Category Vehicle Maintenance

So with the bad forecast for the half marathon I came up with an idea on Friday to make timing in stormy weather more feasible, rent a box truck.  I secured a 16 foot truck for $35 a day and 99 cents per mile, far less than I expected.  With that size I would have plenty of room to set up two or three tables loaded up with the computer equipment used for race timing.  The only thing that would be left outside would be the timing boxes themselves which are able to be operated with their lids closed, making them pretty weather resistant.  I picked up the truck on Saturday after getting permission from the running club to do so.

When I rented the truck I had a funny interaction with the guy that ran the office.  When I walked in he had a gamer headset on and he appeared somewhat annoyed I interrupted him.  After I took a look at the monster PC he had on the desk which I immediately recognized as a gaming rig I asked him questions about it, letting him know my computer background.  Once he knew he was talking to a fellow computer geek the conversation flowed.  He told me about the specs of his big full tower box that he built himself which were impressive.

We exchanged stories of our gaming experience.  I found out he was an old WoW player and a quite high level one at that.  He played the game the first three years it was out.  I told him I have been plugging away for a solid 10 years.  In addition to completing the paperwork for the rental he took the time to show me some details of Fallout 4, which is what he was playing when I walked in the door.  It was a geeky interaction out of nowhere that I appreciated.

On Friday after work I went over to the running store where I stayed until packet pick up wound up at 7PM.  I worked on getting current with any entries that came in during the day. On Saturday afternoon I headed back down there to do the same.

Now of course the potential for bad weather was on everyone’s mind.  The weather forecast for Sunday was consistently bad but the time frame seemed to be shifting around.  Unfortunately it seemed like the worst weather was forecast to hit during the time everything would be set up.  The plan was to show up as normal and if the weather conditions were really bad we could slide the race start time back to accommodate it.  Cindy and I used the 16 foot truck to hold most of the stuff which was a good thing since I had the most equipment I ever used at a race with four timing systems and 24 one meter mats.  We went to bed early, hoping to compensate for the 3AM alarm I had set for Sunday morning. Unfortunately I wound up waking  up somewhere around 1AM and not really falling asleep afterward.  During my tossing and turning I heard several bursts of storm activity outside.

When we got up I immediately looked at the latest weather conditions.  I was not happy to see a tornado watch had been put in place that ran until 8AM.  I called the race director who was already in the process of setting up the course just to let him know about the watch and suggest we wait until that watch clears to start the race which was scheduled for a 7AM start. Cindy and I pulled out our race caravan with me leading in the box truck and Cindy following in the Tacoma.

On the way to the race I got a message that they were officially postponing the start until 8 to give the weather a chance to clear, a good move.  When we got there the roads were wet but it wasn’t raining and the wind was minimal.  However when I looked at the radar before leaving home I saw Naples looked to be on the tail end of a long line of storms that was moving northeast very rapidly.  It was not a matter of if the storm was going to hit but when.

Cindy and I started working on setting up stuff.  We dumped the timing gear at the start and finish lines.  I parked the big truck in position by the finish line and set up tables inside of it.  I looked at my temporary timing shelter with a weird sense of pride for coming up with a way to get the job done despite the very challenging weather conditions.  We started setting up the registration area over by the bank under a covered parking area that we hoped would provide shelter if the storm got really bad.  With the one hour delay we suddenly had a much longer window to get everything set up.

So Chris, who was there to help me do data entry had his iPad along.  On it he had the live radar view on loop which showed the line of red was almost on us.  The wind started to pick up along with the rain so the group of us around the registration area took cover.  As the wind and rain picked up it started blowing in so we quickly pulled all the tables and computer equipment that I already had set up back as far as we could to minimize it’s exposure to the elements.

The storm was bad but didn’t seem like anything beyond a typical Florida summer thunderstorm, until it wasn’t.  All of a sudden there was a few minutes where the wind ratcheted up to an entirely new level.  The huge flag that hangs over Cambier Park sounded like it was ready to be ripped from the pole.  I stood up and leaned on the huge, heavy wood tables in front of me for fear they could actually be blown around.  The sound of the wind, which was reported to be 80+ mph,  was dangerous.

So we all huddled underneath the overhang for around 15-20 minutes while the worst of the storm blew through.  I honestly felt a bit exposed there and had my eyes scanning for any flying debris that could come our way.  We took a look at the race banner hanging over the start line in the street.  We saw a mangled mess as one of the tether lines snapped from the force.  When things started to die down we did a brief survey of our immediate area and things seemed more or less intact with just some palm fronds down at various spots.

Just as we were getting ready to start drying stuff off and resume preparations we got word from the volunteer coordinator that the race was now cancelled.  Evidently there was much more extensive damage on the course with not just branches but entire trees down, severe flooding and even power lines down.  There was no way the event could take place with those sort of hazards on the course.  Later we were told that this storm had the characteristics of something called a “meteotsunami”, which very quickly and dramatically pushed a wall of water from the gulf on shore which caused the flooding.  The hurricane force winds were just the icing on the cake.

After we were told of the cancellation I just sat there for a few moments, shell shocked.  There has never been a race cancellation due to weather conditions, for it to happen with the biggest event the club puts on just seemed unbelievable.  I immediately felt very badly for the race participants, many of whom travel from out of the area to be here for the half marathon. I thought of all the preparation that went into the event by both myself and others.  To have all of that nullified by a 15 minute storm seemed crazy.

With a race of this scope there is no rescheduling possible so basically people are just SOL as “acts of God” do not qualify runners for refunds.  While I was on site I remote controlled to my home computer so I could quickly get information posted to the official race website.  Luckily the majority of racers had been following the updates and did not show up on site.

So the undoing of the race prep began with the crew of volunteers and ourselves picking up everything that had just been laid out.  Luckily for me I had not fully set up all my stuff at that point.  We packed up the stuff we set up at the registration area and I then took down the tables in the back of the box truck.  We drove the truck back to the start line to pick up the timing equipment we set there.  I was surprised to see some of the very heavy rubber mats had gotten blown off the stack. As we were throwing the wet mats into the back of the truck a reporter from the Naples Daily News snapped a picture of Cindy and I as we were standing under the mangled half marathon start line banner.  That picture wound up on the front page of the sports section of Monday’s paper which was unexpected.

On the drive home we saw all sorts of damage with tons of branches on the roadways along with a ton of uprooted trees.  When I saw substantial wind damage at the developments near our house I was quite worried about damage at our house, especially to the chicken coop.  We both breathed a sigh of relief that other than some smaller things scattered around the yard our property escaped basically unscathed.

