Category TV/Movies

Ah a couple things I forgot to mention.  On Friday we watched the Biggest Loser finale, the show was filled with impressive amounts of weight loss by several individuals.  Well the actual winner this season had a weight loss that was disturbing, something I never have seen before.

She started the show in the 260’s and showed up on finale night a gaunt and clearly anorexic looking 105 pounds.  The look on the trainer’s faces said it all.  It wasn’t a look of pride for what they helped craft, it was look of distress for a person that clearly went over the edge, trading in an unhealthy obese lifestyle for an unhealthy skeleton thin one instead.  She swapped one eating disorder for another, clearly not the goal of the show.

She didn’t look fit or healthy, she looked emaciated.  I found it hard to believe that the show producers do no monitoring of the contestants for the few weeks between when they leave the ranch to finale night.  If they did, someone surely would have raised the red flag. Even though she is only 23, Rachel looked old, sporting wrinkles in her face from her drastic weight loss and malnutrition.

It was very disturbing end to this season.  I can only hope producers take steps in the future to make sure that contestants don’t lose their mind and engage in things that lead to what we saw on the scale with Rachel.  She lost something ridiculous like 175 pounds which equated to nearly 60% of her original body weight.  It will be very interesting to see where Rachel is weight wise in a year.  Hopefully she doesn’t follow the path some past contestants have chosen where they ride that weight roller coaster back upwards approaching the level they started.

This weekend I finally finished up months long consumption of the entire Sopranos series which I started right after James Gandolfini died in June.  It was great being able to take in all that tv greatness in a relatively short period of time.  Unfortunately the ending, which I actually did see the first time it aired, still sucked.  Oh well.

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.

Masterful.  That is the word I would use to describe the series finale of Breaking Bad, one of my most favorite shows of all time.  Unlike other finales for big shows that typically will leave fans with annoying unanswered questions, this finale delivered in every imaginable way.  I won’t spoil it for those of you that have not yet had a chance to watch it On Demand but damn, I was riveted every single second.

On the Stern show this morning they played the song the series ended with.  It gave me chills as I relived the final scene.  If you never got on the Breaking Bad bandwagon, get a Netflix account and start watching, now.  A fantastic show that may have the best ending of any tv series I have ever seen.  A+++ rating

So today the federal shutdown begins after congress was unable to agree to raise the fiscal ceiling.  More specifically, the Senate refused to pass a bill from the house championed by Tea Party douche bags that are trying to tie a lead weight to Obamacare in exchange for their cooperation in keeping the lights turned on.  I really think this strategy is going to blow up in the face of idiots like Ted Cruz.  This is like a bank telling you that the only way they will loan you money is if you agree to kill your cat.  The two items have no business being paired together.

Robert Reich, whose opinion I respect and value, summed it up like this:

The issue we are about to face as a nation has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act or any of the other of the demands Republicans are making. It has to do with political extortion: Republicans’ threats to close the government or default on the nation’s debts if they don’t get their way. The President and the Democrats must not negotiate. Once you start negotiating with extortionists, there is no end to it. Extortionists will hold the nation hostage again and again. Any law on the books they don’t like, any tax their wealthy patrons detest, any regulation their corporate bank-rollers would like to do away with, any subsidy or bailout their Wall Street underwriters desire, will be fair game.

Let Republicans carry out their threats. Let America see them do it and experience the consequences. And then let us send the Republican Party into the dust bin of history.

If this shutdown happened a few weeks ago it would have literally killed our Grand Canyon visit which is now officially closed today along with all the other things the National Park Service operates.

I was surprised to read the last this happened (an actual shutdown) was 95-96 since this pattern of drama approaching the debt ceiling deadline has happened so often in the last half decade.  Up until today, common sense had prevailed, the realization that partisan agendas are not worthy of disrupting the services of the federal government.  RIP common sense.

Friday night  I was quite busy, wedging in a Sam’s club and Publix stop before getting home to do race prep.  By the time I was done doing everything and loading the truck it was bearing down on 10pm, even with Cindy’s help.  My body did not welcome the return of 4:15 am alarms on a Saturday morning.  I drug myself out of bed anyway and got the show on the road.

This was the third year of this race and more than likely the last year of it as well.  It was only decided to take place less than 2 months ago.  It has never been a very well attended event and this year there was a change of the course that made timing the event incredibly inconvenient.

