder difficulty level.   I don’t think I’ll do that but I might try to get a couple other classes to the end of normal mode.

Sunday morning I was out the door early to do a full brick of riding, running and swimming.  I threw my bike and other gear in the back of the SSR and took off.  My hope was after the training I could just hang out at the water park for awhile and relax.

On the last leg of my ride I saw Christy and Ali outside Christy’s apartment complex so I stopped, I knew Christy was supposed to run part of Ali’s 14 mile training run with her.  I found out Christy was done with her part but Ali still had almost 7 miles to go yet.  Ali asked if I wanted to do the running segment of my brick with her.  I said that was fine, I had about 10 minutes to go on the ride, she could meet me at the park.

We took off for what was about 5 miles for me.  The run was just not fun, by this time of day it felt oppressively warm and humid, even at 9 am.  My skin was pouring sweat by the gallon.  The run was an out and back.  On the way back right before a water stop Ali tripped and fell.  Luckily I think her slippery, sweaty skin helped her avoid major road/sidewalk rash although she did have marks on her left knee, hand and shoulder.

By this point she was exhausted and said she had to rest for a few minutes.  She told me I should just go.  At first I hung around for a bit but after Ali assured me she was fine I headed off solo for the last mile and a half.  I was glad to be done, it was so damn warm.

I then hopped in the pool for 1200 yards of swimming.  I hurt my left shoulder late last week at the gym.  The injury made swimming a bit difficult but I managed to get the laps in, albeit slower than I normally would.

My idea of just hanging out at the water park afterward was short lived.  I only hung around for maybe an hour before the skies looked like they were ready to open up.  It wasn’t all that fun to just sit there by myself anyway.  I think the water park is one of those things best experienced with somebody else, unless you are just swimming laps.

On the drive home the rain started and continued for the majority of the afternoon.  It felt like the weather absolutely sucked any motivation out of me.  Beyond putting chlorine in the pool, I did absolutely no chores on Sunday.  Instead I went into total lazy mode, buzzing through some shows on my Tivo as well as getting caught up with Falling Skies and working towards the end of season four of 24.  Despite completing my informal triathlon that morning, the afternoon and evening of laziness made me feel like I accomplished little for the day overall.

For obvious reasons I don’t detail any of my post split dating experiences here.  I certainly would like to at times.  Not because it is filled with any sort of tremendous success, just the opposite really.  It would make for some interesting/funny reading for sure.  At this point I just throw it all into the rather large and growing “learning experience” barrel.

So Michelle, Ali’s normal training partner for her marathon training was unavailable to run on Saturday because she went to a concert Friday night.  When Ali told me this I offered up my services as her pacer, despite her training plan requiring an 11 mile run this week, a distance I have not run since the half marathon in early March.

Since the race I haven’t run any further than 7 miles and in the past month or so I haven’t run any further than 4 miles.  Jumping into an 11 mile run would not be something recommended by any conventional running logic.  Obviously I don’t subscribe to such logic.  As long as the muscle between my ears thinks I can do it that is all that seems to matter. Hell I wasn’t even planning to go to the club run on Saturday, now I am running 11, funny.

So my alarm went off at 4:45 am and I met Ali at her place so we could carpool.  Despite it being very early in the morning the air already felt like soup, heavy with humidity.  We set off at what would normally be a slow pace for me, right at or a little under a 10 minute mile pace.  It was fine with me to err on the slow side since we were running a long way.

During the first half of the run Ali and I were chatting about various things, the pace made it pretty easy to do so.  Well the second half of the run was a different story.

The sun had now come up.  I had decided to run shirtless since I knew I would be soaked with sweat.  I didn’t think I would totally sweat through my shorts as well.  I just had a constant stream of moisture flowing from my body.  I kept wiping annoying streams of water off my elbows on my shorts.

Despite the slower pace, the cumulative miles were taking their toll.  My legs were simply not accustomed to running for that far and that length of time.  Conversation between the two of us was very sparse during the long run back, we both were just trying to keep moving.

To Ali’s credit, she kept pace the entire time, in fact I was sort of letting her set the pace for a good portion of the run.  When Ali runs with me the same thing happens as when I run with Matt, she goes faster.  I have told her before that she should try to get some work in running with someone faster than herself, it will make her better.

Ali pissed me off towards the end of the run.  We were down to about a mile to go.  Despite not saying anything I am sure it was obvious I was not enjoying myself at this point.  Ali says to me something like “if you want to stop and walk back it’s fine…”

To say something like that to me when I am was in the throes of physical misery really annoyed me.  I snapped back at her “Why would you say something so stupid to me?  Since when do I stop… I should smack you on the back of your head!”   She instantly realized it was not the smartest thing to say and dropped it.

So then we are running by a hotel that has this steep incline in front of it’s front door.  Ali says she wants to run it.  I said nothing but followed along, thinking, “you son of a….”  Then just for fun there was one more smaller bridge we had to run across and back at the final turn around point.

