Category Movie Reviews

My Saturday was very, very busy.  Cindy was out the door early to go volunteer at the kids triathlon.  Since I was up and had a list on the counter of things to do I got busy.  Weeding and weed whacking the property took me close to two hours, I was finishing it up when Cindy pulled back into the driveway with Nicki and Sadie in tow.  She picked them up from Ali’s after the race for a weekend stay.

After we ate lunch I launched a massive pressure washing session where I cleaned the most amount of things that I can recall.  Bird cages, gutters, flashing, sidewalk, plastic lumber, sheds, pool cage frames, pavers, fence posts, stucco, rain barrel stands, concrete pads, and more were all targets of the 25 degree wide, 3000 psi stream.  It was a brutal session that did not wind up until close to 5PM.

Certain areas do not respond to pressure cleaning alone.  The back wall of the small shed is one of these.  Even after blasting the shit out of it there was still black spotting on the vinyl siding.  Hitting the wall with a bleach/water mix was necessary to get the siding looking normal again. I was a bit stupid when I initially was brushing straight bleach on by hand with a brush over my head.   Of course this resulted in bleach splashing on my face and narrowly missing my eye.  After shooting my face with water I changed my technique.

On Saturday night Cindy and I went to see Jurassic World, one of the summer’s big budget films.  I was a big fan of the first couple Jurassic films with the first obviously being the best.  I was skeptical what a 4th iteration of the series would produce but the previews looked interesting to me.

The movie started out pretty well, it had what you want in a dinosaur movie, cool dinosaurs and good action.  However as the film went on it seemed like the writers of the script phoned it in.  The story got very predictable, silly, and campy. By the time it was over I wasn’t sure if I just watched Jurassic World or Godzilla versus Mothra.   When the lights came back on Cindy asked if I liked the movie.  I told her I felt like it was made for someone with an IQ of 85. It just got really, really dumb.   Overall it may barely touch B+ status but I really felt the story was so dumb that I need to officially rate it a B to maintain the legitimacy of my movie rating reputation. 😉

In addition to the movie we had sidebar “entertainment” 4 or 5 seats to our left.  There was a group of four young people, I think it was two girls and two guys.  I am guessing they were late teens, early 20’s.  They were being annoying a good portion of the film.  Of course they were unable to keep their hands off their smart phones during the movie.  Asking a kid that age to not touch their phone for a period of two hours is almost like asking them to hold their breath an equivalent amount of time.

So if the glowing screen during the movie wasn’t annoying enough, they also had periods of prolonged whispering and giggling that drew stinkeye glances from me but especially Cindy which made them settle down slightly.  When the movie was over the group of four got up before the lights were turned on and started exiting on the side opposite us.  All of a sudden we heard the unmistakable sound of somebody falling down the steps.  One of the girls took a major spill down the stairs, perhaps because she was busy texting on her phone or chemically altered.  Whatever the cause, I did not have a millisecond of concern regarding her well being when she fell.  It actually was a better ending than what was on screen.

Yesterday Cindy was gone the majority of the day at an aqua instructor course, giving me a very rare day at the homestead myself.  I took the girls on an errand run with me which included a stop at Pinch A Penny.  The pool pump was dead and just humming on Sunday morning, a symptom I knew was from a dead capacitor, since I had it happen in March 2013.  Two years seemed like a brief lifespan for the capacitor, especially since they cost $50.  I dropped another 50 bucks Sunday, hoping it is the last cap replacement I have to do on the pump.

I attended to a number of small to do’s around the house during the day but I also had some time to just do some mindless WoW sessions.  I did use one of my free level 90 boosts for Cindy’s virtual WoW character so if she ever gets the bug to play she can do so without being 100 levels behind me.

The baby chicks are doing well and seem to enjoy their L shaped living arrangements.  They happily run around pretty much all day long.  Even though the square footage the 11 birds have is pretty substantial, one day is all that patch of grass is good for thanks to the incredible amount of waste products fast growing chickens generate.  By the end of the day the grass the coops are on is a poopy mess.  Even once the 11 chicks are moved into the big permanent coop there is going to be a lot of daily mess to deal with, even with the bigger accommodations.

I had a lot of things I wanted to get done on Saturday, so much that I pulled out one of my infamous lists to keep me on track.  One of the first things I wanted to get done was giving the 11 chicks the Marek’s vaccine we bought online.  Both Cindy and I were nervous about the process since we never did it before but I had a step by step guide I printed off a website to help us out.  The process of preparing a vaccine was not what I expected, where you are injecting stuff between two vials, the actual vaccine and a jar of dilutant to make the finished product.

We set up a table in the garage along with the chicken run to put the chicks into after we vaccinated each one.  Cindy did most of the dirty work, my primary responsibility was to try to hold the chicks still while Cindy injected .2 ML of the vaccine into the pinched skin on the back of their necks.  Of course the chicks were not big fans of the process but for the most part it went well.  We had all 11 chicks done in around 20 minutes.  We now can only hope the vaccine does it’s job and helps the birds live a Mareks-free life.

To be more efficient we had Cindy do a Rural King run while I walked around and weed whacked the property.  She also did a thorough cleaning of the chicken tractor while we had the chicks in the front yard in the chicken run.  As the chicks get older and older, clean up of their living quarters is a more and more steady requirement.  I do not think once we move them outside to live in the chicken tractor in a week or so that all 11 birds will be able to live in there for very long. It’s just going to be too little space for too many birds.

We pulled the 5 younger chicks out for a short period of time and let them run around free under our close supervision.  The older birds bully the younger ones so it was nice for them to be able to do their own thing without the black chicks pecking them on the rear end.

Lola still has been pretty static in her condition, not acting significantly better or worse over the weekend.  Lucy still is acting just fine.  She wowed Cindy and I on Saturday when she managed to get all the way to the top perch in the chicken run, right below the roof.

I feel bad for Lucy.  Because Lola’s energy level is not good we have been leaving both of them inside the coop/run for longer periods of the day instead of letting them free range all day long.  I feel bad restricting Lucy but I would feel equally bad for Lola if she was stuck in the coop while Lucy ran around unencumbered.

On Saturday evening Cindy and I went to see San Andreas.  As we approached the theater we drove into a torrential downpour.  I dropped Cindy off closer to the ticket window and then parked the Prius in the back.  Despite the rain still falling at a downpour rate, I walked the couple hundred yards to the theater without even a hint of a slight jog.  I just don’t care much about getting wet.  By the time I met up with Cindy my white long sleeve shirt was drenched.  I surely would have won a wet t-shirt contest.

Cindy bought the tickets while I was walking up.  She told me that the staff warned her ahead of time that the AC was malfunctioning in the theater the movie was playing in.  Well I figured it was a good thing that I was soaked, perhaps it would help me stay more comfortable during the two hours.  It was warm in there but not unbearable.  It’s the second time we have had the AC in a theater at Coconut Pointe go out, the first time was REALLY noticeable.

The movie was full of absolutely A+ level visuals.  The level and detail of destruction depicted in the movie was perhaps worth the price of admission just to see in large screen, 3D, immersive format.  Of course the rest of the movie could not be all A+, disaster movies usually put so much emphasis on how things look that how things feel often gets secondary attention.  The movie is filled with situation after situation with outcomes that are just not unlikely, they are absolutely beyond the realm of the remotest of possibilities.  Sure, it’s a movie so you expect that to a degree but this seemed sort of ridiculous at times.  Despite the plot’s deviation into crazy town overall the movie was entertaining enough overall to earn a B+ rating.  If you are up in the air over a desire to move to California anytime soon I would suggest you don’t go see this movie. 🙂

Sunday morning we picked up the dogs early for a one night stay over.  After we got back Cindy and I did a very different type of exercise, something that used to be a 3-4 times a week thing for me, practice volleyball.  The reason this idea came to us was an email I got late in the week about the the beach vb series I used to play in making a stop in Fort Myers next weekend.  I mentioned the idea to Cindy of her and I playing co-ed doubles, despite Cindy having no beach volleyball experience and me not touching a volleyball for well over two years.  If I was going to consider this I would need to try to give Cindy a crash course in the sport.

On our runs through the nearby gated development I had noticed they had a basic beach volleyball court.  We drove down to convenience store, parked and then walked the roughly half mile to the court.  Not only was Cindy’s lack of vb experience a concern, my general poor condition of my joints was another issue.  My right knee has been feeling generally poor for a couple months, running, jumping and diving in sand is definitely not going to help matters.  But regardless of these issues it didn’t hurt to get out there and see how it goes.

Cindy is athletic, has good hand eye coordination and is a hustler by nature, three attributes that would give her a headstart.  We went through a number of drills including passing, setting, serving and hitting.  Although her technique needs work, for it being the first time on a beach court I thought she did very well.  My volleyball skills needed a bunch of WD 40 as well.  Towards the end of our practice I was feeling a little better but I have no doubt in a game situation I would be making a lot of unforced errors.

Cindy was surprised how hard she was working.  She was soaked with sweat and breathing heavy early on, aided by the fact that she insisted on running after most balls that went rolling off the court.  We finished up the workout with pass, set hit, drills.  We actually had a handfull of them that went like the should, with the ball getting driven relatively hard to the other side of the court.

Cindy’s body was not used to the impact of a relatively heavy beach volleyball on her forearms and hands.  She had clear bruises all over the place.  In addition she was hurting in various other places.  Even if you are in great shape, volleyball makes you utilize your joints and muscles in ways that are normally foreign.  I was feeling it as well although not quite as severely as Cindy was.  At this point I don’t know that jumping headfirst into a tournament would be a wise move without a more gradual practice curve leading to game conditions.

Early Sunday afternoon I tasked myself with giving Nicki a haircut with the clippers. Ali said she was shedding like crazy and her coat was looking very shaggy so I figured it made sense.  In the past Cindy has been the one trimming Nicki, this was my first time doing it solo.  I was out there buzzing away for close to 45 minutes I bet and could have spent another 30 probably.  Nicki was unwilling to stand for the process so I had to do the best I could with her laying down on each side.  When I was done there was a massive halo of black fur surrounding us.

