Category Pets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last night after work I grabbed a couple light bulbs for the van brake lights.  Even though I am donating the van I figured I should fix them.  I picked up the dogs on the way home as well in the Prius, something they will have to get more used to.

After replacing the brake lights I started the sobering task of removing all of our personal items out of the party van.  I also took a few shots of the rusty belly of the van to illustrate just how bad the problem is.  It’s not a matter of if something snaps or breaks under there, it’s when.

When the last item was pulled out I looked back at the passenger compartment for possibly the last time, remembering just how much happened in that space the last 6 years. Of course it made me sad.

I made the arrangements yesterday for the vehicle donation on the phone.  I don’t even have to be there to make it happen.  All it requires is for me to leave the keys and signed off title in the vehicle.  They will send a tow truck and take the vehicle away. The tax write off is minor, $500 or whatever they manage to sell it for at auction, whichever is higher.  I could care less about the write off, I just hope the few bucks it can bring in are put to good use at the Humane Society.

Cindy and I have been watching Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spinoff.  I was afraid it would not live up to the incredible standard of BB.  So far it has been great and quickly has become one of my favorite shows on the tube right now.

I was not very happy with the dogs last night as they decided to wake us up not once but twice.  The first time was around 2AM.  Nicki started with her whining noises that she is so good at.  I got up and let them out, Nicki took a leak that seemed pretty long so I guess it was legit.  The second whining session at 4:30 was not.

I laid there hoping she would quiet down.  She continued and then Sadie joined in.  I was now angry not only for my sleep being ruined but also Cindy’s.  Even though I know Nicki can hardly hear me, I swore as I got out of bed again.  I then was furious at Sadie when she literally body checked Nicki, knocking her over as she sprinted out the lanai door.  I used my God’s Wrath voice as I scolded Sadie causing her to instantly go down into a belly crawl back towards me.  Sadie takes it very seriously when she hears the word “naughty”.

Nicki just did a token pee this time that lasted all of 2 seconds.  When we went back inside she acted like she wanted a treat for doing so, which I think was the whole impetus behind the second wake up, she wanted food.  Of course I was not going to reward this behavior.  I went back to the bedroom for all of 15 seconds before I shot back up, telling Cindy there was no way I was going to be able to fall back asleep, I was too annoyed.  I had the dogs come out to the main area with me and closed the door so Cindy could hopefully at least get a small amount of sleep.  I spent my extra hour running around WoW.

I am not sure what it is about being at the house that makes the dogs so anxious to get up.  At Ali’s place they routinely sleep in until 7 or 8am with no issues.

Yesterday I forgot to congratulate Jeremy on his victory in the Boca city council race.  He secured a 3 year term, beating two opponents that outspent him significantly.  He didn’t just squeak out a win, his 10 point margin of victory is a beat down in political terms.

When I got home Monday night I saw my neighbor talking to the guy on the other side of him, something I never saw before.  When I got out of my truck he called over to me as well.  I walked over and asked him what was up?  He asked if I saw his truck parked outside that morning when I went to work.  I told him I don’t really know, I don’t recall taking notice one way or another.  He said his truck was stolen. What???

He pointed to the tire tracks in his yard that looks like they were left by something with dual wheels (tow truck or flat bed).  His 2005 full size Ford 4×4 was locked with no keys in it yet it was plucked clean from his property.  My neighbors theory is they winched it up onto a flat bed although I saw no drag marks on the driveway from pulling something that had locked wheels.   The area the truck was parked was directly under the street light that is next to their driveway, making the thieves act even more brazen and surprising.

Of course my first thought was of the Tacoma and party van, both of which are typically outside and unlocked.  As soon as I finished talking with my neighbor I immediately went over and locked both of them, a habit I will need to establish going forward.  Because of our location near the beginning of a relatively busy street I just never thought a criminal would pick the houses in that area as a target, something more secluded and less lit would make more sense.  This may have literally been a “gone in 60 seconds” scenario.  Both Cindy and my sense of security has been rattled a bit as a result.

So I worked from home yesterday to accommodate the appointment I had to have the house professionally measured for potential carpet installation.  It was one of those deals where they give you a window of arrival times.  Since I can do the vast majority of my job anywhere that has an internet connection it worked out well.

