Archives May 2010

It’s funny, since McNabb has been traded I have been asked repeatedly by non-Eagles fans about it.  Pretty much 100% of them think it was a stupid move since McNabb had such a strong overall winning record.  However when I talk to Eagles fans, more of them than not are ok with McNabb wearing maroon and gold this year.  Why do you think this is?

Well I was listening to WIP last week and I heard one of the hosts say the reason most fans are ok with McNabb leaving is simple.  He didn’t dislike losing enough. Despite leading the Eagles to many victories it was the losses, and specifically McNabb’s reaction to them which stuck in many Eagle’s fans craws the most.  In the games that hurt the most which almost all included a dreadful performance by McNabb, he didn’t seem all that bothered by it.  “Yea we lost but overall we had a good season” was a common theme that rolled from his mouth far too often.

Yes we want a QB that wins but almost as important is we want one that gets as pissed off as we do when the Eagles lose.  That is why the fans immediately took to Jeff Garcia during his brief stint here. That skinny little runt wanted to win in the worst way and he showed it on every play.  Philly fans love that.  Maybe that is why we never really loved McNabb. 

Jeremy emailed me with various details he said I left out of my post recounting the weekend.  I explained to him that I am mentally unable to recall each and every detail, nor do I have the time to spend hours upon hours constructing a blog entry.

His additions / corrections were as follows:

1) Mandy ordered a Large pizza [which is considerably bigger than their
medium) but Cannoli made the mistake and did medium.  Despite this, one
slice remained at end of dinner, mostly because everyone was too polite
to eat it.

no mention of the new friend you met at five guys and almost sat down with

I have updated my vball site with the latest nicknames and tips from the event.  Enjoy.

Friday afternoon I left work early so I could head directly out to Jeremy’s place.  Prior to leaving Jeremy and I had gone back and forth about various plans for dinner with nothing being decided upon concretely.  As I was reentering civilization on the other side of Alligator Alley he called me and asked if I would mind stopping to pick up a pizza order.  Jeremy said the place was easy to find.

Well I was navigating via GPS.  Jeremy gave me directions via phone that I tried to scribble with one hand on a napkin which proved to be impossible.  Instead I had to try to rely on memory.  Surprisingly I managed to find the place without getting lost even with my mistaking “Powerline” for “Caroline” and swapping “Olive Garden” with “Carrabas”.  I was surprised when I was handed a medium pizza with meatballs and peppers.  As I did the math I figured that was pretty tight for three adults and a little kid. Oh well I figured I would make up the calorie deficit with beer.

I arrived at their house a few seconds before Jeremy who ran out to get materials needed to hang his set of gymnastic rings in his garage.  Jeremy’s wife Mandy and their little boy Connor were outside playing.  I handed off the pizza and unloaded my crap from the van. 

I had never been to his place before.  It’s a big house with incredibly high vaulted ceilings, they have to be at least 15 feet high at their peak.  Jeremy gave me a quick mini-tour of the place and then we sat down to eat the pizza. Prior to eating I finally gave Mandy that much talked about hug without prior notice.  It really wasn’t as big of a deal as I made it out to be.  I’m sure she was glad it was finally out of the way.

After chowing down we didn’t waste much time before digging into a project.  We had a list of things we wanted to do during my short visit, the first of which was getting the rings up on the ceiling.  Jeremy knows I have a decent amount of experience in little projects like this so he let me take the lead for the install after we picked an ideal spot to mount the rings.

I stood at the top step of a ladder and stretched up into the attic to measure the distance between the roof trusses. After determining they were spaced two feet apart I measured out where they should be on the drywall side.  Luckily my measurements were close enough that we hit the truss with all six 4″ wood screws that were used to attach the 2×4 to the ceiling.   After the wood was attached all that was left to turn in two long eye hooks into the 2×4 and attach the rings to them.

Both Jeremy and I tested the rings for strength.  Jeremy had fears of pulling down the ceiling.  Luckily the install felt rock solid and should easily be able to support his 160 odd pounds of body weight. 

