Category Vines

So last night I had more packet prep to do.  I downloaded the names of everybody that registered for the race since Friday night and created labels for them.  I then had to affix the labels to the respective packet that just had a number on it previously.  There were more than 100 packets I had to label up.

On the way home I also stopped and bought 200 more 9×12 packets, just to be safe.  I have less than 100 to go until I hit packet number 2500.  Tonight Cindy and I will be working on creating the additional packets, fun.

I had not been doing hardly any Vining recently.  I either was lacking inspiration or just busy with other things.  Well last night I had a burst of Vines, something that seems to normally happen, you never do just one.  I think I made 5 or 6 of them.  As always they are viewable via the Vine app or my Twitter page.

Last night I also did some more messing around streaming Hearthstone utilizing Xsplit and Twitch.tv  I think it worked but nobody was in my channel to see. 🙁  Here is my Twitch channel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last night Cindy and I met our friend Alfred for dinner at an Italian restaurant I never frequented before.  I figured since I was going to be not eating again until 10am or later the next day I might as well load up.  I did exactly that, downing a plate of spaghetti with shrimp along with two rolls and splitting some chocolate cake for desert. I went full pig mode.

Getting up today and not eating breakfast was odd but not overly difficult.  My 9:15 blood draw went as well as such a thing can go for me.  Having my blood forceably removed from my body has never been something I react well to.  Despite my best intentions I always break out in a cold sweat and feel light headed during the process.

I had the longest weighing session of my entire life.  The woman had an incredibly difficult time getting the old slide style scale to balance out correctly.  I literally was on the scale 5 minutes until she clicked me in at 182 pounds.  My blood pressure came in at 126/74 which is normal by most markers nowadays although I have heard 120/80 is sometimes considered the top end of “normal”.

Nicki has developed another one of her numerous quirks.  You may recall awhile back I described how I started giving Nicki “elevator rides” at Ali’s place, scooping her up and carrying her up/down the steps.  My intention was to save Nicki from working her aching back legs more than necessary.

Well a few weeks ago Nicki started acting like picking her up was a punishment and if I tried to pick her up or even if she thought I might, she would pee.  It’s crazy.  I have had to clean up pee at the bottom of Ali’s stairs multiple times and had my foot peed on a couple times when I was lifting her into the van.

Last night when I got home the dogs followed me into the bedroom.  I was thinking about picking Nicki up and putting her on the bed.  Before her legs got bad she always loved hopping on the bed after work where I would give both her and Sadie rubdowns.  All I had to do was say, “Nicki do you want me to lift you on the bed??!!”.  She peed, fearful of me grabbing her.  Nicki has so many weird hangups.  Not only are they numerous, they shift around on a regular basis.

Earlier this week I talked about how I got my beloved Casio G-Shock to once again synch the atomic time, after failing to do so for around 10 months.  Well a weird thing has happened.  Since doing that manual synch with the watch by the window it has now picked up doing nightly time synchs on its own, even with it laying haphazardly in the junk basket on my dresser.  I guess it just needed a kick in the ass.

Last night I made several more Vines.  For whatever reason when Cindy is around my weirdness level clicks up a couple notches.  If you need proof just look at my twitter feed.

Ok the good news is I have a three day weekend coming up thanks to the wonders of being a local government employee that gets Veterans Day off.  The bad news is I have plans to fill a lot of that time with a SHITLOAD of work.

I am targeting this weekend for the dreaded annual tree trimming event where I trim 25+ trees on the property.  It is ass busting work in every way imaginable.  The plan is for me to do all of the lopping and cutting at one time and then have Cindy assist me with picking all the shit up, throwing it in the Tacoma, and dumping it in the fill pit.

My to do list has many other items on it as well, highlighted by amending/tilling the garden, hanging the bedroom tv/sound bar on the wall, and four or five other chores.  Thankfully Cindy got a good chunk of the mowing done before I got home from work which I finished up via tractor headlights before we went out to eat.

Despite the task heavy 3 day weekend I also am planning to mix in fun things like going to see Thor, a DD bike ride and maybe taking the girls for a walk at the swamp.