For whatever reason I expected the guy that did the measuring to be a carpet installer as well.  Well that certainly was not the case, he basically knew nothing about carpet installation.  His skill set involved using a measuring tape and inputting those measurements into an iPad.  I asked him 4 or 5 questions regarding the installation and gave up after getting a “I don’t really know” as the answer each time.

By the time the guy finished he had a virtual blue print of the house floor plan on the tablet.  He said I will have a precise estimate by sometime today.  I found this funny since Cindy and I have not even decided what we are putting on the ground yet.  I can only be sure that it isn’t going to be something that is going to cost nearly $5 a square foot for just the carpet, not counting the pad.

Yesterday I went into the small shed to see if I still had the box for the tile that is installed in the kitchen, utility room and one bathroom.  I actually had one unopened box left over.  I was rolling around ideas that if I could find more of the same tile, the main living area could be tiled with the bedrooms just getting fresh rug.  However the fact that I got that tile some 12 years ago on clearance from Home Depot makes the possibility of scoring that exact type very, very remote.

Yesterday I did a backyard lunch workout that involved pull ups and my 300 pound tire.  My production of exercise themed videos has slowed to a dribble the last few months.  Producing two in one day is unheard of anymore. I also created a short, “Meet the new chickens” video to boot.

A little before 5 I headed outside to get the long section of the pool border covered in weed block.  I let the chickens out while I was out there which they greatly appreciated.  When they first are let out of the coop they act like it is a jailbreak, sprinting, jumping and flapping their wings as they head for their favorite hang out spot under the birds of paradise.  This moment is almost always followed up with Nona, the bully of the group starting a fight with either Curly or Kathy.  Evidently the chicken pecking order with the four of them is still getting sorted out.

After about an hour of work I had the long section covered, leaving only the 20 feet or so on the far side to go.  If I am feeling ambitious I might have the rest of the project completed by the end of the upcoming weekend.

Friday after work I was running around like a mad man trying to get my triple headed grocery monster tamed.  First stop was the dreaded Costco where the relentless rude mobs of customers suck every ounce of enjoyment out of shopping there.  However my need for Costco pizza to pull off a successful Friday night pizza party made the trip unavoidable.

I was picking up the dogs on my way home as well so to avoid back tracking I decided to stop at a Publix other than my normal stomping grounds.  Well that decision of course opened up a Pandoras box of frustration as I didn’t know where shit was, requiring me to go up and down most aisles.  Since I was trying to rush, snaking around the dozens of aisle clogging old people was more aggravating than normal.

The last stop was Sam’s where I needed Mexican Coke and a few other items.  By the time I was finished I had Cindy’s passenger seat stuffed with groceries.  I only put limited items in the folded down back seat since I needed to keep room for Nicki and Sadie.  By the time I got the girls they were surrounded by grocery items.  Sadie was disappointed that the front seat she normally likes to occupy was taken.  When I got home Cindy asked what took me so long which I am sure I responded with a WTF face to.

As is customary when the dogs are over, Sadie started trying to wake me up as soon as a trace of daylight was in the bedroom window Saturday morning. When we got out the lanai door I was surprised to see ANOTHER racoon was in the trap, the smallest one yet.  Sadie somehow did not see it and ran right past the trap.  When she did see it of course she was interested and came storming over.  The raccoon greeted her curiosity with a hiss and a swipe although it landed against the inside of the wire cage.  Sadie’s hair on her back stood up and she started growling back at the raccoon.  I had her go back inside before things got out of hand.

So my first task of the morning was taking this little racoon to the same spot at the sanctuary to release him.  He genuinely looked scared and I did nothing to exasperate his fear, I handled the trap gently and waited patiently before he made a dash out of the opened door.  I hoped he managed to find the other raccoons I released if they were indeed part of the family.

When I got back the first outdoor tasks involved undoing the substantial frost prep I had done on Thursday night.  It appears that despite temps only 3-4 degrees above freezing the landscape has escaped pretty much unscathed which I was happy about.  While we were working outside I told Cindy I wanted to let the chickens out.  The dogs hadn’t acted any differently towards the new chickens than they did to the old ones but Cindy was nervous about letting them out to mingle.  I had more confidence in Sadie behaving herself so I let the birds out.  As I hoped the dogs acted just fine with Sadie ignoring the chicks and Nicki slowly “chasing” them around the yard from time to time.

