Category Movie Reviews

On Saturday morning I ditched running as my back was still not feeling great when I rolled out of bed.  Instead I started off my early AM at a much slower pace playing some WoW and Hearthstone.  Around 9 I took the party van over to Cindy’s apartment to get the last couple large/heavy items that would be going to my house, her big screen TV and a large potted desert rose.

I had to load these in a way to still allow access to the bed in the back of the van since I was picking up the girls on my way home.   They didn’t seem to mind the 50″ tv that was lined up behind the front seats.

Once we got home I got to work distributing the items to their new spots.  The desert rose went out front in between the two existing potted plants.  The tv went into the guestroom, replacing the diminutive 15 inch LCD set that was there before.  The tv transformation was dramatic.  Cindy’s tv takes up pretty much all available wall space between the open bedroom door and the closet.  Future guests will have quite the AV experience available to them.

I spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon doing a full yard mowing followed by weed whacking.  It was my first time mowing everything with the new sun canopy installed.  As expected extra care was necessary mowing certain spots and other spots could no longer be traversed with the canopy installed.  I’ll exchange another minute or two of weed whacking for being able to mow without the sun beating on my head on the tractor.  I wish I would have done this 10 years ago. After the yard work I was actually warm enough to jump in the pool, giving Sadie her first 2014 splashy splash session.  The water felt quite cold for about 30 seconds but after that I was able to settle in and splash Sadie for 5 or 10 minutes.

When Cindy got home we promptly gave both of the dogs a bath.  They both suffered through the indignity with flying colors.

We spent Saturday evening at home.  It included watching my latest Netflix rental, Bad Grandpa.  To be quite honest I was hesitant to even put this in my queue.  The last Jackass movie was so lame that I was almost not willing to watch anything with Johnny Knoxville’s name all over it.  I was totally prepared for this movie to be horrible and even envisioned myself turning it off mid-flick if it was as bad as I feared it could be. Well I was wrong, very wrong.

Both Cindy and I laughed a ton, it was sort of a mix of Borat with a sprinkle of Jackass.  The little kid in the movie was a great part of the chemistry, despite the age inappropriate things he had to do/say.  The movie was really, really funny, believe it or not I am giving it an A-.

On Sunday morning after dropping off the dogs at Ali’s, Cindy and I took on a bike/swim brick.  The first part of the ride when we were heading north had a very quick pace, topping out at 24mph + for a brief period of time.  Of course I knew this meant we had a big tailwind pushing us along which was going to be in our face on the way back.

For most of the south ride Cindy was in the front being a wind breaker, she likes to put herself in those difficult riding conditions because it offers better training rewards.  I took over for a brief part towards the end of the south ride before we did a final U-turn to head north back towards the water park.  With the wind once again at our backs Cindy took off like a bat out of hell, she likes to see what sort of top speed she can hit during the last segment of this ride.  She said she touched 28 mph at one point.  I couldn’t tell as I was a couple hundred yards behind her at that point.  I only caught up to her right before getting back to the entrance to the park.

We had a decent swimming session.  I logged three 400 yard segments at a mundane 9:15 pace.  Considering this was only my second swimming session of the last 6 months I was ok with it.  Cindy put in 1000 yards.  It was her first time swimming since the Key West tri in December.

After we were done we got right out of there as we had two stops to make on the way home and list of things to accomplish once we got back.  Sunday afternoon seemed to fly by in a blink.  Cindy made a nice dinner followed up with an even better homemade apple pie.  We enjoyed both while finally watching the third part of the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo  series.

It was good but the whole reading subtitle deal really is not my thing and distracts from my overall enjoyment of the film.  As a whole I would give the movie series a B+.

So last week I finished up my second week trying out Gunnar glasses at work.  The first week I had them I wore them basically full time, 8 hours a day at work and my eyes felt like shit.  They were bloodshot, aching and dry at various times, the exact symptoms they are meant to lessen.

Last week I did them more in shifts, wearing them for a period of time and then going without for a bit.  It seemed to work out better, my eyes felt much better than the week before.

I still have not noticed any improvement in the problem that caused me to by Gunnars in the first place, distance focus.  We’ll see what week three brings.

Saturday morning I drug myself out of bed to go do the club bagel run.  The bagel run is a run of varying distances, anywhere from 3 miles up to 13, the duration is up to you.  Afterwards everyone meets at the running store and enjoys some free bagels, juice and coffee.   Cindy and I only ran 5 miles as I am trying to increase my run distance slowly to avoid knee pain complications.

For the second half of the run we were joined by an older guy named Eric that I never saw before.  It turns out Eric had only been in the Naples area for a week and was trying it on for size as he is looking for a place to relocate to from New York.  Eric has had quite an interesting life which started off in Albania and found him living all over the country including Alaska, California and Manhattan.  He also was a tremendous endurance athlete in his younger days.  He ran something like 27 marathons with a personal best of 2:56, that is VERY fast.  He also did the Kona Ironman, geez.

Here I was thinking my 5 mile run at a 9 minute mile pace was actually half decent, lol.

On my way home from the run I had an unplanned stop at Ali’s.  I had been talking to her about buying her office furniture she wanted to unload since she plans to get new stuff when she moves into her new place.  The furniture is nothing fancy but at least I knew it fit the corner at the house well since that is where it resided for many years.  Well I wound up picking the furniture up.

To get the stuff out of Ali’s condo was a bit of a chore.  I had to disassemble the L shaped desk most of the way to be able to get it down the steps and into the bed of the Tacoma.   In addition to the desk I grabbed one of the two file cabinets and a small bookshelf.  To give Ali a place to work we moved ANOTHER small desk to be used temporarily for her computer equipment.  Yes the process was on the tedious side.

When I got home I wasted little time getting busy.  I first removed the used ottoman I had bought with hope of Nicki using it as a resting spot.  She never showed any interest in it whatsoever so I carried it out to the road and plopped it down for someone to take. I then used my furniture sliders to relocate the treadmill to the master bedroom and tucked it next to the far wall where Cindy can use it while having the TV on for a distraction.

I then brought in the desk parts and reassembled them.  The desk was quite a few years old and never felt all that sturdy as is often the case with much furniture you put together.  I decided I wanted to try to stiffen things up.  I did so by utilizing countersunk 2 inch deck screws at various spots.  They worked as I hoped, there is no more wobble or squeaking, the desk feels much better.

I also had a lawn tractor project to knock out, installing my new sunshade.  I saw it as an opportunity for my first ever tractor maintenance video.  The install was very straight forward and simple but I never want to miss up an opportunity to monetize a video for ad dollars.

The new shade is nice.  After I finished installing it I quickly mowed the front mound of the house to test it out.  Even though the sun was out and shining brightly I felt quite comfortable with my head and neck being completely in the shade.   It should make those August mowing sessions more bearable and less UV intensive, something my skin cancer filled history appreciates.

Saturday night was when Cindy and I went to go see the new 300 movie.  I was quite excited to go for the reasons I outlined in the blog last week.  I also was apprehensive since I think every single Zack Snyder movie after 300 was disappointing.  I didn’t want the new 300 to suffer the same fate.  We met up at the theater with our friend Alfred.

Well I am happy to report the movie was good.  Now if you didn’t like the first 300, you won’t like the second.  This isn’t Gone with the Wind, this is blood soaked, smash your face violence where the bad guys (and girls) get what is coming to them. At one point Cindy told me I was hurting her hand from squeezing it too hard during some of the battle scenes, it’s just epic action. I had no idea that for the most part the movie timeline takes place along the original 300 story.  For some reason I thought the new movie was sometime in the future.  They did a good job tying the two together.

Of course for this to be a true 300 movie it had to not only have CGI enhanced violence, it also had to have sex and nudity.  The way the sex was delivered was unexpected.  All three of us exchanged confused looks when it went down.  When you see the movie I am sure you will understand our confusion.

So anyway I thought the movie was good, close in delivering the same straight to the vein testosterone injection as the original 300.  No it won’t incite any deep thoughts or  warm and fuzzy feelings.  Instead you will feel like going out in the parking lot and wrestling an alligator.  I give Rise of an Empire a shiny A, deal with it. Cindy liked it too.

After the movie the three of us hung out at the nearby Fridays for a bit and drank a couple beers.  I hadn’t seen Alfred in a little while so it was good to catch up.

On Sunday I originally had some loose ideas about doing bike/swim brick.  However the clock change forward after a late night, early morning fog and a lack of motivation derailed those plans.  Instead I spent a good portion of the day just being lazy.

Sure I did a few things like help Cindy pull some more stuff out of her apartment, set the Roombas loose on the pool deck, and a few other items but for the most part I just fked off.  I played a lot of WoW and enjoyed doing so, it’s weird how all of a sudden I am liking it again.  Cindy and I also finally got to try out the portable ping pong net I bought her for Xmas.

