Category Vehicle Maintenance

So my weekend got off to a very frustrating start on Friday.  In the mail was a letter from Synchrony Bank regarding the Amazon store credit card I applied for.  Uh, I didn’t apply for such a card.  I have not applied for a new credit card in years.  So considering I had someone go on a small spending spree with my Visa card a month or so ago I was on full suspicious mode.

My initial thoughts were maybe the letter itself is a hoax and an elaborate phishing scheme.  The letter instructs you to call a number to complete the card application.  Perhaps this was just to get people to hand over key information over the phone?  I hopped on the internet and checked the phone number and verified it was indeed owned by Synchrony so I decided to give it a call.

I explained to the guy on the phone I got this letter for a credit card I did not apply for.  He said he was sorry to let me know that whomever did apply for the card had some key information like my date of birth and social security number.  He said that the application did trip some red flags which is why a letter was sent to my address as a secondary form of verification.  Of course I found it extremely disconcerting that my SS number is out in the wild.  The bank rep was very helpful, letting me know what to do next, call Trans Union and report the incident.  What happens is when you report such an incident to a credit bureau they will report the fraud to the other agencies.  A 90 day flag is then placed on your account that indicates no credit should be extended in your name without additional verification. Well that’s cool but what happens after 90 days?  All the criminal has to be is patient and try again.  The guy said if you file a police report you can get that flag placed on your account for 7 years.  Yea it’s a pain in the ass to jump through that hoop but better than getting your id hijacked.

I thanked the bank rep and called Trans Union who apparently has outsourced their call center to India, awesome.  I struggled through the conversation with the phone rep but at the end of it was assured the flag was now active on my account.  For the foreseeable future I need to have my ears up and eyes wide open for ANYTHING suspicious in my financial world.

On Saturday I decided to resurrect my infamous to do list, a small hand written piece of paper that resides on the kitchen counter, laying out things I want to accomplish for the day.  I rarely use this method anymore although it used to be a weekly ritual.  It’s an effective way to get things done.  Saturday’s list had six or seven items on it.  Crossing them all off consumed the majority of the daylight hours, I finished up mid-afternoon.

Late afternoon I rewarded myself for my labor with an electric unicycle ride to the school.  I decided to ride my Ninebot One which I have hardly touched since I got the bigger and faster Gotway Msuper.  I just felt like mixing it up.  The Ninebot which I probably put over 250 miles on felt a bit foreign at first, feeling small and nimble.  Cindy drove over to the school with Sadie and Elsa to walk around for a bit while I was there.  I hitched a ride back to the house with her when I was done.  During the ride the total mileage on the 9B1 crossed the 300 mile mark.  The last 30-40 or so miles have actually been ridden by Daniel, not me.

Saturday night we stayed home and watched Mechanic, Resurrection, a Jason Statham movie.  Jason seems to play an almost identical role in every film he does which isn’t a bad thing.  His movies usually have good action and excitement despite being very predictable.  Unfortunately I fell asleep and missed the entire ending although Cindy filled in the blanks for me.  I feel safe giving it a standard B rating.

So my months long streak of getting out for a run on the weekends ended on Sunday.  My cold has continued to slowly ramp up with more runny nose and coughing fits.  Although it hasn’t decimated my energy level based on the work I did on Saturday I definitely was not feeling great.  I took Nyquil cold medicine Saturday night which knocked me out, I didn’t roll out of bed until 7:45, awaking in the Nyquil haze that feels odd.  Oh well, I will start it back up next weekend and I actually hope to run at the gym during the week.

Katie and her boyfriend came over mid-morning for yet another EUC ride.  We rode around the Heritage Bay development mostly.  Both Katie and Daniel have become real EUC enthusiasts.  Katie logged at least 5 miles on the slow training wheel without any major incidents which is very impressive.

I was home alone during the afternoon as Cindy went to her nephews birthday party.  I didn’t go because of feeling lousy and my desire to catch the Eagles game.  In retrospect the game was certainly not worth any sacrifice.  The Eagles played like shit, again.  It was the exact opposite of the first three games of the season where it appeared the team was hitting on all cylinders with solid play on both sides of the ball with very few mistakes.  The team has now transformed into basically a bunch of bumbling idiots, unable to get out of their own way.

Carson Wentz had his worst game of the season, throwing three interceptions and could have literally had double that if the Bengal defenders held onto the ball.  Surely the fault is not entirely his as his surrounding cast has gone into the shitter.  But Carson has not performed well, making bad decisions and bad throws on a pretty routine basis.  I still think he is the QB of the future but the future is considerably less bright than 6 weeks ago.

Doug Pederson who like the rest of team, surprised me early in the season, has now been performing more on par with my pre-season expectations.  He just seems to have no answers to halt the steady downturn in performance by his players.  Yesterday was a must win game if the team wanted to stay in the playoff hunt.  Their response to that challenge was to come out and absolutely suck in every aspect of the game.  The rest of the season will be interesting to see if the plummet continues or if the team decides to actually give a damn.

The game was so bad that I spent some of the second half performing a modification to my Tacoma.  A YouTube viewer of my channel informed me of a mod many owners have been doing to their AC drain outlet to prevent possible future problems.  In what seems a dumb design choice by Toyota, the drain tube for AC condensation is right above the frame.  Some owners have reported this constant flow of water has started to cause some surface rust on their frame welds.  The mod involves attaching a longer hose to the outlet so the water drips out below the frame instead of above it.

I purchased some heater hose, hose clamps and zip ties to complete the work.  I wound up spending more time doing the work than I expected, trying to get the additional hose routed and oriented in such a way to not impede drainage of the line.  Of course I documented the process on video, take a look below if you feel like.

Sadie and Elsa have had so much fun playing over the weekend.  It’s great that they get along.  Elsa in general has seemed less skittish and fearful while Sadie is there.  I am not sure why that is but hopefully it carries over after Sadie goes home tomorrow.

I took yesterday off to drive Cindy all the way up to St Petersburg to go to the VA facility there.  Although it is nice the VA offers free health care to veterans, it is definitely not convenient or fast.  We had to go up there to talk to a specialist that was not available anywhere closer.  We pulled out before 7:30 for the long drive.  In total we spent over 6 hours on the road, it almost felt like a driving day we would put in during one of our road trips.

The doctor we spoke to was a stark contrast to the last one who had terrible bed side manner and was just plain rude.  This guy was older and really gave Cindy an opportunity to try to express the variety of symptoms she has been dealing with for quite awhile.  The biggest problem is the symptoms  have many, many possible sources.  The doctor listened to everything but still was unable to give Cindy the clear cut diagnosis she was hoping for.  However he did lay out several courses of action that Cindy will be following up on.