Ever since Friday when I stopped at Sam’s Club for a few things I have been fighting an impulse buy for a 4K tv.  They had a Vizio 70″ UHDTV set there that I was interested in.  Although not cheap by any means, it was a good value for the money.  I had only a couple reservations.  The idea of losing 3 inches of diagonal size (current Mitsu DLP is 73 inches), seemed like a compromise, even though a 70″ tv is still quite huge in most people’s eyes.

My other concern was buying it at a place like Sam’s versus through my preferred retailer, Amazon.  Buying it through Amazon would allow me to both using my accumulated points to knock down my out of pocket cost AND collect triple points on the purchase to be used in the future.  These two things add up to over $350 in savings.  On the downside, it doesn’t allow me to scratch that impulse itch where you have the item RIGHT NOW.  I would have to wait until June 8th for it to show up.

I got close enough to pulling the trigger that I texted Cindy, asking her if I should do it or not.  After all I certainly don’t need to do it.  My old DLP Mitsubishi tv still works fine, the Vizio would just work/look better.  I didn’t hear back from Cindy before I checked out with my grocery items so the impulse was derailed for now.

Well I still had the idea rolling around in my head most of the weekend.  I texted Ali and asked her if she would want the 73 inch tv for her place since she has more than enough room to accommodate it.  She hasn’t let me know yet if she wants it.  I am basically letting her decision dictate what I am going to do.  If she wants the Mitsubishi I will pull the trigger, if not I will look at as a reason to just stay with what I have.

Here is the TV I am considering in case you are curious.

This extended four day weekend seemed to literally be over in a blink of an eye.  I really didn’t get much time to just hang out until mid afternoon yesterday.  On Saturday morning I headed outside to do a few chores before we headed out to run some errands.  One of those errands was to buy four new rollers for the patio slider.  I had already ordered four rollers on Amazon but when they arrived I saw they were slightly smaller than what was in place.  We struck out trying to find a match at Lowes but luckily found four rollers at Home Depot that looked nearly identical in size and layout.  They were less than what I paid via Amazon.

During the afternoon I took on the replacement of the rollers.  Removal and installation of the rollers were both more challenging than I expected.  Both operations required used of a prying tool and a hammer, tools you would think don’t mix well with big panes of glass.  While I worked on the rollers Cindy was busy cleaning years of dirt, grease and hair off the track for the doors.  When she started the track area was basically black.  When she was finished it looked brand new.

When I put the first door back on the track after replacing the rollers I was disappointed that the door still needed more effort than it should to open or close.  When I pulled the new rollers out of the box they were stiff, which I thought was odd.  Well I figured I may as well shoot the brand new rollers with some WD40 to see what would happen.  The miracle lubricant immediately made a big difference, the new rollers now spun like skateboard wheels.  The reduced friction resulted in both doors sliding more freely than they have in the last 10 years.

Late in the afternoon we had to go pick up the race bibs from the running store which was hosting early packet pick up for Monday’s race.  On the way there I dropped Cindy off at the ATT store across the street, we were wanting to get her upgraded to an Iphone 6.  She has been using my old Iphone 5 for awhile and it was starting to develop some issues.

After I picked up the race gear I met up with her at ATT while she was still in the middle of the transaction.  The phone swap took longer than I expected.  Time was tight because we wanted to go to the movies Saturday night and we didn’t leave with the new phone until a little after 6.  We had to still run home, eat dinner and shower before heading out to try to catch a 7:35 showing of Mad Max.  At first I thought we had no shot of making the shortage of time work and even suggested we just bag it.  Cindy was confident we could do it and she turned out to be right.  We got seated in the theater shortly after the previews started.

I saw the original Mad Max but don’t recall lots of details about it so I didn’t have a lot of expectations going in.  Well both Cindy and I were pleasantly surprised.  The movie was extremely entertaining from start to finish.  The crazy vehicles and the crazier people that drove them were worth the price of admission alone. Luckily the rest of the movie held up as well.  It was just good old fashioned fun to watch, a very solid A summer flick.

When we got home Saturday night Cindy said she wanted to check on Lucy and Lola to make sure they got in the coop ok.  Well when we looked in the window we saw Lucy up on the high perch but no Lola.  Of course Cindy immediately freaked out.  We went in the run with the light and saw Lola was sitting on the ground under the shed platform.  We could only assume that she felt too weak to climb up the ramp which of course which was disturbing. She had been exhibiting symptoms that made us think something was up for awhile. She had seemed particularly slow and low energy during the day.  When we saw she didn’t even have the energy to make the short ramp climb we knew things were pretty serious.

Cindy had been doing lots of chicken research recently and was scared that Lola had developed Marek’s disease, a herpes type virus that has a 100% morbidity rate and there is no cure.  A lot of the symptoms Lola had matched up but the thing is, the symptoms match up with a lot of other chicken afflictions as well.  I found a local vet that said they specialized in birds and made an appointment for Tuesday.  The rest of the weekend we kept Lola mostly in the chicken run so she wouldn’t tire herself out walking all over the yard. The other disturbing thing was if it was Marek’s it is highly contagious, meaning Lucy would have it more than likely.  Fortunately we have seen no energy or appearance issues with her.  It also meant that if we wanted to protect our 11 baby chicks we needed to give them a Mareks vaccine, which I ordered over the weekend as well.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I did another GPS-free bike ride, to Dunkin Donuts this time.  The 10 miles there felt very easy.  We maintained speeds over 18 mph without working very hard thanks to a tail wind.  Of course this meant on the way back we fought that same wind the entire way, making the return trip much more challenging.

Over the weekend we also hung an American flag to the chicken run which made for a nice patriotic addition to the chicken housing.  Doing it on Memorial Day weekend seemed appropriate.

Sunday felt very busy for us.  It seemed like we had lots of little things to attend to and a lot of them were chicken related.  The amount of chicken related to do’s Cindy deals with on a daily basis is surprisingly long.  The 11 baby chicks need very regular feeding, watering and clean up.

Since integrating the chicks they have mostly got along although there are brief pecking order battles now and then.  Despite the general peace in their chicken tractor home when it comes to hanging out the original 6 chicks and the week younger 5 almost always do so exclusively with their own group.

We also carted the chicken tractor outside to the front yard over the weekend to let the chicks experience the outdoors.  All of them freak out to varying degrees as I am rolling the chicken tractor, with them inside from the garage to the yard.  However once I place the tractor in the shade of the oak tree the babies LOVE having grass under their feet.  They immediately went nuts and looked like they were having so much fun.  They also have started to explore the second floor of the chicken tractor where some of them will hang out from time to time.

Sunday also was a day I had to prep for the Memorial Day race I was timing.  Things were complicated by the 5:30 Tarpons football game we were going to.  I needed to make sure most of my race to do’s were covered before heading to the game.  We actually left early for the game as we wanted to make a couple pit stops along the way at Rural King and Miromar Outlets which is next door to the stadium.  We stepped inside the arena just before they started with the national anthem.

The arena appeared to be the least full of any of the three games we attended so far.  I would be surprised if there were even 500 rear ends in the seats.  The Tarpons were playing some team from Georgia whose 1-6 record indicated that they were not very good.  Once I saw their QB I understood why.  This guy was the fattest quarterback I ever saw in uniform.  He would have been fat for a lineman.

In addition to his girth he was short, probably the shortest player on offense which really stacked the deck against him.  Almost every single pass he threw had a big arc on it, the type of trajectory you use for a corner route or a long bomb.  The passes had no zip on them whatsoever.  The end result of this was him getting picked off repeatedly by Tarpons defenders.

The game was a blowout from the very start.  We left early due to race prep yet to be done but the final score was an absolutely ridiculous 92-12.  The most points scored and biggest margin of victory in Tarpons history.

This year was targeted as a step up in the Tarpons history.  They joined a new league that supposedly had more/better teams.  I have not seen anything different in the level of play on the field and the continued dismal attendance numbers make it seem impossible that the team continues to exist beyond this season.  It HAS to be bleeding money.

The entire night the Tarpons did not attempt a single extra point, instead opting for two point conversions.  I joked to Cindy that it may have been a deliberate cost savings mandate from the owner since any ball that goes into the stands is allowed to be kept by the fans.  The funny thing is the odds of that penny pinching mandate being true are pretty good.

Crawling out of bed at 4:15 Monday morning did not feel great but it never does.  We opted to leave loading the truck as an early morning chore so we had to get up and cranking immediately.  The race was being held at the location of the water park so we at least did not have a huge drive to get there.    Everything related to the race went rather smoothly.  I really had no major bumps in the road at all, just how I like it.  It also was the last race where I will be timing with the Ipico equipment which should be swapped out by the time our next race rolls around on the 4th of July.  Between now and then I have a lot of work to do getting familiar with the new equipment.

Once we got back it was post race duties followed by some more odds and ends. One of those was getting around to replacing a section of the trim board in the lanai.  When the pool was added on to the house the old screening/framing of the lanai was ripped out.  I covered that opening with a border of painted 2×6 boards back then.  Well a couple months ago I noticed the bottom of one of the boards looked odd.  When I pressed on the area with a finger it immediately collapsed, the wood underneath was severely rotted.  When I did a knock knock test on the board it appeared the rot only extended maybe 6-8 inches from the bottom.

I decided that instead of replacing the entire board which would have had additional complications, I would try just cutting out the bad portion of the board and “splice” in a replacement section.  I went out and bought a small hand saw, something I did not own believe it or not.  I did my best to keep my cut straight and level.  My best wasn’t good enough.  The cut was straight enough but not very level meaning the replacement piece had a small gap.  Luckily a generous application of wood putty and some sanding should make my boo boo less of an eye sore.

Late Monday afternoon we headed down to the running club Memorial Day picnic, a festivity Cindy and I have participated in annually.   This year the picnic was not at the private beach it has normally been held at.  Instead it was held at Lowdermilk Park which is a beautiful place but also heavily utilized by the general public.  Obviously the cozy, exclusive feel the event used to have was gone.