We utilized the dining room table and it worked out well.  It was a little more narrow and shorter than a regulation ping pong table but it was close enough that neither of us really noticed.  I left the table cloth on the table just to minimize the possibility of ball damage. Doing so took a little bounce out of the ball but not much.

It turns out the dining room is a nice spot to play some ping pong.  We played three very close games and except for a couple times, had no issues with anything getting in the way. The portable net system is really good quality.  Cindy is quite a capable ping pong player, I struggled to beat her all three games and each game was only decided by two points.

I had fun partaking in my lazy Sunday but I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel like a bit of a slob for doing so.

Saturday morning Cindy and I were involved with a packet stuffing party for the half marathon at one of our generous board members home.  It was quite the production getting 2500 envelopes stuffed with pins, twist ties, hand outs, a race bib and timing chip.  We broke the process apart into sections where different people had different roles.  As in most things I tackle, I had a general mental framework of how I thought things would go but didn’t have anything written down.

I was primarily working on the processes where numbers mattered, as in applying numbered labels to the envelopes and then later making sure those numbered envelopes got a race bib and timing chip that matched.  Cindy played a very important role, the human sorter.  She was handed stacks and stacks of envelopes that were in order but in different numeric ranges.  She had to make sure they were in order twice, once when they left our packet labeling operation and a second time after we put the bibs and chips in them at the end.  She was on the move non-stop.

For some reason I thought the 3 hours we allocated to the project (9-12)was overly generous.  Somehow I thought it would take less time.  We used every bit of the 3 hours and then some.  It was just a ton of stuff to do, thank goodness we had upwards of 15 people there lending a hand at one point.  My dining room table now is completely covered in boxes of packets, ready to hand out.

The funny thing is I am actually going to have to make some more packets tonight.  The numbers for this years race are already 150 participants higher than last year with nearly a week to go.  I need to stay ahead of the curve.

We didn’t get home from the packet stuffing till almost 2PM.  I wasted little time before I was outside attending to outside chores.  When I was done with chores I set up the slackline again for more balance training.  I set it up between trees that are much closer together than last week.  The line was probably only 25 feet across.

The shorter line combined with utilizing some beginner tips I saw on a few videos helped me do better than the week before.   I had a couple slow and controlled steps that looked much better than the flail-fest I put on the week before. Cindy did very well too.  She discovered she is pretty adept at walking backwards on the line.  She even pulled off a couple 180 degree turns while we were out there.

Slacklining works muscles and joints in a way that I am not accustomed to.  Both of my hips are extremely sore.  Like anything else, continued practice should reduce the physical side effects. If you want to see a brief clip from our session, here you go.

On Saturday night Cindy and I saw Lone Survivor.  For the second consecutive visit, the normally quiet and lightly attended Cocounut Pointe theater was MOBBED, worse than last time.  Luckily the theater has the capacity to support large amounts of people but I don’t know why all of a sudden the movie population there has swelled so much.

My theory is that Cindy and I see a TON of movies in the theaters, way more than I ever did in the past.  I think I may have been just generally avoiding going to the movies during season in years past.  It is only now that I am seeing the belly of the beast the snowbirds bring with them.

The movie was compelling, tense and tragic.  It will give you a greater appreciation of what our troops go through in the name of service to our country, if you needed more more reason to appreciate them.  It gets a solid A.

Sunday morning Cindy and I resumed our weekend endurance training, doing the 20 mile round trip DD ride.  The ride there had some favorable wind resulting in a 20+ mph average pace.  The ride back was much less favorable but we still managed an overall pace for the 20 miles of over 18 mph.

While we were enjoying our DD coffee at the halfway point of the ride I created a FB event for a Super Bowl party at my place.  Cindy and I had been talking about it for a few days.  Ali and I did several SB parties in the past and although they were never hugely attended, everyone involved had a good time.  I would hope for similar fun levels  this time around.  I have a pretty big invitation list so hopefully a 73 inch tv with a nice spread of beer and food is enough to entice people to make the drive out to the house.  People that live more centrally in Naples view the Estates as living on the other side of the state practically.

Sunday afternoon my buddy Sean, his girlfriend and her two kids stopped out at the house.  They had been hiking at the nearby swamp where I sometimes take the dogs so I invited them over.  We had a great time with them and the kids in the backyard practicing slacklining, running the RC car / quadracopter, and messing around in the bar park.  It was a lot of fun.

Sunday evening we watched Hangover 3, something I even questioned using a Netflix rental on.  I had already heard it was lackluster at best.  The original Hangover had me laughing so hard, so many times it was hard to believe.  Hangover 2 was ok but used almost an identical storyline from the original.  With the 3rd film they at least changed up the story but it was for the worse.  Sure I laughed out loud a few times but overall the movie just wasn’t great.  Thankfully it appears this will be the last time we will be seeing the crew together. I’ll give it a B.

This week I will be mired mostly in half marathon related work.  We already have the largest field EVER for the race with a week to go.  There are so many things to do, so many T’s to cross and I’s to dot.  I hope to not run out of ink.

My Saturday morning started very early this week, the 3:30 alarm drug my body out of bed unwillingly.  The race I was timing was all the way down in Marco, making the extra time necessary.  This race has always been a bit of a thorn in the side to put on.  The long drive of course is never fun but also this race is staffed mostly with volunteers from the Marco organization that are not familiar with the ins and outs of a race.

The course logistics are troublesome as well with the registration area being several blocks from the race start/finish.  This makes processing any problems with the results very difficult. Despite these challenges, the event went relatively well.  The race also had a healthy amount of growth compared to last year, gaining an additional 80 participants.

The run itself is a tough one, back and forth over the steep bridge that connects Marco Island to the mainland.  Cindy did the race and did well, getting third place in her age group.

When we got back to the house, after doing post race duties I still had chores to do of course. One of them was tending to the freshly planted garden.  Everything that was planted is doing well except for a pepper plant that looks to be meeting an early demise.  We even were able to use some of the romaine and red lettuce in salads over the weekend.

During my yard work I felt a nasty sting on my left shin. It felt more severe than a fire ant bite, more in line with the wasp sting I took to my face a few weeks back.  Instinctively I swatted at the spot but did not see anything.

Over the weekend the area swelled up and was tender.  Cindy looked at it and saw two fang marks.  We are theorizing some sort of spider got me.  Hopefully it isn’t one the brown recluse spiders that hang around my place.

Saturday night Cindy and I went to see the new Hunger Games movie.  I never read any of the books but enjoyed the first movie so seeing number two was a no-brainer.  The theater was actually kind of full, the fullest I can remember a Coconut Pointe movie being for me.  Sure it was still easy to find a good seat but I bet the place was over half full.

The movie was good.  The reason I knew it was good was the clock.  When the movie ended I felt like there should be more to go, it felt like the movie was short.  Well when I looked at my watch when we left it was 9:45, meaning the movie was a good 2:30 minutes long.  For a movie that long to feel short means it is pretty damn good.  I’d give it an A.  I am looking forward to seeing the next installment. If you want to see my 6 second Vine recap, go here. (spoiler alert)

Cindy and I scuttled plans to go for a bike ride Sunday morning.  She was feeling some side effects from her race and I assured her my chore plans for the day would give me enough exercise.  The main target was pressure washing the sheds.  However before doing that I had a smaller chore to do, for my neighbor.

The large collection of water equipment they have apparently is doing a poor job of keeping their well water in good shape.  In an effort to combat that, they have been letting the equipment do a recharge every single night. (not recommended)  Basically when you recharge the equipment it back flushes the white rock filtration substance with brine (salt water).  This process expels tons of waste water which is dumped elsewhere via a drain hose. Well the hose for the system is buried for the most part, except for the end of it which is positioned about 15 feet from my fence line.  The nightly recharges and all the water they dump has turned the corner of my fence into a perennial swamp land for the last few months.

Of course this annoyed me.  Not only did it look like shit, the wet ground has the potential of rotting out the fence posts prematurely which be a major pain in the ass for me.  Finally a couple weeks ago I said something to the husband, telling him they need to reroute that drain line so it doesn’t impact my property.  I even went so far as to give him a big coil of 1/2″ pvc pipe I had left over from when I extended my drain line last year.  I told him all he would need to do is install a coupler to connect the existing line to the new one.

A few days later I saw there was some connector on the line but it was short lived.  It was a press/friction connector that did not hold up to the water pressure, a day or two later it came apart and my corner was again soppy.  I saw the neighbor, she said  she was the one that tried to install the connector. (husband isn’t very handy) I figured I might as well just fix it myself since it impacts me and is an easy fix.