I’m sure the chickens were scared to death. Having the shed/run pull through such extreme weather intact made Cindy and I feel good about the extra work we put in to make sure both structures were built to be as storm resistant as possible.  The one nuisance we did have to deal with from the storm was a power outage which lasted around half the day.

By the time we got home the weather seemed almost nice.  I pulled out the 24 wet mats and laid them out to dry, one side at a time.  We had some other stuff that needed to dry out as well.  All day I couldn’t help but feel weird about doing all of that prep and not actually getting to time the race.  After the huge timing disaster we had at last year’s half marathon I was really looking to make things run like clockwork this year, despite the conditions.  Since this was also the last half marathon I was timing for the club, not getting the chance to get that redemption was a little depressing.

The rest of our day Sunday felt incredibly long, a byproduct of starting your day at 3AM.  After getting all of the race equipment dried out and put away I turned my attention to the Tacoma.  While we were driving to the race Cindy told me the truck was acting weird and shaking.  When she first mentioned it to me I thought she meant just a tire vibration which I wrote off as no big deal.  I then got a clarification that it was an engine related problem.  The truck was missing and Cindy said she really couldn’t go any faster than 50 mph.  The check engine light had come on as well.

I hooked up my car computer scanner and got a P300, P304 and P304 error code which meant that cylinder three and four were misfiring.  I cleared the codes and took the truck out for a very brief test drive.  The misfiring was still there and the CEL came on again, great.  So I did some research about the issue on my phone as Cindy drove us home after we dropped off the box truck at the Penske lot.

The easy causes of the problem are stuff like bad wires, coil, or plugs.  Tacomas have a different coil arrangement.  Instead of having one coil there are actually three of them, each one drives two of the plugs.  The recommendation was to swap coil packs around to see if the problem follows the coil.  I swapped the coil pack on cylinder three assuming it also drove cylinder four.  After clearing the codes and doing another test drive the misfire was still present although I only got a P304 error this time.  After feeding these test results into Google it seemed like a more likely cause of the misfire could be a failed fuel injector, something very much in the realm of possibility for a vehicle with 186,000 miles on the odometer.  Unfortunately changing one involves pretty extensive tear down, similar to what I had to do to change the valve cover gaskets.  I called it good for the day with the intention to resume diagnostics on Monday.

On Sunday night we watched True Story, our latest Netflix rental.  With no naps during the day I knew I risked nodding off during the movie, which I did several times.  The drowsiness was not because of the movie which was interesting, seeing Seth Rogen and James Franco play very serious roles in a true life story about a man that killed his family.  I had Cindy help fill in some of the blank spots while I nodded off laying on her lap.  It added up to a solid B+ film that is a quality rental title.

Having Monday off was quite welcome after the events of Sunday.  We headed out relatively early to go pick up some oil change supplies.  Both the Prius and Tacoma were overdue for oil changes.    We also dropped off the left over race bibs from the race at the running store where runners were able to pick up race shirts and medals since they would go to waste otherwise.

I dug into the oil changes early Monday afternoon, completing both oil changes in the span of 45 minutes.  I then resumed my diagnosis of the Tacoma.  One of the things I did not do on Sunday was pull the plug in cylinder four to take a look at it.  When I pulled the spark plug wire something didn’t feel right.  When I looked at the boot of the wire something didn’t look right, the attachment terminal was missing.  A look into the spark plug hole revealed it was still attached to the spark plug.

This scenario was good and bad news.  The good news was that possibly the misfiring could have simply been caused by a defective spark plug wire.  The bad news was I now had to figure out some way to get the broken terminal off the spark plug so I could remove the spark plug itself.   This turned out to be a VERY challenging task that tested the limits of my patience.

At first I tried using a simple needle nose pliers to grasp the broken terminal.  Because of the lack of space it was impossible to get a grasp on it.  I then began a long and arduous session with a long flat head screw driver.  I stuck it into the plug hole and tried to work the terminal back and forth so it would loosen up.  I then tried to pin it against the side of the hole so I could pry it upwards.  After a couple dozen attempts over the course of 45 minutes I got it to pop off the top of the spark plug.  I was able to fish the terminal out of the hole with my retractable magnet.

I then confidently stuck my spark plug socket in the hole, ready to finally remove the plug after all that futzing around.  Despite removing the terminal it still felt like my socket was just spinning around on nothing.  WTF?  I brought out my stick light so I could get a better view down the hole.  What I saw was a circle of rubber on top of the spark plug.  Not only did the terminal of the spark plug wire break off, the rubber boot that normally surrounds it was down there as well, awesome.

This discovery lead to another incredibly aggravating session of trying to get the rubber removed.  I was able to spin it around with my screwdriver but not remove it.  I alerted Cindy to my issue and said I needed a small wire hook to snag the rubber.  She found an old wire plant hanger in the shed.  I was able to snip off one  of the wires and then bend the end into a very small hook.  As I stuck the wire into the hole my eyes were watering as I tried to focus, it was very hard to see.  Finally, finally I snagged the rubber boot and managed to lift it out of the plug hole.  Instinctively I said “f you” out loud to the remains of the spark plug boot as I removed it.  It was the end result of close to two hours of digging around in a little hole with no clearance and the wrong tools for the job.  I finally was able to get a socket on the plug and remove it.  The plug itself looked ok but I ordered a complete new set of plugs and wires on Amazon.  My hope is the misfire was all wire related and I can avoid ripping off the entire intake of the truck to do injectors.

After the Tacoma work I suggested to Cindy we take out the mountain bikes out for their first test ride of Bird Rookery swamp, something we had wanted to do for a little while.  The cool air in the low to mid-60’s left us both feeling quite chilled on the 3 mile ride to the trail head.  Once we got off road both of our bikes felt good on the mostly grass trail.  In total we went around 2.25 miles into the swamp before turning around.

Doing the trail on a mountain bike is different than doing the same by foot.  You obviously cover territory at a much faster clip.  I think you also get to see less since you need to concentrate more on the ground under you to avoid obstacles while riding.  We stopped several times so Cindy could take some pictures of especially scenic locations.