After the install was done we wanted to do a bit of a workout.  Of course I came prepared with my camcorder. We did a one rep max bench press test, some power cleans and finally some work on the newly installed rings.  Despite consuming around a six pack of beer during the process I dominated all of the strength events which was expected.

The one thing that wasn’t expected was the result of the ring competition.  Neither Jeremy or I could do a conventional muscle up on the rings.  Instead we raised the height of them and tried to do jumping muscle ups.  At first I questioned if either of us would be able to do them, however after Jeremy went first and was able to barely squeeze one out I knew I could do it, which I did pretty easily.

The funny thing was after his initial success, Jeremy failed on all subsequent attempts to duplicate the move while I continued to do it easily.  I did it easily enough that I started adding weight and doing it.  At the end I successfully performed the move with 20 pounds of weight from one of the weight vests stuffed in my pants.

I could tell Jeremy, who regularly boasts of his superior vertical leap, was annoyed that he failed repeatedly at the jumping muscle up.  Luckily for him, he finally got to taste some success playing Wii Tennis. 

I fancy myself as a pretty strong Wii Tennis player although I haven’t played the game for at least 6 months.  Well after 6 or 7 consecutive losses to my gloating opponent I was quite frustrated.  Losing didn’t frustrate me as much as the way I was losing.  Repeatedly I would hit shots that hit the top of the net and then carried out of bounds, giving Jeremy easy point after point.  I hit the ball OB in this manner at least 25-30 times, it was maddening.  I was never able to quite figure out what I was doing wrong because I never had this issue in the past.

After the tennis loss Jeremy put in this disturbing title.  You could tell it was the sort of game that the Japanese adore.  It was basically just an endless amount of these silly mini-games.  Each game took no more than 5 seconds.  I can’t really describe just how annoying it was yet, Jeremy seemed to really like it.  To me it seemed like a game whose sole purpose is to trigger epileptic seizures.  Repeatedly I indicated to Jeremy I had enough and repeatedly he would hand me the controller to play yet another ridiculous mini-game.

Finally around 11:45 I managed to pry him away from the madness.  I was quite sweaty from doing our open air ring install / power lifting session so I took a shower before bed.  My sleeping arrangements were in a day bed.  I just barely fit inside the frame, only having a couple inches clearance.  I set up a 6:15 alarm and my white noise app on my Iphone and fell asleep rather quickly.  The odd thing is I actually had a solid, uninterrupted block of sleep until the alarm went off, the type of sleep I haven’t gotten at home in ages, weird.

When I woke up I noticed that I must have not set my white noise app correctly, it appeared to be on all night.  As a result my battery was low.  I didn’t bring a phone charger with, dumb.  An Iphone owner needs to have a charger available at every moment of the day, I know better.

I brought my own Pop Tarts for breakfast. Mandy was nice enough to get up and make eggs and bacon.  Randall arrived early so he could partake in the breakfast as well.  We piled all of our equipment into the party van and headed south to Fort Lauderdale.

There was a strong turnout for the tournament, the biggest one I have seen in Florida for years.  Evidently the promise of old school rules was a nice draw for players, I know it was for me.  They had four nets of BB.  The most I had seen in the prior 5 years was probably two. (outside of the Rumble)  We had a lot of gear to unload.

Jeremy was unable to find a partner to play so he decided he would be our coach/documentary provider.  His high end camera also shoots high quality video.

I recognized one person on our net, everyone else was a new face.  It felt good to be back on the beach.  The last time out with Randall was miserable, we didn’t win a single game.  I was really ready to erase that bad memory with the assistance of old school rules and a bigger court.  It didn’t happen.

Once again it was very windy on the beach.  You have to expect wind when you play on the beach.  Unfortunately when you play as little as I do anymore, strong wind really wreaks havoc doing even some of the basic skills required to play the game.

Our first match was a mismatch.  We played two German guys, Markus and Fabian.  Based on appearance alone you would have thought they could be formidable.  Fabian looked like a lean quick player and Markus was a tall guy with a case of the skinny fats, but we assumed he could play. Well they couldn’t.  I served for 9 points in a row.  We destroyed them 11-1 without even breathing heavy.  The easy win against over matched opponents may have given us a false sense of confidence which was quickly destroyed the next match.