The weather was not very good by 4PM, most of the time it was either raining or looking like rain.  Luckily the club brought some of their pop up shelters to provide additional dry real estate.  The change in venue did seem to bring additional people out for whatever reason.  It seemed like more people were there than past years but of course if you know me and my view of social situations, more does not normally translate to better in my book.

For most of the time Cindy and I were hanging with some of our friends from the club in one of the outlying tents.  I drank enough beer to take the edge off.  There wasn’t much auxiliary entertainment going on besides food, drink, and an MP3 collection from somebody’s phone playing on the PA system that was borderline maddening at times.  Cindy and I threw around my vintage, falling apart black XFL football for a little while but the vast majority of the time was just hanging out.  Overall the picnic was fun but I am holding out hope next year it returns to it’s former venue.

Yesterday we took Lola to her vet appointment.  Even though we had the cat carrier with to take her into the vet, the entire ride she spent on Cindy’s lap.  Lola has become incredibly docile and seems to absolutely love being held, petted, and scratched.  She makes noises that sound like purring when she is getting attention.

So when the vet comes in the first thing she says is although she specializes in avian medicine, it is a subset of medicine that doesn’t really include chickens, she deals more with conventional pet birds.  She said she might see 3-4 chickens a year.  Even so she was willing to help us best she could.

We gave her the background on Lola.   The vet was able to pull off what was identified as chicken lice from one of her feathers and was later able to do a stool test after Lola did her business in a towel.  The stool test revealed she had parasites which in a weird way was a good thing, compared to potentially having Marek’s disease.  A parasitic issue can be treated conventionally.

We left Lola at the vet for a couple hours while she waited a call back from a chicken expert to see if we could get a clarification about the possibility of her still having Marek’s.  The call did not come back quickly so we picked Lola back up however today Cindy heard that the expert doubted Lola had Marek’s, which again is good news.  Regardless, we are still going to vaccinate the baby chicks to give them the best chance of a healthy and long life.

Both Cindy and I had hoped yesterday would give us a chance to relax for a period of time since we got to do little of it in the prior three days.  I eventually got some WoW time in but Cindy was still busting it for most of the day with mostly chicken related tasks.  It gave me an appreciation of just how many little things can easily consume lots of time.  I am very lucky that Cindy loves to stay busy. 🙂

When I got home from work Friday we had to change and head right back out to attend the beach wedding service for our next door neighbor’s daughter.  The service was held at Delanor Wiggins State Park, a beach I have not been to in ages.  I was somewhat surprised that even at 6:30 PM there was someone at the guard shack collecting six dollars to park, it seemed sort of lame. Evidently this is a popular wedding location, in total there were three weddings taking place.  It took us awhile to find the correct location, we walked up a couple minutes after the service had started.

It was a very small gathering with two rows of chairs that may have added to roughly 20 total.  Almost everybody that was there had traveled all the way down from Michigan for the wedding, including the bride and groom.  Despite us driving through rain to get there, the weather by the coast was good.  The service was brief but very beautiful with the Gulf of Mexico visual backdrop along the peaceful sounds of the small waves breaking behind the couple.

After the vows were exchanged we headed out ahead of everyone else who were still doing the traditional post wedding meet and greet.  The reception was back at our neighbors house and there was stuff that still had to be set up.  We said we would get back and get a head start on it which our neighbors appreciated.

Cindy and I got back and buzzed around the neighbors house setting up tables, food and drinks.  We were supervised by the neighbor’s daughters dog, Cosmo.  By the time people started showing up we had things set up pretty well which Cecelia really appreciated.  I had already drank one beer and started on another to help lubricate the gears in my normally rusty social skills.  In addition to a large stock of alcohol there was a large collection of rich, mostly homemade food which I indulged in heavily. Cindy and I had a nice time hanging out with the members of the wedding party and other guests.  We even brought over the last of the homemade moonshine we had since Xmas.  It was a big hit. We wound up staying much later than I would have predicted.  Cindy and I didn’t actually fall asleep until after midnight, sheesh.

On Saturday morning the dogs woke me up at 6:40 am, which was very unappreciated by me.  I let them out and then did something very uncharacteristic, went back to bed.  The combination of drinking, eating and staying up so late was enough to put my ass back in bed where I stayed until I woke back up after 9am.  Cindy had been up for at least a couple hours getting stuff done while I snoozed away.

Once I got up I didn’t wait long before heading outside to weed whack.  Because of sleeping in I felt like I was behind schedule, a feeling that resonated with me most of the day.  Later in the morning we had both sets of chicks outside at the same time.  The older chicks were in the chicken tractor, the younger ones in the chicken tractor run.  For the young chicks it was their first time running around outside.  It was quite funny seeing their reactions.  For awhile they just sort of stood around looking at everything, stunned that there was more to the world than the blue walls they have been looking at for the last couple weeks.

Getting the bigger chicks out of the garage enclosure was quite the task.  Since it is fully enclosed except for one end Cindy had to crawl inside of it and try to corral the chicks who were not cooperative at all.  I had to come up and help her after I finished changing the oil in the Prius to get the last couple chicks moved outside.

One of the new set of chicks has been growing at an alarming rate.  At first Cindy thought something was wrong with her until she read up on her breed, cornish, on the internet.  Cindy never thought about the breed being connected to cornish game hens, a delicacy on some menus.  Evidently this breed has a voracious appetite and will eat pretty much non-stop if you allow them to.  Cindy couldn’t believe that many cornish have very short 4 week life spans before they are processed into the food chain.  Cindy started pulling the food from the bin on a scheduled basis to try to get the chick’s gluttony under control.  The chick is so big that she seems labored simply walking around.

We also continue to have issues with Lola, who again had hard crop issues over the weekend.  It’s amazing how she has become a lap chicken, where she almost appears to enjoy being held while Cindy massages her.  She makes cute little noises of approval the entire time she is being held and rubbed.  It seems like something chicken related needs to be attended to most times of the day right now.

Cindy and I did an errand run with Nicki and Sadie in tow.  They love to hang out in the back of the Prius although I am sure it isn’t quite as fun as the party van accommodations were for them.  We made our near weekly visits to both Home Depot and Rural King. It seems like chicken and home improvement supplies are always needed.

Saturday night Cindy and I had our second Tarpons arena football game of the year to attend.  The game was nociably lesser attended than the first game which was sparsely attended to begin with.  Our section of roughly 100 seats were literally only occupied by Cindy and I.  This fact made it more annoying when a ticket nazi decided to flex his ticket verification muscle.

To get to our seats we showed our tickets to the woman at the entry to our section.  We already knew where we were going.  So we sat down and were chowing down on the pizza slices we bought.  All of a sudden the seat attendant to our left, who was not responsible for our section walks over and asks us if he could see our tickets.  He apparently must have thought we looked like seat jumpers.  We showed him we were legitimate but both felt annoyed by the intrusion.  The ridiculousness of even giving a shit of who sat where when the place was 90% empty made the inquisition more pointless.  When Cindy went out to grab more food she said something to our attendant about the secondary seat verification.  She said that our seats were $50 seats and she guessed he just wanted to make sure we actually paid for the primo spot.  I still felt the whole thing was outside the bounds of common sense.  At this point they should just care about having a body in a seat, regardless of how they got there.

You may recall I mentioned how cold I was at the last game due to an ice rink being underneath the playing field.  This time I dressed warmer, wearing jeans, sneakers and a hooded sweatshirt.  I still was cold.  At one point Cindy and I both had our hoods up and despite the extra layers, by the time we left both of our feet were cold.  The game itself went well, the Tarpons dominated the game which made it confusing how the Alabama Outlaws managed to get 49 points on the scoreboard.  Good thing the Tarpons put up 68.

I did find myself annoyed with the Tarpons kicker.  Despite this being a home game on a field he should be used to kicking on, he seemed unable to avoid kicking the ball into the suspended scoreboard or support beams.  He did this no less than 6 times, I kid you not.  He would tee up the ball, look at the scoreboard, look at the ball, look at the scoreboard and then kick the ball, right into the scoreboard.

On Sunday morning I wanted to get up and do the Ave Maria bike ride.  Two consecutive evenings of eating a pile of less than healthy food left me feeling like a blob.  I planned to use the same approach as last week, no gps, just ride at a comfortable level, whatever that may be.  Well that plan didn’t work so well for the ride out to the college which was almost entirely into a rather strong headwind.  I had no choice but to increase the effort level to keep things rolling at a respectable pace.  By the time we rode the 12+ miles to the entrance of Ave Maria my quads and hips were burning.

Luckily on the ride back we had that same wind at our back which made the return ride much more enjoyable.  Although my legs felt much better coming back there was no way to make the pressure points on my hands and rear end feel much better.  I found myself constantly shifting position trying to alleviate pain/pressure in one spot, only to find myself applying it to another.

When we got back I jumped in the pool to both cool off and give Sadie one of her beloved splash sessions.  After 10 minutes of her running around while I hit her with atomic splash after atomic splash she was thoroughly soaked, and happy.  After we cleaned up we took the girls back to Ali’s place after their four night visit as part of our DD coffee run.  As always it was nice having them around to add their canine flair to our daily existence.

The rest of Sunday was pretty chill.  I did a few things but mostly WoW’d until we watched Bad Words Sunday evening.  It was a rather funny comedy but I was not a big fan of it putting children in the vicinity of very adult language and situations.  Overall it still gets a B to B+ rating, worth a rental.

Saturday Cindy and I were up at 4AM for the race.  We set the alarm around 15 minutes earlier because we didn’t load the truck the night before.  We got on site a little after 5:15 and got busy.

This race has the nicest registration area accommodations of any of our events as it takes place inside of Artis-Naples, the home of Naples Philharmonic orchestra.  The area that we normally use for registration had some other stuff stuck there so Cindy and I had to do quite a bit of rearranging.