On the drive home we stopped at an undeniably low rent lunch shack called Salem’s Gyro.  The inside was dirty and run down but it was the only food place I saw before getting back on 275.    Their menu was interesting with fried chicken gizzards being a feature item.  The shrimp platter Cindy got and the fish sandwich I picked was actually quite good although being very “heavy”.

So Monday night Cindy and I dropped off the Tacoma at the dealer.  Cindy had been telling me about some weird sensation she was getting while braking.  During the day Monday she actually had an ABS error flash on the screen as well as an error regarding the blind spot detection system.  Well I didn’t want to mess around with any potential braking problem so we got it in there right away. The truck was in there all day Tuesday, my hope was we could pick it up on the way home.  Around two o’clock we had not heard anything so I had Cindy contact them.  The service rep said they were still working on it so I decided to stop on the way home since it was on the way.

So I found my service rep and he told me the shop foreman took the truck out and did notice some odd behavior when braking and the error came up on the instrument panel.  At that time in the conversation I recalled that I had seen an odd airbag error a couple weeks ago that fixed itself as well so I shared that as well.  So anyway after reproducing the error the foreman went to hook up to the vehicle diagnostic connector to see if he could pull more information.  When he did he saw I had my Automatic adapter attached, the cloud trip logger I got for Christmas last year.  I had it in my 99 Tacoma and put it in my 2016 Tacoma during my first week or two of ownership. The guy pulled the Automatic out of the diag port and was unable to get the error to reappear, odd.

So the troubleshooter in me immediately suggested to my service rep the next logical step would be to run the truck without the Automatic adapter attached.  Even though it has been fine for all these months, logic dictated that this simple solution should be the first one tried.  We agreed I would take the truck and report back if I see any errors reoccur.

Later at home when I was documenting my problem for my YouTube channel I noticed something very interesting.  The Automatic adapter was rattling when I shook it.  The rattle to me indicated the possibility that some electronic component inside failed which absolutely could have unpredictable behavior when connected to the vehicle computer.  So far on the drive home last night and the drive to work today I have seen no reoccurrence of the ghost in the machine. It would be great if the problem was that simple although speaks poorly of the quality control of the Automatic adapter.

I was very excited to get a ship notice on my new Msuper wheel this morning from SpeedyFeet, located in the UK.  I am being hopeful that somehow it gets to my door by Saturday although I am probably being overly optimistic.

I would love to talk in depth about episode 1 of this season of Walking Dead but won’t because of spoiler potential.  Let me just say it set Cindy off in a near hysterical crying, screaming fit which I don’t think is the reaction the show producers should be aiming for.

So I was pleasantly surprised that my replacement DirecTv receiver was at my door already yesterday.  On the phone I was told it would be 2-5 business days, it got there in one.  Gotta love under promising and over delivering. So last night I hooked up the new receiver which is a much newer model than what I had.  I got everything connected and started going through the set up screens.  When it tried to connect to the satellite service it would repeatedly fail.  I backed up and ran the signal strength test.  It showed straight zeroes across the board , wtf….

So after screwing around some more I finally decided to call DirecTV support.  After verifying that my dish and switch type selections were correct he had me try to connect repeatedly and again had no more success than I did.  He said maybe my dish was out of alignment but I assured it had not been touched.  I did not tell him that I had a likely lightning strike however.  The rep said the only thing he could do was schedule a tech to come out to check stuff out.  Ok, fine. I scheduled a visit for Sunday, yes they work 7 days a week.

So after I hung up I still was not satisfied with the troubleshooting.  Just for the hell of it, I decided to remove the “B-band convertor” that is inline between the satellite coax feed and the receiver.  I reconnected the line to the receiver and tried to connect again.  It worked.  Evidently the convertor which is used to gain access to a number of HD channels was also damaged from the electrical surge.

So I called DirecTv back, hoping I could skip a service call and just have the convertor sent to me.  We went through some more set up screens and verified that even though I was now talking to DirecTV satellites, I did not have access to all of the stuff I should because of the lack of this little grey box.  The rep said the tech will have a replacement convertor if needed.  Well it was obviously needed.  I wound up staying out there until 10 getting the problem sorted out.

It looks like my new 70 inch tv is going to be the last thing to get replaced or fixed.  I got a call from the service that does the repair.  They said they had to order a main board for the TV and that was back ordered.  They probably won’t even have the part for a week, meaning we will be limping along with a TV less than half the size of what is normally sitting there, oh well.

So last night there was some gusty winds and brief periods of rain but overall the effect of Matthew in our area was very minimal.  We slept through the night without hearing any severe weather.  I was glad to see when I woke up that the eye of the storm has stayed comfortably off shore to this point, keeping the worst case scenario off the table.  From what I can tell the biggest problem as of now is large scale power loss but even that is much less severe than it could have been.  Florida is not out of the woods yet as it will be scraping along the northeast coast during the day.  If you look at the long term forecast there is a chance the damn thing could go out to sea, loop around and smack us again.  Let’s hope that scenario doesn’t play out.

Dad, Teresa, Maggie and Clara should be arriving this afternoon for a weeklong visit.  Of course we need to be very cautious with a yard full of chickens.  Until we get a feel for any potential aggression level from their dogs towards the chickens they will be kept separated.  If the chickens are free ranging in the yard the dogs will not be and if we have the dogs off leash the chickens will be inside the coop/run.  Of course we hope everyone just gets along.  I plan to have Sadie out for the weekend as well to add to the fun.

This will be the first time they will have visited my place without me having a large conversion available to shuttle both humans and dogs around the area.  We will likely just have to do the dual car thing when animals are involved with wherever we wind up going.  My step mom and Cindy are planning to go to Key West for a couple days next week which will be fun for them.  Outside of that we have not made firm plans we will just go with the flow as we normally do.

Oh I forgot, we dropped off the Prius to get the passenger wheel bearing/hub replaced since the part I ordered on Amazon showed up yesterday.  The repair took on a more urgent nature since Cindy and Teresa plan to take the Prius to Key West to maximize mpg.

I figured a long 5 day weekend needed to be recapped now instead of later to conserve brain cells.  The main reason I took Thursday and Friday off was Cindy needed a ride to the Cape Coral VA hospital because she was having a MRI done.  She was going to take a valium to ease some of the anxiety the MRI process can cause so with me being there we could head home without first waiting for the valium to wear off.