We then piled everyone in the van to run some errands, the biggest of which was a stop at Home Depot.  We first went to the customer service desk.  Cindy had her DD214 with her that proves her military service, she was told previously that if she presents that at a store they can add her phone number to a database so she automatically gets the veteran 10% discount.  The guy we were talking with was not familiar with the program so he asked another woman that was next to him.  The woman assumed a bitchy disposition when she pointed to a piece of paper that had the rules for the discount.  Evidently you need a special ID card to get the full time military discount.  The DD214 is only valid on certain holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, 4th of July etc…  It was good to get the information but neither Cindy or I appreciated that the woman took a stance almost like we were trying to scam the system, nasty bitch.  The guy that helped us originally apologized, it seemed that he caught the bitch vibe as well.

Our next stop was in the carpeting department.  For quite a few years I have had replacing the carpet in the house on my peripheral of to do’s.  The carpet in there is in decent shape thanks to tireless robotic vacuuming and semi-regular shampooing but it needs to come out.  It’s the 14 year old builder grade carpet, which like many things in the house, was not high quality.  The only saving grace was we got the thicker 1/2″ pad which helped make up for the so so carpet.  Since I had my tax refund in the bank I thought it would be a good time to get some numbers on replacing the rug.

Cindy suggested that a hard surface in the main living area might be cool since it is the highest traffic area.  I agree it might be cool but I think my only option would be hardwood flooring since I have tile in the kitchen already.  I assume having two different types of tile would look pretty stupid.  I already know my foundation is far from flat from the issues I had installing tile where I did so I don’t know what sort of challenge that would present doing something like hardwood or laminate.  I also don’t know if I would like that huge open space with a hard surface. If I got carpet I was going to get the good stuff obviously backed up again with thick high quality 1/2″ padding.  Cindy suggested a mixed color rug, containing the various colors in the house, tans, whites, blacks, grays would be neat and also help hide stains.

It didn’t take long for Cindy and I to see a sample we liked.  It was part of HD’s “Platinum Plus” carpet which has extreme stain resistance and a 25 year wear warranty which is pretty impressive.  The price for this sample on the board listed at something like $3.69 a square foot.  So doing some quick math in my head using the floor layout I had with me from when the house was built which showed roughly 1200-1300 of carpeted surface, I figured I am well below 5k.  Pricey for sure but worth it for high quality carpet. Home Depot had a promotion that free BASIC installation was included for any purchase over $1500 so I figured that would help save me significant money as well.

We were helped by a woman in the department who sat down with me to run some numbers and in the process deliver me a huge surge of sticker shock.  There were some things I was not considering in my mental number and other things I just did not expect.  For some reason I did not factor in the padding which at 89 cents a square foot for the good stuff adds well over $1000 to the price. I also quickly found out the the basic install is basically a joke.  More or less if you gut the carpet and move all of the furniture yourself then the install is free.

When our old neighbors had their flooring replaced the crew ripped out the old carpet and moved the furniture around on a room by room basis to get the work done.  Sure Home Depot will do that for you if you want, they will just charge you a bunch of money extra for it.  Plus they have all these stupid guidelines, for example, if they move less than 6 furniture items per room it is one cost but if they move more than 6 it is more, charging for removal based on square footage and other nickel and dime shit I found annoying.

So after a lot of data entry the woman handed me the estimate which she said she figured high.  Part of the process was scheduling (and paying for) a professional measurement that would determine the final quote.  I glanced at the total dollar amount and tried to not react with violent nausea all over the woman’s desk.  The quote was over $9000.  Cindy was off looking at back splash tile when I was handed the quote so she didn’t know the number until I handed it to her as we walked around.  She thought it was outrageous as well.  As we looked at the quote in more detail later Cindy noticed that the woman listed the carpet we liked as being something like $4.69 a square foot, a full dollar more than what was posted.