As I mentioned last week, this was the first race where I had Cindy run a split timing point for me.  She handled the task well, we captured a split time for everyone we had chip finish time for.  She added a nice touch by writing some words of encouragement for the runners on the street ahead of the split in sidewalk chalk.  The winner of the race crushed the field, finishing almost four full minutes ahead of the second place runner.

Cindy and I got home between 10 and 10:30 and got busy.  I worked on the post race processing and Cindy started on some of the chores.  Mid-afternoon we had some errands to run, at the tail end of them we picked up Nicki and Sadie for a two night visit.  Originally we had loose ideas about going to the movies Saturday night but those plans were abandoned later in the day when we both admitted that sitting in a theater would surely result in both of us dozing off, regardless of the quality of the movie. Instead we watched The Game Stands Tall, my latest Netflix rental, a movie about a high school football team that held an incredible 150 game win streak.  The movie was solid and inspiring, a good B+ rental.

Sunday was a really good day.  The weather was beautiful with cool temps and low humidity.  It was almost perfect conditions for a run so that is what Cindy and I did, logging the 5.5 mile track and back course.  The last mile and a half was pretty grueling as it was right into the face of a strong headwind.  I can only imagine how it would have felt to ride bike into it.

We decided we would do something we always do at a time we never do it, go to a 1:05 matinee, making up for our missed Saturday movie.  We took the SSR with the top down, taking advantage of what may be the last of the truly awesome weather of the spring.  We went to see Insurgent, the second part of the Divergent series.  I wasn’t all that thrilled with the first film.  I found Insurgent more entertaining for sure but still nothing that would approach A quality.  I will give this one a solid B+.

It was odd and a bit disorienting getting out of a movie at 3:15 in the afternoon.  We got home and had plenty of time to get more stuff done.  I was outside for awhile, first burying the extension cord that will provide power to the new shed/chicken coop.  I then grabbed a shovel and dug a trench around three sides of the shed platform.  The reason for doing so is to bury the fencing which will be used to keep digging predators out of the area.  The chickens seem to really like hanging out under the platform so we are leaving the chicken run side open so they can do so if they want to. Cindy was cooking/baking like mad in the kitchen making an awesome dinner and cake.  I was the lucky benefactor of her efforts.

I wound down my Sunday playing a couple hours of WoW which was a nice way to decompress.  It was the end to a Sunday that had almost the perfect balance of exercise, work, and play.

We still have not addressed our rooster situation.  Both of us feel very guilty about the prospect of removing the birds from our backyard which they have certainly come to enjoy.  We need to make sure that they are going to a new home where they will be free to breed and live their lives instead of becoming chicken nuggets.

On Friday I stopped by one of the local ATT stores with the new iPad, looking to activate the LTE service on the device.  As soon as I stepped into the door I was greeted with a chaotic environment.  There were two young kids whose mother thought needed no supervision. The boys, both somewhere around 5 were sprinting around the store, screaming, treating the place like a playground.  This went on the entire 10-15 minutes that I was waiting to talk to someone.  I could not believe the mother or the the ATT staff did not do anything to curb the behavior.

I also got to listen to an old man that was in front of me give an ATT clerk a shakedown over his bad phone reception.  The clerk politely listened to the old guy rant about how he can’t make calls from his home but in other areas of the state he has no problems.  The clerk told the guy that it sounds like maybe there is a signal issue from whatever tower he is closest to but explained that was outside his jurisdiction.  The old man did not like that answer, snapping back “The logo on your shirts does say ATT doesn’t it??!!”, meaning that any ATT employee should instantly be able to address any issue any customer has.  The clerk shot me a glance during the exchange where he saw the smirk on my face.  The old man asked to talk to the manager who I think basically said the same thing however I think they gave him some free phone accessories to shut him up and get him out of the store.

So finally after watching these various sideshows a clerk came free.  I explained to him what I was looking to do and that I had looked online ahead of time and was thinking I was finally ready to let go of my “unlimited” data plan on the two iPhones and team them with the iPad on a shared arrangement.  I picked a good time to add a tablet to my plan as ATT was running a special of a $100 credit when you add a tablet to a data plan, presumably because they assume you will gobble up data faster that way.

By dropping my mom’s old phone off my plan and utilizing the 17% break state employees get I was able to score a 15GB shared data plan for almost exactly what I was already paying, plus the $100 kick back.  I also pick up unlimited texting, calling, and hotspot usage in the deal.  I was a little paranoid about letting go of my unlimited data plan but with ATT’s new rollover data policy which allows me to include unused minutes from the prior month into the current month, the odds of me ever exceeding my monthly allowance is nearly impossible.

This weekend was one Cindy and I had looked forward to because it was open without a race or other event cramping our style.  Of course this didn’t mean we were going to lay around and eat bon bons all weekend, it just meant we had our schedules cleared to get stuff done and that is what we did.

I had a number of small things to handle outside, some of which Cindy helped me with as well.  There are just a ton of little things that need regular attention when you have a house with a good chunk of land. We also tackled one larger job, removing the stone path that used to split the orchard in half.  This was tedious as we first had to shovel the stones from the path, clean them to some degree with a hose and then dump them at various spots around the house stone border where coverage was light.

After that shitty job was done we started skimming mulch from the border around the pool cage and repurposed it in the strip where the stones used to be.  The reasons for this rotation of ground coverings is two fold.  The rock path in the orchard was something I thought would be useful way back when when I created the orchard area.  The reality was it was just another spot that I had to weed.  Plus, the chickens will appreciate one large unbroken area of play where they can dig and scratch as much as they want.

The mulch relocation is something I want to do around the entire border of the pool.  Betty, Wilma, and Pebbles were all quite fond of digging in that area and as they did they would constantly be throwing mulch up against the pool screen which in turn dumped mulch dirt onto the pool deck. I want to pull all of the organic mulch, putdown fresh weed block and then refill the area with the shredded tire mulch.  I have used the rubber “mulch” in a few other spots and it is nearly maintenance free and pretty much lasts forever.  There is a large up front cost to put down the synthetic stuff but when you factor in the time and cost of re-mulching an area a minimum of once a year, that cost can be quickly justified.

After we finished up we headed out to run some errands as I needed a few things that were quite different.  At Home Depot I picked up a couple 8 foot 2×4’s to rebuild the garden gate which is falling apart from rot.  At Costco I picked up a second, awesome 27″ Samsung monitor so I had a matching set, allowing me to use my old second monitor to provide Cindy her own two monitor set up.

When we got back I resumed work, including the gate tear down and rebuild as well as doing some server work for the office via remote control.   Pretty much all day Saturday was spent working on something for both of us.

We decided to do something slightly different on Saturday night.  Instead of going to the movies, we went to dinner and THEN a movie.  For dinner we went to a place I had not patronized in years and years, Olive Garden.  I never went to the location in Coconut Pointe.  The restaurant was really nice both inside and out.  We had a surprisingly enjoyable time, the food was good, the atmosphere was pleasant and really the only negative was the woman 20 feet from us that had a disgusting, persistent, hacking cough that made it seem like that the last place she needed to be was in a public dining establishment.  We will definitely add that Olive Garden to the rotation.  I was glad we showed up at 6PM to eat, we only waited 5 minutes.  When we left closer to 7 there were people stuffing the lobby and outdoor waiting areas.

The movie we saw was Jupiter Ascending.  From the previews it looked like a decent sci-fi action flick so we figured it would be fine.  When we got to the theater the 3D showing was the next showing so we handed over the premium to see the movie in 3D which added absolutely nothing to the experience.

We were paranoid about having a similar experience as the last time we were at the theater to see American Sniper, where our late arrival wound up depositing our rear ends in the very front row of the theater.  There was no such problem this time around, I doubt if there were 20 total people in the theater.  I guess they read the reviews of the movies ahead of time, something I hardly ever will do.

Well I could tell the movie was going to suck within the first 5 minutes, it just had that vibe.  The story made no sense and the acting was moronic. Both Cindy and I laughed out loud at the main bad guy who spoke the entire movie in a creepy whisper except for a couple outbursts where he went into Jacquin Phoenix in Gladiator, “AM I NOT MERCIFUL!” screaming mode.   He was simply a ridiculous character.

Thankfully the two 20 ounce Shocktop beers I downed at Olive Garden had made me sleepy. I slept through at least half of the movie.  Cindy dozed off as well.  Whomever fronted the 179 million dollar production budget for this big steaming turd is going to be writing out a lot of IOU’s.  The film grossed $19 million for it’s opening weekend and I am sure it will plummet from here as word spreads of its suckitude.  The only thing good I can say about the movie is it has top notch special effects, but that can’t come even close to saving the film.  I give it a D, don’t even watch it if it comes on free tv.

On Sunday morning we were supposed to pick up our new chickens but I wanted to get a bike ride in beforehand.  Cindy was not very enthusiastic about the idea.  The temps were in the upper 50’s and she had not ridden in awhile.  I assured her if we dressed in a manner similar to how Randall and I dressed last week it would be fine.  I told her she would be glad we did it once we do it.  She eventually agreed although she said I would probably have to be slowing down to accommodate her. I knew that would not be the case.

I lead the entire way to Dunking Donuts and just like last week, held good speed, 20-21 mph for a good portion of the 10 miles which Cindy was able to hang with just fine.  We did the first 10 miles in right around 30 minutes.  After refueling with small coffees we reversed direction which was into the wind to varying degrees.  Little Miss “I doubt I can do 16 mph”, was pulling for well over half of the return ride and did so maintaining 17-19 mph pretty much the entire time.  I only took over with a little more than 3 miles to go.

As we pulled back into the driveway I stopped my GPS and checked out the stats.  For the entire ride we averaged 18.6 mph, only a couple tenths slower than I did with Randall.  As predicted, Cindy was glad we got out there and she found out that despite a long cycling lay off she is still quite capable.