I brought my Warcraft book and also had a Kindle version of Lenny Dykstra’s book I could read.  Instead I wound up playing Hearthstone the couple hours I was waiting while watching the Buzzr channel which is nothing but old game shows.  I forgot just how much I enjoyed shows like Match Game and Family Feud in my younger days.

Cindy emerged from her procedure intact and only a little fuzzy from the valium.  By the time we got home it was mid-afternoon.  Cindy was really tired and tried to nap.  I putzed around the house doing a few things, including removing the dealer emblem from the back of my Tacoma.

I designated Friday as the day to get the rain shelter built on the side of the house over the water equipment.  I have had most of the raw materials to do the project in the shed for a couple of weeks and I was ready to get it out of the way.  I got outside relatively early.  I had some grand delusion that I would have most of the shelter done before the heat of the day set in.  Yea, right.

It quickly became an all day affair with me laboring away in 90+ degree/ 90% humidity which is just pure misery.  Of course I had to go to Home Depot to grab some extra stuff I hadn’t anticipated which is nearly always the case with my home improvement projects.  At least it gave me a reason to take Sadie with.  Home Depot has quickly become one of her favorite places since we discovered it was dog friendly.

I was working on the shelter until almost 5PM and by the time clean up began my ass was dragging big time.  Despite drinking throughout the day I felt majorly dehydrated and exhausted.  Thanks to Cindy’s help I got the frame in place and stained.  The only thing that remained was attaching the roof panels but I needed some additional parts to make that happen so it was going to have to wait until Sunday afternoon or Monday morning.

Cindy had spent a good portion of Thursday evening and Friday working on her costume for Supercon.  She had decided late in the week she was going to go as Tracer, one of the heroes from Overwatch.  Of course the easiest thing to do when it comes to costumes is to simply buy one.  The problem with that is then you look just like everyone else that just bought one.

Cindy has always been good, very good actually at making costumes by hand.  She has an uncanny knack to just be able to take a bunch of raw materials and make very cool costumes out of it.  She uses a similar process in costume making as I do with home projects, start with a general idea and tweak it as you go.

She was stressing out late Friday, not thinking she was going to be able to get t all done.  She actually did not get it all done Friday, she did the finishing work Saturday morning, right up until the time we were heading out for Florida Supercon in Miami.  I opted to not do any special costume, declaring my Under Armour Spiderman shirt as festive enough.

We took the Prius across state opting for gas savings over the more comfortable cruising the 2016 Tacoma offers.  The drive went relatively smooth until we ran into some pretty serious traffic coming into Miami which is normal.  Our plan was to park in a garage that was in between our hotel and the convention center, both within walking distance.  The walk to Supercon was a few blocks which didn’t feel great in the heat and humidity.  We could tell we were getting close as we saw more and more people in costume going the same direction.

Cindy had planned for us to go to Supercon for a bit and then go back to the hotel for her to do her costume, hair and make up in the afternoon.  Once we saw so many people already dressed up and the long security line we realized it may have been better for us to be in full costume from the start instead of having to come, go and come back again.  It was our first time at an event like this so we had much to learn.

Like I mentioned the security line to get in was very long but luckily they had a lot of staff there so the line moved quick.  The time went quickly since everywhere you turned there was someone in an interesting or funny costume to look at.  It didn’t take long till I regretted not doing any sort of more formal costume.

I had never been inside the Miami Convention Center before.  I was impressed at how big it was.  Once we got inside the main show floor it was just wall to wall exhibits and people.  It was a nerd’s fantasy without a doubt.  We met up with our friend Kim and her two kids who also were over from Naples, we spent a good chunk of our time at the con with them.

Walking around was just amazing with one amazing visual after another.  It sort of reminded me of how I feel when I go to Vegas but in a different way.  If you wanted to, you could easily spend a few paychecks on merchandise.  They had anything and everything you could imagine.  Luckily I am not much of a collector so I didn’t buy anything.

You could also easily spend a small fortune if you were interested in getting an autograph or a photo with the diverse cast of B and C list celebrities that were there.  It seemed like the absolute minimum you would spend to get anyone’s autograph was $25 and another $10 if you wanted to throw a picture of you with the person as well.  The whole thing was a bit of a turn off to me although you were allowed to at least walk up and say hi to any of them without opening up your wallet.

They had two levels of celebrities there.  The upper tier was against one of the walls where each person had a roped off waiting area.  The not so famous people were plopped behind normal tables where you could just walk up to them.  I thought it was funny that even though this was “Supercon”, the array of celebrities were definitely not just from the super hero/comic book realm.  There were WWE Wrestlers and even cast members of Sesame Street signing autographs.

Ironically the one autograph we actually paid for was for Emilio Delgado from Sesame Street.   He was extremely friendly and down to earth.  He seemed to be a genuinely nice man.  It was amazing that the guy has been on Sesame Street  his entire adult life.  I clearly recall watching him on the show as a kid helping me learn my abc’s and 123’s.

The most interesting celebrity sighting for me was Henry Winkler, aka. The Fonz from Happy Days, one of my favorite shows growing up.  Henry looked about as far away from his famous character as you could imagine.  He is old, overweight and was wearing plaid pants with a pink untucked oxford.  I don’t think Henry has ever come out as being openly gay for whatever reason but it seemed pretty obvious to me that is the case.  He was nice enough to come out and greet people waiting in line and allowing people to take his picture without paying for it.

Cindy had a funny conversation with Bruce Boxleitner who she evidently met randomly when she was in high school.  Cindy thought he was the bomb and evidently gave him a flower way back when.  Cindy got red in the face as she told the story and Bruce laughed out loud as she told it.  It was pretty funny.  He is old now too.

So we decided it was time for Cindy to put her costume on.  We walked first to the parking garage to grab our stuff and then a few more blocks to get to our hotel.  It was admittedly a pain in the ass to walk there and we had to take a detour into a back alley due to construction that made Cindy nervous.

During check in I found it annoying that even though our room was supposed to be “paid in full” already, they tack on another 20 buck resort fee.  WTF, since when does PAID IN FULL not mean paid in full.  Our reward for the resort fee was two vouchers, one for a complimentary drink that we never used and another for the continental breakfast, yippee.

The room was nothing spectacular but fine for our needs.  While I laid on the bed and chilled out Cindy began the long process of doing her hair and make up for her Tracer costume.  Even though she estimated earlier it would take her 30 minutes to get ready I knew it would take much longer based on experience.  It wound up taking close to 3 times that. We thought it would be interesting to have the GoPro rolling to document the transformation.  I took the 75-80 minutes of video and condensed it down to around 14 minutes through the magic of editing.  Check it out if you have time.