So at this point my game plan is to get the $35 professional measurement and then use it as a tool to shop around for a more reasonable quote.  Sure I expected the Home Depot number to be somewhat inflated due to the additional layer of profit taking inserted between them and the installer but $9000 to me just seemed outrageous to carpet 1300 square feet of household.

After the carpet sticker shock our final stop in the store was the outdoor garden section where we picked up 18 castle wall blocks as well as 10 bags of rubber mulch to start the pool border renovation project.  I had already picked up 220 feet of commercial grade weed block at Costco on Friday for the project.

The castle block was to be put around the border of the small pond.  I had some shitty looking plastic fence around there that I wanted to get rid of for awhile.  I needed something solid and heavy to prevent the chickens from kicking mulch into the pond, something the old chickens were quite adept at.  The new border looked better and should perform better as a barrier to pond debris.

I also finally got motivated to fix the blocks around the palm trees/bird of paradise that are in front of the cage.  When I installed the block over 10 years ago I was a novice and had them on the ground upside down, with their alignment line upward.  I didn’t realize I had them upside down until 5 years later.  For whatever reason it took me another 5 years to actually fix it.

From years of dogs running around this area and more recently chickens digging in the same vicinity most of the blocks were totally buried.  I used the post bar to pop each one out and them used a shovel to loosen and level the dirt so I would have a clearly defined border once again.  When I placed the old blocks back on the ground I expanded outward slightly to accommodate the tremendous growth of the birds of paradise over the last decade.

The chickens seemed to appreciate the new higher wall to their playpen.  They seemed more secure and content to be nestled in the plants with the blocks on higher ground.  The chickens free ranging playtime was cut short when the damn hawk flew overhead screeching away.  I quickly herded the chicks back to to the safety of their coop and run.

The final part of my Saturday outdoor work was covering the shortest leg of the patio border with weed block and rubber mulch.  The work wasn’t overly difficult except for the toll it takes on my knees.  Crawling on all fours is an activity that I just can not do for extended periods of time anymore.  I really liked the end result of the block/mulch.  I LOVE that when I am done, it will require next to no maintenance and the chickens will no longer be able to fling mulch dust against the pool cage.

On Saturday night Cindy and I went out to see Kingsman, a flick based on a comic book series I never heard of involving British super spies.  I really did not know what to expect but from the previews it looked like a decent action film.  It turned out to be a decent action film with some funny and totally random moments I did not expect.

The cinematography of the action portions of the movie were shot in a very cool manner, in a somewhat Matrixy sort of way.  There also was a lot of in your face and pretty gross carnage but somehow it managed to remain cartoon-like as to not become overly realistic.  Some of the violence was downright hysterical at times and the very loud and unexpected mention of a sexual act into the middle of the action brought both gasps and laughs from the audience, depending on your moral compass.  I found the movie entertaining once Cindy brought me a soda to help wake me up from the initial drowsiness I was suffering from.  I’d give it a strong B+, I don’t know that Cindy would say the same.

Sunday morning we opted for a ride instead of a run as my right knee was feeling swollen from the work on my knees the day before.  We did the Dunkin Donut ride instead.  Early on Cindy was doing a lot of complaining about the temperature even though it was around 65 degrees, considerably warmer than the last ride we did.  Evidently she didn’t dress as heavily for Sundays ride.  I was in my normal bike outfit and felt a little cool early but fine once we had a few miles in.

We held a pace of nearly 21 mph during the long traffic light free portion of the ride.  I figured on the ride back we would pay the price with a bad headwind.  Lucky for us the wind was more of a crosswind heading east and allowed Cindy, who lead the entire way back, to hold 18+ mph for most of the 10 miles.  Overall we averaged 18.8mph for the ride, equaling what Randall and I pulled off a few weeks prior, impressive.

On Saturday Cindy had given Nicki a much needed haircut with the electric pet shaver.  On Sunday after the ride she gave both of the dogs much needed baths as a follow up.  We did something different, abandoning the normal tub bathing for a driveway session using the hose.  I was worried that it would be too cold for them but they didn’t really seem to mind.  Nicki especially seems to like the personal spa sessions with Cindy.