The finish line, which used to be in the parking lot where pre-race registration is located, was moved almost a half mile away.  The decision to move it did not include thought of the logistical implications of doing so.  Both the start and finish line were moved and both were located in the middle of a street with no AC power available.  Luckily the club has a small generator for these situations, however on Saturday there were complications.

At the finish line we have two major things that require power, the fan motor that keeps our inflatable finish line upright and my equipment which includes a couple laptops and a small laser printer.  We have used the generator to power everything several times in the past.  When I would print, it would tax the generator for a few seconds due to the power a laser printer draws while printing, but it still was able to handle things. For some reason on Saturday, that was no longer the case.

The generator was able to power the finish line arch and that was basically it.  Even just adding in my laptops caused it to sound labored.  When I tried to print the generator nearly shut off from the added current draw.  The power was so poor that the printer wasn’t even able to spit out a page, the output  was just a blur. Great.

So in order to deliver results we had to throw a laptop and the printer in the back seat of a car and drive back over to the registration area where AC power was available.  I threw both things on a table and spit out one set of results instead of the 4 or 5 sets I would normally produce as the race was ongoing.

The course layout was not the only problem.  I had the exact same issues with my timing software that I experienced at the last race where runner finish times were showing up as the time of day instead of their net finish time.  I had reported this issue to the software author and received a patch that supposedly fixed the issue.  I was quite annoyed that it didn’t.  The bug meant that producing accurate finish results was much more of a pain in the ass than normal.

I also had lost the ability to post the finish results to the internet directly, adding to my frustration since I had signs posted around the registration area with a QR code for runners to view live results which was now worthless.  It was caused by yet another bug in the software.

It all added up to a very frustrating first 6 hours of my Saturday morning.

Once  I got home I chewed through the post race work as well as sending a long perturbed email to the timing software author, outlining the latest problems I was experiencing.   Timing races is stressful enough without the timing software throwing random roadblocks in my way.

Although I was sleepy I had stuff yet to do.  After weeding the property and assessing the grounds as too wet to mow, I changed my sweaty shirt and headed out in the SSR.  I haven’t driven the truck any considerable distance in a loong time.  I figured a trip to Home Depot and my mom’s place would be a good opportunity to blow out the pipes.

I was stopping at Home Depot to get a new valve for mom’s toilet.  Her valve stopped shooting anything beyond a trickle of water into the holding tank, making it take 10-15 minutes to refill.  While I was there I also grabbed myself a bad ass contractor quality rake.

When I raked the mulch earlier in the day with my generic, wood handled, pressed on head rake it felt flimsy and ready to pull apart.  This new mega rake should last longer than me.

I miscalculated the SSR cargo bed length, thinking the rake would fit in there when laid out diagonally.    It was not even close to fitting.  The rake wound up riding shotgun in the passenger seat on my way to mom’s.

I got to mom’s place maybe a half hour after she got home from work.  She was very happy that the valve replacement went smoothly and solved her problem. I really liked the type of valve that I put in.  I like it so much that I am thinking I might replace the old arm and float style valve that adorn both of my toilets with this new style. Mom thanked me for my efforts as she can once again use the toilet in her bedroom instead of walking to the other side of the condo.

This was the first time I have driven the SSR since I did the stereo work where I eliminated my double ground that was causing electrical feedback in the audio system.  Well the drive revealed a new issue, the sound to the front speakers was cutting out randomly, like something was loose.  I also noticed that my volume level seemed lower than before.  I resigned myself to having to rip open the dash again once again to track down the loose wire and turn up the gain on one of the modules used for the radio install to give me more volume. Great.  I will make sure to do it this time with the top down and out in the sunshine to make the reassembly process easier.  Warming up the air bag cover makes a big difference.

I even had some time to finish up the build of Tuffwing.  I got the servos glued down, the winglets attached, the motor/prop installed and the electronics in their compartment.  I thought I would be a good idea to do a stationary test of everything once I was done.

I had one hand on the plane, holding it stationary in my lap while my other hand worked the radio.  After verifying the servos were working as expected I hit the throttle.  The powerful brushless motor roared to life but it felt like the thrust was in the wrong direction, all the air was being pushed forward instead of backwards.

I instinctively reached my right hand towards the front of the plane to feel the air.  Well the prop was spinning quite quickly, fast enough that it was nearly invisible.  As I reached I felt the tip of my right ring finger make contact with something.  I glance down at my hand and it is already flowing blood at an alarming pace.  I knew I cut my finger badly.  If you slice a finger, normally the blood will sort of seep out, this was flowing from the gun, meaning it was deep.