So we now had like a half mile to go.  Despite having two legs that felt like they were filled with cement at this point I wanted to put a little exclamation point on the run, to let Ali know that if you ask me if I want to stop, I am going to make you run faster.  I picked up the pace and kept it picked up all the way back to parking lot.  Again to Ali’s credit, she was behind me but more or less kept pace. I think we wound up running a negative split. (second half of run faster than first half)

When it was all said and done we covered the 11 mile sin a sub 10 pace, something I do not think Ali has ever done before for that many miles.  I looked like a sponge that was dropped in a bucket.  I was so glad to be finished.  I think I have established 11 miles is the limit to the distance I can “just do”.

Ali was nice enough to pick up the tab for some DD coffee and a donut on the ride home.  I then loaded the girls up in the truck with their supplies for an extended stay out at the house.  Ali is up in Orlando for a conference until Thursday.

When I got home I immediately headed outside for more uncomfortable garden maintenance and weeding in the brutal heat and humidity.  When teamed up with the early morning run I was absolutely gassed after eating lunch.  I had no choice but to retreat to the bedroom and take a nap for close to two hours.  The dogs were happy to join me.

When I awoke I continued working on what remained to be done.  I took the girls with me for a ride to Home Depot.  Initially I was going to go to Lowes to buy the paint I am going to use in the bathroom.  However in an effort to save some cash, I applied for the 10% mover discount coupon on their website, figuring I can wait a couple days to get the paint.

Well I was on slickdeals.net, looking for Home Depot coupons as well.  I saw on their site that both Home Depot and Lowes honor coupons from competitors.  The post also included a link to an online True Value coupon that gave you $5 off any purchase of $25 or more.  Others reported using the coupon successfully at their Home Depot.  Hey five dollars is five dollars, that would pay for two DD coffee runs. I printed it out and had it in my pocket.

At the store I grabbed two $20 sling chairs to replace the two rotting, greenish chairs on the lanai.  I also got a new towel bar and toilet paper holder that will be installed as part of the bathroom painting project.  So I was easily past the $25 price point and presented the coupon to the woman working the register in the garden center.  I told her that I read online that HD honors competitor coupons.  I handed her the True Valu coupon that I printed off the website.

Well this seemed like news to her, she placed a call to the head cashier and asked if she could accept the coupon.  The answer that came back was no.  She said they honor coupons out of competitor ads but they don’t accept coupons printed online because of fraud.  I told her that I know others have used this coupon at Home Depot but there wasn’t much she could do.  I wasn’t going to stand there and go into a big production over $5 but it annoyed me slightly as I stuffed the coupon back in my pocket.

Sunday morning I had it my head that I wanted to do a bike/swim brick despite my legs feeling pretty tired from the long run the day before.  I also decided I wanted to take my Dawes out of the cobwebs and use it for the ride.  I have not been on it since sometime in 2011.

Wow riding the Dawes is such a different experience than riding the Trek, the geometry between the two feels dramatically different.  To be quite honest, I find riding the Dawes to be more comfortable.

With the Trek it feels like I am reaching down 10 feet to the handle bars.  This steep forward lean helps cut down wind drag but it also results in a lot of weight on top of my hands.   The Dawes position is less extreme and if I am able to utilize the aero bars comfortably, cutting down the wind drag while offering me a much more comfortable riding position.

The temperatures again were brutal.  Despite having the constant breeze from my nearly 20 mph pace, in no time I was again dripping wet.  I got down on my aero bars and stayed there for the majority of the ride, it was comfortable and efficient.  Pretty much every time I looked down at the GPS I was between 19 and 19.5 mph, topping out at 22 during the last mile or so.  I was surprised when I stopped the GPS to see my average pace was 18.9.  I must have dilly dallied too much at the turn around points I guess.

Regardless, I enjoyed the 12.25 mile on the Dawes.  I think I am going to use it for the next few rides.

I then headed inside to swim.  I was quite overheated from the ride and was looking to cool off a bit in the water.  Well that didn’t happen.  I dove in and was immersed in water that almost felt like a bath tub, it was that warm.

I originally had plans to put in 2000 in the pool but I bagged after 1200.  Swimming in warm water when you are already warm kind of sucks. For the ride home I didn’t put the top of the SSR down, I had already met my sweat quota for the day, I enjoyed the AC turned up high for the drive.

After doing some more stuff around the house I took the girls on another ride, this time to Trader Joe’s.  I wanted to stock up on their fantastic, relatively healthy microwave meals for one.  I really like them and they aren’t very expensive.

When I got home later in the afternoon I had had ideas of starting work on pulling the bathroom apart in advance of painting.  However I once again got smacked in the face with a wave of sleepiness and for the second time in as many days I laid down for another nap.  I am not sure the last time I had a dual nap weekend.

Over the weekend I watched a bunch more Falling Skies episodes.  I am glad to report I still like the show, even after getting past the episode 3 or 4 dead zone that Jeremy warned me about. I should finish up season one this week.

After eating dinner I finally regained the motivation to start work on the bathroom.  Part of this project will be the elimination of the three shelves that were installed to the left of the mirror.  I installed these things years ago and admittedly did a very shitty job of doing so.