The chicken lady had called just before we got back at 10.  I called her back and made arrangements to pick up the 4 chickens at 10:30 at the same convenience store we used before.  After changing our biking clothes we grabbed the two cat carriers and were out the door in the party van.  We got there first and waited a few minutes for Anna and her husband to pull up.  The husband, who is very odd, did not leave the drivers seat, leaving Anna alone to handle the chicken transfer.  I opened up and sat our carriers by her small cage so the birds could be shuffled between them.

The chickens were scared as expected.  They also looked smaller than the three girls we adopted before which made sense since they are approximately a month younger.  Anna said she THINKS they were all hens but if one of them turned out to be a rooster we could swap it out.  A rooster just won’t work in our situation, I don’t need to annoy the neighbors.  Both Cindy and I are hoping they are all girls, it would sort of suck to have to get rid of one after we get attached to it.

The chickens were very, very quiet on the ride home and equally quiet as Cindy and I prepared the coop, filling it with wood shavings, food and water.  The chickens were hesitant to leave the confines of the cat carriers and into their new home.  It probably took five patient minutes and some cracked corn bribery to get all four of them out.

Once we had them in the coop you could tell they were disoriented.  Anna said they were in a crowded situation at her place so perhaps it felt weird to the 4 chickens to have some peace and quiet along with space to move.  We got them all situated and secure before we headed out to Rural King, we needed to get feed designed for younger chickens, the stuff we had is for chickens four months and older.

We took the SSR, as it was a beautiful sunny day with temps in the 70’s.  When we were in Rural King we got sidetracked by the live chicks they had for sale.  They literally had hundreds of baby chicks covering at least a half dozen varieties.  We were teetering on the edge of adopting a couple until a store employee said we would have to take at least 6 at a time, which would eventually put us over our current chicken housing capabilities.

During the day I developed an issue with my brand spanking new computer.  Earlier my Mcafee virus protection was complaining about some malware trying to load.  I found it odd since the only site I had open was Facebook.  After I clicked block 4 or 5 times I simply X’d out the notification box.  Well that apparently is the same as saying “load the shit”, my pc was now infected.

The malware would overlay incredibly annoying and disruptive ads on top of normal web pages.  It was something called TopDeal ads.  When I looked up removal recommendations for the malware the search results were filled with trap site links that actually will load more shit onto your computer instead of helping you remove it.

I did a full sweep in safe mode which supposedly found, identified, and removed the culprit.  However after a reboot the fcking shit was back, I was pissed.  At first I figured I would just load a system restore but was frustrated to see the feature was turned off.  I wasn’t sure if Windows 8.1 has it off by default or if the malware flipped it off to make it more difficult for me to dispose of it.

Ok well my next plan was to utilize the full system image back up I had that was roughly 10 days old.  Nothing major changed during that time period.  Well after completing the restore the system was not booting.  Windows would not load and kicked me to the recovery screen, nothing I did in there fixed the problem.  In total I went through three system restore cycles, only the third try was successful when I used slightly different recovery options.  When my desktop finally booted up clean I breathed a sigh of relief.  I had nightmare scenarios of a total reload dancing through my head.

So as dusk arrived Cindy and I were waiting for the chickens to head up the ramp to the their coop so we could close it up.  Well the four birds didn’t seem to understand the way this was supposed to work.  When I went outside in near darkness to check on them the four chickens were all piled on top of each other on the ground under the hanging feeder.  Of course this couldn’t be allowed as a racoon could easily grab one of them through the wire and cause all sorts of problems.

I called Cindy out so she could help me manually place the chickens up top after I raised the ramp to the closed position.  The chicks were not thrilled with being forcefully moved to the second floor and seemed a bit confused by the whole thing. This morning when I lowered the ramp they again were hesitant to change floors, they all stayed up top.  I’m sure they will figure it out quickly, I think they are just scared of everything being different.

Last night we watched Fury on Blu-ray.  It was a good war movie that depicted the horrors of war in an in your face manner.  I thought the acting in the film was very, very good.  Brad Pitt has kept his personal streak with me alive, never appearing in a movie that I disliked.  I’d give it an A-.

On Saturday the weather initially was pretty nasty with overcast skies, cool air and a pretty steady light rain.  I had weeds to pull so I didn’t let a little rain stop me.  I let the chickens out as well, they didn’t seem to mind getting wet either as they followed me around the yard.   After I finished up Cindy and I got in the van to go pick up the dogs.  Ali was going out late Saturday night and asked if I wanted to have the girls sleep over so of course I said sure.

We had to drive down to Cindy’s office to pick up the Tacoma.  Cindy left it there when she had her mom drive her home Friday after she had some severe dizziness episodes.  It seems to be vertigo-like symptoms that she gets on occasion but we don’t know for sure.

When we got home we both started working on our lists.  Cindy wrote hers out and mine was in my head.  One of the things I was doing was rearranging my desk to accommodate the new Samsung 27″ monitor I grabbed at Costco.  As I was futzing around trying to make it fit Cindy said I should just take the top hutch off my desk to give myself more open desk space.  At first I laughed her off as I told her I have stuff in the hutch portion of the desk that I would not have a place to house otherwise. However the gears in my head started to turn.

I did a quick survey of what would be needed to pull the hutch off which was minor, a few of those cam bolts used in put together yourself furniture and the the nailed on cardboard backing.  I then did an inventory of the items contained in the hutch portion of the desk.  The vast majority of them were items I did not really need or want anymore.  That settled it, the hutch was history.

To be honest the hutch looked pretty trashy. Years ago I bought a MASSIVE old tube style monitor.  In order for it to fit in my desk I had to carve a very messy hole in the cardboard backing to allow the back of the monitor to slide through it.  Of course now that the world is all flat screens I no longer had need for the hole but it’s ugly remains were still there.

After undoing the fasteners Cindy helped me pull the hutch off, revealing a large portion of the wall that I haven’t seen in years as well as a big chunk of reclaimed desktop space.  I decided this would also be a good opportunity to disconnect EVERYTHING that is on my desk and rewire it in a less rat nest-like manner.  Cindy also used the Dyson to sweep areas untouched for years and years.

My desk makeover spurred a chain of cleaning, organizing and throwing out.  Cindy totally redid her desk as well and we also hit the hobby room, cleaning that too.  We threw out a bunch and got rid of a bunch of stuff through our curbside scavengers that I can normally count on to remove almost anything I put out at the end of the driveway.

Initially I tried setting up my stuff with just a naked desktop but logistically it did not work very well.   I wound up using the top portion of Cindy’s desk, which she did not want anymore.  It allowed me some vertical options without overtaking the majority of my table top space like the hutch did.  I am digging the end results of all of our work.

So Saturday night Cindy and I went to see American Sniper, the 7:35 show was picked to give us more time to wrap up our chores.  I already expected it to be fuller than we like as this time of year the normally quiet theater is inundated with snowbirds looking to get their movie fix.  Well as soon as we pulled into the back parking lot we knew we were going to be in trouble.  There were more cars in the lot than either of us had ever seen before.

When we approached the ticket window we saw a long line of gray haired people.  We opted to use the automatic ticket machines that scare off most snowbirds, they were unoccupied.  When we got into the lobby the mass of humanity was again on display with 8 or 9 lines at the concession stand, none with less than 10 people in them.  Geezus christ.  Cindy said she would wait in line while I ran to the bathroom to pee.  When I came out and saw she hardly moved I suggested we just go in and find a seat and then one of us can come back out for refreshments.

So we go in and see the theater is fckin PACKED, the fullest we have ever seen for a Coconut Point movie.  We are accustomed to being able to arrive right at showtime and have zero issue finding a good seat.  Well we paid for that assumption this time.  We walked all the way up to the top of the theater and saw nothing but stray single seats or others that were being held by placeholders.  I am not the type that feels justified asking a whole row of people to move down to accommodate me  because I showed up at the last minute.

We paced up and down and saw nothing.  Our only option left was ALL the way in front at floor level, something Cindy was really opposed to.  She said the last time she sat in front she had a headache.  I told her we should just give it a shot.  I sat down and became the placeholder for the seat next to me as Cindy ran to the bathroom and got us something to drink.  By the time she returned almost every single seat was taken, there were even people just standing, ridiculous.  Experiences like this make me want to steer clear of the theaters until the snowbirds leave the area.

So I had sat in the front row of a theater once or twice before.  It is not an ideal experience for sure but I recalled that after a brief adjustment period of having such a big screen so close you get used to it more or less.  Yes it’s a pain to have to literally pan left and right with your eyes to see everything but it was bearable.

American Sniper opened to HUGE numbers last weekend and evidenced by our experience at the theater, it smashed the competition again.  Evidently people really want to see a real story about our military action in the Middle East.  The first thing that struck me about the film was how dramatic the transformation Bradley Cooper put himself through.  His transformation from Hangover days was incredible, packing on 40 pounds of mostly muscle for the role.  I thought he did a fantastic job portraying the lead character.

I felt the movie was really well done and left me feeling conflicted as it should.  Yes the heroism and bravery on display was compelling.  However the circumstances surrounding it, our invasion of Iraq based on fake pretenses which put both our military and innocent civilians in harms way was an underlying theme of the movie as well.  The film did an excellent job of showing the crushing emotional toll of war on a human being.  Despite us being involved in war operations for over 14 years in Iraq/Afghanistan I think the majority of the US population feels insulated from it, like it isn’t real.  American Sniper pulls back the curtain and based on it’s huge numbers, hopefully more people walk away from it with a more realistic and more appreciative viewpoint of what our men and women in the military have been going through for far too long. I give the flick a very solid A, worth the 200 million+ it has earned thus far.

The other movie Cindy and I watched this weekend was Boyhood, an incredibly risky and ambitious film.  They shot the film over a 12 YEAR period.  The lead character was 6 when it started and 18 when it ended.  you literally watch all of the characters in the movie age 12 years as it covers the life of a family that deals with the ins and outs of growing up.  I found the premise pretty fascinating and enjoyed the movie for all nearly 3 hours even though there wasn’t a single explosion or special effect in the entire thing.  It gets an A.