I cupped my other hand under the red one to catch the blood as I made my way to the sink.  I rinsed off the blood and then grabbed a paper towel to apply pressure to the wound as I made my way back to the bedroom where my first aid supplies are.  As soon as I removed the paper towel the blood gushed again.  I knew that the cut probably should have stitches but I just did not feel like throwing a big wedge in my day to do so.  I slapped a heavy duty band aid on the cut and wrapped it tight.  I followed it up with wrapping tape around the bandage to further secure the dressing and add additional pressure.  When I was done I could feel my pulse radiating from the tip of my finger, it was not a feeling I enjoyed.

After my do-it-yourself first aid I jumped right back into my plane testing.  I read that I can reverse the motor direction by simply reversing any two of the three wires that are connected to it.  After doing so I cranked the throttle back up, with all body parts out of harms way.  The thrust the beefy high current battery and brushless motor created was very impressive.  If I manage to get the wing in the air it should be a BULLET.  The 80 mph top speed they boast the wing is capable of seems realistic from my bench test.

When I redressed the cut later in the night the bandage and tape was pure red with dried blood.  I am crossing my fingers that this gash will heal on it’s own with diligent bandaging.  The cut is about an inch long and I would not be surprised if it is to the bone deep.

Sunday was my second 4:15 am alarm of the weekend, this time to get up to go to the Marco Island triathlon.  Cindy was competing in the race and I had offered to help our equipment manager set up and tear down for the race.  It was my first time attending the Marco tri.  The hotel that was used to host the event was beautiful as was the beach area behind it where the race was stationed.

Lugging equipment around with my sliced finger wasn’t ideal but the substantial bandaging I had on it at least kept the cut protected.  I just used the other 4 fingers when the right hand was needed.  Setting up the equipment went well.  We had it all ready to go early enough that I was able to walk over to see all of waves of the race start including Cindy’s which was the last wave to go, 12 minutes after the first athletes.

I saw Cindy a few times during her race like when she came out of the swim, the bike to run transition, and as she came back in towards the finish line.  She initially was disappointed in her finish time of 1:27:19, saying she really was slow on the swim due to getting dunked by others swimming over her. In reality her swim was the same speed as last year, even with her problems yesterday.

She felt much better when we looked at the official results, she got second in her age group and was only a minute away from the number one spot.  Her bike and run was strong, making up for whatever issues she had during the swim.  It was the best finish she has ever had at a triathlon.

We were there until the very end helping to rip back down all of the stuff we put up several hours earlier.  By that time the sun was high in the sky and I felt it beating on me, making shade  a very welcome commodity.  We didn’t pull out of there till almost 11:30.  On the way home I stopped in to pick up the girls for an impromptu sleep over.  By the time the van pulled back into the driveway it was firmly early afternoon, around 1PM.

I was REALLY tired, so tired that I passed out for a much needed nap mid-afternoon before waking up to watch the Eagles-Broncos game.

Now I went into this game already chalking it up as a loss.  The Broncos offense has been prolific and the Eagles defense has been dreadful which I was sure would add up to a beating.  I just didn’t realize it would be THAT bad of a beating. 52-20, ouch.

The Eagles are in for a LOOOOONG season if they can’t find a way to turn their defensive roster into something resembling a NFL defense.  They are just awful, unable to do much beyond giving opposing punters the day off week in and week out.  Their secondary which is now filled with a bunch of no names can’t stop anyone, the pass rush is very inconsistent and their run defense is nearly as porous.

The Eagles fast paced offense didn’t seem to bother the Broncos much. They turned around and did the same thing to the Eagles, using a hurry up style for nearly the entire game except when the game reached blowout status and they were eating clock.  The game got bad enough that at the end of the third quarter Fox switched to another game, the hated Cowboys no less.

I find it hard to believe that Chip Kelly, despite his focus on the offensive side of the ball, could have ignored the defense this much.  Yea, I already assumed this year was going to be the rebuilding variety but if that means I have to watch this type of performance week in and week out I am going to need to find other ways to entertain myself on Sunday afternoons.

Sunday night we watched Dredd, the rework of the old Stallone classic, Judge Dredd.  The movie utilized the latest technology to create a visually impressive background for the film.  It used the technology to do things like show heads being blown apart in super slo-mo.  Is that really necessary?  I also found it extremely odd that you NEVER see the face of the guy that plays Judge Dredd, his helmet remains in place every second.  I am not sure if this is because the guy that played Dredd is not a well known actor or maybe had some zits on his forehead he didn’t want the public to see.  Whatever the reason, I thought it was odd.