Over the weekend Cindy and I digested portions of the SNL 40 year special in small chunks.  I have to say as a whole I was disappointed.  Here are some of my questions/observations:

– The show was filled with montages of old clips but each clip was cut too short to get much out of any of them.

– the Kanye West performance was stupid and got FF’d

– is it me or can Paul McCartney not sing anymore? His voice sounded really rough.

– What did Paul Simon do to his face?  I can’t tell if it was plastic surgery, botox or both?

– Why were most of the actual live skits they did so weak?

– WTF is Eddie Murphy’s problem?  You couldn’t participate in one skit or say one funny thing after Chris Rock gave you a sickeningly over the top ass kissing intro?

– Miley Cyrus’s new hair is not flattering.  She can actually sing a little bit but she got FF’d as well after 60 seconds or so.

– Holy shit did Chevy Chase get fat.  It made me sad to see him that way, sincerely. Cindy didn’t recognize him.

So anyway like I said, as a whole I thought the special was disappointing although it was cool to see so many talented and funny people in one room together.  I just expected a lot more laughs.

The rest of my Sunday was mostly just chilling out virtually in WoW which I really enjoyed.  Cindy had her own stuff to do so it worked out well.  After feeding the dogs dinner I took them home.  Once again Ali was not home and once again I felt guilt as I saw the dogs sad faces being left with nothing but a radio to keep them company.

This morning I was not happy to see ANOTHER raccoon had become a live trap resident.  This one appeared to be an adult female as Cindy saw her nipples as she hung sideways on the cage.  Knowing this was a female bothered me as I had no way of knowing if she had babies somewhere waiting for her to return.   She also was the least aggressive of the four raccoons I have caught.  There was not a single hiss or strike the entire time I was handling the cage.  I left the house early to give me time to release the animal where the other three have been relocated.  I hope they are all part of the same family and wind up reuniting at some point.

Part of the reason the raccoons are visiting the yard has nothing to do with the chickens.  They come to scavenge the seed from the bird feeders.  For years I have had low feeders randomly knocked to the ground which I now am sure is a raccoons handiwork.  If I wanted to discourage more from showing up I could relocate or remove the feeders, a step I have not taken because we both enjoy seeing the birds hang out in the yard through the back windows of the house.  I may have to give up that pleasure unless I want to take up live animal trapping as a second profession.

On Friday I left work early to get a head start on covering up the property from the cold air which was predicted to drop into the 30’s in our part of town.  My prep is less extensive than it used to be, I basically just cover the garden and move anything that is in a pot inside the shed.  Cold prep also means we move the chicken coop as close to the house as possible as well as covering it up with some old comforters to block cold air.  It turned out it didn’t get cold enough to do damage but it was good insurance anyway.

The 39 degree air Saturday morning did make it challenging to time the 5K.  Cindy and I both bundled up majorly for the event.  I had 4 layers on up top.  The race was very small, not even cracking 200 participants.  Timing the event for me went pretty much flawlessly.  The only issue I had was one older guy that crossed the line with a dead chip later in the race that I caught immediately.

The race did have one wart.  The course is a simple out and back.  Well the turnaround point was misplaced which made the course nearly 2 tenths of a mile long, that’s pretty bad.  Course measurement is beyond the scope of my responsibility however.  In the past I would have probably made a bigger fuss about it, as an accurate course is one of the basic fundamentals of putting on a race.  However nowadays I keep my concerns more focused on the areas I have direct control over and responsibility for. Cindy and I rolled out of there by a little after 9:30 and were home by a little after 10.  Much like the race itself, the post race work at home was nice and tidy, things were back to normal before we ate lunch.

Saturday afternoon we worked around the house, undoing most of the cold prep I had done the day before as well as a number of smaller to do’s.  It was Valentine’s Day after all so we didn’t want to make the labor too exhaustive, although Cindy decided that she needed to do some weight work and back yard sprints just for fun at one point.

Before we went out to dinner we exchanged our small presents.  Our big present was the iPad Air that we both will get use out of.  Cindy got me some special half gloves that are specifically designed to protect the hands from getting ripped up during bar work.  Last week my hands were hamburger from two callouses that tore open. I got Cindy a cute little necklace of two giraffes with their necks wrapped around each other in a cute way.  One has small black diamonds (me) and the other has small white diamonds (Cindy).  It just seemed like a good depiction of our relationship.