We were playing one of my hated combinations, an older skilled player and a young kid whom I assume was not old enough to drive.  The adult on the team was not very likable, he seemed like an a-hole. Well he was the first to serve in the match.  All of a sudden we were the hapless Germans.  In the span of a few minutes we were down 9-0 without even serving once.  It was ridiculous.  We were shut out in short order 11-0.  I can’t quite verbalize how disappointed I was in the effort so I figured it was best to not say much at all.

Our next match was a must win.  There were two teams on our net that were B level and two that had decent skills.  Since we epically failed to beat the kid team we HAD to win this game.  This team had the one guy I sort of knew.  They were a solid team but nothing spectacular.  In my prime, it’s a team that we would have rolled through. 

This game at least was competitive and at one point we had a lead late in the game.  However once again, mostly unforced errors doomed us and we lost the game 11-9.  Our last meaningless match was against the other low skill team.  I was so not into the match.  We actually let them get us to 8-8 before we scratched out the last couple points, it was pretty pathetic.

The day went nothing like I expected.  Typically side out scoring results in longer games since you only score points when you are serving.  Instead the first four matches on our net were all 11-0 or 11-1, taking less time than a normal rally scoring game.  For brief periods I used the big court and wind to my advantage in serving but nearly as much as I hoped. 

I just have very little confidence any more on the court.  I go into situations afraid to make mistakes instead of aggressively trying to make plays.  It’s a surefire way to fail.  Of course the remedy to this problem is to play more.  The problem is I don’t have the motivation to invest heavily in resurrecting my vball hobby.  Nowadays I get more enjoyment and satisfaction from self challenging activities like running, biking and lifting.   For several years I was able to get away with not playing vball much and still be able to put a respectable showing on the court.  Evidently those days have now passed.

After the match during my interview with Jeremy I announced my official volleyball retirement although I did leave a Brett Farve style loophole in the event I somehow find the motivation to step back on the court.

After we were done playing there was talk of playing some pick up games.  I bowed out of the activity partly because my left knee was feeling a bit flaky but more because I just had all motivation to play sucked out of my body after our performance, it felt that bad.

Randall and Jeremy played three King of the Hill format games with a guy and some young girl while I hung out with Suly, who was nice enough to stop by and watch our lackluster performance for a bit.  After the impromptu games finished we packed up and headed out for a lunch at another new place for me, Five Guys.

I had heard a lot of Five Guys praise from my buddy at work that goes there a lot, he loves their burgers.  I ordered a standard burger, fries and soda.  The burger was good, very similar in style and taste to what I get at Steak N Shake only more of it.  I actually prefer the shoestring style fries at SnS a bit more. I had a close call as we were walking out of the place. Luckily I realized that my pockets were missing my wallet.  I fast stepped back inside and found my wallet open on the floor, whew. 

We headed back to Jeremy’s place where we unloaded and said our goodbyes.  I had everything of mine packed up except for the 50 pound weight vest that Jeremy bought as a pair off of CraigsList.  I said goodbye to Randall, thanked Mandy and Jeremy for their hospitality and got a goodbye fist bump and hug from Connor. I hurried back across the alley just in time to enjoy a late pizza and Tivo date with Ali.

Ali was gone a good portion of Sunday, first running with her girlfriends and then going shopping with my mom.  I was left for a list of small chores to do and very little motivation to do them.  I came up with a brilliantly stupid idea to make the chores even more annoying, do them while wearing a 50 pound weight vest.

Initially the 50 pounds doesn’t feel that bad however that changes quickly.  Having 50 pounds pulling down on your shoulders gets annoying first, painful soon after.  I found that I needed to be doing movements that shifted the focus of the weight on my body off the shoulders.  I did laundry, watered plants, pool maintenance, stripped the bed, cleaned the counters and more in the vest.  In total I probably had it on for close to two hours.  By the time I took it off I was sweated through my shirt.  Lugging around an extra 50 pounds made each and every movement significantly tougher.