So anyway, to me the movie was an overly gory, everyone dies but the good guys film that I just didn’t care about at the end.  I’d give it a B-.

I had a busy morning already.  I had to prepare the dogs breakfast, drop them off at Ali’s place and gas up the van before getting to work.  The rest of the week appears to be lined up to follow the same, too much to do format.

I am hoping to take in the series finale of Breaking Bad tonight.  I want to make sure I am fully awake to soak in every tragically brilliant moment of it.

Once I recover from the financial crater of the road trip I have some things I am looking to buy down the road.  One of those things is a new tv for my bedroom.  When I was putting together a checklist of things that would be cool for a replacement set a couple things came to mind, bigger, thinner, lighter, 120 mhz refresh, internet connected and 3D.  Well as I did some window shopping I noticed that 3D is largely absent from new sets.  I wondered why that would be until I did some research, 3D TV is basically dead.

Apparently at the CES show this year where consumer electronics companies roll out their latest and greatest tech, 3D was already out the door.  Evidently consumer adoption of 3D at home just never materialized.  ESPN announced in June it was shit canning their 24 hour 3D channel by the end of year due to lack of interest.

When I step back and think about my own feelings about 3D movies which is now basically take it or leave it, now that the newness of 3D has worn off, I guess I can understand.  3D tv’s cost significantly more and require you to wear glasses to get the effect.  If you are one of those unlucky people that bought a set which requires the powered, active style glasses there is a good chance you suffered from headaches and eyestrain as well while trying to experience the third dimension on your home tv.

I messed around with 3D in WoW awhile back and found the effect to be cool for about 5 minutes but distracting and annoying afterwards.

So anyway, finding out that I apparently totally missed the boat in home 3D was kind of funny.  I still might consider getting a 3D set if I get a good deal on it although I would only consider something like the LG sets that use passive glasses.  The LG’s also have a cool ability to make 2D programming 3D on the fly.

I watched the Dexter series finale last night.  Dexter has been one of my favorite shows for the last half decade.  I have been compared to Dexter by several people not because of serial killer tendencies but more because of my somewhat stoic outer appearance while a myriad of internal conversations/observations are going on.  So it all wrapped up this week.  Overall I liked the final episode although there was a bit too much symbolism going on and the grasp on reality was very, very loose at times.  Now that Dexter is done, who is going to kill the killers….

So yesterday was the last day of freedom before returning to work.  I had a pretty diverse day.  My ideas of mowing the grass were washed away by yet another very wet afternoon.  I attached the new stickers we picked up on the trip to the back of the party van.  The back window and bumper are getting filled with lots of adhesive proof of the various adventures the van has taken me to.

I also did a little digging into the additional noise I was hearing out of the van the last few days of the trip.  I turned it on and laid on the driveway to listen/look.  I saw the joint in the exhaust pipe in front of the muffler had only one of the original three bolts in place and I could see the joint was loose, leaking condensation and exhaust.  That would explain the extra noise I was hearing.  I should be able to fix it up myself this weekend with a new gasket and a few bolts.

Later in the morning I stopped by my mom’s place to give her a few souvenirs we picked up on the trip.  She was at the community pool with her “pool lady” friends, both of whom are two decades older than she is.  Mom liked the stuff although the small ceramic mask we picked up for her in New Orleans had a small piece crack off of it that I took home and glued.  I hung with mom at the pool for awhile talking about the trip and other things, it was nice.

Tuesday afternoon I did various things at the house like more computer work, planting the Joshua tree seeds I bought out west and getting a workout in although it was a big failure.

Last night was a running club board meeting but I skipped it.  The weather was shitty, the meeting agenda wasn’t pressing and I didn’t really feel like driving all the way into town for it.  Instead I used the time to do some spur of the moment work on the SSR.

Ever since I installed the Pioneer radio in my SSR I have had an annoying problem, I would get an engine whine coming through the speakers that corresponded with the RPM’s.  I have tried to address this problem a couple times, once by turning down the gain on the potentiometer on  one of the 3rd party modules in the install and a second time by relocating the ground to a different location.