By the time we started the return ride out we were both feeling some aches and soreness.  Mountain bikes are double the weight or more of the road bikes we are used to riding,  Riding them over uneven terrain introduces a new sort of effort level which also carries a discomfort penalty for your rear end, back, and hands.  By the time we rode the 3 miles back to the house we were BEAT.    Our eventual goal is to do the entire 12 mile circuit in the swamp which when added to the ride to and from the house will be around 18 miles.  The way we felt doing the roughly 10 miles yesterday makes me only imagine how we will feel when we take on the whole deal. The rest of our Monday, the little that was left of it was more low key with us enjoying a nice dinner and dvr’d tv content to wind up the 3 day weekend.

Of course I saw the news that the Eagles hired a new head coach, Doug Pederson, who was the offensive coordinator for the KC Chiefs.  I wish I could say I liked this hire.  Eagles fans remember the name Doug Pederson.  He was the starting QB VERY briefly right before the Donovan McNabb era began.  I remember feeling very unexcited back then when we were told that Pederson, despite not having much actual NFL play time, had been a back up in good programs which somehow meant he should be decent by osmosis.  Well the reality was he was extremely unimpressive  in his Eagles stint.  His starting record as  a qb was something like 3-14.

Well Andy Reid always liked Doug and eventually brought him on staff as a coach.  First as an “offensive consultant” and later as a QB coach for the Eagles.  When Andy was fired from the Eagles he took Doug with him to KC and named his as offensive coordinator.  During his three years there the Chiefs offense was ok, but certainly nothing dynamic.  Plus since Andy Reid is very much involved in the offensive play calling, being an OC on an Andy Reid team means you aren’t really calling the shots.

The overwhelming consensus is the Pederson hiring is underwhelming.  I read an ESPN article that said out of the 6 coaches hired this off season, Doug is the least impressive of them. I assume that Jeff Lurie is hoping that somehow Doug will be Andy Reid-esque since he has been in his company for a long time.  We saw how that “greatness by association with greatness” theory worked out in Pederson’s QB career.  I have a bad feeling his head coaching career could follow a similar story line.  Hopefully I am wrong.

When I got home last night I wanted to get a couple things done in the very limited daylight that remained.  The first was to work on the SSR.  Over the weekend we wanted to take the truck out but had to leave it in the garage because the clutch was messed up.  It was releasing a fraction of an inch above the floor.

When I tried to back the truck out of the garage last night it was even worse, I wasn’t even able to get it in gear.  I popped the hood, opened the clutch fluid reservoir and saw it was pretty much empty.  I dumped some synthetic brake fluid in there and pumped the clutch a few times which allowed me to at least get the truck out of the garage.

Once I was down in the driveway I located the quick drain port that was installed as part of the Corvette clutch upgrade I had done several years ago.  It seemed like the fitting that is loosened to drain the fluid was leaking just a bit. I hoped that was all it was.

I had Cindy come out with me so she could apply pressure to the clutch pedal while I slowly opened the drain line.  After some trial and error the line “burped” releasing the air that was in there.  I then tightened the fitting as much as I could, verified it wasn’t leaking and then had Cindy take the truck for a quick test drive.  She said it felt normal once again.  Of course I need to keep an eye on the fluid level to make sure there isn’t some other leak source.  I certainly hope not.

I then spent 10 minutes setting up my new Automatic adapter in the Tacoma.  Todd bought it for me off my Amazon list for Christmas.  It is a small device that stays permanently connected to your vehicle via the standard diagnostic port.  It them connects to your smart phone via bluetooth which then allows the data it collects to be displayed via their app and a web dashboard.

It basically is a way to make your older “dumb” vehicle, smarter allowing it to give you some of the high tech feedback that many new vehicles include as standard equipment,  sort of like a poor man’s OnStar.  Since the Prius already has some degree of this intelligence I figured the Tacoma was the best candidate for the device. I am still a bit foggy on everything it can and can not do.  I will put it through some more real world testing this week.

Todd also bought me a couple WeMo light switches.  I have to decide what spots in the house their intelligence would be best utilized.  I was originally hoping to use one for the big overhead light in the kitchen but found out the smart switch can not be used in situations where a light is controlled by more than one switch as is the case in the kitchen.

Yesterday would have been Nicki’s 13th birthday.  Facebook gave me a sad reminder of it yesterday by flashing up the picture from last year where she was enjoying her normal birthday vanilla cupcakes.  It still stings badly whenever I make myself focus on the loss of the closest thing I will ever have to a child.  We miss her so much.

My SSR instrument cluster showed up yesterday.  The guy I sent it to was extremely fast in turning it around. The new silver face plate for the instruments looks cool.  Despite the lack of daylight courtesy of the time change, I thought I would take a shot at putting the truck back together last night.

I got the cluster back in but gave up trying to reinstall the dash cover.  The lack of light and cramped working conditions resulted in me getting nowhere for 15 minutes or so.  This job is actually best done in warm temps and with direct sun to help soften up the plastic/vinyl that has to be manipulated.

Despite there being no sunlight, by the time I was done I was sweating through my shirt, a tribute to the stupidly warm temperatures we are still continuing to experience despite now being into November.  The temperatures have been at or above record setting levels.  I believe the high yesterday was 91 degrees.  Usually by this time of year we have had one or two real cool fronts blow through.  There has not been one yet this year.  It may seem odd to hear a Florida resident bitching about it being too warm but after the 6 month long summers I really do look forward to temperatures and humidity levels that don’t invoke instant sweat responses when stepping outside.

I neglected to mention yesterday that Monday night I did a dual broadcast of my latest head shaving session, recording it for YouTube as well as broadcasting the event on Periscope simultaneously.  It was an attempt to add variety to my growing collection of head shave videos.  I’m not sure how successful it was.

After work last night I made a pit stop at the location for Saturday’s race.  This is a brand new race and venue which is always a dangerous combination.  I wanted to scout out the key locations prior to Saturday so I wasn’t walking in there blind.  One good thing about this race is they have the start and finish lines basically in the same spot which eliminates the hassle of having to haul ass between the two points on race day while lugging a timing box or laptop.

When I got home I wanted to pull the instrument cluster from the SSR so I could ship it to the guy who is going to replace my stepper motors.  The first part of the process was removing the front dash cover, something I have had to do many, many times with my stereo install adventures.  To get the instrument cluster out only required removing four 7MM screws, should be easy, right? Not.

The bottom two screws were easily accessible and I removed them in a few seconds.  The top two were another story.  They were located down behind the hood of the cluster in a way that would not allow for a socket to get onto them conventionally.  I messed around a good 15 minutes trying to come up with some combination that worked.  I noticed that even before I started the top screws were not tight, indicating to me somebody had the cluster out once before.  I finally got the bastards out using a socket hinge adapter I had laying around and an 8MM socket that allowed me to get some traction without being completely flush on the screw.  It was a royal pain in the ass.