The combo of the make up and outfit really made for a convincing visual.  The fact that we saw no other Tracer’s earlier made me think Cindy was going to get a lot of picture requests.  My prediction turned out to be very true.  To get back to the convention center we decided to dip our toe into the world of Uber, something we never tried before.  We figured walking 6 or 7 blocks with Cindy in full make up and costume would have sort of sucked.  Plus we were handed a card at the center to get an Uber ride for free so it made sense.

Being an Uber virgin I had no idea just how efficient it was.  After installing the app and requesting a ride we literally had a car waiting for us outside in a couple minutes.  We didn’t expect it to be quite so fast and had to haul ass downstairs to the lobby.  Just as we were walking out my phone rang with a call from the driver letting us know she was there, wow.  Now one of the big perks you hear about Uber is you don’t tip.  Even though I knew that, old habits die hard and I pulled the few singles I had in my wallet and gave it to the driver.  I was amazed at just how smooth, efficient and clean the service is. It was so impressive that I suggested to Cindy she should look into doing part time Uber back home.  Her personality and schedule would be a great fit for it.

So once we got to the convention center it took absolutely no time until the fruit of Cindy’s labor became apparent with people asking to take their picture with her.  Her costume was pretty damn spectacular.  We didn’t keep official count but I estimate she had no fewer than 50-75 people that asked to take their picture with her.  There were some other people dressed up as Overwatch characters that made for some good photo ops as well.

I was mostly a passive part of the experience and was happy to be so.  This was Cindy in her element, with a smile and happy words to share with anyone that wanted a picture.  She said her face literally hurt from smiling so much by the end of the night.  It was pretty crazy but in a good way.

We had an unfortunate incident during the afternoon when they evacuated the building.  Evidently a smoke alarm was tripped from something other than a fire. It did give us a chance for Cindy to get a funny picture with a guy dressed as one of the crazy guys from Mad Max.  We were only outside for maybe 15 minutes before the all clear was sounded and were allowed back inside.

Cindy posed for a 3d rendering of herself that was set up.  They basically take your picture from something like 40 cameras simultaneously and can stitch it into a 3d model that you actually have produced into a statue.  Cindy got the GIF version of it for free.

A short young girl approached Cindy and asked if she could take her picture as she was apparently a Tracer/Overwatch fan.  Cindy quickly realized it was Briana Hildebrand who was in Deadpool.  She was one of the celebrities at the show.  We thought it was kind of awesome she asked to take a pic of Cindy.

We spent the majority of the rest of the afternoon and evening just walking around and taking everything in between picture requests of Cindy.  It was just fun and the entire building was filled with a very positive energy.

The only formal thing we did was attend the costume contest (that Cindy should have entered)  It was not as much fun as I had hoped.  The theater was packed and I was seated next to a guy that had a definite creepy vibe.  He was easily in his 50’s but had his Nintendo 3DS in hand and was playing some stupid looking game that seemed targeted at 5 year olds for a good portion of the show.  He also seemed to clap the loudest for the costume contest participants dressed as or played by young girls.  I felt an repeated urge to deliver a sharp blow with my left elbow to his nose.

The contest was too long, running over two hours.  The majority of the participants were dressed as characters from games, shows, or comics that Cindy and I had no familiarity with.  Plus we were too far away from the stage to get a great view of anything.  I had a much better time checking out the costumes as we walked around the con.

By the time we got out of the costume show it was late, after 9:30.  The main exhibit area was closed at that point but we went upstairs were the video games were set up to hang out a little bit with the diehards before heading out.  We met so many great people during the Supercon that it actually made me eager to experience it again.  Like I said, just seeing Cindy so happy was worth the price of admission to me. We said goodbye to Kim and her kids before hailing yet another Uber to get us back to the hotel.  We were exhausted but glad we made the effort to get there.  It was something neither of us experienced before.

On Sunday morning we headed out after our decent continental breakfast. We hailed our third Uber in two days to run us back to the parking garage instead of us lugging the stuff.  I felt a bit lazy doing it this time but it had rained earlier and we didn’t want to get caught in the rain again while hauling our stuff.  After fueling up with some DD coffee we headed back across Alligator Alley towards home.  The drive was without incident.  Our Sunday once we got home was filled with mostly chores associated with returning from vacation, even short ones.  We always have anxiety about the chickens well being when we aren’t home.  I also worked on getting the long video of Cindy’s Tracer transformation ripped which took quite awhile.

Sunday night we watched my latest Netflix dvd, Creed, a movie we wanted to see in the theater.  I thought it was good but was curious why it wasn’t called Rocky 6.  Sure Stallone isn’t the fighter in this movie but I think the film totally revolved around him.  I thought he did a really good job and I liked the movie overall, regardless of how improbable the outcomes were. A-

This morning I knew I had the rain shelter project foremost on my plate.  Once again I hoped to be able to knock it out early and again I ran into complications that made that not happen.  I underestimated the amount of roofing screws I would need to attach the panels and had to go back to Home Depot for the third time during my extended weekend to get what I needed.  I finally got the project finished up around lunch time and had a nice hard downpour to test it with later in the afternoon.  Just as I hoped, the shelter kept the equipment dry.  When the sun came back out I verified the temperature under there felt a ton more bearable than when the bare sun is beating on you.

If you would like to see the rain shelter install process chopped down to a 24 minute time capsule, look below.

I also had a small side repair that was annoying me.  The pool filter has had a small leak for quite awhile.  In an attempt to stop it I bought a new lock ring and O ring for it.  When I installed both I was rewarded with a leak that was worse than before.  I then got some O ring lubricant, hoping that would stop the leak.  It slowed it down somewhat but it was still dripping.  I decided I would attach the top of the canister filter with it turned about 90 degrees from it’s normal front facing orientation.  That simple change addressed the drip.  Water no longer was running down the side.  It’s an unexpected simple fix but a fix is a fix in my book.

The rest of my day has been consumed with editing the rain shelter video you see above as well as writing this blog entry which has been fueled by three Miller Lites.  Yea sure I wish I had a couple more days where I had less to do but that always seems to be the case.  It was the first time in close to a decade that my 4th of July didn’t start off with timing a very hectic, hot, and humid 5K for the running club.  I can’t say I missed the experience even a little bit.

Yes I am blogging on a holiday.  Time-wise it just works out.

Even though we had an extra day tacked onto this weekend and no MAJOR projects planned we still have been going much more than not.  On Saturday the main focus was getting the chickens perch reconfigured.  We wanted to lower it to make it safer/easier for the birds to jump down from.  Our original plan was to literally just chop maybe 18 inches from the triangle shaped perch and be done with it.