Recently I was contacted by someone on the SSR fanatics site asking about my stereo install since he was installing a Pioneer radio in his truck as well.  During the conversation he mentioned how he simply used the ground built into the radio harness and did not run a separate ground wire to bare metal.  He said he has no electrical feedback in his install.  This got me thinking…

Prior to doing my install I looked into how others have done it.  The guideline I followed included a physical ground so that is what I did in my install.  However from my Tacoma radio swap I did no additional grounding and just used the factory wire harness and it’s built in ground.  So to test this theory I ripped into the dash of my truck for the 6th or 7th time.

I am disgusted at the rats nest of wires every time I pull the radio out.  Despite multiple efforts, I never found a way to clean it up that actually fit in the space I have available.  It took me awhile to dig through the cluster of wires to find what I was looking for.  When I looked at the ground connector I realized there were two black wires.  One of the wires was bare and meant to be used to ground other parts of the system, the other was wired into the factory ground in the harness.  Well I realized I had basically double grounded the system which surely was the source of my problem.  To verify this I removed the auxiliary ground and powered up the radio.  It worked fine. Doh.

Realizing this stupid mistake was aggravating but a relief at the same time.  After a difficult struggle getting the radio and it’s tangle of wires back into the dash I turned the truck on and revved the motor, verifying my noise gremlin was gone.  It was.

Putting the front dash panel back on was a pain in the ass but I already knew it would be, just as it was every other time I have had it apart.  Once it was all buttoned back up I did one more test run and again all I heard was music, finally.  Persistence pays off.

Last night I stayed up way too late getting caught up with Breaking Bad, watching the last two episodes.  Wow, some crazy, crazy stuff went down.  I had a hard time falling asleep afterwards even though I was exhausted.

When I got home last night  I had a headache and was feeling pretty annoyed.  For some reason I got it in my head that I should go out and try the hard mode of the BB challenge (20 pull ups as fast as you can go), despite my state of being.

It was again another wet evening and it was in fact drizzling as I headed outside with my tripod, camera, towel (to dry the bar) and chalk.  I didn’t do any warm up or stretching, I just dried the bar, chalked my hands and started pulling.  You can definitely tell I was in a shitty mood from my commentary. 

I did manage to best my prior attempt by exactly one second although while I was in mid-set I thought I actually was going faster than that.  20 pull ups in 30 seconds.

So my major project for last night was more work on my Tuffwing construction.   I got my hands dirty (and sticky) with CA glue.  The use of CA accelerator really helps move the build process along.  I got the wing halves, carbon fiber spars, motor mount and electronics hatch assembled and glued together.

I will need the radio receiver that was used in the Speedwing so I had to extract it.  I felt genuine remorse as I used a combination of scissors and my fingers to rip apart the wrecked plane to get to the electronics.  When Mike built this for me he meticulously and professionally embedded the rc gear inside the body of the plane.  As I ripped it apart it gave me a greater appreciation of just how much care he utilized when building the plane.  It also made me more angry at myself for crashing and destroying the wing.

I considered filming the build process but there is already a very well done Tuffwing build video out there so I didn’t bother.  I’m not in a rush to get the wing done since until my yard dries out I won’t be doing any non-quadcopter flying anytime soon.

So I got back to the bedroom early, around 9pm,  hoping to catch up on the triple header of shows I am currently watching, Breaking Bad, Dexter and Ray Donovan.  I fired up my Xbox and tried loading Breaking Bad.  It acted like the episode was available however each time I tried to view it I would get stuck in “trouble loading video” loop.  Ok, well I guess I’ll watch Dexter/Ray Donovan.  Nope, neither of their latest episodes show up as being available on the Xfinity 360 app either.  Mother f…

Ok, I grab my Kindle and browse to the Xfinitytv web site.  I see the latest Breaking Bad episode is available on their site. Awesome.  I try to load it up but get stonewalled by the version of Flash running on the Kindle.  I am unable to update it conventionally on the device so again I am left jonesing for my Breaking Bad fix. Ok on to plan C.

I grab my laptop and again bring up the Xfinity site.  I am finally able to launch the episode, sweet.

Watching shows the the Xfinitytv web site sucks, of all the ways to watch a show, their website jams the most commercials down your throat.  On top of that they disable your ability to cleanly navigate through the shows timeline.  So yes, this is normally annoying, however last night it was maddening.

Ever since I upgraded my laptop to Windows 8 my video does not work well on the Xfinity site.  Right in the middle of a show the video will freeze, (audio continues) and I get a message about the video driver encountering an error.  The only way I can get video back is to refresh the page which is where the problem snowballs.