After lunch I found myself feeling super tired.  I actually laid down for a planned one hour nap.  After the alarm went off I wound up staying in bed another half hour, I just felt spent.  By the time Ali got home all of the chores I planned to do were done.  I was going to replace the MAF sensor in the Tacoma but strong afternoon storms washed those plans away.

For some reason I decided Sunday afternoon would be a good time to try to get my cable bill reduced. Earlier in the day I called and inquired about the costs involved with getting a cable card for the incoming new Tivo.  I was extremely annoyed to hear that having the card would add another $11-$12 to my already ridiculously expensive $119 monthly bill.  On top of that they wanted to charge me $40 to have an installer install the card, something that I could easily do myself but Comcast won’t allow it.

  I initiated an online chat with a representative and told them I needed to reduce my bill. I mentioned I have seen various competitive offers from Century Link that were significantly less expensive.  Surprisingly, the rep on the other side seemed genuinely interested in lowering my bill as much as possible.  She spent a lot of time looking into my options.  In the end the only thing she came up with was a bundle they had where you could get internet, phone and tv service for $99 for a period of time.  Well I don’t need the phone service, and I knew that after the promotional period was up you had to agree to keep the phone service for a period of time.

I pointed out to the rep it made no sense that I could get all three of those services for $99 but to only get two of the three I was paying 20% more.  The rep said that my best avenue would be to call the customer loyalty department and tell them I needed to reduce my bill.  She indicated they have the ability to offer better deals than she did.  Before I ended the session my rep WAS able to get me a break on the second CableCard.  It supposedly will only cost me $1.50 extra a month and she got the install fee reduces to $24.99, a small victory at least.

Once the new Tivo is installed I plan to call that customer loyalty department up and see what I can do about getting the price hacked down.  It is just ridiculous to me to be paying $120 a month plus for cable service and internet with no premium channels.  It also is an absolute rip off that providers are still treating HDTV as a premium service that they bill extra for.  EVERYTHING is going HD, at what point to do they stop treating it like it is HBO?

The rest of my Sunday was low key.  Ali made another quiche which I was happy to chow down on.  I am becoming a big quiche fan.    I also took a few minutes to sign up for a NetFlix free trial.  NetFlix integrates nicely with an HD Tivo but I never checked it out.

Setting up an account was easy and within a couple minutes I was on the site rating movies so it could get an idea of what I liked.  Netflix still offers the dvd by mail service that they got famous for, however I was more interested in their streaming service that allows me to instantly dump content to my Tivo via broadband.

As I was impressed with how slick the Netflix site is. It’s extremely well thought out and really geared to find out exactly what type of movies you like and make recommendations based on that research.  They seemed to have almost anything you can imagine available.  The only negative is the majority of it was not available for streaming.  If I used the service it would be for streaming, I really don’t want to have to shuffle dvd’s anymore.  I assume they are trying to make more content available for streaming.  At this point I doubt I will extend my trial into a real subscription based on the lack of streamable content but I definitely would consider picking it up again as more stuff is available digitally over the wire.

I did some more homework this week on the potential Camaro purchase, checking in on insurance costs.  It won’t be cheap to add a muscle car to our transportation fleet, they want a little under $1000 a year to insure it, even with three other vehicles on the policy.  It seems high to me considering my age, clean driving record and the “pleasure” designation the vehicle would have.  I would probably reduce my coverage on the Tacoma simultaneously, removing comprehensive coverage, it is 11 years old at this point.

I also was running some potential loan numbers.  My hope was to be able to slide into a Camaro for approximately the same monthly tab that we currently put out for the Camry.  Since there would be no trade in on the deal I will get crushed with full boat sales tax which means I would need to put down a big wad of cash to get the amount financed down enough to match the Camry payment.

I am still determined to make it happen but the timeline for it becoming a reality keeps getting extended further and further down the line.  I have maintained how I want to order the car from the factory so it is truly my car, as I want it, to keep until I leave this planet.  The nagging practical side of me keeps whispering how a pre-owned Camaro would be significantly less painful financially.