The last hurdle was disconnecting the wire connector for the cluster in the back which required several attempts at various angles with increasing force until I broke it loose.  I left the tools and removed parts pretty much in place since the truck will be immobile until I get the cluster back.

Of course I shot video of the process which is linked to the image above.  After editing the footage I was not all that pleased with the quality of the video my new 1080P camcorder was putting out.  After looking at the settings I discovered it was because the default quality setting for the camera was only on the 2nd out of 4 levels.  The default setting creates smaller files which I guess might be good in some situations but not important in my case.  I cranked the quality all the way up to max so future shoots should be crystal clear.

Cindy emerged from the operating room quickly on Thursday, around 9:30.  She did so in an extremely silly and loopy manner thanks to the propethol they used to sedate her for the procedure.  The doctor said they removed another large chunk of ingrown nail and then burned the area with acid as opposed to using a suture.  Despite the work only being done on her toenail, Cindy’s entire foot was wrapped all the way to the ankle.

While they got her ready to check out I was sent downstairs to get the supplies they prescribed to her including antibiotics, pain meds and bandages, lots and lots of bandages.  It was so much stuff that it filled a large shopping bag.  Just like the rest of the VA hospital the pharmacy area was big, modern and efficient.  They wheeled Cindy out as required and we loaded her into the Prius.

Once we got home I had to be vigilant in trying to make Cindy take it easy.  Despite just having surgery she wanted to do work around the house.  I had to basically strap her down to let me go out and clean the chicken coop and run.  She did rest some during the day but not as much as I think she should have.

During the afternoon I made a run to the local AutoZone store.  I was picking up front brake rotors and pads for Cindy’s daughters 2010 Mustang.  She said the brakes felt bad with pedal pulsation which means at a minimum the rotors are warped.  I have replaced the front brakes on three or four different vehicles at this point.  After watching a video briefly on YouTube it looked like doing the same on a Mustang should not be a big deal.  I figured I could knock it out Friday morning.

So before Katie showed up Friday morning I got the weeding done in the yard and prepared the garage for active work.  I pulled out all the tools I imagined I would need including my video camera.  Amateur auto mechanic videos are among the most popular on my YouTube channel.   Katie showed up around nine and I got started wrenching before 10 am.  The front brake pads were worn but not horribly so.  I started with the passenger side.  I didn’t see anything that would necessarily have caused the rotors to warp. However that changed when I got to the driver side.

When I pulled the caliper pins on that side I immediately noticed one of them was dry and sticking.  They are supposed to slide easily back and forth allowing the brake pads to move against and off the rotors.  I was pretty sure I identified why the pedal was pulsating.  The sticking bolt could cause the pad pressure to stay on the rotor even when not braking which would heat/warp it.  Cleaning the pin and applying caliper grease solved that problem.

After putting everything back together I took the car out for a road test.  The brake pedal pulsation was gone but the stopping power still didn’t seem as good as it should be.  I decided since I have all the tools out I should just replace the rear brake pads as well.  The Stang has rear disc brakes, something I never worked on before but I assumed it would be no different than doing the front brakes.  I jumped in the SSR and headed back to AutoZone for the second time in as many days.

I pulled a back wheel and got busy on what I thought would be a 30 minute pad swap.  When I popped out the old pads I saw it was a very good thing I decided to replace them.  There was a small fraction of an inch of braking material left.  No wonder the car wasn’t stopping well.  Things went fine until I got to the part of the procedure where you need to compress the caliper piston.    You compress the piston to make room to get around the new brake pads which will always be thicker than the worn pads you pull out.

The way I have always done this with front brakes is to use a C clamp and an old brake pad to push the piston in.  It is normally quite easy.  Well for some reason the rear piston would not retract.  At first I thought it was just stiff as I tried multiple times with  the C clamp at different positions.  It would not budge.  I then thought that possibly the rear caliper was defective which lead my mind down annoying scenarios where I would have to replace the entire caliper which was an area I was not comfortable with.

In total I bet I futzed around trying to compress that piston for close to an hour, getting continually more frustrated as each minute passed by.  I finally decided to take an additional step in trouble shooting.  I put the wheel back on the driver side and jacked up the opposite side of the car and pulled the wheel.  I then pulled the pads and caliper and again tried to compress the piston with the C clamp.  Again, it would not budge.  I then realized this was likely not a caliper problem  but a knowledge problem on my part.  I was missing something.  I went inside to my computer to do a search on rear caliper problems.

In less than 30 seconds I saw that many rear calipers require to be turned in and can not be pressed in.  This has something to do with the dual function rear brakes share being used for conventional braking and the emergency brake.  When I looked at the rear pistons I noticed they appeared different with two slots in them which I thought nothing of until I got on the computer.  Those slots are what are used to rotate the caliper using a special tool.  I realized I was going to have to make ANOTHER AutoZone trip to complete the job, something I was not happy about in the least.

I picked up a small ratchet attachment that looked like a dice cube.  Each of the 6 sides had a different configuration which worked with different styles of brakes. Once I got back home I slapped the cube on the ratchet and got busy.  Turning in the caliper required a considerable amount of strength as you had to apply major inward pressure while rotating the caliper clockwise.  The little nubs on the cube easily popped out of the slots on the piston if you did not keep it pressed very hard against it.  Finally after a lot of grunting, pressing and twisting I had the caliper fully retracted into the body.  After doing so I was able to finally proceed with the pad replacement which went ok.

So after putting everything back together I took the car out for another test drive.  It did not feel right, the pedal was too soft.  I knew why.  When I was originally fcking with the first rear caliper piston one of the things I tried was opening the bleeder screw, thinking it would relieve whatever pressure I was feeling.  (it didn’t)  I assumed that by doing so I sucked some air into the system.  At this point I had spent hours on the brake work and was very frustrated.  Obviously I needed to get it right despite my desire to jut call it quits for the day.  I hoped I could reach the bleeder screw with the wheel on but a quick glance confirmed I would need to jack the car up and pull the wheel AGAIN.

Once I got the car back up in the air I called Cindy out to help me with the bleeding process.  As I opened the bleeder screw with a tube attached I had her slowly apply brake pedal pressure.  As she did I instantly saw air bubbles filling the tube at first but it quickly turned to all fluid which is what I hoped.  If I wanted to be super thorough or had a hydraulic lift in my garage I would have pulled all four wheels and bled them.  I was hoping that bleeding the only caliper that was opened up would be sufficient.  A quick road test confirmed it was, the brakes felt firm and strong, finally.