I bought some band clamps and a connector.  The connector I bought actually was a bit small.  I wound up repurposing the one in my drain line.  I’ll just buy myself another.  Connecting the lines together was a bit of a muddy job but not difficult otherwise.  I look forward to having a dry corner.

I then moved onto pressure washing.  For some reason I had the idea in my head that I could pressure wash both sheds in a couple of hours.  I am not sure where I that idea came from.  Instead I spent between 4 and 5 hours out there blasting away.  I was having some pressure washer issues that slowed things down.  The washer would simply shut off periodically without apparent reason.  When I would start it back up it would run fine again, until it shut off again.  In total I probably restarted the damn thing 20 times.  I am going to get some fuel system cleaner to run through it.

I also consumed some time pressure washing a few other items like the exterior of the pool cage, the shed ramps, garden hardware, pavers and more.  The items I cleaned looked tons better.  I emerged from the project soaked from head to toe and covered with mud splatter, hot. The dogs were out at the house on Sunday as well.  It was overcast and on the cool side most of the day so they really enjoyed just hanging outside in the yard.

Sunday night we watched The Amazing Burt Wonderstone.  The movie was funny enough, entertaining enough and short enough to earn a solid B rating.  Worth a Netflix rental but not $20 to see in a theater.

This week is going to be a blur until the Thanksgiving race is done.  There are so many ducks lined up.  Each and everyone has to be a hit and I probably have the most bullets of anyone in this game.  I hope I don’t miss.

This past weekend was supposed to be a Randall visit which typically is filled with all sorts of sillyness.  Randall rescheduled for a few weeks in the future, leaving me with a more or less wide open weekend.

Saturday was a stark contrast to the weekend before that was filled with tons and tons of ass busting labor.  This Saturday may have been the most laid back weekend day I have had in a year.  Other than doing the normal weed pulling/garden tending, the day was almost totally void of chores thanks to Cindy knocking out most of it during her day off Friday. It felt weird not buzzing around like normal but the overcast and rainy skies made it feel almost appropriate to just hang out.

One of the things I did was start watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series of movies. (not the American Daniel Craig version)  Cindy had recommended this awhile back but I sort of disregarded it when she told me it was actually a foreign film with subtitles.  Reading a movie just was not something that interested me.  Well for whatever reason on Saturday I was more willing to give it a try.

As I expected, watching a film where everyone was speaking Swedish was pretty annoying at first.  Scanning between the subtitle and the movie seemed unnatural.  However Cindy had told me that after awhile it becomes less obtrusive. ( I didn’t believe her) It turns out she was right.  Eventually my brain adjusted to the format and I was able to take in what was going on without much difficulty.

The films are very dark but compelling.  The version on Netflix are the extended cuts, each movie is broken into two 90 minute sections which means in total I spent about 6 hours watching the first two movies.  I never thought I would give a subtitled film an A- rating but here it is.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I did the 30+ mile Ave Maria ride we had planned to do with Randall.  The weather was not as dreary as Saturday and the temps in the high 60’s when we started felt refreshing.  The ride went pretty well.  When we do it we switch off the lead every 5 miles or so to allow the other to benefit from a wind breaker.

Cindy actually struggled during part of the ride, her legs were tired from running 8 miles on the treadmill (while I played Haerthstone) the day before.  Several times when I was ahead I looked back and had lost her which is very rare since she is normally a stronger cyclist than I am.  However she had the last 5 mile lead segment, during which, she was averaging 21+ mph for the majority of it so maybe she was just playing possum to make me feel better.

I had ideas of knocking out half of the pressure washing jobs that are looming over me, the pool area and sheds.  I thought possibly after biking I would have time to do this before the Eagles game.  However after grabbing gas for the cans and running errands I didn’t get back home until after 11:30, too late to get it done. Plus it was abnormally warm yesterday which helped melt away any motivation to do the work. Instead I quickly planted the additional crops we bought for the garden, a tray of kale plants and some stevia.

Wow that Eagles game was truly a tale of two cities.  For basically three quarters the Eagles confirmed that they are truly a much improved team, pushing the Redskins around to build a dominating 24-0 lead.  Then, in the span of 15 minutes they erased that perception.

The Eagles completely imploded, allowing the Redskins to score two touchdowns AND convert two 2 point conversions while doing absolutely nothing on offense themselves.  I guess last weeks 9 minute plus drive to close out the Packer game was just a fluke.

When the defense allowed the Redskins to convert a 3rd and 25 during the final drive I felt sure that they were going to find a way to somehow lose the game which would have been one of the biggest collapses in recent NFL history.  I could feel the anger and rage boiling up inside me as the Skins drove down the field, only 20 yards from scoring a ridiculous third touchdown in the quarter.  Thank goodness RG III made a boneheaded throw which Boykin picked off in the end zone to save the game.  Not only did he save the game, he saved me from looking like a raving lunatic in front of Cindy.

It’s hard to feel great about a game such as this.  Despite the great start, the horrible finish was a sobering pull back into reality.  I will do my best to look at the bright spots like the Eagles being in first place  despite a thoroughly mediocre 6-5 record.  Or perhaps we can all celebrate the Eagles winning their first game at the Linc in over 400 days.  Yes a win is a win is a win.  I can only hope they learn from the black hole they stepped into in the 4th quarter and do a much better job of closing out teams consistently.

Sunday night we watched Bullet to the Head, my latest Netflix rental.  Cindy never heard of the movie and was skeptical that Stallone could pull off a solo action movie himself nowadays.  Her questions were answered, he still can.  Despite being in his mid-60’s I found the movie a quite satisfying rental.  It had everything a brainless action movie should have, good fight scenes, strong one liners, hot chicks and a revenge plot. It get’s a B+ all day long.

There were several high quality Vines produced this weekend.  I will leave it up to you to find them.  However ironically, the funniest one of all may have been produced by Jeremy.

So when I was doing my bills yesterday I noticed my Comcast bill was magically $20 higher than the month before.  I fired up Comcast chat and started ranting.  Evidently the promo I did in April where they gave me basic cable tv service, that I don’t use, and internet for 49.99 had expired.  I was on a new “step” promo where they ONLY raise the price 40% until April of next year and then I get smacked with another 5 bucks which is the full rate.

Argh I am so sick of doing this song and dance with Comcast.  I fired off my normal “I’d like to cancel my service” deal starter but was told only their phone reps in the “Customer Loyalty Department” could offer me any new deals.    In the past I have been able to secure better deals via Comcast online reps.  I angrily clicked the CLOSE CHAT button.

Obviously I need high speed internet service since a large portion of my tv entertainment is delivered down Comcast pipes however paying $70 for that service and throw away, crappy tv service (not even HD) annoys the hell out of me.  I may need to look closer at what high speed DSL can do for me nowadays.

Over the weekend my grandmother, whom for the last decade has lived a miserable existence suffering from diabetes and Alzheimer’s, passed away, thankfully.  Although I never had a close relationship with my grandma, she was still my grandmother.  Regular blog readers may recall the last time I saw my grandmother and the emotional torture I felt seeing her in that state, having no idea who I was and reacting angrily to any attempts to communicate with her. It was horrible.

The news of her passing brought on feelings of sadness and remorse but they were quickly replaced with relief that her days of suffering have finally come to an end.  Wherever grandma is, hopefully she has a cat on her lap.

It’s stories like grandma’s and my grandfather before her that make me so unwilling to go down the same road myself, where the only reason you are kept alive is as a profit center for a nursing home.

I set up my three day Veterans Day weekend to be very labor intensive.  It was enough to do’s that I created one of my infamous to do lists to keep me on point.  I wasted no time getting started on the list, hanging a towel bar in the master bathroom somewhere around 8 o’clock Friday night.  On Saturday I was up early and again resumed labor almost immediately after eating breakfast, weeding and weed whacking the property, finishing up by 8:30 am.

I had hopes of getting half of the tree trimming project done on Saturday afternoon, taking advantage of overcast skies and mild temperatures.  Unfortunately those same clouds started dumping rain mid-afternoon.  I only got the front trees trimmed before I had to retreat inside due to wetness.

The rain stopped my tree trimming but not my conquest to defeat the list.  I immediately turned my attention to hanging the tv and sound bar on the wall in the master bedroom.  I had bought a cheap (less than $30) mount kit from Costco, two outlet boxes to route the cables into/out of the wall, and a drywall saw to help me cut out the wall.

As in most projects I tackle, I had loose outline in my head of how things will go but I a lot of it was just going with the flow.  Getting the TV on the wall wasn’t all that hard since I have basic math and measuring skills.  I used both of these to determine center point on the wall and then a level for the template and the brackets used to suspend the TV.

The bracket install hit a small snag when one of the mounting halls fell on top of a metal stud.  The instructions directed me to drill a 3/8″ inch hole into the metal stud and then use a self tapping PLASTIC mount into the stud.  Well the self tapping mount disintegrated when it hit the metal.  Instead I went and grabbed one of my drywall mounts/screws and managed to get a secure connection to the wall.