Yesterday I ordered the latest Tivo box, the Premiere.  I have wanted to replace the standard definition dual tuner Tivo in our bedroom for awhile.  Getting the Sony LCD HD set for the bedroom accelerated that desire. Out with the 73 inch monster TV we have a high def  Tivo that we love. 

One of the cool things you can do with multiple Tivos is watch programs on either box from either location.  However when you have an HD and non-HD model you lose the ability to go both ways.  The SD box can’t display the HD content.  Now that functionality will be restored.

I will be doing a little musical chairs act.  The current HD-Tivo will be relocated to the bedroom and the new Premiere will go out with the Mitsubishi.  I will have to get another cable card from Comcast for the new Tivo, something I am not thrilled about.  Anything that costs me another cent over the outrageous ransom we already pay to Comcast makes me sick.  Hopefully by this time next week both units will be relocated and up and running.

I am leaving right from work today to head over to the east coast.  I am playing in a vb tournament with Randall tomorrow.  Jeremy was kind enough to invite me to stay at his place tonight, cutting down my commute to the tourney by 75% tomorrow morning.  I expect to have a busy evening with him.  There may be YouTube exercise videos created, Wii smack downs applied, construction projects and copious amounts of alcohol consumed all in the span of a few hours. 

I’m looking forward to the tournament on Saturday.  I am hoping Randall and I can redeem ourselves from the horrible outing we had last time out.  I plan to take advantage of the big court and old school rules as much as possible.

I still have not been able to kick this low energy, tired feeling.  It starts hitting me in the afternoon and by the time I arrive home I feel like death, I’m ready to go to bed.  Ali insists it’s because I push myself too hard, not enough sleep, etc.  I might agree if I was doing something significantly different than I always have.  For the past decade or so I have pushed myself as hard if not harder without feeling this way.  For awhile I have been telling myself I need to have a testosterone level blood test taken.  A lot of what I am feeling are symptoms of low levels.

Last night I did some more van prep for the trip.  I installed an antenna and FM transmitter booster for my Sirius radio.  Satellite radio is a pretty awesome thing on a road trip.  Without it you wind up channel surfing constantly as radio stations come and go out of range.

I saw that my mom posted on Facebook that a friend of hers suddenly died.   She had lung cancer but was not really experiencing many problems up to this point and was feeling more or less ok.  In fact she had just booked a cruise and was looking forward to enjoying whatever time she had left.

Mom had just talked to her friend a couple days prior so it made the reality all the more shocking.  One day you are interacting with your friend, talking about going out to dinner and the next, just like that, she is gone.  My mom and her also were the same age, born only one day apart as a matter of fact. That made mom feel her own mortality as well.  I talked to her on the phone for awhile last night even though it was tough for mom to talk about it without crying which I understood.

Mom’s friend was a HEAVY smoker which surely was the cause of the lung cancer that was her ultimate demise.  I have seen first hand multiple people I knew personally contract lung cancer in the last 5 years.  It is a vicious, cold killer, a form of cancer that you really can’t beat.  Of course I can’t help but worry that mom, with her lifetime smoking habit, is destined to go down that same path.  I can only hope that she manages to beat the odds.

The Flyers managed to even up their playoff series somehow after being down 3-0.  I haven’t seen a single game, I just have seen the box scores.  If they manage to pull off what would be a miraculous comeback and eliminate the Bruins I might have to actually tune in.

There was a photographer wandering around the triathlon on Saturday morning.  He snapped this picture of Todd, Ali, Michelle and I.  Based on the grip I have around Todd’s waist you would think we were a couple.

Yesterday I pulled my clothes out of my backpack for the gym.  Socks, check, small towel, check, two t-shirts, check, shorts……. shorts?  WTF somehow I managed to forget my shorts.  Shit.  Well my initial thought was “oh well, I guess no gym today”  Then my buddy suggested I just go in my work pants.  Yea, why not?  If it’s good enough form my dead lifting inmate buddy JB, it’s good enough for me.

So I slapped on a t-shirt and my sneakers and strolled into the gym, trying to not bring attention to the fact that I was wearing khaki colored Lands End pants.  I got through the workout without noticing anybody pointing and snickering.  Wearing long pants made for a more sweaty than normal session.  I managed to remember shorts today.