I had suggested something that may have sounded borderline insane for dinner, Carrabbas.  Surely the place would be just mauled with people on a Valentine’s Day that fell on a Saturday night.  Our plan was to go earlier to perhaps lessen the blow.  Even if it was a mob scene I was prepared to just drink beer and people watch until we got a table.

So we pulled in shortly before 6PM and were handed a buzzer with an estimated wait time of 90 minutes.  Now normally this would scare me off but like I said we were prepared for a big number.  We made our way over to the bar area and ordered some drinks.  The new layout of the restaurant has made standing around the bar pretty inconvenient.  There just isn’t room to do it with the long bar seating tables wedged in there now.  There really is no good area to just stand around in and drink.  Ironically this wound up working in our favor.

Cindy spotted two ladies at the bar getting up to leave.  Since there was no room for anyone to stand near by that meant we had a clear shot to snagging those two chairs which we did.  Neither Cindy or I minded eating at the bar.  I handed my buzzer back in to the hostess, feeling like we just gamed the system, 90 minutes turned into 9 minutes.  We had a perfectly enjoyable meal at the bar, the three female bartenders were all very personable.  We were out of there by 7:30 and on our way back home.  Instead of going to the movies we thought we could watch John Wick, which I had waiting in the Netflix envelope.

The movie wasn’t quite what I expected.  Sure I figured it was Keanu kicking ass and taking names but it got a little nuts.  By the end of it I realized that John Wick may have just knocked Commando off the throne as the most bad guys killed by a single person in a movie category.  It was like singing Old McDonald substituting “head shot” with any animal reference in the song.  It was literally a head shot here, a head shot there, a head shot everywhere.  Now thankfully they didn’t make the head shots overly graphic or dramatic, for the most part it was just CGI blood.  Still, I thought it was a little nuts.  The movie was a solid revenge themed action flick but I can’t go any higher than a B+ on this one.

Sunday morning it was once again brisk but a few degrees warmer than Saturday.  I talked Cindy into braving the cold to do the roughly 5.5 mile “track and back” run where we run from the house to the middle school track, do one lap, and return the way we came.  We both had on long sleeve shirts when we started and both took them off at the half way water stop.  I personally love running in temps around 50 degrees.  Cindy likes it warmer but she did ok anyway.  This was the first time I tried the T and B since my various knee, calf and groin problems I have dealt with for the last couple weeks.  I was happy to be able to complete the run feeling pretty good and doing so at a pace 10 seconds a mile faster than the last time.

We had some errands to go run which we did in the top down glory of the SSR.  One of those stops was Rural King for the second week in  a row.  For the second week in a row they had baby chicks there and for the second week in a row Cindy was seriously considering adopting some of them.  Once again we were able to resist the temptation and left there with just supplies for the four chickens we already have.

Cindy’s daughter and her boyfriend stopped out a little after lunch time.  They were coming to borrow the Tacoma to pick up a table.  Both Katie and Daniel have stopped smoking for the last month and a half which Cindy and I were both very happy to hear.  I also got to check out Daniel’s new 2005 350Z he just picked up.  It’s a sharp set of wheels, maybe a little too sharp for an 18 year old, hopefully he doesn’t get in trouble with it.

Sunday afternoon I decided to begin what I knew was going to be an unpleasant task, stripping out most of the mulch around the pool deck area.  My intentions were to pull out the old mulch and the old weed block beneath it.  I would then later lay down fresh block and recover the area with the shredded tire mulch that lasts forever and will not cause mulch dirt to get spread on the pool deck if the chickens dig in it.  Well this task was very labor intensive.

Normally Cindy would be right in there with me digging and carting but her lower body was very sore from the weight work on Saturday followed up with Sunday’s run.  That left me as the sole pack mule.  The mulch removal process was slow, dirty and aggravating.  I would try to grab the edge of the weed block and pull it up to allow the mulch to pile up, making it easier to shovel into the yard cart.  Each time I would fill the cart I would drag it to either the orchard or a low spot next to the garden to dump it for repurposing.  It just got to be a lot of labor.