I skipped ahead in time because I needed to finish with what was an awful experience for Cindy and I that unfolded on Sunday.   We got to bed pretty late on Saturday night so we slept in somewhat on Sunday until around 8AM.  As I walked out into great room I looked out the window as I normally do to look at the chickens who normally come down from their coop at the crack of dawn.

As I looked out the window I instantly stopped in my tracks as I felt a huge wave of emotion enter my body.  I see feathers everywhere and three motionless birds on the ground.  At first I hoped I was still asleep and just in the middle of a nightmare.  I was not.  As I stared in disbelief I saw the left door to the top of the coop was wide open, how the predator gained access obviously.  It was horrible.

I had to go back in the bedroom and tell Cindy who was in the shower what happened.  I told her I didn’t want her to come outside.  Of course she instantly was hysterical and did not heed my warning. She came out as I was surveying the carnage, crying and gasping for air as she came close, just uttering the words “my babies…..” how we really felt about them.

I just sort of stood there, staring as tears filled my eyes both at the sight of our chickens, whom were happy and content just yesterday and seeing Cindy so devastated.  I imagined the terror the birds must have felt and the violent death they suffered and felt responsible.  They trusted me to care for their safety and obviously I failed in that responsibility.

We are pretty sure the predator that killed the birds was a fox.  We saw poop in the garden a couple times over the last few weeks that we identified as fox droppings.  The door that was open was secured at the top by a piece of aluminum framing with a screw in the middle.  To secure the door you rotate it down however there was nothing to prevent a well placed paw swipe from moving the bar so that the door would pop open.  I knew this arm was not very tight but it was at the top of the coop A frame, out of reach, or so I thought.  Plus I just never gave a second of thought to something being smart enough to spin it. It was just an awful, awful moment.

Despite being farm animals, the chickens were the first pets that Cindy and I adopted together.  We didn’t treat them like farm animals, we treated them like part of the family.  It made having them die in our own backyard all the more tragic.  We tried to figure out what time this happened.  Their bodies were not yet cold despite the temps in the 50’s yet it seemed impossible that Cindy or I would not have been woken up with what had to be an incredible amount of noise as the chickens scrambled for their lives.  It just added to the large load of guilt we already were feeling.

We immediately tended to burying the chickens, despite my still being in boxer shorts.  I dug a plot by the bird feeders where Betty, Wilma, and Pebbles liked to hang out so often.  There was such a thick cloud of sorrow and regret as we covered them up, it felt surreal.  I was so angry at myself for letting them down and having them suffer this fate because of my oversight.

The rest of our day as you can imagine was thrown out of whack.  Cindy did the lion share of the morbid task of cleaning up the coop and the evidence of the carnage that went on there.  I parked everything behind the garden out of view from the house.  Cindy did not want the visual reminder to spike the pain, neither did I.  Cindy and I have become very accustomed to gaining comfort and enjoyment from watching the chickens both in and out of coop.  We always would report to the other if the chickens went to bed or had gotten up each and every day.  To have that end unexpectedly, abruptly and as violently as it did is hard for us to handle.

For the rest of the day we both tried to stay as busy as we could as to not dwell on what happened.  We were both only mildly successful in doing so.  I am sure to many or maybe even the majority of people, getting this upset over the death of three chickens seems over the top.  After all, chickens are killed by the hundreds of thousands daily in order to become a cruel cog in the human being food supply. However to us, this was like having a family pet murdered three times over.

Our time with the chickens gave both of us tons of laughs and smiles as we watched them grow and explore the world inside the confines of my backyard.  Each bird had it’s own distinct personality.  Pebbles was the biggest and least social, she often would be off on her own where as the other two were normally side by side.   Wilma was the most pushy chicken, always wanting to be first in line with no problems pushing her way there.  Finally there was sweet Betty, the most docile and smallest of the three hens.  She would let you hold and pet her with little fuss.

Even Nicki and Sadie seemed confused by the lack of chickens in the yard.  Nicki especially LOVED following the three hens around the yard just to be a pest.  Being able to have the dogs and chickens unrestrained in the yard together was something I was really happy about.  It was like they all knew they were part of the same extended family.

I think eventually Cindy and I will get more chickens but it won’t happen before I do some modifications to the coop to prevent anything except a human being to gain access.  As much as I love most animals, if I would have been able to get out in the yard while the attack was going on, whatever was responsible would have had a very short life span if I got my hands on it, despite the predator just doing what it is hard wired to do.

I’m going to miss the chickens running under my feet, hopping up and down excitedly, taking rides on the chicken run as I moved it, running/flapping across the yard to pursue goodies, their silly noises and their self created,  funny looking dust baths they so loved to give themselves.

I am hoping we can avoid any more death in our circle of life for a little while.  It really chops you down.

So on Friday two large boxes showed up at my door, they were the two Polywood lounge chairs I bought from Amazon.  Picking up one box let me know the chairs were substantial and well built.  The box was HEAVY.  After we devoured our Friday night pizza I got busy with assembling the chairs.

Really the only negative we read about the chairs online was the assembly was a pain for some people.  Well there were less than a dozen parts so I didn’t understand the complaints.  Once I started to bolt things together I got some appreciation.

If you use the two included allen wrench tools I  can see where it could be a pain.  The holes you were inserting the bolts into were in positions where you couldn’t get full turns.  Since most of the bolts were relatively long that meant you would be turning, pulling out, inserting, and turning some more quite a bit which would get tedious.  Of course if you have a cordless drill with allen wrench inserts things become stupidly easy.  After trying the manual method for a couple minutes I quickly grabbed my power tools.

Cindy of course was my assistant in the process helping hold and align pieces where necessary.  The chairs felt sturdy and looked great, well up to the task of surviving their incredible 20 year warranty. I also loved that they are made in the USA, such a rare thing with most material goods nowadays. Over the weekend Cindy scored some inexpensive cushions to complete the look.

The chairs were part of completing the pool deck repaint/renovation project.  The black chairs went well with all of the other old furniture that Cindy renovated with some black paint/stain.  The project was more involved than I anticipated but we both are very happy with the fruits of our labor.

Putting the pool deck back together was part of what was an unbelievably laborious Saturday.  I started work around 8:30 and put in a full blue collar day, not finishing up until after 5.  I could not even attempt to list everything that was attended to but I would not surprised if it added up to a couple dozen things.

Of course Cindy was a big part of getting things done, including taking down the interior Christmas decorations.  De-christmasing always brings it with some degree of unavoidable melancholy for me.  I wasn’t as bummed out as I have been other years but it still was a downer.

During the day Saturday Cindy’s daughter and her boyfriend stopped by to pick up my old recliner which I told her she could have for her apartment.  This is the recliner that my mom bought for me for my 30th birthday.  It is oversized and designed for a taller/bigger person.

Over the years the ironic thing is other people used the chair more than I did.  Despite it being supposedly made for tall people, the leg rest hit my legs in such a way that just wasn’t all that comfortable for me.  Since Cindy and I pretty much exclusively use my $200 Craigslist sofa set for seating the recliner has seen even less use the last few years.  I even offered it back to my mom when she said she was thinking about a recliner last year.

Well when Katie was over last she said how she loved sitting in it so it was a no brainer.  I was happy to have the chair go somewhere it would be appreciated and used heavily instead of gathering dust.  I think mom would have felt the same.

With the chair out of the great room there was suddenly a large open square of floor real estate open that had not been before.  It felt weird being able to shortcut trips back to the bedroom.  Eventually I would like to put a large pit sofa in the great room but that will be something down the road a bit.

One of the other big projects of Saturday was cleaning all of the floors in the house, dirty from dogs and holiday foot traffic.  I let the Scooba handle the kitchen while I vacuumed the rugs first with the Dyson before hitting it again with my carpet cleaner.  The gallons of dirty water going down the drain made the endless back and forth strokes feel worth it.

On Saturday night Cindy I decided to rent The Interview since it’s bizarre online/theater re-release after it was initially cancelled due to the hacker threats.  It was cool to see a movie that was just released from the comfort of my home.  The movie itself was ok but I thought it relied too heavily on dirty humor and also had some silly gore that made no sense.  Even though I fully support our right to see any movie regarding any subject matter, producing a movie that is based on killing a present day ruling dictator wasn’t a very well thought out plan in my opinion.  I think Cindy summed up The Interview for me when she said “at least it wasn’t Into the Woods”.  I personally would give the movie an average B rating, not really worth all the controversy.

Sunday morning, despite a long day of work the prior day we decided to get out for a run.  Cindy had suggested just running 60 minutes regardless of pace/distance.  I told her I was scaling back my time goal to 45 minutes since I haven’t done more than a half hour of running in months.  I wore my Garmin to check after the run but did not look at it during.

Early on my back, which had be troublesome for nearly a week, was not enjoying the up and down pounding however after a mile or so I warmed up enough that it subsided.  The pace we ran was slow and steady, just at or below the 10 minute mile rate.  Despite the slow pace, as the clock advanced my poor cardio endurance was more and more of a factor.  I finished up 45 minutes   with 4.61 miles covered according to my Garmin.  According to Cindy’s newer Garmin I covered less. Regardless I was pooped, it felt good to start 2015 with a run longer than I covered for most of 2014.

The rest of my Sunday was pretty slow paced, especially in comparison to the non-stop pace of Saturday.  Cindy however kept herself quite busy as I spent time in WoW accomplishing virtual tasks.  Despite working myself hard on Saturday and starting Sunday with a run, the net result was with me feeling lazy at the end.

I forgot to mention on here that I stopped buying/consuming cow’s milk this past week.  Although I have known for years the negatives of consuming cow’s milk I have continued to do so in smaller amounts.  My entire life I have always been a heavy milk drinker.  I will be replacing cows milk with almond milk instead.  I have been drinking the unsweetened almond milk variety (make sure it doesn’t have carageenan) with my lunch for awhile, I will be drinking the 60 calorie variety as my cow milk replacement.  I don’t think it will be that hard of a change to make, despite nearly a half century of drinking the bovine stuff.