Saturday morning Cindy suggested that we consider a redesign in coordination with the elevation decrease which at first I was not really into as it sounded like more work.  However with the way the existing perch was constructed, even lowering it’s existing design was going to be more trouble than you would think.  Cindy suggested we transform the perch from a triangle into a rectangle which would allow for more perching space.  Doing so would allow us to use some of the perch in it’s existing layout and to repurpose most of the wood we pull off in it’s new configuration.

We did a Home Depot run in the new Tacoma, adding another 10 bags to go with the 20 I picked up on Friday after work.  We also grabbed the additional lumber we would need to complete the perch which was not much.

We set up the 13 x 13 Coleman tent I bought at Costco a few weeks back to use as a sun shelter.  It worked well until some strong winds started to blow in advance of a storm.  We dropped the tent to prevent it from unintentionally becoming a flying object.  We finished up the work inside the chicken coop to protect us from the rain.  We were both happy with the end result.  It has ample perch space with a low enough height that even our fattest chicken, Cocoa should be able to jump down without getting injured.  Although the birds looked a bit confused about their new sleeping arrangements they eventually settled down and all had more space to sleep than they had previously.

Saturday afternoon I accompanied Cindy to the place her daughter is living with her boyfriend’s parents.  Cindy agreed to look after their two dogs, Tank and Bowser while Katie and the boyfriend’s family were away for the weekend.  I also brought my drone along to get some aerial video of the old abandoned track in the back of their property.  Tank and Bowser are normally crated when nobody is home which always makes me feel badly.  They say dogs don’t mind being crated but it sure doesn’t seem like fun to me.

They were both very happy to see us and ran around happily in the yard, enjoying their freedom.  I took my drone to the back of the property and set it up in the air.  Believe it or not I think this was the first time I have flown the Phantom since the Yellowstone drone prosecution fiasco. The track is badly grown over but you can tell originally a lot of time, money and effort went into it’s construction.  It is fully covered with asphalt and even has banked turns.  Some areas of the track you can barely see due to massive overgrowth.  The aerial footage came out half decent.  Click here if you want to take a look.

On Saturday night we stayed home and watched Max, the story about a military dog whose handler was killed.  Of course any dog related movie is going to be an emotional thing for me.  It was a touching movie that any dog lover will enjoy.  B+

On Sunday morning we were originally going to run but decided to postpone it for a couple reasons, the biggest being the big blister on the side of my foot from wearing wet Crocs a good portion of the day Saturday.  We instead did our second Home Depot run in as many days (after letting out the dogs again) so Cindy could get some supplies to repaint the perch and I could grab a few random items I needed.

When we got home I got around to doing my post 1000 mile oil change on the new Tacoma.  I wanted to minimize the chance of tiny metal shavings contaminating the oil from the engine’s first 1000 miles of use.  I was a little late as the odometer actually read 1305 miles when I did it.  While I was under the truck I heard a car stop out front accompanied by a voice.  It was a guy asking about my old king size mattress I had by the curb.  I was hoping somebody would actually take it instead of it being relegated to the back of a trash truck.  My mom got me the mattress years ago so I had some sentiment about it.

I told the guy the mattress was still in decent shape.  He first asked if I could set it aside until he could come back with his truck but then decided he was going to just strap it to the roof of his car.  I helped him hoist the mattress into position and he then tied it down.  It made me feel good knowing someone potentially will continue to get use out of the mattress that mom carefully picked out for me years ago.

I decided to video the oil change on the Tacoma just as I do with nearly all of my automotive work.  I figured it would be a good way for me to get some familiarity with my new truck.  I was literally just changing the oil and not the filter.  The oil filter location on the the new Tacomas is a bit of a pain in the ass as the only way you can reach it is by removing the skid plate from the truck.  It also is a canister type filter instead of the conventional all-in-ones I have dealt with in the past.  You unscrew the the housing and just replace the filter element inside.  I am not sure why Toyota thought this was a better choice as I am sure it will be quite a messy job to replace.

The oil swap went smoothly.  If you would like to see the documentary regarding it, click here.

After lunch I hopped on the tractor to get the yard mowed.  The grass growth rate has now started to accelerate due to the increase in precipitation.  I tried to hurry up and get done because we planned to go see a matinee of the new X-men movie at 3:30.  Even with us hustling we walked into the theater just as previews had started.  Luckily the time of day meant the theater was very empty.

Like Captain America, this movie was very long, nearly two and a half hours.  I always enjoy X-men movies although my comic book knowledge of their characters is not very strong.  I liked the movie. Although it was not as good as Civil War in my opinion, I would still give it an A- rating.

This morning we finally got out for our run.  I let my normal weekday alarm set to get us out of bed relatively early so we could start before the heat of the day hit hard.  We got to the track around 7AM and tacked on an extra lap which added up to just shy of 4 miles, a longish run for me nowadays.  We were both glad to get the run out of the way early.  Afterwards we went straight to Dunkin Donuts followed by a stop at Sam’s to grab some bulk and ancillary items.

I am hoping to be able to just chill for a good portion of the rest of the day as we have no Memorial Day social functions on the calendar.  For the last 5 or 6 years my Memorial Days used to always include timing a race in the morning and then attending the running club Memorial Day picnic in the late afternoon.  I used to have a lot of fun at the club picnic.  The recent venue change for the picnic last year along with the changes in my relationship with the club have made that option not an appealing one this year unfortunately.  Perhaps circumstances in the future will make it a better option once again.

Of course today really isn’t about picnics, pool parties, hot dogs or hamburgers.  It’s a day to reflect upon and appreciate those that gave up themselves in the name of our country.  It is a sacrifice not many can imagine but hopefully more can respect and learn from. Wouldn’t a goal of a more peaceful existence in the future where regular loss of life in the military is not so commonplace that it hardly generates a mention in the 24 hour news machines be a great thing?

Yesterday I returned to the bank to deposit the remainder of the funds from the sale of the Tacoma.  Luckily the amount was less than $3000 so a Spanish inquisition was not necessary in order to deposit the cash.  I drove the new Tacoma yesterday and had the GoPro rolling for the vlog.  Somehow it added up to over 30 minutes of brain dumping covering no less than 6 or 7 subjects.  30 minute videos just do not work in YouTube world so I plan to chop the video up by subject matter to make three videos each around 10 minutes in length instead.

Yesterday I received some more Tacoma upgrades, a cargo net and a bed mat.  Both items are to address similar problems.  The 99 and new  Tacoma has a great composite bedliner which is very resilient. However there is one problem, it’s very slippery.  If anything smaller was in the bed, even slight deceleration or acceleration would cause it to slide all over the place.  Sometimes this was just an annoyance, other times it was a real problem, for example if I was transporting chlorine jugs or gasoline.