The toggle bolt things they include for plain drywall mount were surprisingly strong and secure.  When I saw on the box the kit supported a TV up to 80″ and/or 121 pounds on any wall surface I was skeptical.  After attaching the brackets I was a believer.  They felt well up to the task of holding my 47 inch LED on the wall. Unfortunately getting the TV on the wall was only the first part of this project.  I had my LG sound bar to get up there as well as cutting out and installing the two outlet boxes to hide the cables.

Mounting the sound bar was the simpler of the two remaining items, once again only requiring a measuring tape and a level after I marked where the bottom of the tv was on the wall.  The outlet boxes were more of a challenge.  The top box needed to be behind the tv, hidden from view.  Luckily, the outlet boxes I bought can literally be put anywhere on a wall, no stud required.  They use a cool setup to extend arms behind the drywall that locks the box in place when tightened.

I put the top box centered and above the bottom of the tv frame.  The second box was located about 6 inches below the top of the dresser.  Once the boxes were in place there was a tedious cable routing task that took awhile.  At first I thought I would need a longer HDMI cable for the Blu-ray player but I found a 6 footer that was just long enough.

So after about 3 hours of work I had everything in place and cleaned up.  I am very pleased with the outcome.  The TV and sound bar look awesome on the wall and the top of my dresser is no longer a cluttered mess.  It makes the room look significantly different for some reason.

You can see all of my pictures from the project here.  Yes, I made a video about the project as well, check it out here if you have a spare 10 minutes.

Saturday night we watched my latest Netflex rental, Pain Gain.  It was a disappointing way to test out my slick new TV install.  The movie was terrible.  It’s hard to believe it was based on a true story.  Michael Bay is quickly becoming another M. Night Shamaylan.  What is the last movie he did that people actually liked?  I’d give the movie a C-, clearly the worst film I have ever seen The Rock or Marky Mark ever take part of.

Sunday morning started off with a 20 mile DD ride.  The ride there was a wonderfully wind assisted stroll in the park. Of course that meant the ride back was the opposite, a full time, full wind that made maintaining 15 mph miserable.  Cindy insisted on being in the lead the entire way back saying it was good training for her half Ironman in January.

After getting back from the tiring ride we “rested” by resuming the tree trimming project.  Cindy was the limb removal crew, picking up and dumping the hundreds of palm fronds in the back fill pit while I worked high up in the tree tops.  Every year this job gets more and more dangerous due to a trees tendency to grow.  There are two trees in particular that are very high, so high that even with my 20 foot extension ladder and long arms I am hard pressed to reach everything.

This year I utilized the electric chainsaw/pole trimmer that Todd bought me for Xmas 2012 to get some of the tippy top branches.  The problem is trying to operate the pole saw while precariously balanced on a wobbly extension ladder is very difficult.  There were more than a few times that my balance point was dangerously close to the tipping point.  In total we spent 3 hours finishing up the project.  Having Cindy take branches back was a huge time saver. I told her when I did this job solo I could easily consume a solid 8 hours of grueling labor.

My reward for the tree trimming work was an Eagles win, and a convincing one at that against the Green Bay Packers, in Green Bay no less.  Granted, the Packers were sort of playing with one arm tied behind their back since Aaron Rodgers was out with an injury and their back up got hurt in the first series, leaving their 3rd stringer to guide the team.  Still, the Eagles offense played well, and the defense made big plays and stops when they needed to to keep the game from getting close.

However the most impressive thing I saw all game was at the very end when the Eagles ran the ball down the throat of the Packers to run out the clock.  I can’t recall the last time the Birds actually closed out a game convincingly in that manner.  It was a great win.

So the Eagles are now tied with the Cowboys in the lackluster NFC East with a 5-5 record.  Amazingly the Eagles are 5-0 on the road and 0-5 at home, a very baffling and aggravating trend.  Why the Eagles have never been a strong team at the Linc remains a mystery but I can only hope that trend starts reversing this week against the Redskins.

Sunday night Cindy and went to see the new Thor movie in 3D.  I liked the movie, probably as much as I liked the first version.  It gets a solid Marvel super hero flick A rating from me.  However almost every Marvel superhero movie gets an A from me.  They just know how to do it right.

After an ass busting first two days to the weekend I vowed to make Veterans Day much less laborious.  I sort of did.  The day started with a trip to Lowes to grab garden soil and some plants to get the Florida winter garden season kicked off.  On the way back we took the dogs to the swamp for a walk, a place I hadn’t been to in a long time.  Cindy had never been there.

Cindy immediately appreciated why I enjoyed my walks with the dogs there, it’s so remote, so peaceful, so quiet. The last time I went to the swamp with the dogs Nicki was EXTREMELY sore and stiff afterwards so I was very mindful of how far we went.  We turned back around a half mile from the boardwalk area not wanting to push Nicki too hard.  Her pace was slow and steady for the walk and despite her mobility issues she seemed to still enjoy sniffing the endless unique things the swamp offers. We had a couple wildlife encounters, seeing a small 3 foot gator on the way out and a larger, 6 foot gator that was half across the path on the way back.  The high water levels made Cindy a bit nervous since there was very little distance between the water and path you walk along.

Well despite the reduced distance and slow pace, Nicki again really struggled after the walk.  She seemed to be in a lot of pain.  The idea that that might have been her last walk in the swamp made me very sad.

Cindy once again helped in the garden prep.  I turned over, amended and tilled the soil.  Cindy was the raker/tamper.  After the beds were prepped, lettuce, cauliflower, tomato and pepper plants were put in the ground.  I actually have another two or three empty beds that I can put stuff in.  I’d like to fill them with perhaps some broccoli and kale plants.

The list, which I seriously doubted would be totally completed turned out to be a crossed out, a thing of a beauty, before Monday was done.

During the afternoon I took my two quad copters outside to fly, despite some serious wind.  I had not flown the Blade MQX since I bent and replaced one of the rotors.  Well my initial flight attempts with the copter clearly indicated I did something wrong.  As soon as I would try to launch the Blade it would immediately corkscrew into the ground.  After repeated attempts I figured I did something wrong when I replaced the prop, I did.

The Blade came with two additional black props (rear) and white props (front)  I figured both of the black props were the same, they aren’t.  I had stupidly put the wrong prop on, causing the crash and burn behavior.  After I swapped it out the Blade once again flew correctly.  I had a couple bad crashes that bent the pliable props in the same manner that caused me to replace the black one.  However instead of replacing these I simply bent the prop back in place so it was more or less straight.  Surprisingly the quadcopter seemed to fly just fine with the low tech repair, cool.

If you didn’t know, November is known in some circles as Movember, a play on words that is tied in with a testicular cancer awareness thing.  Basically men are encouraged to sport a mustache during the month to raise awareness.  Randall has participated in this movement for several years.  Since he is visiting this upcoming weekend I thought I should hop on board, despite not really being a fan of the look.

Yes, I made more Vines this weekend, most of them with a dog theme.

Friday night Cindy and I pulled out for Sebring, the spot we were staying to be closer to the Tough Mudder, which was held in River Ranch, about an hour further away.  The La Quinta we stayed in was surprisingly nice, it looked/smelled almost brand new.  The room was very nice as well with a big huge bed.  Unfortunately for whatever reason the nice accommodations did not translate into a good nights sleep.  I tossed and turned quite a bit and probably woke up at least dozen times throughout the night.  The 4:30 alarm was not welcomed.

We fueled up with Pop Tarts and chocolate milk that we grabbed the night before.  I also tried to learn from my mistakes from last year where the only pre-race hydration I did was a single 5 hour energy. I drank a good amount of water both the night before and on the way to the race.

The GPS in the truck seems to purposely give you a worst case time estimate.  Every destination I punched in I wound up arriving around 33% faster than first predicted.  I actually prefer that to an overly optimistic figure.  This tendency was once again the case for the trip to the Mudder site, we arrived somewhere around 6:30, nice and early for our 7:45 am scheduled start.  We parked in our PREMIUM $25 parking location, at least it was close as promised.

I had never had a start time this early, the 7:45 time was the first wave of the weekend.  It was so early that registration check in wasn’t even open.  We stood in a line for a good 20 minutes until they started shuffling bodies through about 7:05.  Because we were on the last day before DST ends it was still quite dark as we got checked in.

I was surprised this year they didn’t require your race number be scribed across your forehead, it was only put on my right arm.  A few minutes later I went back and asked a volunteer to write it on my forehead as well, I felt naked without it.

As I expected, we did not actually start at 7:45, it was closer to 8:05 when we took off.  Cindy, due to adrenalin and a desire to get out of the colored smoke bomb they set off at the start, took off like a rabbit.  I did not, immediately taking on my preferred Tough Mudder run pace, slow and steady.