Let’s say you are at the 35 minute mark in a show when you have a problem and the last block of 6 or 7 commercials last played at the 30 minute mark.  If you try to resume the show it will make you watch the most recent block of commercials again, even though you already suffered through them before.  As time went on the error was popping up more and more often, sending me back into this maddening advertisement downward spiral.

I tried a video driver update and still had no luck.  I then resorted to using a generic video driver with poor resolution to just get through the damn show.  I finally finished the hour long show after a nearly 2.5 hour ordeal.  It was so fcking annoying.  Thank goodness the episode was awesome and worth the effort.

My Saturday was really busy from sunset to sundown.  After weeding before it got too hot, I headed inside to do the cleaning.  I was supposed to be picking up the dogs Saturday morning for a prolonged visit until Tuesday but Ali was delayed in her departure.  I wound up getting them early in the afternoon on my way back from stops at Home Depot and Auto Zone.

One of the items I picked up at Home Depot was a tile file.  When I installed the ceramic tile in the house a decade or so ago I had certain areas that were not as flat as they should be due to an uneven surface below it, despite my efforts to smooth it out with thin set concrete beforehand.  The end result was a few tiles that had an elevated edge/corner that I feel sometimes when walking around barefoot.  These edges also beat the hell out of the rubber portions of the Scooba when I set it loose.

For whatever reason, despite the annoyance this caused me, I never looked into how to address it, until last week.  I read about something called a tile stone that is designed to smooth sharp tile edges.  What I bought accomplished the same end result.  The file has a coarse texture on one side and finer texture on the other to finish the job.

I knocked down a couple high corners as a test.  It worked well, dulling the previously pointy reminder of my poor tile installation ability.  I plan to crawl around on my hands and knees in the near future, obliterating any and all sharp edges that remain.

I also did three different filter changes on the van Saturday afternoon, swapping out the oil, air and fuel filter.  The fuel filter swap was the most involved.  The old filter looked like it had been in place for quite awhile.  All three procedures were taped to be added to my growing collection of amateur automotive maintenance videos. 🙂

During the day Saturday I took 15 minutes out of my day to try to fly my Sky Scooter.  On my first flight the plane was up and down almost immediately when it banked hard right after my toss, crashing into the ground.

The impact broke one of the folding props.  I had another set of props inside although they were smaller and would provide less thrust.  I put them on anyway, I had nothing to lose.

I got the plane up in the air with my second launch attempt but the small prop made a big difference in power or lack there of.  Compared to what I was accustomed to with my SpeedWing, the Sky Scooter was trudging through the air.

The slower air speed also means it was more susceptible to wind, the plane was getting buffeted about quite a bit.  I had to be really on the sticks and paying attention the entire time.  I managed to get the plane down safely after a 5 or 6 minute flight.

Ali said she was ok with me borrowing her Volt while she was gone for some gas free miles.  The only thing she asked was that maybe I could clean it since it was very dirty.  I did so both inside and out.  It was indeed very, very dirty but I figure elbow grease is free, gas is not.

A spent a lot of time cooking chicken for the dogs.  Ali bought a ton of what she thought were boneless thighs to add to their meals.  Well it turns out they were the bone in variety.  I had a huge pot of boiling water filled with chicken thighs.  I then pulled them out one by one and had to dust off my old meat cutter skills to remove the meat from the bones.  It was very gross.  I can hardly believe I spent over three years of my life doing this sort of stuff day in and day out in my late teens/early 20’s.

On Saturday night I watched Wall-E for the second time, I just wanted to see it again.  It’s such a cute movie but I also am in tune with the underlying tones in the film of where mankind is headed, with everyone being a huge fat ass that is carted around 24/7 on flying chairs.  All these people do is consume, consume, consume and nothing else.  Many people today are practically there already, just slap some rockets on their recliner.

On Sunday morning Cindy did another training brick with me.  I suggested we abandon the bike portion this week and instead do a longer run like the 10K square, using the water park as a starting point.  I figured we could then follow it up with a swim.  Well since the water park doesn’t open until 10Am I figured it made sense to start the run a little before 9, assuming a 10K will take somewhere around an hour.

Well my logic had a flaw.  It didn’t take into consideration it was August in SW Florida.  There is a reason that many runners start their runs very early (6AM) in these parts, especially in the 6 month long summers, it gets very hot, very early.