I did not finish cleaning up and going back inside until around 6:30 PM. If I did the same job today, knowing about the pitfalls I fell into I could do the same work in probably a third of the time.  Cindy told Katie the car was done so she brought back the Tacoma which we let her borrow for the day.  She was very thankful for my efforts and equally happy Cindy and I gave the car a much needed quick cleaning both on the interior and exterior.

Friday night I really felt like I earned my pizza and Mexican Coke.  We enjoyed it while watching Chappie, my latest Netflix rental.  I really wanted to see this movie in the theater when it was out.  I was surprised when I saw it didn’t do great at the box office.  I was more surprised after watching it, I thought the movie was very good although it was odd seeing a mullet wearing Hugh Jackman play the bad guy.   I’d give the film a strong A- rating.

On Saturday I got up and outside early, starting weed whacking the grass shortly after 8AM.  I wanted to get the labor out of the way early if possible.  Cindy and I then headed out to grab even more sand for the chicken run as well as some more bags of rubber mulch to fill in various areas the chickens have been kicking out.  After spreading both after returning home my only other project for the day involved cutting up some plastic cutting boards to be used as a top shelf on the chickens perch.  Cindy had some thinner plastic up there but it was too flexible, allowing it to bend down and deposit poop along the wall.  Our hope is using cutting boards in that spot till make it more rigid and easier to clean.  I cut them on my portable table saw.

Over the weekend one of the things I did in between projects was upgrading both my computer and Cindy’s to Windows 10.  I was surprised just how smoothly the process went, I really had no issues at all.  The new OS combines the best features of Windows 7 and 8.  So far I am very happy with the upgrade and am still digging into some of the new features like Cortana and the Edge web browser. The system boot up and shut down speed seems even faster as well.  Thank goodness someone at Microsoft realized people actually like the Start Menu.  Taking it away was like forcing people to steer a car with their feet.

On Saturday night Cindy and I went to see the latest Mission Impossible movie.  I have liked every Mission Impossible film.  Hell I have enjoyed pretty much any movie Tom Cruise ever does.  The latest MI kept the streak alive.  It combined smart action, suspense, and story telling.  I have no problem giving it an A- rating all day long.

On Sunday morning Cindy was not able to consider biking with her toe surgery but I had hopes of getting out on the road.  When I looked out the window the skies looked gray and menacing so I scrapped the idea, despite knowing I would probably regret it.  If I don’t get some sort of significant exercise in over a weekend I feel like a bum.  Late in the morning I tried to fill that void by going in the bar park and doing four rounds of short circuit involving push ups, hanging knee raises, and pull ups.  I was surprised how low energy, uninspired and weak I felt during the mini-workout.  It shows on film.

The vast majority of my Sunday was spent geeking out in WoW, another thing that can bring on feelings of guilt.  Sure I had done significant amounts of work the prior 3 days but all it takes is one day filled with primarily screwing off to erase that in my mind and make me feel lazy.

Late in the day Cindy and I sat down to map out a day by day tentative schedule for the road trip.  It includes two days for both Yellowstone Park and Vegas.  Both destinations could easily demand more time but we have to work it in with 6100 miles of travel by road.  The way things are mapped now we would have 12 nights and 13 days of travel which allows us exactly one day of slack if something comes up.  My goal is to spend no more than we did last year on the road trip.  I’m not sure if that is possible or not since there are a couple extra days and more feature destinations this time around.

Last night after work both Cindy and I were productive.  She was on the mower knocking down the grass and I was in the driveway changing the oil in my SSR.  I knew it had been awhile since I changed the oil in the truck but I was shocked at just how long it had been when I looked at my maintenance log.  The oil was last changed February of 2014….

Now before you gasp at my poor oil change schedule please keep in mind two things.  The truck uses Mobil 1 synthetic oil which lasts longer than the regular stuff.  The other important factor is that in those 14 months that have passed the SSR has only been driven a little over 2000 miles, I shit you not.  So even though the duration between changes was crazy long, the tiny amount of driving the truck sees hopefully negates it somewhat.

I never filmed a SSR oil change before so I had to check that off the list.

Cindy got a new bin yesterday for the older chicks with much higher sides, making an escape more difficult although with the rate they are growing that won’t be the case for very long.  To address that Cindy is going to come up with some sort of screen lid to keep them secure in their temporary home.

Today was my 6 month dentist check up, unfortunately the “look mom, no cavities” byline I used to use to report a clean oral bill of health no longer feels appropriate or funny.

So I got the party van back after work last night.  The repair price went up another $100 because they wound up replacing the front driver side metal brake line as well.  When they did a pressure test after replacing the passenger side brake line the driver side let loose.  So now all of the metal brake lines in the van except a small section that goes from the ABS unit to the master cylinder has been replaced.  In total I have spent $1300 replacing rusty brake line on the party van, how nice.

We have some strong weather blowing in.  Last night we had an abnormal, strong November thunderstorm.  Today the temperatures will be dropping from the mid 70’s we started at, dropping down into the mid-60’s with a low that could hit the 40’s tonight.

This will be the first winter that we have had with the chickens.  Even though the chickens are supposed to be cold tolerant we are probably going to start closing the ramp up to the coop on cold nights to keep it warmer for them.  Cindy said she thinks some nights the chickens huddle together in one of the three nesting boxes to stay warm based on the poop patterns the next morning.  If it gets really cold the landscape fabric we have to protect the garden and plants may instead be used to insulate the chicken living quarters.

I am going to be switching up my exercise routine.  I have mentioned directly and indirectly some of my issues below the belt that all started with my GI ailment in Early April.  Since then I have had off an on issues with irritation in “sensitive” areas.  Many times this irritation would crop up in the afternoon after my workout.  Yea I loosely thought about the connection but I never really thought about it seriously until yesterday.

I had been doing well in that area for several days and again yesterday morning I felt fine.  At the gym I did chest work which included some dumbbell chest press reps with relatively heavy weight.  As I was straining to complete some of the final reps at the heavier weight I could actually feel the strain extend down below, after which I stopped repping.  Yesterday afternoon I got treated to the return of irritation and soreness so it became crystal clear what was the catalyst.

My new workout routine will still contain some bodyweight staples like pull ups and push ups but heavy, low rep, high effort movements are off the menu for the foreseeable future.  I also think I will be doing a lot more cardio, including more rower time.  My routine may start to look a little more soccer mom-ish and less beast mode but if it allows me to return to normalcy in other areas of my overall health I am down with it.