This new rubber mat not only looks good but will keep most items in place due to it’s grippier surface.  It also offers a second layer of protection for the bed floor.  The cargo net will come in handy if we want to do something like throw groceries in the back.  The net will securely keep the stuff back in the tailgate area instead of letting it roll around.

Once again this evening I have to work late at the office but it should be much earlier than the last time.  The rest of the weekend should be ok.  I have some small projects to work on like trying to swap the guts between two monitors.  I also have some house chores as always but I’d like to have some chill time if at all possible.  We hopefully we catch the new X-men movie.  We also have the last Florida Tarpons game of the year on Sunday evening.

So I carefully created my Craigslist ad yesterday, including a pretty thorough description along with 9 or 10 pictures.  I published it and waited for my phone to ring.  To be honest it didn’t ring as often as I expected.

My first contact was a text message from some guy that offered me $3000, over 2k less than my asking price.  He qualified his offer with an acknowledgement that it was a low offer but was all the money he had.  I politely told him I couldn’t sell it for that but thanked him for his offer.

I then got another text from a guy that said I should text him when I got home, presumably so he could come out and see the truck.  Once I got home I texted as promised but got a response he couldn’t come out tonight but he would be in touch.  I then got a call from a guy from Fort Myers.  He was definitely interested but couldn’t come down to see the truck until the next night.  I told him that was fine, as long as I don’t sell it ahead of time.

Then about 7:30 my phone rang.  It was another guy wanting to know if I sold it yet.  When I told him I had not he said he could come right over, since he also lived in the estates it should only take him 15 minutes or so to get there.  I told him to come on over.  While we were waiting Cindy and I did another round of interior clean out of the truck.  Cindy had already pulled a lot of the personal items  out when she cleaned the inside but there were a few more things in there.

Shelby pulled up in his big full size diesel Ford truck with his wife/girlfriend in the passenger seat.  She stayed in the truck the entire time for whatever reason, apparently uninterested in the potential purchase.  Shelby seemed like a cool younger guy.  He has his own handyman business and does some car repairs as well.  He is very familiar with the Tacomas and owned one several years ago that he liked.

Unfortunately the sunlight was fading fast but I showed him some examples of where the clear coat was failing.  He said his brother actually does paint/bodywork so that would be a nice fit.  I brought him a flashlight which he used to get a better look into the engine compartment and under the truck.  We went on a 5 minute or so test drive where it seemed clear he liked the truck.  The negotiation actually occurred during the last 1/2 mile of the drive.  He offered me 600 less then what I was asking, I said I would be willing to split the difference and he agreed to it.

Once we got back we talked about the logistics of the transaction.  We agreed on him running to the bank this morning to pull out cash and then meeting me at my office since we can do the transaction right here.  I then would hopefully be able to hitch a ride to the gym with my buddy and will get a ride home from Cindy at the end of the day.  Now of course my experience with the first potential SSR buyer who backed out after giving me a deposit makes me not willing to count my chickens before they are hatched but I am pretty confident the sale will transpire as planned.

The sale of the Tacoma will culminate what has been a quite busy month or so with the SSR sale, 2016 Tacoma purchase followed by the sale of my 99 Tacoma.  As I looked through the folder of repair documentation I was going to deliver with the truck it brought back many memories.  I bought the truck in October of 2001 for $15,300.  To be able to sell it some 15 years later for almost 5k is a testament to Tacoma value.

I expect there will be more sentimental feelings as I see the Tacoma drive off compared to the SSR because of longevity.  I have never owned a vehicle for as long as I have owned the truck.  It’s not even close.  It has served me tirelessly over so many years in endless projects, races, and just commuting on a daily basis.  The various maintenance and repair tasks I have taken on with the truck have provided me with many challenges to overcome with the accompanying sense of accomplishment when I eventually succeeded.  It’s been a great vehicle and I hope it continues to serve it’s new owner for many years to come.

So I got my rebooted podcast online yesterday.  You can find it with this link or search “duf-cast” on iTunes.  My plan for now is to convert my YouTube vlogs to mp3 podcasts.  After uploading the video to YouTube I pull back the processed mp4 file and then convert it to mp3 format.  I then use the Blubrry plug in in WordPress to create the feed which is fed into iTunes.  It takes some work to get the content out there but it isn’t too bad.   The podcast really is for nobody else’s benefit but my own as it will help me work on talking through my thoughts instead of keying them.  If somebody finds it entertaining enough to listen to outside my immediate circle, great.

I shot my first and last vlog entry in the 99 Tacoma on my way to work today.

I have been having a TON of detailed long dreams the last few nights, too bad that detail is mostly lost when I awake.

As predicted the weekend was stuffed with work but with the work came a sense of accomplishment.  I was up early Saturday as Cindy had to drive two hours north for the state middle school track meet.  I headed outside shortly after sunrise to tend to the chickens and weed the yard.  Once I finished up I loaded up the truck with the computer I was setting up for Ali.

I took the new Tacoma since Ali and her boyfriend had not seen it yet.  I was surprised when I saw a different vehicle in Ali’s garage as well.  She got out of the lease on her Kia suv and bought a 2015 Nissan Versa.  It’s a big change in vehicle types but will be financially much more agreeable.  She wasn’t thrilled with the world of leasing and I don’t blame her.  I have never leased a vehicle in my life.

I got busy backing up stuff from Ali’s old computer.  Luckily she keeps most of her stuff in Dropbox nowadays so it made moving most of her data pretty simple. In total I spent a couple hours getting her new system configured.  I left her old system online with remote access so she can still get stuff if needed.  There are a couple things I have to configure yet remotely.  With 12 gigs of ram and a fast SSD drive her new, used system is much faster than her old used system.  As I worked I had various visits from Sadie, Ferdie, and Latte which made the process more enjoyable.

When I got back home I headed outside for much dirtier work.  I had more old Tacoma work planned, replacing the throttle position sensor and both of the battery cables.  I worked on the sensor first.  In theory it could have been a 5 minute job to replace the sensor as it is held in with only two screws.  The problem is the sensor is near the back of the engine compartment and the way it is oriented the only way to get on it is with a stubby screwdriver that has to be turned from a side direction.

I was able to get the top screw broken loose but the bottom screw was more stubborn.  I was starting to strip out the screw after multiple failed attempts.  A much more time consuming reality seemed to be my only choice, I was going to have to pull the throttle body off.