As I sit here with a wrenched back from four days of work on the pool deck I figured it was a good time to recant my extended time off which started last Thursday with Christmas day.  The longer I go without emptying my memory banks, the more detail is lost to the mists, never to be recalled again.

So Christmas Eve and Christmas day were good except for Cindy’s health, which was poor.  Unfortunately Christmas day she felt the worst.  Of course I could identify since I had been battling what I assume is the same strain of illness for nearly three weeks.  Since Cindy’s daughter and mom had already stopped by on Tuesday night Cindy and I had a very solo Christmas.  Of course mom’s absence added to the more isolating feel.  I did position her glasses overlooking the Christmas tree, as if that made a difference.

Thankfully we had the dogs who for whatever reason seem to understand and recognize that Christmas = fun for them.  Both Nicki and Sadie had big dog smiles most of the morning.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that we both went overboard on Christmas presents.  To have close to 40 presents (some were small of course) for just two people was a little crazy.  I just like getting stuff for Cindy, it’s a small token of how much I appreciate everything she does for me on a daily basis 365 days a year.  The ironic thing is although of course Cindy likes presents, it’s the last thing she really cares about.  She isn’t materialistic at all.

She was flabbergasted as I put box after box in front of her to rip apart.  For the most part I did a good job and a lot of the stuff I got had side benefits for me like cool kitchen items to assist Cindy in her fabulous food prep she does for me.  The Kindle Fire HD7 I got Cindy also was my ticket to being able to play Hearthstone on a tablet.  It won’t run well on the Galaxy Tab I got last year but seems to run pretty smoothly on the Fire.

Cindy got me way too much stuff as well.  Obviously she feels that my wardrobe is a bit dated as she hooked me up with a number of cool clothes.  She also got me some other cool little things that to be honest I haven’t gotten to dig into yet thanks to the deck project. On Christmas I got to talk to Todd, Torrin and my dad which was nice.  Those calls carry a bit more meaning now that mom is gone and I have no family in the area any longer.

During the day we worked mostly on clean up and consolidation of the huge influx of gifts into the household.  By 2 or 3PM we had most of the legwork completed.  I was feeling my seemingly unavoidable post-Christmas round of depression set in.  I can’t really explain why it happens.  I just know after all the presents are opened, the Christmas music is turned off and the clean up begins I feel down in the dumps. I think mom not being there made it a little more heavy this year.

For the past few years  I have attended the Christmas party that is held by the running club president and his wife in their beautiful home in Naples proper.  We were once again invited to go and originally planned to attend.  However Cindy was feeling pretty miserable and I just didn’t see the point of going with her being sick and me feeling 180 degrees away from the partying mood.  The dogs were happy we decided to stay home with them I’m sure.

So on Friday I had off but Cindy had to work.  My original plan was to go get all of the stuff needed to repaint the pool deck but it turned into a lot more driving than that.  One of the big things I got for Cindy for Christmas was a gift certificate to have all of the windows in her Prius tinted.  It’s something she had talked about wanting to get done from day one but didn’t get around to yet.

I called the shop I got the gift cert from on Friday, wanting to see if we could set up an appointment on Monday or Tuesday to get the work done since we were both off.  I was taken off guard when the owner said he can do it right now.  Ok, I said, I’ll get it there, even though I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to make this work since Cindy took the Prius to work.

What followed was a probably close to a couple hundred miles of driving.  I told Cindy of the open slot to get the work done.  She was excited to get it done and said she could get out of the office for a few minutes.  I arranged to meet her at the window tint place and then drop her back off at her office which was about 10 minutes away.  I had the dogs along of course so they were quite happy to ride along for however long it would take.

When we dropped the Prius off the guy said it should only take a couple hours to do the work.  So I told Cindy maybe I could run my errands and then come back and drop her off to get the car.  After dropping her off I was all over the place including a stop at Lowes to get the supplies for the pool deck repaint.

I brought some of the left over paint from when the deck was done last and asked the paint guy if they could color match it.  Well their idea of color matching was taking a dab of the old paint, drying it and then holding it up to the color card for their pool deck product, looking for a close match.  I thought this was going to be a more exact thing where they tint and test to get an exact match.  The color I wound up with was called khaki which was close but definitely lighter than what was already on the deck.  Since we were doing a complete repaint I didn’t really care.  The lighter, brighter color would look good.

I also got two cans of primer designed for the pool deck paint.  I think this is where Rhinoshield botched the job, the guy half ass primed the deck by spraying stuff on in a way that did not cover the surface completely.  I would be rolling and brushing on the primer over every square inch of the deck.

I called the tint place and heard that the Prius was done.  Unfortunately Cindy had to wait for a girl to get back from her lunch break before she could be picked up.  I wasted the additional hour by returning an item to Sam’s, some 10 miles north of Cindy’s office, and dumping 20 gallons of gas into the party van before returning to pick her up.

The Prius looked sharp with the new tint.  The good looks will be backed up with the 80% light/heat blockage the top of the line ceramic tint will provide.  The guy that owns the 1-2 man shop was real laid back and nice.  It felt good to support a small business.  He also happens to be an avid swimmer.  He said he has logged something ridiculous like 4300 miles of swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.

So I had spent much more of my day running around than I planned meaning I got home later than I wanted to.  I still needed to at least get something done for the pool deck project that was tangible.  I cleared off the deck of everything and put up the 100 feet of contractor barrier fencing around the perimeter of the pool cage to keep the chickens from kicking mulch onto it after it was cleaned.  Cindy was impressed how much I got done in the brief amount of time I had at home.

On Friday night we chilled and watched Into the Storm, a movie about super tornadoes.  The special effects alone were incredible.  They reproduced the utter destruction of the storm with incredible realism.  The story was just ok but you don’t see  movie like this for the plot.  It was a solid B+ rental for me.

So on Saturday the work on the deck ramped up since both Cindy and I were available to work on it for the next four days.  Unfortunately the dense morning fog that we have experienced every morning has not been helpful, leaving everything moist for half of the morning.  Cindy’s primary job was sweeping up the deck of loose particles with the ShopVac.  I followed behind with the pressure washer.

Since the deck was being repainted I used the pressure washer at point blank range, applying more washing power to the deck.  The additional pressure stripped a ton of the old shitty paint job off all over the place.  Maybe deck paint just isn’t made to withstand 3200 PSI? I also went around with a caulk gun and my index finger filling in the multitude of small hairline cracks that were “fixed” by Rhinoshield but reappeared only a few months later.  I am hoping using the flexible caulk will yield more long lasting results than the concrete patch material they used originally.

So unfortunately that was really all the deck work we could get done on Saturday as the surface had to be absolutely dry before moving to the next step of applying primer.

Saturday night we met up with Lily at Mercato.  Cindy had suggested that we meet up for dinner since Lily was in town visiting family.  I agreed that was a good idea until we pulled into the Mercato complex.  I had given no thought to how miserably full the place would be the Saturday night after Christmas.  We  circled for 20 minutes looking for a parking spot as we passed dozens of parking space mongers, a species I simply have no tolerance for.  By the time we parked on the top level of the parking deck I was annoyed to the max.

Luckily a few beers over dinner settled me down.  We sat at the bar of the Rusty Bucket, a place I got a gift card to for Xmas, and had nice meals while downing a few 20 once Miller Lites.  It was nice to catch up with Lily, Randall’s ex-girlfriend.  Even though their relationship hasn’t worked out we have kept in touch with Lily who is a sweetheart.  After dinner we made a beeline for home, we both have been sleep deprived from the poor sleep we seem to get when the dogs are around.  They seem far too eager to wake us up in the middle of the night.

The dogs, especially Sadie were quite unhappy with being blocked from the pool deck, one of their go to places to hang out at the house.  They camped by the sliding glass door endlessly, hoping to be able to quickly circumvent my leg blockade.

Sunday we again had to start later than we hoped due to the fog.  Once it lifted a bit we got busy spreading primer, a substance that looked and smelled like glue.  It was clear going on, making it a bit hard to tell where you did and did not cover.  Luckily as it dried it developed a white haze which made it easy for us to tell if we missed a spot.

I helped Cindy with the hand brushing of the edges of the pool cage while I let the coping to Cindy alone as she is better with precision painting.  I then grabbed the roller with a 4 foot extension pole and started rolling.  The work didn’t seem too bad at first but after awhile the movement got difficult as I tried to apply significant downward pressure with each stroke to press the primer into the nooks and crannies of the Spraykrete surface.  I systematically worked my way around the deck, finishing up the last few strokes as I stood in the great room, hanging out the sliding door.

Cindy came up with a great idea that I hadn’t thought about, touching up the rusty pool cage screws/bolts, which there are a ton of.  She used a can of white Rustoleum paint and a small brush to dramatically improve the appearance of these formerly rust encrusted bolts.  She figured if there was any time to do it, now would be the time.  She was right, I’m glad she thought of it. (and did the tedious work herself)  🙂

As if we hadn’t been doing enough this weekend, Cindy also started a side task of repairing the timing mats I bought for Green Machine Timing.  Both of the mats have rips in them.  Cindy is using backing material along with considerable hand sewing to fix and reenforce the mats, saving me potentially the $1200 it would cost to replace them.

During the down time over the weekend I shipped two very large boxes.  One was a 95 pound behemoth, containing two 5 meter Ipico mats that the club replaced years ago but were still sitting in my closet.  I sold them to help offset the expense of some new equipment the club bought for timing.  The other 60lb box was the spare tire kit I bought for Cindy’s daughter that it turned out she didn’t need.  I was glad that the place I bought it from agreed to let me return it.

So yesterday we got to the meat of the project, the painting itself.  Having just experienced a day of applying primer our game plan was much the same.  We did the edges, coping and then it was floor rolling time.  Unlike the primer that required a minimum of 8 hours dry time the pool deck paint was ready for a second coat after a couple of hours.  After applying the first coat we ran out to Lowes for a third gallon of paint as I suspected we would not have enough, my suspicion was correct.