The process was complicated by things that were buried in the mulch like long, steel cable like roots, and the old drip irrigation hose system that I used before I installed the sprinkler system.  It all had to get ripped out.  During this process I discovered that the 14 foot high cactus by the one door has INCREDIBLY long roots, some extending at least 50 FEET from the cactus.  It was pretty incredible.

As I was outside I had the chickens out of their coop as well.  However I also kept an eye on the sky.  Over the weekend Cindy and I noticed a hawk perched in the backyard with a clear eye on the birds.  It’s bad enough to have to deal with raccoons waging a ground assault on the birds, now we also have to watch for aerial attacks as well.  I had my Crossman air rifle out there with me and actually took a shot at the hawk as it was in the tree to scare it off.  I didn’t aim for the bird of course, just close enough for it to get the idea it wasn’t welcome.

The chickens loved being able to roam about although they spent most of their time nestled deep inside the one bed area, giving themselves dirt baths.  It seems clear that they are getting more used to us and don’t see us as threats.

We finished up outside around 6PM.  I was BEAT and running on fumes.  The rest of the night we relaxed and took in another “Better Call Saul” episode, the Breaking Bad spinoff.  I am quite pleased that so far the spin off seems to have a good taste of the flavor that made Breaking Bad so interesting.

Today I am enjoying my government holiday.  I hope to only have a small dose of chores/work mixed in with a big glass of just chilling.

Last night as Cindy and I were doing evening chicken maintenance Cindy noticed one of the chickens, that we have now named “Nona” was acting strange.  She was hanging her head low and seemed lethargic.  Some of the other chickens appeared to be picking on her as well.  We watched her for awhile to see if she would snap out of it but she just seemed weird.

Cindy crawled into the chicken run and brought her out.  Nona hardly struggled as Cindy laid her down on her lap.  As Cindy gave the bird a head to toe look over Nona just laid there chilling.  Cindy started petting her head and neck.  It looked odd to have a chicken just laying on a lap, looking almost like a content cat would.  It seemed like Nona would have laid there for as long as Cindy wanted.

So we were both concerned obviously but weren’t quite sure what was wrong.  We decided to grab one of the empty Rubbermaid containers in the shed, fill it with wood shavings and bring Nona inside with us.  It was sort of odd having a chicken indoors.  At first we had her in the laundry room but we then moved the container to the guest bathroom.  I thought I was going to have to put some sort of lid on it to keep the chicken inside but it quickly became apparent that Nona was too tired to try to hop out.  I put a barrier in front of the door just in case but we didn’t need it.

Cindy and I did a lot of internet searching for chicken ailments.  We read about crop problems.  The crop is a sack at the base of their throat where food is deposited first before it is digested.  Sometimes that sack can get stuffed and blocked up if the bird drastically over eats or eats something long and fibrous.  An expert pair of hands may be able to feel an impacted crop.  Cindy couldn’t really tell much.

Cindy called up the lady we got the chickens from and had a long talk with her about Nona and chickens in general.  The consensus was it was good to keep her separated from the others last night and see how she is in the morning. Cindy was worried Nona would feel lonely in the tub by herself.  She added a towel and one of the dog’s stuffed toys as a companion.  It looked funny to have a chicken laying next to a dog toy.  Nona was very quiet and calm.  I was worried that we would wake up this morning to another chicken tragedy. I went to bed feeling unsettled. All this chicken drama, the raccoon, the hen/rooster questions and now a sick bird was weighing on my mind.

So this morning when I got up of course the first thing I did was peek in the bathroom.  I held my breath for a second when in the darkness I saw a body that appeared to not be moving.  I exhaled when Nona woke up and saw me.  She immediately stood up. She seemed pretty alert and normal to me.  Cindy agreed that she seemed much better than last night, good enough that we returned her to the coop this morning.  She seemed to jump right back into the flock and was acting normally.  Cindy and I hope this was just a little bump in the road and that Nona will be ok.

We did more saddle feather exams last night trying to see if any of the birds have long pointy feathers coming in.  Again neither of us saw anything obvious so we are still on a wait and see pattern.  The live trap was untouched last night which I was glad to see but expected.