This weekend was an unusual one as the race I was timing happened on Sunday instead of Saturday.  That meant Saturday was get stuff done day.  Cindy and I were up and working early in the day.  Later in the morning we took the SSR out in the beautiful weather to complete a few errands. It was very enjoyable to just cruise about.

On Saturday night we decided to just stay in because of the race the next  morning and the early alarm it demands.  We watched Draft Day, the NFL version of Money Ball.  I liked the movie but was surprised Cindy did as well since she isn’t a big football fan. I’d rate it a solid B+ flick which stood above most of my recent Netflix rentals.  I didn’t nod off once.

Cindy and I managed to get down to Marco Island by 5:15 despite driving the farthest distance of anyone to get there.  Cindy decided the night before she was going to not only volunteer but also run in the race as well.  It would be her first “racing” since Memorial Day which is hard to believe.  This is another one of those races that is laid out in a logistically poor manner. The registration/awards area is three blocks away from the start and finish line.  However the race participant levels were low so it wasn’t a huge deal to manage.

Cindy did quite well considering her lack of running over the past 6 months.  She finished in just over 26 minutes and actually won first place in her age group.  I was happy for and proud of her.  It’s a tough course that takes you over and back the Jolley Bridge which has quite the incline.

I had someone there that I am training on the timing system.  I am hoping to get him to a level where he would be ok timing some of the smaller events, relieving some of my workload.  Of course this is much easier said than done as there are many situations that come up during a race which require troubleshooting beyond the scope of what an instruction manual would cover.  Regardless I am making the effort to make it happen.

On the way home from the race we stopped and picked up the girls for a one night sleep over.  To make room in the already packed Tacoma we had to pile stuff up in the bed of the truck in a way that would not promote items blowing out while going 70mph on the highway.  The girls had a very nice time out at the homestead enjoying the great weather.

As I mentioned on Friday, my mom’s birthday was yesterday.  For the most part I kept my mind occupied throughout the day but the few times I allowed myself to think about it was rough.  Not having mom around to celebrate her birthday for the first time in my life just felt very strange and foreign.

The Eagles game against the Packers did nothing but deepen my already poor mood,  It was awful.  The Eagles literally looked like they did not belong on the same field as the Packers.  They were dominated in pretty much every possible way.  Let me offer my amateur analysis.

Obviously Mark Sanchez had a bad day although I don’t place a lot of blame on his plate.  He was constantly under pressure the entire game.  The pick 6 interception he threw was ugly of course.  We are 10 games into the season and I still am wondering what happened to LeSean McCoy.  I get much more excited nowadays when the ball is handed to Darren Sproles.  Sproles is explosive and fights for every single yard he can grind out.  McCoy seems to do tons of lateral movement/tap dancing and does very little to resist going to the ground once someone touches him.  I don’t understand why he is so much less effective than he was last year but it is dramatic. The Eagles defense was putrid.  They got no pressure on Aaron Rodgers and repeatedly gave up 1st downs when the Packers were facing 3rd and forevers.  It seemed incredible this was the same unit that stepped on the field against the Panthers six days prior.  They just had no answers to anything.

Of course the Eagles are not alone with these wild swings in their level of play.  If you look around the NFL there are countless examples of teams going from red hot to ice cold on a weekly basis.  As a fan it’s very frustrating.  The game got so bad that Fox flipped over to the Cardinals/Lions game midway in the 3rd quarter.  I didn’t even care.  Instead I jumped on WoW and watched web score updates that ended with the team going down in flames 53-20.  If anyone had ideas that the Eagles were among the elite teams in the NFC those ideas should have been adjusted downward after yesterday’s performance.

My week got started this morning in a very dangerous way.  I left early in the van to drop the dogs back off at Ali’s place before work.  After doing so I was on one of the main arteries approaching an intersection where the light had just turned yellow.  I was getting close to the go/no go point so I had to hit the brakes pretty hard.  As I did all of a sudden my deceleration stopped as the brake pedal went straight to the floor.  Thank goodness there were no vehicles in front of me at the time.  I rolled straight through the intersection with my foot mashed to the floor.

I was able to get the party van stopped by downshifting and using the emergency brake.  This was not the first time this has happened.  Several years ago the brake lines to the rear ruptured due to the extreme rust the undercarriage has accumulated from it’s years on Michigan roads.  Back then I again hit the brakes hard and again got very lucky that nobody was in front of me when the brakes failed.

I got out of the van and looked for a puddle of brake fluid similar to what I saw last time.  I was surprised nothing was there.  I called Cindy and told her what happened.  She said she would come and meet me.  She didn’t want me to drive with at least her in front of me to be a buffer.  I was actually within a mile or so of Tires Plus, the place that replaced the rear brake lines.  I put the van in first gear, turned on the 4 ways and putt putted my way back to them.  I did not want to deal with the hassle of calling, waiting for, and paying for a tow truck.

Cindy pulled in after I dropped off the van.  Luckily her work is on the way to my office so I could drop her off without much hassle.  I got the call from the garage that now the right front metal brake line has ruptured and the bill to replace it is a stiff $500.  Almost all of that cost is labor as the mechanic has to custom size and bend the new brake line to make it fit.  The party van is nearing the end of it’s lifespan obviously at 19 years old.  Twice I have been lucky to avoid potential disaster, I don’t know that I am willing to roll the dice a third time.

The only real reason I have the van is for dog transport although there are other rare situations where having a vehicle of this category has proven useful.  Of course there are tons of memories and sentimental value wrapped up in the party van which is probably the primary reason it still has been residing in my driveway.  The last couple years have been all about how life changes and your only option is to roll with these changes and come out the other end.  The van may be next on the list of “Things that used to be”.

As expected this weekend was filled with mostly chores and work, even with Cindy and I both working diligently at it.  On Saturday morning after weeding we headed out to get a few things I needed like filling the gas cans and some AC recharge refrigerant.  The refrigerant was for my mom’s Rav4, it’s AC was blowing hot.

My mom had some odd theories at times, one of those had to do with the AC on her Rav 4.  She was absolutely convinced that if she ran her air conditioning it caused her brakes to randomly not work.  Multiple times I tried to logically explain to my mom that the AC and brake system do not share any components and that there is no way running the AC would cause brake problems.  I even swapped vehicles with her for a couple days and ran the AC the entire time.  Despite my telling her I had absolutely no problems she still refused to run her air conditioner, insisting on using open windows to regulate temperature.  So anyway, when I drove the Rav4 back from the tow lot I noticed the AC no longer worked at all, probably from nearly 10 years of non-use.