The first thing I noticed was the open field running was not as treacherous as last year where I destroyed my right knee.  You still wanted to watch your foot placement but it wasn’t nearly as rutty and uneven.  The next thing I noticed was the course was not laid out as the online map indicated.  I wasn’t sure if this was on purpose, to throw a wrench in the Mudders psyche or just a screw up.

I won’t go obstacle by obstacle as some were pretty routine after three years of Mudder races.  You know, stuff like climbing dirt hills separated by mini-moats is old hat by now.  Yes they are still annoying and tiring, running with wet, mud covered sneakers just is not much fun.

One of the first really annoying obstacles was called Sack Up.  You picked up a pretty heavy bag of sand and had to carry it around the circumference of a large lake.  Part of the walk was through mid-thigh high disgusting smelling water with uneven footing down below.  Every Mudder has some sort of carry obstacle but this by far was the longest I ever had to do.  There were no “girl” bags of sand, Cindy carried the same bags us macho men did and carried it well.

Cindy again surprised me (and others) with her carrying skills at the wounded warrior carry.  In this obstacle you pick up someone and carry them maybe 50 yards (last year this was longer).  Of course having Cindy hop on my back and walk was not a tough task for me however I really didn’t feel it was a great idea for Cindy to try to carry my lanky 180 pounds down the course.  Cindy however had different ideas and wanted me to hop on her back.  I did as she asked, feeling pretty sure it was going to be a fail.

It felt like we were on the verge of tipping backward but Cindy kept moving forward with my long limbs wrapped around her.  She carried me the entire required distance, surprising me and other Mudder competitors that congratulated her.  It was impressive.

I had my first ever obstacle fail this year on a new challenge called Hang Tough.  It was a series of gymnast rings hung over a water pit.  The goal is to swing from ring to ring to the other side.  In normal conditions I would expect I could do this obstacle no problem however we were just coming off a obstacle that covered my gloves in wet sand.  The rings themselves were thick plastic, thicker than the bars you grab on the funky monkey.  The rings were also spaced quite far apart, they seemed to widen towards the end.  As I reached for the fourth ring my hand slipped off because of slickness not fatigue.  Plopping down in the water was not a feeling of failure I enjoyed and I considered going back and trying again.  If I would have I would have pulled off the gloves beforehand.  Cindy also dropped into the water on this one.  I accepted my fail and moved on.

Another new obstacle this year was call The Phoenix.  In last years race fire was noticeably missing from the course.  In the Phoenix you belly crawled through an area of “ashes” and then emerged from the other side where you jumped a sizable wall of flames 2-3 feet high and landed in water on the other side.  Although you only were in the flames for a fraction of a second you could feel the heat enough to get an idea of how a hamburger feels.

They had a wall type obstacle I never did before called Glory Blades.  Imagine a Berlin Wall (but shorter) leaning towards you.  The angle meant using your legs for assist was not happening.  Cindy used the side support frame to get herself started but pulled herself over the rest of the way.  I was able to use my muscle up training to get me over the blades without major problems.

The Jesus Walk that was outlined several spots on the course turned out to be nothing.  When you looked this obstacle up online it showed shallow water with multiple holes dug out which are hidden, causing people repeated wet face plants.  All of our Jesus Walks were basically just walks through shin high water with no holes.

The Electric Eel was a lot more difficult this year.  In this obstacle you belly crawl in shallow water with electrified cords hanging down.  Last year the wires were in straight lines so as long as you stayed straight and low you could avoid electrocution.   This year the wires were staggered all over the place.  I was sure I was going to get tagged.

Some people threw caution to the wind and just plowed straight ahead, taking multiple jolts along the way.  I acted like I was crawling through a minefield and somehow managed to snake my 6′ 3″ body through the maze of wires without getting zapped once.  Cindy was not so lucky, she took a good snap to the calf towards the end which caused an expletive to immediately fly out of her mouth.

As we were running the course Cindy and I noticed that the race organizers seem to not be very good at marking distance, some of the miles seemed to be very short while others seemed slightly long.  The course was very winding so it is possible that my sense of distance was distorted but it couldn’t have been that far off.  At one point Cindy, who was wearing her watch in chrono mode said we only had 7 minutes between two mile markers which obviously could not be the case if the distance was correct.

Another new obstacle was the Cage Crawl which Cindy said was her favorite.  There again was a body of water (you got very wet in this course) with a low chain link fence on top of it.  You flipped on your back and used the fence to pull yourself along.  It was kind of fun.

Another staple obstacle of the Tough Mudder is the Funky Monkey which are greased monkey bars that first angle up and then down.  I have always cleared this obstacle and I did once again this year sticking to the safer one rung at a time technique to ensure a solid grip.  Cindy was worried about this obstacle going in.  I don’t think I ever saw a woman complete it in person.

I went first and Cindy followed.  I heard a woman drop behind me and I assumed it was her.  When I reached the final rung I spun around and assumed I would see Cindy swimming towards the platform.  Nope, she was on the downward part of the bars, holy shit.  I went to the side and encouraged her, she was almost to the end.  Just as I stepped back onto the exit platform, hoping I could pull her in, her grip failed, only a couple rungs from completing it.  I couldn’t believe she got that far.  She was both disappointed and proud at the same time as I hoisted her up.  I told her she had nothing to be disappointed about as I watched multiple men drop in the water far behind where she got to.

This year the dreaded Arctic Enema was much further into the course than previously, not coming up until mile 9.  This was the obstacle that Cindy feared the most due to her fear of water, asthma and extremely low tolerance to cold.  I advised her going into it to just to not think and go, fast.  We got up on top of the tank side by side.  I immediately jumped, far, landing right next to the wall you have to go under.  I stayed under and pulled myself under the wall and quickly got out of the frigid water that was somewhere around 35 degrees.  I looked back assuming Cindy would be either out or almost out as well.

Instead she was still on the far side, shivering and panicked.  The icy water hit her really hard.  She was apologizing to me, saying she was sorry.  She then pushed herself up on the side of the tank, leaving her lower body frozen.  I told her it was ok if she got out and the volunteer was ready to hoist her out.  I was pretty sure she was going to just hop out, she was obviously not in good shape.  However she changed her mind and said she didn’t want to quit.

The TM guy said she could just drop under the water and he would pull her under the wall.  Cindy dropped off the wall and he did just that.  Myself and others were at the far end of the tank to help pull her out since her lower body at this point had been in the water for over a minute.  She was crying when we got her back onto dry land.  Her breathing was all whacked out from the cold but she was just scared from it all.  She expected the ice bath to be hard but not make her almost black out. After a short while she had calmed down enough for her to continue.  We walked a little bit and then resumed our slow but steady run.

Even though I was obviously tired from the long course and obstacles I felt pretty intact other than some bruises, cuts and scrapes.  We were in the home stretch with only two obstacles to go, the Everest 1/4 pipe and Electroshock Therapy.  For the second year in a row I cleared Everest easily, getting up and over with no outside assistance.  I’m quite sure why I had so many problems the first year I did it.  Either it was significantly more slippery or I didn’t run into it hard enough.

After I got up I knelt down to give Cindy a hand.  It just so worked out that Cindy and I were the only ones on the obstacle at the time.  The loud crowd of spectators gave Cindy loud cheers of encouragement which was very cool.  She ran hard at the pipe and got her hand up to the top where I grabbed it just to make sure she didn’t slide back down.  She pulled herself up triumphantly.

So to get down the other side of Everest you have to scale down a “ladder” of 2×4’s, spaced about a foot apart.  Somehow as I was coming down my left foot slipped.  Instinctively I shifted my weight to my right side.  I awkwardly pinned my leg under me, and in doing so fully compressed my right knee, something that it normally will not do because of the scar tissue from years of abuse.  As it compressed I heard a sickening SNAP that along with shooting pain made me think I really f’d something up.

I was pissed off that I hurt myself not only so close to the end but on something as dumb as coming off of an obstacle.  When I got to the bottom at first I could hardly put weight on the leg.  I just limped along for a period of time.  As I walked on it it felt slightly better, good enough that I resumed a slow jog up to the mouth of the shock obstacle.

Once again they made this final obstacle annoying, putting two large mounds in the chute which both slow you down and trip you up.  I went first and didn’t even think about my knee as I tried to get through as quickly as possible.  I actually stumbled and fell at the first mound and then got up and hauled ass over the second one.  I only felt a couple tingles, nothing nearly as severe as the body immobilizing jolts I got last year.

I looked back and Cindy was mid obstacle, looking like she fell as well.  Once again she had the crowd behind her, she got up and hauled ass through the rest of it and ran quickly to the finish line,  passing me easily as I was trying to run without hurting my knee further.  We both snagged our t-shirt, headband and one free beer. We finished the course in right around two and a half hours, a very good time.  We ran the entire time between obstacles.