I think that they need to include a surgeon general style warning next to the Vine app. – VINE MAY BE EXTREMELY ADDICTIVE AND COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH

Last night was crazy.  After doing an in costume, BB challenge attempt, the majority of my evening was entangled in Vine, both making my own and watching others.  I now have 20+ Vines, all created in less than 48 hours.  By the end of the night I had a headache and eyestrain. I ended my evening watching YouTube Vine compilations through the new tv’s built in YouTube app.

I even took the time to make my first compilation video. Unfortunately there are another 5 or 6 Vines that have already been produced since it’s creation. Warning, there is some extreme and random strangeness included.

I remember when I first started seeing Vines come out months ago and clearly thinking, what a stupid, stupid idea.  Six second videos, I mean yea I know we live in an increasingly ADD world but what exactly can you get out of a 6 six second video?  Well as has been the case many times in my life, I was wrong.  It turns out 6 seconds is plenty of time to pull out many, many laughs.  With a video that short there is no time for boredom, it’s straight to the punch line.

What is truly addicting is when you tie a bunch of Vines together, instead of a long set up you are getting jolted with one funny scene after another.  When I watch a Vine compilation on YouTube I use viewing habits opposite of the norm.  Typically the longer a YouTube video is, the less likely I am to want to view it.  However with Vine comps, I want them long, the longer the better.

The phone app for Vine is equally addicting.  From the touch/release – start/stop recording UI to the scroll to play viewing window the app makes it ridiculously easy to get lost in an endless stream of 6 second fixes.   And it really is fix, last night I literally felt like an addict, putting off various chores until late in the night just so I could watch/make just one more Vine.

Generally speaking, I have a routine oriented but not addictive personality.  When something grabs me hard I am typically aware of it and will always work my way back towards a more balanced state.  However right now, it’s all Vine, all the time.

Today/tonight is Halloween.  I have my bag of candy that noone will get by the door on the remote chance a trick or treater happens to shuffle up my driveway.  The odds are very slim.  I think the last time it happened I was in my 30’s.  At least I was thinking ahead, buying mini-bags of MM’s that can be utilized for future movie theater sessions.

Tonight I am acting like it is Friday, stopping for groceries after work and attending to other matters typically reserved for a Friday, like Vines…..

You may recall my funny, embarrassing incident a couple weeks back where I got stung in the face after telling Cindy how harmless the wasp nest was that was hanging in front of the garage.  Despite the attack, I left the nest in place. Some odd part of me just felt guilty knocking down the nest I have watched the wasps construct for months. The nest had continued to grow in size after I was attacked.  It was probably the size of a baseball cut in half and populated by at least a dozen wasps.

When I got home Friday I immediately noticed the nest had disappeared. Wow, my first thought was it got too heavy and had fallen down.  I surveyed the ground, assuming I would see it pretty easily.  Nothing was there.  I increased my search area to a 10 foot circle even though it would make no sense for the nest to wind up so far away.  Still, no sign of the wasp nest.

I asked Cindy if she knocked down the nest, she swore she did not, although she wanted to. Well where the F did it go?

Yes I realize it is an odd thing to be so concerned with the absence of a wasp nest, especially one that was home to wasps that sting your face.  Still I wonder where it is.  Could a dozen wasps fly away with a nest? Maybe.

So last night I created my first Vine.

What is a Vine you ask?  It is a video clip no longer than 6 seconds that is designed to make you laugh.  I have watched a number of Vine compilation videos and they make me LOL every time.

Anyway I didn’t expect to create a Vine when I shot a video of me zapping my face but once I played it back the light bulb went on, “Hey this could make a good Vine”   Unfortunately I had to rig that first Vine as it is intended to be created entirely on your Iphone through a pretty slick touch/release start/stop interface. I had to chop my minute long video down, edit it in Movie Maker and then shoot video of the video playing on my PC.

However this morning I was off to the races.  A number of ideas popped into my head, 6 seconds at a time.  If you want to see the 6 I have made so far or follow me on Vine – load the app and click here – vine://user/1000547825983348736

Or just watch my Twitter feed and grab them there.  If you don’t laugh at least once I will eat my hat, for 6 seconds.

I also happened to shoot two more BB challenge videos last night, you can check them out on my YT channel.