The vehicle has never had anything done to the AC so I hoped that the system was just low on R134A.  I hooked up a can of coolant/sealant and filled the system until the pressure gauge was safely in the green area.  I stuck my hand inside and once again felt cold air coming out of the vents, nice.  I plan to drive the Rav4 once in awhile to make sure it stays in good running condition until I have the legal right to sell it.

I also wanted to give the AC in the Tacoma a little shot of refrigerant, I figured it can’t hurt with the temps averaging in the high 90’s the past week or so.  When I popped the hood I was amazed at what I saw, no oil cap on the valve cover.  The cap was still sitting on top of the intake manifold, just where I left it after the last oil change around 2000 miles ago.  Geezus cripes, what a fckin idiot I am.  I surveyed the engine compartment.  Surprisingly the oil residue was confined to a small area, mostly on the casing for the battery wires.  I felt fortunate that oil did not spray everywhere.  Of course driving the truck for 2000 miles with a big open hole in the valve cover can’t be a good thing but I have not noticed any short term problems as a result.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

While Cindy worked on giving the interior of the Rav 4 and the Tacoma a thorough cleaning I attended to lawn maintenance.  We have not had any significant rain out at the house in well over a week so all of the wet areas were now dry. The front trench which has been underwater for weeks had two foot high grass poking up from it.  It was nice to finally knock that area down so it didn’t look so shitty.  After I mowed it all I followed up with the weed whacker.

We had the chickens outside for a good portion of the morning, they love milling about.  At one point they were in the garden with Cindy snooping around amid the huge sweet potato vine.  Speaking of sweet potatoes, Cindy harvested 6 or 7 of them, the first time I have ever grown them, another feather in our gardening cap.

Saturday afternoon I dropped off some of mom’s plants at Ali’s place that she said she would take care of.  Ali’s new place has a nice lanai and interior space to house a lot of plants.  I’m sure my mom would be happy to have some of them there where Nicki and Sadie can look over them on a daily basis.

On Saturday night Cindy and I got out to see Expendables 3 which I saw had a very disappointing opening weekend.  I didn’t understand why it would have done poorly since the first two films seemed to be building momentum.  As soon as we stepped foot in the theater we both commented how it felt warmer than normal.  Well by the time we were halfway through the film it was downright hot, hot enough that I went out in the lobby and asked them if they had some sort of AC problem.  I was surprised when they said they actually did have a problem and someone was up on the roof trying to fix it.  Thankfully some cooler air started to blow down a short while later.

The theater had more people in it than we were accustomed to.  Unfortunately more people means more opportunities to be seated near morons.  About 5 or six seats to our right was what I assume was a hispanic father with two young boys.  The two kids were talking almost the entire movie while the father stood at his seat.  Well he leaned against the seat bottom which was flipped into the up position. It was very odd.  Since the movie was filled with tons of loud action, it drowned out the children for the most part however I questioned the father’s judgement for first not telling the kids to be quiet and second for taking them to this sort of movie.  Despite it’s PG-13 rating, it is filled with non-stop graphic violence that I certainly would not want my young children sitting through.

So as far as the movie itself, it was good but in my opinion the worst of the three films.  They went too far, trying to appeal to everyone, awkwardly inserting younger actors in the film in addition to the action stars of the last 30 years.  It just seemed unnecessary and contradictory of what the Expendables movie series is all about, a bunch of big name, older action stars raising hell.  Despite this flaw, overall I found the film fun and enjoyable, especially once the AC kicked back on.  I’d give it a B+.

Sunday morning the van was fully loaded.  In the back of it I had Cindy’s 55″ tv that we were giving to her daughter along with a few other things.  Behind the front seats we had both of our road bikes jammed in.   We were doing our first training brick in a long time.  They had been on hiatus since Cindy injured her foot.  It felt odd as I was preparing the bikes since it was just before I was leaving for a ride two weeks ago that I got the initial call from the hospital about mom.  I couldn’t help but think about that phone conversation and how it was just the first step in what was and will continue to be a long, painful journey.

The 12.25 mile Livingston ride went well.  We intentionally did not push it too hard, averaging 17.3 mph.  Cindy was riding with her bad foot in a sneaker instead of a bike cleat so that made it challenging already.  During the last segment of the ride, after we turned around at Vanderbilt Beach Road I exhausted whatever energy reserves I had, pedaling my ass off back to the water park entrance, averaging 23 mph the entire way.

Despite not swimming for awhile either, I opted to do 1600 yards in the water.  Lately when I feel reservations about pushing myself in some manner all I need to do is think that it is dedicated to my mom in some way and that will be all it takes to make me hang in there longer.

I did have a bit of humbling experience while I was cranking out my laps.  A young kid, no older than 12 I imagine hopped in the pool and absolutely smoked me.  Obviously the kid has done a lot of swimming  but still to get passed like you are standing still by a kid doesn’t make my chest expand with pride.  The only saving grace was the kid only did 5 or 6 laps while I was in the midst of logging 32 of them, so I imagined this was simply a tortoise versus the hare situation.

After grabbing some lunch we headed down to Katie’s apartment to deliver her tv.  Despite it’s size and weight I stubbornly carried the big tv up to her second floor apartment solo.  It fit the space on her wall well.  Cindy invited Katie to come out to the house later along with Tank, her high energy french bull dog.  We figured he would love being able to run around the back yard unrestrained.

I was out in the back yard doing more mowing, this time the very jungle like rear of the yard when Katie and Tank arrived.  When I poked my head into the slider door I had to laugh, there were literally 20 dog toys strewn across the floor, Tank evidently wanted to try out nearly every one of them.  He did have fun in the backyard as well, unfortunately part of that fun was running around the chicken coop.  The hens did not feel safe, despite being securely inside the coop.  Tank’s excitement made the chickens run around frantically, we had to grab him a couple times after he ran over to harass them.

It was so hot yesterday that we didn’t want to have Tank outside too long.  He wasn’t used to running around in the first place, to do it in 95 degree heat with blazing sunshine could be dangerous.  Even with his limited time outside he was panting like mad for awhile inside as he laid on the tile to cool off.  I played with Tank quite a bit while Katie and Cindy were doing some other stuff.  He is a lot of fun.