Before we even had the beers down Cindy was doing the Under Armour challenge station.  You flipped a big tire 6 times, did 15 box jumps and 3 pull ups (for girls) as fast as you can.  She did well, especially considering she just finished the race.  I would have tried it as well but my tweaked knee made me reconsider that option.

We walked around the main area.  Our “lunch” was splitting a funnel cake and downing a bowl of free Wheaties in chocolate milk that they were giving away.  Of course we walked through the overpriced Tough Mudder gear tent but bought nothing but a small sticker for the back of Cindy’s Miata.

I was disappointed to see the Air Force pull up bar was a no show this year meaning my post-Mudder tradition of doing 20 pull ups met an unexpected end. Oh well.

We didn’t stick around all that long after “showering” with a garden hose.  The skies were looking pretty foreboding as rain was in the forecast.  During the drive home that rain arrived.  I was glad we cleared out when we did.   Being in an early wave is so much better for so many reasons, better parking, course is in better shape, less wait at obstacles.  If you are doing a Mudder, do it early.

The drive home went quickly thank goodness, I was beat, even with downing a DD coffee along the way.  We originally had ideas  of going out to see Enders Game Saturday night.  We wisely reconsidered and instead just crashed at the house and watched No Country for Old Men instead. I was beat. My knee, although painful, did not blow up like the year before which is a good thing.  I laid around with an ice pack strapped to the knee to try to minimize any long term effects from whatever I did.

Saturday night I was awakened by the phone around 4AM.  The first time through I didn’t answer it but when it started again I drug myself out of bed, seeing it was PA number.  It was my grandmothers nursing home.  The woman said they were trying to reach my mom but her phone was busy.  I told them that mom takes her phone off the hook at night.  They said they were only authorized to tell my mom details about my grandmother but the nurse told me there has been a change in grandma’s health.

I talked to mom later.  She said that my grandmothers blood sugar levels are sky high and insulin is doing nothing to bring them down.  More than likely she is on the last part of a tragic last decade where Alzeheimers/senility has robbed her of any memories of her past.  I sincerely wish her suffering would have ended a long time ago.  The only people that feel differently are the nursing home bookkeepers.  Old age can  be such a horrible, horrible prison.  I have no desire to become incarcerated within my own withered mind.  I hope grandma’s suffering ends, soon.

Sunday morning I had to catch up on all of the chores which with Cindy’s help went pretty well.  The weather was BEAUTIFUL with dry. mild air pushed around with decent wind.  All the windows in the house were open most of the day.

We decided to do something different and catch Enders Game as a matinee since the Eagles didn’t play until 4PM.  We saw it at Silverspot which is always a treat with it’s luxurious accommodations.  I thought the movie was decent for most of it but sort of fell apart at the end.  I think the last time I can recall thinking Harrison Ford had a strong acting performance was Airforce 1.  Everything since then has just been sort of shitty…

I could see how Enders would make a better book than a movie.  The shortcuts required to make a movie meant certain pivot points in the movie had to be rushed along, resulting in an overall dissatisfying experience.  I left the theater feeling somewhat disappointed. Overall I’d give it a B to a low end B+.

That Eagles game was crazy.  How does a team that scored ZERO touchdown the last two games go on the road, to the west coast, and tack on 49 points against once of the top 10 statistical defense in the league???  I have no idea either but I certainly enjoyed it.  All of a sudden Nick Foles, whom looked totally lost against the Cowboys two games ago now looked like Peyton Manning, picking apart the Raiders for an NFL record tying 7 touchdown passes.  It was just insane and like I was in an alternate universe compared to the drudgery I just witnessed the two prior games.

Foles performance surely has firmly planted him in the starter position for the foreseeable future.  Vick will have a lot of time to rest that tweaked hammy.

Do I think this game signified some sort of remarkable turnaround for the team where they are going to soar to a playoff run?  I highly doubt it but I would LOVE to be flat out wrong.

So Friday after work was one of those lotsa stops nights.  After work I stopped at 4 different places before getting home.   One of those places was Sam’s.   As I was passing through the front of the store I saw one of those LG sound bars that I noticed a few weeks prior.    They had it on special, $30 off it’s normal already discounted SC price.  I had thoughts of adding a sound bar to my new kick ass bedroom LG 3D tv.  I submitted to the impulse and threw it in my cart.  I guess I will write it off as my first ever self Halloween gift to myself.

I got around to setting it up late that night.  It’s a pretty awesome set up.  Not only do you get the sound bar which includes 6 small speakers you also get a remote subwoofer that connects to the bar via Bluetooth, meaning you can stick it anywhere.  I opted to put it in the corner next to the laundry unit with the opening facing the side wall, allowing thumping bass to bounce off the wall and back into the room. The bar has two optical inputs, a conventional audio headphone input jack, a usb port and the ability to connect to your phone via BT to stream audio.  It also integrates directly with the TV, meaning when I hit the volume on the original TV remote it automatically controls the sound bar instead. It’s pretty awesome.

The one thing that is not awesome is how crowded the top of my dresser is getting.  With the tv, cable box, Xbox 360, sound bar, white noise fan, and Blu-Ray player I have now consumed pretty much all available space.  I am considering if I want to take on wall mounting the TV.  The sound bar can be wall mounted as well.  It would really clean up the look and let me reclaim some dresser real estate.  I always get a bit nervous cutting into walls but I am sure with a “measure twice cut once” attitude I could get the stuff on the wall and looking good.

The weather on Saturday morning was GLORIOUS with temps in the low 60’s and not a hint of humidity.  It was actually enjoyable to go out and weed the property in the crisp air.  It makes me think that eventually I will land in some place where this kind of weather is more prevalent.  90/90 for 6 months a year gets to be a drag.

After I got done with that I turned my attention to my two trucks.  First I wanted to try to isolate where in the driveshaft my Tacoma was squeaking.  My method for doing so looked a bit dangerous.  I backed the truck down to the flat portion of the driveway.  I then drug down my big floor jack and the rubber tire stop.  After putting the stop in front of the driver side tire I put the floor jack under the rear differential and jacked the back end of the truck into the air.  I then reached into the truck and put it in DRIVE so the rear wheels (and driveshaft) would spin.

Yes, I realized this had some potential danger.  I had already envisioned my course of action if the truck somehow came down with the wheels spinning and the wheel stop didn’t hold.  The truck was facing towards the house, meaning any forward movement would be slowed by the hill.  I also left the driver door open for quick access to the brake pedal.

So I engaged the shifter with some trepidation.  The rear wheels started to turn and the truck seemed stable.  I got down beside the Tacoma and looked/ listened.  I could not see or hear anything unusual of course.  I had Cindy tap the gas while I was down low observing to see if I could get any trace of the maddening squeal, nothing.

I turned the truck off and brought down my jackstands.  I thought that maybe if I supported the rear end with jack stands on the rear end instead of the differential it could yield different results.  It didn’t, I still heard nothing unusual.    I did use the spinning wheels as an opportunity to shoot the spinning driveshaft with copious amounts of WD-40 on the joints, hoping this would do at least something to relieve the symptoms.

I then turned my attention to the SSR.  For quite awhile there has been a noticeable clunk in the front end, especially noticeable when making left turns at a decent speed.  I sort of ignored it and sort of babied the truck when turning left.  I have very little experience with suspension/steering issues but it didn’t stop me from jacking up the front end and peeking around.

Just jacking the truck up is a bit of a chore.  Because of it’s lowered profile, I can’t get my heavy duty floor jack under the frame.  I actually have to put my light weight floor jack under there first.  It has a slightly lower profile. I used it to get the truck up an inch or two and then switched back to the 7500 pound Big Red jack.

So I first did a visual inspection, nothing looked particularly unusual or damaged.  I then started tugging on things, tight, tight, tight, loose….  Hmmm, I found a short rod that I later saw identified as a “stabilizer bar”  The bottom nut on this was loose, loose enough that I could easily move the bar back and forth.  I went to the passenger side and pulled on the same bar, rock solid.   Hmmmm, did I just find the problem?

I thought back to when Cindy and I took the SSR up to Seaworld.  During the trip I hit a MONSTER pothole on the way to Universal.  I remember thinking at the time “that had to screw something up”, well I think I just confirmed it did.

The fitting that was loose was an odd set up.  The bolt the nut was threaded onto had an allen wrench fitting inside of it.  I assume it was to allow for adjustment.  I didn’t really adjust anything, I just held the bolt in place with an allen wrench and tightened up the nut with a 7/8″ crescent wrench.  As I lowered the SSR back to the ground I thought I could not possibly get this lucky, could that be all that was wrong?