I was ok for maybe the first 2 miles of the run, after that the heat and humidity really started to bother me.  I just felt like shit.  Despite not running very fast (an average 9:44 pace), my body just wanted me to stop.  To be honest, if I was running by myself I can pretty much guarantee I would have stopped either at the 3.75 mile mark at the corner of Oakes and Vanderbilt or at the corner of Vanderbilt and Livingston.  I just wanted the misery to end.

My ego and desire to not look like a pussy, prevailed, dragging me to the finish line.  The funny thing is Cindy said she felt awful as well but didn’t want to say anything because she didn’t want to seem wimpy.

I was totally exhausted as I sat down on a curb to try to catch my breath.  Running in the heat was bad enough but add into that we didn’t have any water stops along the way, adding to the fail in my logic. After a long break I finally got myself into the pool for three 400 yard sets.  My first 400 was really slow, about 9:30.  Surprisingly my final two 400’s actually got faster, 9:00 and then 8:15.  I guess I got a second wind.

I was so damn tired after it was all said and done.  I was sure at some point I would need to collapse for a nap but that opportunity never presented itself.

I got back outside to try to fly the Sky Scooter some more on Sunday afternoon.  After a non-damaging failed launch attempt I got the plane back up in the air on the second try although I barely avoided smashing into the fence on take off.  That flight went slow but smooth.  I landed the plane safely.

I had one of my two new battery packs out there with me as well.  I wasn’t quite sure if I had a full charge in the pack but I figured I would slap it in the plane and give it a try.  The new pack had significantly more punch than the 4 year old batteries I used on the first flight.  The Sky Scooter climbed steadily, much higher than I had it the first time around.

I was doing big loops around the back yard however after only a couple minutes I noticed a large drop in altitude like the battery pack was dying.  The plane at this point was out far beyond the rear fence line, I tried to get it back but it just kept going down.  I knew I was in trouble so just as it disappeared behind a large pine tree I killed the throttle and pulled full up on the elevator control, hoping to minimize damage.

I never saw the plane actually hit the ground, I just knew the general direction I last saw it, somewhere behind the pine tree.  As I walked out behind my property I saw the two fill pits in the vicinity, both filled to the brim with rain water.  I knew with my luck, the plane was probably in the middle of one of them.  I did a quick survey of both bodies of water and didn’t see my aircraft.

I kept looking around, figuring the blue fuselage should stick out like a sore thumb.  I also would stop and try to fire off the motor and rudder servos, hoping for an audible clue to the planes location.  I had no luck.  After I was out there for maybe 10 minutes wandering around, Cindy came out to help me with the search.

I was dumbfounded, how could we not see the damn plane!?  I canvassed certain areas 2,3,4 times, figuring I just had to be not seeing it.  At around the half hour mark of searching I was just about ready to give up and write off the Sky Scooter as lost in action.  I decided to do one more loop, farther out than I thought the plane could have been.

Finally I spot the scooter sitting in a ditch, a good 150 yards beyond my rear fence line.  The tail of the plane was broken but it was otherwise intact.  The battery was ejected on impact and was laying a few feet away from the plane.  I trudged back towards the house and yelled over to Cindy that the I found the Scooter.

I didn’t really care the tail was broken on the plane, I could get another if I want to.  I was more interested in recovering the plane for the various expensive electronics that are in it.  However repairing the Scooter will be a low priority since I have my TuffWing to build and my Blade MQX quad copter is supposed to show up today.

On Sunday night I saw the new Red Dawn.  It was pretty dumb but mildly entertaining.  For some reason the original Red Dawn with Patrick Swayze seemed much more believable than what was portrayed this time around. I’d give it a B.

Nicki once again has been concerning me with her eating or lack there of.  The last time I had them out at the house she was all on board with her new mostly chicken thigh diet.  She was chomping at the bit for me to put down her food and she was eating every last bite.

Saturday night she just picked the chicken out of her dinner, leaving all of the dog food untouched.  Then Sunday morning she ate nothing of her breakfast, despite it being loaded down with the chicken I just cooked the night before.  She has skipped meals before but I really started getting concerned when she didn’t even eat the treats I offered to her, something she normally never turns down.

Last night for dinner she ate a portion of her dinner but left at least half of it.  This morning she once again ignored breakfast until it was sat on the carpet next to her where she was laying down.  She then at least ate all of the chicken but once again would not touch the rest of the dog food.