I have removed the throttle body several times as part of other maintenance jobs I have undertaken.  It isn’t horribly difficult but time consuming nonetheless.  Once I had the throttle body off I was able to turn it so the troublesome screw was now facing up, allowing me to strike it a couple times with my impact screwdriver which finally broke the sticking screw loose.  After installing the new sensor I reversed the procedure to reinstall everything.  After the work the check engine light had gone out, a good sign.  You can see the video of the work here.

I then turned my attention to the battery cables.  The cables were my third attempt to address a random CLICK when trying to start the truck.  I already threw a starter and a new battery at the problem.  The cables probably should have been looked at first instead of last as a potential source of the problem.  So I surveyed the greasy wire loom I was going to have to deal with to replace the cables.  I started the work by disassembling the positive battery lead that had a wing nut holding down two terminals, one for the starter and the other for the fuse box.

When I took the wing nut off I looked at the surfaces of all the terminals, they were black and covered in scuzz.  A bright idea popped into my head that perhaps I should try to clean these terminals completely before undergoing the hassle of replacing the cables.  I put my paint stripper attachment on my Dewalt drill and went to town, cleaning each piece of the puzzle until I had fresh shiny metal where black scuzz once resided.  I put the now clean terminals back together and was ready for a test.

When I started the video I had tried starting the truck while it was up on the ramps and I got three successive clicks.  After my cleaning project the truck roared to life on the first turn.  Damn.  I could not believe two things.  First that I actually got lucky and was able to avoid cable replacement with some simple cleaning. Second, that I threw more than $200 and a lot of time at solutions (starter/battery) that were not the source of the problem.  It was a valuable lesson for sure, always try the simpler solutions first.  Here is the video of my revelation. 

I wasn’t 100% sure of the validity of my repairs until I drove the truck more. Cindy and I took the old Tacoma to run errands Sunday morning and it started like a champ repeatedly without any recurrence of the check engine light.  I now feel 100% ok with listing the truck for sale which I plan to do later today.

So mid-afternoon, despite successfully accomplishing three different projects I was ready to take on my fourth with a large assist from Cindy, running the wires for the security dvr through the attic.  So my plan was to use my new 100 foot fiberglass snake to feed from the outside in.  Cindy was assigned the unenviable task of being up in the attic, armed with the extendable pool skimmer pole to hopefully grab the snake and pull it to her.

Since we were doing this mid-afternoon on a day with a high temperature of 90 degrees the attic was not a very hospitable environment.  Plus Cindy was decked out in long pants and a long shirt to protect her skin from the itchy blow in insulation.  We did the backyard wire run first as it would be the more difficult of the two.

I started to feed in the snake but could tell it was coiling up inside the attic.  Cindy said she could see it but couldn’t reach it.  She wound up carefully climbing through the blow in insulation to get there, something I was not interested in doing.  She was able to snag the snake and pull it back to the attic entrance.  When she emerged from the attic she looked like she had been in a sauna for an hour.  The heat up there is well into the triple digits.

We attached dvr wire to the snake and then I carefully pulled it back from the outside.  It was exciting when the dvr cable emerged from the hole since only a week ago I had written off this project as not doable.  The run to the front of the house was not quite as difficult but still involved Cindy crawling into an area I just would not manage well in.  The run to the front of the house was much longer, we wound up needing pretty much every inch of the 60-65 feet of camera cable they provide.

I was obviously tired already and could have left the actual camera install for the next day but my inner taskmaster demanded I finish up the work since we came this far.  I mounted both cameras and then hooked up the dvr inside in the hobby room.  Other than me stupidly having the cameras rotated upside down, they fired right up.  The 1080P picture of the front and back yard looked bright and crisp, giving me my fourth injection of accomplishment for the day.

I really appreciated Cindy climbing around in the scalding attic and told her the least I could do is take her out to dinner for it.  We headed back to Pelican Larry’s for the second time in three weeks and had a very nice dinner.  It was well deserved on both of our parts.

Sunday morning we decided to go for a run for the second weekend in a row.  If I ever want to get back to any level of decent running endurance I need to get out there at least once a week.  We did not get to enjoy the same cool temps as last week unfortunately, it felt quite warm most of the run.

We ran at the nearby track.  I had made a bit of a mental effort to try to maintain a stronger pace than we have been lately.  Most runs we have been just under a 10 minute mile pace which is pretty slow.  I was somewhat surprised when Cindy said her gps showed a 8:58 average pace for the 3.3 miles we covered.  It is the first time my pace has started with an 8 in 2016, that’s for sure.

When we got home we took quick showers and headed out to run errands in the old Tacoma.  As I said I wanted to verify my repairs from Saturday did indeed fix my remaining problems.  It also may be the very last time we do our familiar weekend errands in the old Tacoma since I am planning to list it for sale shortly.  The truck still fits me like a pair of old sneakers.

We got home around lunchtime.  After eating I needed to do my normal weekend bill paying session.  As I brought the monitors out of sleep mode my left screen started acting odd.  It would flash the desktop for a brief second a couple times and then go completely black.  WTF.  I did a normal array of monitor trouble shooting, checking cables, disconnecting/reconnecting power and restarting the system.  No matter what the problem remained, son of a bitch.

I bought this matching set of Samsung 27 inch monitors from Costco last year.  When I looked up the purchase in Quicken I saw it happened in February meaning the manufacturer 1 year warranty was done.  However I was excited that I could still get coverage under Costco since they automatically offer a second year of coverage on electronics, or so I thought.

So I called up the Costco Concierge hotline.  I explained the situation to the woman on the phone.  She verified it was out of manufacturer warranty and would only be covered under Costco coverage.  She started having me go through troubleshooting steps, basically the same stuff I did already but I played along if that was what necessary to get it replaced for free.  Eventually I grew tired of the dog and pony show.  Twice I told her I had been in the computer business for almost 25 years so I know how to identify a monitor problem.

Eventually she believed me but only then told me that the monitor was not covered under the Costco extension. Huh???  I told her I thought that Costco doubled the manufacturer warranty on all electronics?  She said it is only on select electronics like computers, tv’s and major appliances.  Well that is annoying. She said if I bought an extended warranty it would covered.  I told her I thought it was included in the Costco coverage so I didn’t bother.  Well If she would have simply told me that up front about the lack of coverage I could have not wasted 15 minutes doing the same troubleshooting I had already performed.  I hung up and had my first sense of disappointment in Costco services, even if it was caused by my lack of understanding..