I took the truck out for a quick road test which included several hard left turns, no clunks! I pulled back into the garage quite pleased that I appeared to at least have addressed a problem with one of the two trucks.

Saturday afternoon Cindy and I attended the running clubs Oktoberfest.  I was technically “working” the event as I was stationed at the registration table checking guests in and working the Ipad to take credit card payments from walk up guests.

As mentioned Friday, I was not expecting to have a great time at the event.  I am not a big fan of anything German, especially Germans blabbing away when I am hiking the grand Canyon. 🙂  Well I was wrong, I had a great time.

Now of course this experience was greatly enhanced by the free refills I was receiving in my Oktoberfest beer stein.  I am not quite sure how many Michelob Ultras I had but it was enough to certainly keep me smiling all afternoon long.

The event had poor pre-registration numbers but a strong walk up crowd.  I would estimate in total there were 200 people that attended the event.  I am pretty sure everyone that showed up had a good time.

Sunday was another 4:15 AM alarm, this time to go time a rare Sunday 8K.  The event was not well attended unfortunately but the costumed runners that did show up were quite entertaining to see.  Despite the small turnout there were news crews from two of the local network affiliates covering the race.  Must have been a slow news day. Cindy ran the race and did quite well, winning her age group.  I don’t know if I could currently maintain the 8:07 pace she did for the full 5 miles.

On the way home from the race we stopped at Ali’s place to pick up Nicki, Sadie and Zoe.  Who is Zoe you ask?  Zoe (a Jack Russel)is the dog of our old neighbor whom moved away and recently back to the Naples area.  Zoe was Nicki’s first dog friend years and years ago.  Zoe used to be a regular visitor to the house. Rick is away on a cruise so Ali has been dogsitting her.  We thought it would be nice to take Zoe back to where she lived for many years.

Unfortunately Zoe is not doing very well health-wise nowadays.  She is 13 or 14 years old and is nearly blind and deaf.  Despite these handicaps she still seemed quite interested in exploring the yard.  She was out there with Nicki and Sadie for a long time.  Of course we could not leave her unattended with her limited sight.  A couple times we had to redirect her but for the most part Zoe seemed to be quite content just walking unencumbered around the large fenced in area.

Even with her problems I found it funny that she still begs for treats.  She always used to do that by rubbing a cabinet with her paw accompanied with a tireless bark.  The barking has stopped and she sometimes winds up pawing a door, wall or dishwasher but you still get the idea.  Having all three dogs together in the back yard was like being in a 10 year ago time machine for a short while.  It was great just to see them all hanging out and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Well it appears the NFL has totally figured out Chip Kelly’s offense.  The Eagles limped to yet another home loss against the dreadful Giants.  The loss extended the clubs record setting consecutive streak of losses at home, yay! The team looked like shit, plain and simple.  Once again the defense played ok but the offense that seemed to be so dynamic and explosive early in the season, failed to produce a single touchdown for the second game in a row, ouch.

I was surprised when they took Vick out although his play was pretty awful.  Evidently when Vick can’t run, he can’t play.  I knew the game was done at that point although Matt Barkely is kind of fun to watch.  I like his fact pace and quick release.  He seems to really  put everything he has into every throw.  In fact his QB style remains me a little bit of Dan Marino, except for one thing, he turns the ball over like mad.  In his roughly three quarters of play I think he has turned the ball over 5 or 6 times?

Even better news is it looks like both Vick and Foles are questionable for next weeks game at Oakland so Barkley might be our new starter.  Yes, I think the season is pretty much done at this point.  Oh well, I really kind of expected it anyway.

Last night I watched the most recent Die Hard in the bedroom with the freshly installed sound bar.  The movie was ridiculously unbelievable but hey, it’s Die Hard it is supposed to be that way.  The movie was also non-stop action and destroyed more vehicles than ethanol gas.  It was also the perfect film to test the sound bar with.

The smaller enclosed space of the bedroom was a great fitt for the new system.  The endless gunfire and explosions rocked the walls of the bedroom.  It really felt like a theater experience.  Although I give the movie a solid B rating the LG sound bar gets a shiny A+!

This week I will be easing off the gas pedal in regards to my normal exercise routine.  This upcoming weekend is the Tough Mudder, I don’t want to do anything that could hinder my ability to survive it.

So Saturday morning I suggested to Cindy that instead of getting up hella early to drive all the way into the club run that we instead run laps at the nearby middle school track.  I used to run this track quite a bit but I haven’t been there since my epic 10 mile Tough Mudder training run last year.  The temps had actually dipped into the high 60’s for the first time in 6 months Saturday morning so I figured getting a little later start would be fine.

The optimal goal was to do 10 miles, splitting it into four 2.5 mile segments for water breaks.  We started off and it didn’t take long for me to start feeling warm and bothered.  Despite the relatively lower air temps, the sun was unobstructed in the clear blue sky and felt like it was melting me.  By the time we got to the 5 mile water break I felt gassed and was debating pulling the plug right there.  I reset my goal to complete one more 2.5 mile segment.

During this segment I felt miserable, I was hot, tired and not in the state of mind I needed to be.  I failed to even complete my revised goal and bailed after exactly 7 miles on my GPS.  Cindy ran 7.5 miles and then for good measure wanted to see how fast she could run a single 400 meter lap.  The answer was, pretty damn fast.  She circled the track in about 1:37 which works out to be just above a 6 minute mile pace.  It was very impressive.

As I was leaning on a recycle bin sucking wind next to one of the light towers I felt something hit my head.   I instinctively reached up with my hand and came back with something black and wet.  I look up and see a starling about 75 feet up on top of the tower.  The damn thing shit on my head.  It was quite the shot from so far up.

So I felt like a failure for missing even my downward shifted goal.  Cindy on the other hand could have kept going I am sure, all the way to 10 miles if I had the energy to do so.  It’s good that she pushes me but frustrating when I don’t answer the bell like I should.

When we got home we were in the driveway and Cindy made a comment about a wasp dive bombing her as she walked by.  For several weeks I have allowed a wasp nest to be built under the left cut out of the garage entrance.  In my sometimes neurotic compassion for animals, I have not knocked it down because of the effort the wasps have put into constructing the nest.  I have walked by it many times without incident so I figured I would just continue to let it go.

So to demonstrate to Cindy that the wasp nest was harmless I walked towards it and stopped less than 6 feet away from it.  I said “Aw, good wasps, good wasps…” in a voice I usually reserve for my conversations with my pets.  Almost the instant I finished speaking, a wasp launched itself from the nest and rocketed at my face, stinging me less than an inch from my right eye.  I stumbled back in disbelief as I flailed at the air.  I could not believe the mf’ing wasp stung me.  Where was a camera when you needed it?

After confirming I was ok, aside from a burning sensation by my eye, Cindy and I lol’d at the irony.  Still, I have not knocked down the nest, but if I get attacked again my benevolence will have reached it’s end.  When I woke up Sunday morning it looked like I was smacked in the right eye, it was all swollen.

On the way to the movies I had one more interaction with nature, this time saving a turtle that was just about to make a very unwise trip into three lanes of traffic.  I spun the SSR around at the first intersection I could and headed back.  I scooped the turtle up, carrying him down to the canal I assume he was trying to reach.  I see so many roadkill turtles.  It angers the hell out of me that people are too lazy, stupid or oblivious to avoid them.  It isn’t like a rabbit or a deer that dashes in the road in front of you, it’s a TURTLE.  Idiots.

The movie we saw was Captain Phillips, the Tom Hanks movie about the 2009 incident where Somali pirates hijacked an American freighter.  As expected Tom delivers a stellar acting performance but that is the norm.  I thought the movie was very well done.  It made me think about the reality of living in a destitute place like Somalia.  Imagine living conditions so awful and options that are so limited that being a pirate was one of only a few choices you have to put food on the table.  People are a product of their environment.  If all you have know your entire life is misery, that becomes your norm. Anyway, good movie, I’d give it an A-.

Over the weekend I put out my limited amount of Halloween decorations.  My favorite item is the blow up pumpkin with the silly looking grin.

The back part of the yard finally got mowed.  It had attained true jungle status from weeks of being untouchable due to the never ending rain.  We finally had nearly a completely dry week allowing water to seep back into the ground.  Even with going slow and the mowing deck at max height the tractor couldn’t come anywhere close to doing a clean cut.  The grass looks like my head would if someone would cut my hair with a butter knife. If time allows this week I may zip back out there on the tractor to do a secondary speed mow.

On Sunday morning I did my second endurance training session of the weekend, doing the 20 mile DD ride.  It’s funny, I have pretty much switched back to riding my dirt cheap, heavy,  Dawes road bike instead of my Trek 2.1.  The aero bars and general body position I use on the Dawes is just a lot more comfortable for longer rides than the extremely low handlebars on the Trek which cause me to put so much weight on my hands.