After Katie left Cindy and I ate dinner while watching my latest Netflix rental, Red 2.  Despite my drowsiness, I thought the movie was good stuff, on par if not slightly better than the original.  B+

So on Monday I continued to find things to keep me busy.  In the morning I headed out in the yard to redo the roof on the chicken run.  The pvc coated wire that was in place was starting to rust and tear.  I bought a roll of thick plastic chicken “wire” to replace it, figuring it will be immune to rust.  I did the roof swap in a steady light rain.  Thanks to the good design by the chicken tractor guy it wasn’t too hard of a job. I used a technique similar to installing pool cage screens to make sure the new roof section was taut and straight, attaching the new stuff at a corner and then pulling and securing small sections as I went.  The chickens were quite curious what I was doing as they watched from the main coop.

While I was out there I attached a small treat ball of seed that Cindy and I got at Rural King.  I attached it to the inside of the coop with a wire.  I was disgusted, amazed and annoyed when later that day I was back out there and saw that in the span of a few hours fire ants had discovered the treat and engulfed it, climbing up and down the chicken fence with ease.  Lesson learned, don’t hang treats from the sides of the pen.

During my 5 days off I found myself doing several organizational/cleaning tasks.  I cleaned up the workbench in the garage and my desk in the hobby room.  Well on Monday afternoon I took on another unexpected task, going through the massive collection of pictures in the great room cabinet.  This has been something I have thought about doing for fleeting moments since Ali and I separated but it was back burnered due to the scope of the job and the obvious pain something like that brings with it.

There were numerous albums and boxes of photos to go through.  At first I thought about just turning them all over to Ali and tell her to keep whatever she wants.  However I knew this would be equally painful for her so I figured I would try to do the majority of the dirty work, eliminating all the “us” pictures, keeping stuff that I wanted, and then giving Ali what remains which would primarily be pictures of her, her friends and family members.

Just opening up some of the boxes brought some sadness, without looking at a single picture.  Years ago Ali had taken the time to sort and categorize a number of the pictures so that they potentially could be used for some sort of future photo albums or scrap booking project.  Seeing that effort on what now can be categorized as wasted was depressing.

Of course those feelings did not improve as I flipped through hundreds of pictures of Ali and I together.  It was like a stroll down 15+ years of history.  Despite many of the pictures depicting happy times, for the most part I couldn’t shake the overall cloud of failure that hovered over the picture purging process.

Of course there were other old pictures that were from my glory days of volleyball that were fun to see again as some of the older pictures of my family.  Some of the pictures that stood out I shot with my phone and posted to an “Old Pictures” album on Facebook.  In total I spent more than two hours going through picture after picture.  It was very memory invoking, reflective, and a recap of the long and winding road I have traveled to this point and time.  Having the recycling box filled with pictures of my past is an image that will stick in my mind for awhile. After I was done I had probably cut down on the amount of pictures to give to Ali by two thirds or more.  I dropped the pictures and a box of Ali’s Peanuts collectibles off.   Ali was still working so while I was there I said a quick “Hi” to the girls and let them out to pee.

On Tuesday Cindy was off from work.  We decided to start our morning off early with a bike run bike brick.  I suggested we ride our road bikes to the nearby track which is about 3 miles away, run 3 miles and then ride back.  Cindy was into it.  We got out the door early to try to beat some of the heat, we were on our bikes by 7AM.  Unfortunately no matter what time of day it is, during a Florida summer there is no beating the humidity.

Despite only riding three miles to the track, when we started running I felt the same awkward sensation I do during a triathlon after riding 12-13 miles and then running.  My legs just did not feel comfortable.  The rising sun paired with the thick wet air quickly turned my body into a sweat factory, I was drenched.  After fighting through the initial 2-3 lap discomfort Cindy and I completed our 12 laps at a decent pace somewhere around 8:45, the fastest 3 mile pace I have held in awhile. After a brief cool down we were back on the bikes heading east to the house.  At least the 18-19 mph wind felt good when combined with the sweat pouring off our bodies.  We were back at the house and jumping in the pool by 8AM, a short but challenging work out.

After cleaning up we made arrangements to meet Cindy’s daughter at a local tire place.  Her 2010 Mustang had some badly worn tires on the front and the other two weren’t great either.  With Florida downpours, worn tires are a recipe for hydroplaning.  We met Katie there, dropped off the Mustang and then headed to the movies, an incredibly early 10:05 showing of Mailificent.  I had heard many people say the movie, which I originally had no interest in seeing from the previews was really, really good.  I was willing to give it a try.  We saw the movie at the local Naples megaplex, a place I had not stepped foot in for several years since Cindy and I watch all of our movies either at Coconut Pointe or Silverspot.

I thought the movie was GREAT.  It had everything you could really want, a great story, well acted, fantastic visuals and an emotional ending.  My opinion was shared by Katie and Cindy whom were both looking for tissues towards the end.  It’s a solid A flick.

After the movie we stopped at Autozone.  Katie said her wipers were bad and her AC wasn’t blowing very cold so I figured we could take care of those issues at the same time as the tires.  While I was under the hood recharging the AC I saw how corroded and nasty the battery was looking.  Surely it was going to die sometime soon.  I told Cindy we should just replace it while we were there.

It was hades hot outside at this point, I quickly sweated through my t-shirt as I futzed around trying to get the new battery in place which was slightly larger than the factory unit it replaced.  Eventually I got everything done.  Katie was very thankful for the work I did.  She reported the car was driving better than it ever has later in the day which was good to hear.

On Tuesday afternoon Cindy and I let the chickens out to roam for a little while.  As usual they had a lot of fun checking out the yard.  Cindy was able to lead them pied piper style over to the orchard area by shaking a container of meal worms.  We figured the large mulched square of the orchard would make for a good play area.

We have been trying to get the chickens to be less fearful of us.  Cindy has been feeding them out of her hand randomly since we got them and has been petting them as they will let her.  Normally they are more open to this when you provide them with treats to pick at.  Yesterday I picked one of the chickens up twice to hold them.  Other than a little fussing when I first grabbed them, they were ok once I had them secure and close to my body.  I was able to pet them and even got Wilma to take a few meal worms from my flat palm while I was holding her.  We are hoping that the more we do this sort of stuff, the more tame the chickens will become around us.

Last night Cindy and I wrapped up the weekend catching up on some X1 recordings.  All in all my 5 day mini-vacation was a little heavy on to do’s than I would have liked.  Normally I like to work like a nut up front to afford me the luxury of being a bum on the back end.  I never seemed to get to that point this time but maybe it is just as good.  Typically when I have a day of total slack I wind up feeling lazy and malcontent anyway.