I decided to bring in my old 27 inch monitor which of course is a mismatch of the one that died but it will have to do.  I did some research and found multiple examples of people having issues with this particular model of monitor, the S27360D.  Those issues made me wary of plunking down another $250 to get another one.  Instead I am trying another option with a high risk/reward formula.  I found someone selling a used version of this monitor with a cracked screen on Ebay for less than 50 bucks.  Even though I have no history of monitor repair, my hope is I can simply swap logic boards between them and come up with a functioning unit once again for the fraction of the cost of a new one.  I will either wind up a genius or a dummy depending how it works out.  Either way I will learn something at least.

I went outside and joined Cindy who was doing work in the garden.  I worked on swapping out the pond pump and the tubing that connects it to the spitting frog on the second level.  It was a well needed replacement as the old pump was barely spitting a trickle of water at this point.  By the time we got finished it was time to clean up to head to another Tarpons game.

For some odd reason they were playing the Jaguars, a team they already played at home this year, again.  Normally with scheduling a team plays each other once home and away.  With this level of arena football they don’t seem to adhere to normal scheduling rules.  Unfortunately the Jaguars, who sucked the first time we saw them sucked even worse this time around.  The final score was something ridiculous like 81-16.  Blowouts like that just are not very entertaining to watch.  Even with the blowout on the field and extremely sparse attendance in the stands Cindy and I find a way to enjoy the games.

It was a busy yet rewarding weekend.  Cindy made plans for us to have a fun weekend in July as we will be attending SuperCon in Miami, a super hero based convention.  Of course I love super heroes although I am not a hardcore geek about it.  It will be fun seeing people that are however.

Yesterday my new MAF sensor showed up so I decided to put it in last night.  I ran into various issues along the way.  Some of them were rather funny.  If you have 10 or so minutes to spend, take a look.  While I was in the middle of it my timer buddy John showed up to pick up some stuff he needed.  It’s always a unique thing when we meet up as it is rare to be able to talk timing with someone else that knows the pain associated with it.

After replacing the MAF sensor I cleared the check engine light.  I took the truck to work today so I can verify the  CEL is not going to come back on.  This morning on my first turn of the key I got a click followed by the truck starting normally, making me think I STILL have an issue with the battery cables.  I may just grab a new positive and negative cable and replace them.  The cables are inexpensive and the labor does not seem too bad, famous last words.  This recent rash of repairs will make parting with the old Tacoma a little less difficult.

This weekend I have A LOT of wish list items.  Tomorrow morning I am going to try to get Ali migrated over to my accountants old computer.  I would like to use my 100 foot fiberglass snake to get the security DVR cables routed from the attic to their mounting points on the perimeter of the house and I may just wind up swapping out the battery cables on the Tacoma.  A quick YouTube search showed no such how to video exists so that means it is fertile ground for me to make one.  We also have a Tarpons game to attend Sunday evening so I have a feeling this weekend will fly by just as most do.

Yesterday I started the ball rolling in rebooting my podcast on Itunes, something I last toyed with back in 2009. (search duf on itunes)  When I did it back then I had the bright idea that reading blog entries would translate into quality podcasts.  It didn’t.  This time I am going to convert my off the cuff vlog videos into podcasts.  I think that may work better.  Don’t think I am under any delusion that I am some sort of talented entertainer or skillful speaker.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  This is just another extension of me seeing what works and doesn’t work.  For instance if you told me a few years ago that amateur car repair  and head shaving videos would be among the most popular on my channel I would have told you you were nuts.  So anyway, if the podcast gets the official Itunes approval I will post the feed information here.

I got home from work a little early last night and got busy.  I did light wet sanding on a couple of the spots I applied touch up paint to on the 99 Tacoma to smooth things out.  The quality of work is below average at best but at least those areas no longer scream “HEY LOOK AT ME” and instead blend into the rest of the truck from a distance.

I also have yet ANOTHER thing to address on the Tacoma before officially listing it for sale.  Over the weekend the check engine light came on.  When I checked it with my code reader the MAF (mass air flow) sensor came back as the most likely cause, something I have replaced 2-3 times over the trucks lifetime.   It’s easy to replace and not horribly expensive but I can not believe the run of bad luck I have had with repairs on the truck just as I am ready to sell it.

When I think back through the sequence of events, everything that went wrong has happened since I thoroughly blasted the engine bay with de-greaser and a garden hose.  I can’t help but think that all of these problems could have been avoided if I just left the engine bay dirty. I know I have said it before but hopefully THIS is the last thing I have to do before selling the truck.

I spent a lot of time out in the coop trying to get my new WeMo switch working with the chicken coop door.  For whatever reason it just does not want to work despite my repeated attempts to reconfigure it.  The switch appears to go through the set up procedure cleanly but when I try to access it from my phone it just drops off the list of devices.

My situation is a bit more complex than the typical Wemo scenario where all the smart switches will be talking to the same wi-fi network.  I have a secondary wi-fi network in the coop which I need the switch to attach to.  However depending on the conditions, sometimes the wifi from inside the house is visible in the coop which can cause issues.  I have another WeMo switch in the coop already that has been controlling the light for months so I’m not sure why this one is being such a pain in the ass.

I also got inspired last night to try to run the security DVR cable to the front and back corners of the attic.  I put on my jeans, long shirt and paper face mask to crawl into the very hot attic.  Once I got up there I surveyed what would be required to get to each mounting point and it was ugly, very ugly.  The mounting point at the front of the house looked pretty much impossible for a human being to navigate.  The front office has a vaulted ceiling which is where the cable would need to go across.  There just is no space and would almost surely result in some part of my body punching through the ceiling.

The spot at the back corner of the house had more space but was just as treacherous.  The roughly 30 feet I would have to travel is buried in a couple feet of blow in insulation. What exactly is hidden below that insulation is unknown but likely includes electrical and other wiring which could be hazardous.  Never mind trying to crawl in a way that keeps all of your weight on the roof trusses and off the drywall.  I just sat up there for a few moments and looked at both spots, weighing the misery and potential disaster that awaited versus the benefit of having two additional security cameras on the property.  I gave up, telling Cindy it was just too much hassle.  I exited the attic, dejected.

When I bought the security dvr system I justified it’s purchase not only as a race timing safety net but also as a surveillance system for the house.  For whatever reason not fulfilling the second part of that plan bothered me.  I put everything away that needed to be moved to get into the attic away, feeling like a failure the entire time.

Even though I proclaimed “no mas” the gears in my head were still turning.  This morning on my way back from the dentist I stopped in at Home Depot and bought a 100 foot fiberglass snake.  My hope is to reverse the game plan, poking in the snake from the outside and navigating it to a reachable spot where I could attach the wires and pull it back out.  In theory it should work.  We will see how that translates to reality.