Sometime in the future I may see if I can simply get a different stem for the Trek but for now it is all Dawes, all the time.

I picked up the girls late morning to spend the day out at the house.  I have stopped giving Nicki “elevator rides” and picking her up for lift assist unless she clearly wants it.  3 times she has peed when I picked her up, acting like she is afraid something bad was going to happen.  She managed to get into the van herself on Sunday but it wasn’t easy.

The Eagles game went surprisingly well.  Both the offense and even the defense (at times) played well which I was glad to see.  Of course I temper my praise with the knowledge that they were playing the 0-4 Buccaneers.  But hey, a win is a win.

There was one moment late in the game that the announcers totally glossed over.  To me it was a totally incredulous (and stupid) decision by Chip Kelly.  The Eagles were ahead by 8 points with three minutes to go and were facing a 4th an inches inside the Bucs 20 yard line, an easy chip shot field goal.  I was in disbelief when I saw he sent the offense back on the field to go for it.

Why the fck would you do that? A field goal makes it a two score game, virtually sealing the win for the Birds.  The Eagles snapped the ball, Foles dropped back to pass and was sacked for a loss.  LUCKILY, the defense was off sides, giving the Eagles a first down.  Now the announcers and the media in general did not identify what a potentially dumb call this was.  Yes, drawing them off sides is a viable strategy in that situation but if that is your intention, you DONT SNAP THE BALL.  You hard count them and if they don’t fall for it you call a time out.  I don’t understand why everyone is ignoring how risky and foolish that decision was.

But hey the Eagles are 3-3 in the horrible NFC East, things could be worse.

Sunday evening I took advantage of the mowed and dried out backyard, taking my Blade MQX out there for some open air flying.    My hope was that the lack of obstacles would allow me to work out some of the issues I am having flying the quad copter.  The good news is the grass makes as a great cushion for crash landings. The bad news is I still am unable to do simple, controlled circles with it.     It is so easy to get disoriented.  I will continue practicing outdoors although that comes with it’s on set of hazards.  Several times a gust of wind sent the Blade soaring in directions I did not anticipate.

Sunday night we finished up watching Avatar in 3D.  It looked so damn sweet on the new tv.  Too bad I was so damn sleepy that I was nodding off and on throughout.

My new LG tv showed up on Friday.  I didn’t waste much time before I unboxed it and had it set up in the bedroom.  The new bigger set was a much better fit for the wall it occupies than the 32 inch set it replaced.   The set was an “open box” Amazon warehouse deal so I was a bit nervous when I unboxed the set and saw all of the accessory bags free of the tape that once secured them.  I was afraid there could be some sort of flaw in the tv.  I felt better when I turned it on and the picture looked beautiful and bright.

I do have one issue, I can not get the tv to connect to my home wifi network.  It sees the network but fails when I try to authenticate to it.  Luckily since my house is hard wired with ethernet in every room I was able to jack the tv in that way and flip my Xbox over to a wireless connection.  I perused some of the massive amount of features and apps available on the tv but only enough to know I needed to spend some serious time familiarizing myself with just everything the tv can do. I also slapped on one of the 4 pair of 3D glasses to do a static test of 3D picture, low and behold the image had 3 dimensions, very cool.

Saturday was a busy day.  Because of my on again off again right knee pain a long Saturday morning run was off the menu.  Instead I worked on various things around the house.  Cindy was off on Saturday and was nice enough to help me get stuff done.  The messiest and largest time consumer of all of the chores was attending to the yard.  I have been putting off mowing/weed whacking the grass, hoping that the regular downpours that have drowned my property in standing water would  subside.  Unfortunately that has not been the case.

Well the yard HAD to be addressed at this point.  Cindy was happy to run the tractor.  I told her to avoid the high water areas, that I would weed whack them down.    I donned my mid shin water proof boots and embarked on a wet, muddy and slimy 90 minute plus weed whacking session.  I knocked down everything I could, including the trenches out front.  At some points the water was a couple inches below the top of my boots, threatening to flood my feet.  I am so tired of all of this water.

On Saturday night we went to go see Gravity, a movie I was looking forward to seeing.  The movie was suspenseful and visually amazing.  I have no idea how they did some of those shots, it looked so damn realistic.  It made space seem like a very, very beautiful but terrifying place.

The odd thing is overall, I don’t have a pristine rating for the movie, I’d give it a B+ . Maybe it was the routine lack of believability in the outcomes of dire situations, maybe it was the miniscule cast of characters involved.  I remember when the previews came out I was wondering how they were going to build an entire movie about the space shuttle getting blown apart.  After watching the movie I would have to say the answer is, they didn’t do it as well as I hoped.

Yea it is a movie that benefits from a movie theater 3D environment.  It may be worth seeing for the visuals alone.

We took the SSR to the movies.  When I was driving it I immediately noticed the clutch feel was different, the engagement felt sloppy.  I was concerned I had another automotive issue to worry about.  Well shortly before getting to the theater I looked down.  I noticed the rubber floor mat was pushed way forward.  It was piling up under the pedals, causing the weird feel.  Once I pulled the mat to it’s normal position the clutch went back to feeling more or less normal, whew.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I had decided to try a different bike ride, from the house out to Ave Maria, or as I like to call it, Catholic Town.  The ride would be a long one since the town center is 15 miles from my house.  I never have logged 30 miles on a road bike.

On the positive side, much of the ride was on the newly widened Oil Well Road.  The road, except for a small section is wide with tons of room and small amounts of traffic.  It is a great road to bike on.

On the way out there was a headwind that was just enough to be annoying.  Cindy and I took 5 mile long shifts of leading so the other could benefit from the draft.  By the time we got out to Catholic Town my man parts were killing me, despite wearing two pairs of bike pants/shorts and swapping my more comfortable seat onto the Dawes.  I have no idea how people do century rides (100 miles) without a stream of blood running down their thighs.

We parked at Publix and went inside for a chocolate milk recovery drink.  Walking on the hard store floors in bike shoes requires very small strides and a slow pace unless you want to wind up on your ass.  While we were finishing our drinks outside we saw a couple walk up with a big but young lab named Oscar.  He was funny, he was friendly but afraid to come right up to you.  Instead he would bound around, doing circles just out of reach.

Ave Maria had changed since I have been there last.  The gas station that was started but left uncompleted for years is finally open.  There also was a lot of construction going on and the most people milling around that I have ever seen.  We were there right around church time so that might have explained the additional activity.  Before we headed out we took a quick selfie behind the extravagant church at the center of town.

The ride back was tough.  We had better wind conditions but we also were maintaining a higher pace, mostly in the 19-20 mph range.  My crotch pain made things even less fun.  The total ride of 30 and a half miles was a milestone for me.  We covered the distance in a little less than 1:45 which worked out to an average pace of 17.7 mph.  I was quite spent by the end of it.

I picked up the dogs so they could spend the afternoon out at the house.   I got back just in time for the Eagles/Giants game.  The Giants so far this year have established themselves as awful, they were 0-4 and their defense actually appeared to be worse than the Eagles.  You can imagine my excitement when the Giants took their opening possession and marched right down the field and scored a touchdown.  I was quite ready for the Eagles to deliver yet another underwhelming performance.

Mike Vick, who literally did nothing with his arm in the game before going out with a hamstring pull, made his contribution on the ground, scrambling for a lot of yards.  When Nick Foles came in right before halftime I really didn’t care.  I figured the Eagles would find a way to lose the game no matter who is behind center.  The defense was once again poor but luckily the Giants shot themselves in the foot enough for the Eagles to prevail in the end.

It is pretty laughable that the Eagles are tied for first place in the the division with a 2-3 record.  This years NFC east might be the weakest NFL division in DECADES.  Any wins the Birds get this year are just gravy to me.  A team with this defense just has no shot of going anywhere.

Thank goodness for Tony Romo, his MASSIVE numbers in the Cowboys loss to the Broncos looks like it will single handily get me my first fantasy football win of the season.  Much like the Eagles, my fantasy team appears to be in for a long year.

Last night I watched Flight, a movie I wanted to see for awhile.  The movie was quite good and did a great job of making a person never want to fly or be an alcoholic.  A-

I also put the new TV to it’s first 3D movie test, watching some of Avatar in 3D.  The picture was fantastic and the 3D effects were every bit as good as anything I have seen in theaters.  I’m quite happy with my new piece of entertainment tech.

The Tacoma flipped 160,000 miles this morning.  I have never driven a vehicle as many miles as I have on this truck.  When I bought it back in 2000, it had right around 30,000 miles on the odometer.  It has been a very faithful and reliable companion for most of the journey.  I hope to be able to ride on to 200k and beyond.