Not only did I mess up the spacing between them, I tried to fix a loose drywall anchor with glue which wound up running down the wall a bit. For years we simply covered up the glue marks by sticking items on the shelf in front of the eye sore.

Well the shelves serve minimal purpose so I decided they had to go, I was sick of looking at them.  So I grabbed a hammer and knocked them off the wall.  The shelves left behind a considerable mess of glue and beat up drywall.  I am going to have a lot of prep/patch work to do in there before any paint gets on the wall.

So as I was in the middle of working on the bathroom I glanced out front and saw Thina sitting in middle of the yard, obviously looking for her best friend.  I thought Nicki and Sadie would have fun interacting with her so I walked them out to the back yard and called Thina over.

As soon as my dogs saw Thina they of course started barking.  Their barking instantly set Thina into scared submissive mode, she started to run away with her tail between her legs.  I called to her repeatedly and she stopped and then cautiously approached.  Eventually she belly crawled to the fence line and was sniffing with both Sadie and Nicki.

The interaction looked good enough so I opened the gate and called her in.  When she came inside she immediately went full submissive rolling over into her “don’t hurt me” pose.  Once she realized my dogs meant her no harm she sprang to life.

Within a few minutes her and Sadie were sprinting around the yard.  Thina with her long, bounding strides actually seemed to be faster than Sadie, something Sadie is not used to since Nicki is not exactly a speed demon.

Sadie also for the first time was on the receiving side of numerous dog kisses from Thina.  Sadie is always the kisser, not the kissee.  Thina was giving Sadie kisses almost non-stop, to the point where Sadie got annoyed briefly, it was funny.

I brought out a big bowl of water for the dogs.  Even though it was now well into the evening it was still very humid, they were panting heavily.  Thina drank like she hadn’t had water in days, she went back to the water bowl again and again.

Later she decided the pond was a good water source.  I ran over and tried to get her out of there.  It was too late, she was already laying on the muddy bottom and had taken a few licks of the nasty water, ugh.

Nicki played with Thina as well in a much more reserved manner, typical for her.

So after watching the dogs all play for close to an hour it was getting dark.  I figured I would walk over to the hispanic owners house yet again and tell them to come get their dog.  I thought maybe forcing them to come get her would allow me to stress once again that the dog HAS to be kept safe.

As I walked into their driveway I looked back and saw Thina was following me.  I also saw a large truck coming, driving well over the 30 mph speed limit.  I yelled for Thina to stop but since she has had absolutely no training, she continued to approach.  She JUST missed getting hit by the asshole driving the truck.

Now I was pissed.  I almost watched these people’s dog become road kill because of their lack of responsibility.   I walked up to the door and rang the doorbell, ready to be much more forceful in my plan of action for the dog.  Nobody was home.  Great….

My anger multiplied when I looked down at the pet dish that was by the door, something that looked like it was made for a cat or a small dog. The dish had nothing in it, no food and not a drop of water.  Knowing how brutally hot it was on Sunday I realized why Thina was so damn thirsty.  We have now officially entered into the realm of animal abuse.

So I took Thina back over to my backyard and left her in there with my dogs.  I then went back over to the hispanic’s house and started trying to block up the numerous holes in the shrubs.  In addition to using a number of dead palm fronds I even grabbed some unused shelving of mine to assist.

Well I soon realized that there was a whole other set of potential escape points on the other side of their driveway, this was going to be a fruitless effort.  The only way to stop her from escaping would be to put up some sort of temporary fencing along the front property line.  I would place the odds of these people doing that at slightly above zero.

After my blockade attempt I went back over to my property and hopped on the computer.  I printed out two letters, one in Spanish and one in English.  The letter basically said that I witnessed their dog just miss getting hit and she keeps getting out of the yard.  I said if I saw the dog out of the yard again I was contacting county animal control.   I taped both versions on their door.

I then grabbed a leash and walked Thina back over to her house.  Sadie was not happy at all with me as I took her new friend back home.  I brought some of our dogs dry food with as well.  I filled her tiny dish with food and water.  She hungrily gulped down the food all three times I filled it.  She also seemed to have a hard time drinking the water since the bowl was small.  I actually walked back to my place and brought over a larger spare bowl for water and left it there.

I hung out across the street well into darkness, hoping the owners would return so I could let them know what went down and what I think about it.   Finally a little after 9 I finally went back to my place.  Thina was worn out from all of her play and actually stayed put thank goodness.

I was so annoyed that I ignored the “one more time” warning in my letter to the family and placed a complaint with animal services via their web site.  I plan to follow up with a phone call today.

The bad thing is there is a process that has to be followed.  They will first warn the family a couple times, and then maybe eventually fine them.  I am not sure at what point they actually would take ownership away from them.

The saddest thing is no matter which way this goes, unless she gets removed from the house, Thina is the loser.  Even if they actually do something to prevent her from getting out of the yard they still will keep her thrown outside with scare food and water, cut off from any sort of love that she obviously is craving.

Ali decided she couldn’t justify a 6 hour round trip to go to the Tarpons “Ultimate Bowl” tonight.  Unless I can snag a last minute “date” I will wind up just going by myself.  I think I am going to spring for one of the good seats close to the field.