By the time I was done rolling the second coat the sun was going down and my body was breaking down.  My back was killing me from the thousands of hunched over rolling strokes.  By the time I finished up I was physically and mentally done with the project, too bad we weren’t actually done in the true sense of the word.

Actually Monday night instead of ending, the project actually expanded. I bought two black PolyWood lounge chairs from Amazon to replace the cheap, shitty, rusty water expelling lounge chairs that have been on the deck for several years.

The purchase of two black chairs inspired some further renovations where Cindy suggested we repaint the brown metal patio furniture to match.  The furniture had some rust on it too so a repaint would make sense and changing the color would give things a fresh new look.  So now our Tuesday, which we originally hoped would be nothing but relaxation was instead loaded up with more to do’s.

When I awoke this morning I paid the price for the endless rolling.  It felt like I had a spear shoved in my back right below my right shoulder blade.  If I twisted the wrong way it brought stop you dead in your tracks, stabbing pain.  I was obviously going to be limited in my functionality.  We headed to Lowes once again, probably the 6th time in as many days I had visited a home improvement super store.  We got spray paint for the metal furniture, stain for the wood stuff along with a few other small items.

I did a few little things but the painting has been exclusively done by Cindy today.  She has been out there for a couple hours at least plugging along.  When all of this labor is done I am sure we will look back on it favorably and with pride, however at this moment, the only description that keeps coming to mind for the last four days has been, “pain in the ass”.

Saw The Giver last night, B+.

On Friday night Randall didn’t show up until after 8PM but it didn’t really matter since I had race prep to work on anyway.  Randall showed up bearing gifts of beer which was very nice of him.  The dogs were THRILLED to see Uncle Randall, they both sat by his side happily as he petted them.

Randall talked Cindy into running the race on Saturday since he planned to do so.  That set Cindy into race prep mode which is a very complex process.  I decided to use the van for the race equipment since it would be three people plus equipment which just would not work in the Tacoma.

I decided to only load a couple things Friday night due to the cold temperatures.  I didn’t want the battery based electronics or the timing mats chilling in the van all night long so I just planned to get up 10 minutes earlier to do it in the morning.

I really bundled up for the race, wearing jeans, wool socks, a t-shirt, Under Armour Cold Gear long sleeves, and two sweatshirts to battle the temps in the mid to upper 40’s.  I needed every layer.  We were the first ones on site.  I got the gate code to let us in and was given permission to raise and fire up the light tower used to light up the registration area.  This event is a stark contrast to the Thanksgiving race where the club has soooo many responsibilities to handle.  For this race since it is done in coordination with a PGA golf event most of the planning and set up is done in advance by the tournament organizers.

I had Randall and Chris handling data entry for me as I attended to other details before the race started.  There were around 450 people for the race, a far cry from the 3000 plus we handled a couple weeks ago but it was still a good crowd.

The race was started by Greg Norman, the tournament organizer and the race had at least one of the PGA pros running which was cool as well.

I had some timing difficulties once again although luckily this time it didn’t result in any dropped times.  I had two timing boxes at the finish once again and for some reason could not get one of them online during the race.  I also had a number of participants that had bad/missing registration data since this race uses a rather klutzy in house registration web site that is not designed for taking race entries.  This bad data resulted in quite a few people being thrown into the wrong age group. However I had 356 chip start times and 355 chip finish times so that was the number I was most concerned with.

Both Randall and Cindy did well considering the circumstances.  Randall has not been doing any consistent running (despite having a half marathon coming up in January).  Cindy has still not gotten back on a consistent running schedule and HATES running in cold air as it makes her chest close up.  They both finished pretty high up in their age group rankings.

After the race we got cleaned up and off site by around 9:15 which is great.  On the way home we of course had to stop for celebratory coffee.

Once we got home I dug into post race tasks as Cindy worked on other stuff and Randall chilled with the chickens.  Randall seems to find the chickens interesting and liked interacting with them, petting and holding them routinely.

Once everything was done Cindy made us a special grilled cheese and tomato soup lunch designed to combat the chill we all felt most of the morning in our bones.

Cindy suggested that it would be a smart thing if we tried to take naps since we were planning to see Exodus Saturday night, a very long movie.  If we hit it napless there was a good chance we would be watching a lot of it with closed eyelids. All three of us laid down in our respective beds but I was the only one that actually fell asleep and only briefly at that.  Randall and Cindy reported no actual napping took place for them.

I suggested to Cindy it would be nice to give her a break from cooking and just eat at Stir Crazy up at Coconut Point.  Although Cindy really loves cooking she was down with the idea.  We all enjoyed our meals during pre-movie warm up.  Randall graciously but sneakily paid the check on the down low without my knowledge.

So we saw the 3D version of the film.  As I have professed for awhile now, 3D is pretty much a non-feature for me, not even worth the premium you pay to see it.  It just happened that we got done with dinner right around the 3D showing so that is what we saw.  It just doesn’t add anything to my enjoyment of most films.

So Exodus is basically a remake of the holiday classic, The 10 Commandments, starring Yule Brenner and Charlton Heston, a film I think I only watched in it’s entirety once without falling asleep, it’s something like 4 hours long. With Exodus they trimmed it’s length to under 3 hours but it still felt very long.

I’m not sure if it was the lack of naps or the movie itself but Randall spent a large portion of the movie with his eyes closed.  Cindy likewise had a lot of nod off moments.  I only had a few of them but there was no disputing the film had slow moments.

Just like the original 10 Commandments, I question why this story would be one that Christians would want to embellish.  God in this story, is in my opinion, depicted as more or less of an asshole that punishes the innocent for the actions of the guilty, a premise that seems more appropriate for Islamic extremists.

Even with it’s length, there seemed to be large fast forwards in the plot with unanswered questions, like why was it significant that Joshua felt no pain and all he did most of the movie was act like a peeping Tom when Moses talked to a God only visible to him. It was odd. Cindy said she thought the acting in the movie was really good.  I really didn’t feel the same.  As a whole the movie was a sleepy experience, only deserving of a B rating in my book.

On Sunday morning we started the day very slow.  With temps once again in the 40’s it was too cold to do an early bike ride with Randall.  We talked about doing one later in the day possibly since Randall lugged his bike across Alligator Alley.  Instead we relaxed a bit.  I downloaded the final episode of Season 2 of the Walking Dead video game and played through it to completion.  Much like the real series there are surprising outcomes, lots of people dying and tangible drama.  If there is a season three of the game I have no idea where it will go from here, almost the entire core of the group the story is based on is out of the picture in one way or another.

So we decided to head up to the outlets, something Randall and I have done quite a few times when he has visited during the holiday season.  He especially likes the Under Armour and Oakley outlets that are housed there.  Cindy was excited to go as well although excitement faded as she had multiple bad experiences with idiot, rude shoppers in several stores. I wound up buying several things from several stores.  Randall had a good haul as well including scoring two sets of Oakley sunglasses that were 40% off, something you rarely see.

We grabbed lunch at Naples Flatbread which was quite good.  As we sat there Randall spotted a black guy he recognized as the awful, Love Boat style singer that serenaded us at the same mall last year at a different establishment.  This was Cindy’s first time seeing/hearing the guys cheesy, out of tune performance.  She quickly confirmed Randall and my evaluation of this guys singing ability was accurate.  I recorded a brief 30 seconds for your enjoyment.

On the way home we had to make two more stops which  put us back in my driveway after 4PM, too late to fit a bike ride in which I felt a bit badly about.  Instead we headed outside with my Phantom.  I let Randall fly almost two complete battery packs himself which he did just fine except for a near miss with the smaller shed that had me concerned for a few moments.  While we were out there we did some tire flipping, some box jumping onto stacked tires and I even did a muscle up just to confirm I still had it in me.  The chickens and dogs were out there having fun with us as well.

While Randall and I were entertaining ourselves Cindy had begun an incredible food preparation challenge.  She was working on cooking the chicken for the dogs meals, dinner, my birthday cake AND Christmas cookies all at the same time.  It was a ton of work.  She did almost all of the work at our new kitchen corner cabinet/counter which was really cool.  She loves doing the prep there, making the time, money and effort we put into it feel well worth it.  Randall and I both appreciated her efforts greatly, everything tasted really good.

Randall rolled out around 9PM, it was another fun and festive visit, something Cindy and I come to count on when Randall is in the house.

The Eagles did not play until 8:30 against the hated Cowboys, a team they smashed a couple weeks ago on Thanksgiving, in Dallas.  Well the game started out terribly right from the opening kickoff that the Eagles totally botched allowing for a very quick Cowboys score.  The onslaught continued with the Cowboys jumping to a fast and easy 21-0 lead.

All of a sudden the Eagles seemed to get angry and aggressive, dominating the middle portion of the game, putting 24 unanswered points on the board to take the lead.  Unfortunately this seemed to be a game of thirds, the Cowboys came back and dominated the last third of the game, winning 38-27, the Eagles second consecutive home loss in as many weeks and their third loss in the last four games.

The Eagles, despite their still decent 9-5 record have shown a disturbing trend of coming up small when going up against good (winning record) teams and a more disturbing sputtering end to the season.  Last year was the opposite, the team gained momentum and confidence as the season progressed, this feels like the exact opposite.

There was some bitter irony going on for me during the game.  I felt some pangs of happiness as Demarco Murray, the Cowboys star running back was racking up the yards and touchdowns since he was on my fantasy team which was playing in the semi-finals of the league championship.  His solid game was actually responsible for my win, propelling me to the league championship game for the third consecutive year, a pretty amazing feat considering the lack of time, energy and effort I put into managing my squad.  So even though the final score of the Eagles game was depressing, my virtual outcome helped my mood greatly.

Believe it or not I am still hacking and blowing my nose almost two complete weeks after first becoming symptomatic.  I am so ready to be over this.  Oh tomorrow is my birthday, a date on the calendar that I have not looked forward to since the mid-90’s.