So this is the door latch that the predator, that I now know was a raccoon, spun open on Saturday night to get access to the coop, killing all three of our beloved chickens.  Over the weekend I bought some clasp hinges to make this scenario impossible going forward.  Since the next 4 days are going to have precious spare time I installed the hinges last night after work.

The main hinge body was anchored into the metal frame, the rotating clasp was mounted on the door.  I used left over lumber to screw into on the inside of the coop to make sure it was secure.

The double clasp arrangement had a side benefit of only allowing the main door latch to turn one direction to release, not that it matters anymore, the clasp locks will be doing all the work. I also want to put some sort of rig on the big front door to lock it.  The front door is heavy and probably too difficult for a raccoon to get into but at this point I don’t want to take any chances.

In total I may have spent 45 minutes reenforcing the coop, I wished I would have spent that 45 minutes prior to the coop being penetrated.  Before I walked back inside I went over to the spot the chickens are buried and apologized again for letting them down.

So you may wonder how I know definitively a raccoon was responsible for the killings.  My Uncle Randy made a suggestion on Facebook that I should do some nighttime surveillance.  Well I have the Samsung DVR system we use for the running club so I figured it was worth a shot.  Even though it was almost 9PM and sort of cold outside I pulled the coop out from behind the shed and close to the spot it was Saturday night.  I set up the DVR by the sliding door that leads to the lanai and strung the long cable wires out to the hill next to the pool.  I had two cameras set up, one pointed at either side of the coop.  The infrared lighting on the cameras gave a good picture of the coop and would surely reveal if anything stopped by during the night.

This morning the first thing I did was review the video at x64 speed.  I had gone through about 5 hours of footage without seeing anything but bugs.  All of a sudden I see something come into view from behind the camera and move towards the coop, right around 1:30AM  I stop the fast forward and back it up, there he is, a racoon.

He circled the coop two different times, the second time he got up on his back legs by the big front door.  He then came around to the side door that was breached during the attack and promptly climbed on top of the tire, pretty much demonstrating how he got access to the door latch.  Ironically he must have also used the piece of 1 x 10 board we had across the wheels for sun protection to get himself even higher.

I showed Cindy the video and as expected she was upset to see the raccoon stalking the now empty coop.  It just emphasized how we must be absolutely diligent in making sure the chickens are secure at night.  In addition to the clasps I installed yesterday we bought some more predator deterrent hardware last night on Amazon.  It includes more flashing LED predator lights, reflective/crackle tape to scare away hawks, and a solar powered, motion detecting LED spotlight.  I think the spotlight may be the most effective deterrent of the three, flipping on whenever an animal gets within 30 feet of the coop.

It’s upsetting to realize that the raccoon killed the chickens not for survival but more or less for sport.  I think the changes we are making will force future raccoons to find a new hobby.

Yesterday I was in a somber mood pretty much the entire day as a result of the chicken ordeal.  My conscience is really weighed down by the knowledge that I could have done things to prevent the chickens demise.  After talking to my neighbor who also had chickens and also had them killed, I am thinking the odds of it being raccoon(s) or a fox are about 50/50.  She said racoons got hers and that they just want to kill the chickens but not necessarily eat them.  Our chickens were not eaten.

After work last night I stopped at Home Depot and bought several clasp style hinges that would have easily prevented access to the coop on Saturday night.  I plan to back it up further by using small caribiners through the hole to prevent rotation.  Two clasps will go on each door.  I’m even considering a wire rig that I could attach to the ramp to easily raise it at night giving chickens a near bullet proof safe haven. Of course if I had proactively taken these steps the chickens would still be here today, a fact that will continue to haunt me for the forseeable future.

I need to try to refocus myself as this weekend is Alison’s 5K for the Humane Society, our third largest 5K we do each year.  There are a lot of moving parts to this race and the course geography is far from ideal with the start and finish lines being close to a 1/2 mile apart.  The running club has just obtained a dedicated golf cart which we will be utilizing heavily for the event to compensate for the distance.

Tonight I am attending a post half marathon meeting to discuss the various breakdowns we had at the event.  It should be an interesting session.

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.

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+.