I think her rear legs/knees are really bothering her, more so now that the baby aspirin was stopped after another vet visit last week.  When she is standing by her food platform I can see her back legs sliding on the tile, which she must find annoying/painful.  I am going to try putting one of the kitchen rugs in front of her food stand to give her better traction when eating.  If that doesn’t work I may be just feeding her from the sitting/laying position.

I hate seeing her struggle like this.

I have been working on setting up the refurbished Ipad 2 to be used for running club transactions at the store.  Part of that has been establishing a dedicated Square account that is connected to the club bank account.  It will be used to allow people to pay with a credit card, even if they are handing over a paper application for a race.  Up until now if someone was paying for a race they had to use a check or cash.

Square is a great little package.  The fees are cheap, only 2.75% of the transaction if you swipe a card using their reader or 3.5% +15 cents if you punch in card information manually.  The Iphone/Ipad app allows you to create a functional, simple yet powerful point of sale system with no up front costs (minus the Ipad).    I am excited to see how we integrate it with our other club technology.

Speaking of technology, we are using some of it to help a local high school student runner.  Her mom sadly has developed cancer and has become unable to work, causing much hardship to this single parent family.  This girl contacted the club asking for us to help in some way if possible.

At first the idea was holding a race to help raise money but after some online brainstorming, someone suggested to make the club social run tonight a fundraiser where participants would be encouraged to donate to the cause. I took it a step further, suggesting an online venue to allow people far and wide to donate with their credit card.  I did this via our normal race registrar.

Response online has been great so far, much more than I expected.  It helped drive home that if you make giving easier for people, they are more likely to do so.  When we add in whatever we raise on site this evening it should add up to a nice shot in the arm for Elizabeth’s mom.  If you want to check out the donation page go here.

Yesterday in the mail I received the two new battery packs that were supposed to be for my flying wing that I smashed into the ground the day prior.

I am hoping I can still utilize them in my Sky Scooter, although that thing is pretty shaky n the air as is.  Oh well.

My plan last night was to watch the new Breaking Bad episode.  Unfortunately I was so damn sleepy I only got about a half hour into it before heavy eyelids took over.  I shut the Xbox off and fell asleep, figuring I would try to finish it tonight.

Well I woke up for some reason this morning early, a little after 4AM.  I got the bright idea to finish off the episode.  Well although it was a good idea, AMC did not make it easy on me.

The way the Xfinity streaming app works on the 360, it doesn’t always save your spot when you exit a show and go back to it later, unlike the HBO and Netflix app that do this very well.  Ok so I relaunch the show and figure I will just fast forward to the half hour mark and resume.  Wrong.

Certain channels don’t like the idea of letting you fast forward through the show and the embedded commercials.  They have the ability to disable fast forwarding altogether.  Well evidently AMC follows this practice.  So in order to get to where I stopped I just had to let the show play along at regular speed.

I didn’t just sit there and Dufner it, I used the time to go out and prepare my normal breakfast of egg beaters, peanut butter wheat toast and OJ.  By the time I brought the plate back to the bedroom to eat we were getting to the point of the show where I was nodding off last night so it worked out well.

The episode was epic, although I would expect nothing less.  I am still planning to watch all 8 episodes leading up to this point just to get everything fresh in my head.  I have 4 of them under my belt so far.

Falling Skies is back and I watched the first two episodes last night.  It isn’t anything as epic as Game of Thrones or Walking Dead but alien invasion shows always will hold my interest.

James Gandolfini, aka. Tony Soprano, dropped dead yesterday at the young age of 51 of an apparent heart attack.  He was a great actor and by all accounts a nice guy.  It’s too bad he didn’t pay much attention to his personal health.   Everyone decides how they want to roll through life.  I prefer to stack the health deck in my favor by putting in the work.  Many more prefer to just keep pulling that trigger day in and day out, hoping the chamber is empty.

I made a half ass attempt to do 5 sets of 10 pull ups with strict 60 second rest periods last night.  I didn’t even get close, bailing after rep 37.  My failure piled onto aggravation when I saw that the backing pad for my triple gym left a big indentation in the drywall above the doorway.

I think the design of the equipment applies more leverage to the anchor points of the pull up bar since the main bar is up and away from the door jamb instead of straddling across it. Evidently when a 180 pound man tries to rep pull ups at a decent pace with this set up it can be hazardous to typical drywall.

I actually have entertained mounting a pull up bar hanging off the high vaulted ceiling in the house.  I won’t though, the last thing I need is to pull down a section of drywall overhead or bend the ceiling studs.  2×4’s with a couple nails in them aren’t all that sturdy.