Last night Ali was at spinning.  Over the past four years, this scenario would almost always translate into me sitting down and playing some WoW until she got home.  Well over the past month or two my time and interest in WoW has diminished dramatically.  In comparison to the height of my WoW fascination, my play time nowadays is a small fraction of what it was.  I often will go several days without logging into the game at all and when I am in the game I often find myself thinking there is other stuff I could be / should be doing. 

I’m not sure if my withdrawal from the game will lead to me abandoning it altogether or not.  I also can’t verbalize exactly what started to turn the tide for me.  I know that the cut back started when Ali was last up in PA.  Ever since then my time in the game has steadily decreased.

One of the things I have filled some of that time with is watching the massive backlog of movies I have in my archive.  Last night I watched Shutter Island since it was one of those Shawn only movies due to it’s creepy, potentially scary content which Ali generally avoids.  It’s too bad for her, she missed  bizarre, complex, masterpiece. 

 Leonardo DiCaprio is a fantastic actor.  Much like Brad Pitt, I never have seen him in a role that I didn’t think he excelled at.  The movie at it’s core is very, very dark but fascinating at the same time.  I can’t say much because I certainly don’t want to give anything away.  I highly recommend it though.  Even though it’s a dark film it still gets a bright and shiny A in my book.

Less WoW also has resulted in the backlog on Men’s Health magazines on my dresser finally getting cleared out.  I just finished the May 2009 edition last night.  All that is left to read is the latest Dan Brown book which I plan to tackle during our trip out west.

I went to bed early again last night in the hopes of erasing whatever effect my sleep deficit was having on me.  It didn’t seem to work.  I can’t tell you the last time I had one of those nights where you go from falling to sleep to waking up in one solid, uninterrupted block.

I did five handstand push ups last night, quietly.  I didn’t want Ali to walk out of the computer room and find me with my feet propped up high against the wall.

As I was trying to fall back asleep after my two hour nighttime nap, I was reading the May 2010 edition of Men’s Health.  In there was an article regarding just how f’d up the American health care system is.  It also made various comparisons to the French system which is generally regarded as one of the best in the world.  Like most people, I am not overall a fan of the French but at least in this one regard, they seem to have hit the nail on the head.  Let me just quote a few paragraphs.

The French health care system in general reimburses individuals for 70% of their health care expenses via a direct deposit into their checking account.  Most French have secondary insurance that helps defray that remaining 30% as well.   If you are unlucky enough to have a SERIOUS condition like heart disease, cancer or stroke you are no longer covered at a 70% rate, you are covered 100%  Unlike the American system which rewards the young and the healthy, the French system actually protects those with serious health conditions instead of throwing them into the abyss of sure bankruptcy. (Ok this was a paraphrase, here are some quotes)

This insurance will stay with a French citizen if he ever switches job – no angst, no waiting period, no hassle over preexisting conditions.

…more than half of bankruptcies in America cite out-of-pocket medical costs as a factor.

From a French Doctor – “If you are young and healthy, then the American system is good” he says. “But if you’re sick it is not so good, right?”

The French are skeptical of letting the market control health care. “Health care is a common good” one Frenchmen told me, smugly. “It is not Pepsi-Cola.”

National health insurance was first proposed by Harry Truman in 1945…

How can the French offer high quality care to everyone in the country from cradle to grave, and still spend less per person – by more than a third – than we do? The French say it’s really no mystery: They spend less because no one is trying to become rich delivering health care to the French people.

While the French layout next to nothing for marketing, American hospitals, health insurers, and drug companies spend more than $30 BILLION a year on advertising and promotion.  They’re essentially using a big chunk of our health care dollars to encourage us to come back and spend more of our health care dollars.

In 2009, even as unemployment topped 10 percent and more than 15 million Americans searched for work, the five largest U.S. health insurance firms pulled in 12.2 billion in profits – a 56 PERCENT INCREASE OVER 2008.

Of course, perhaps the most disconcerting part of our market-driven system is the way it skews the very type of care we receive. Over the past several decades, study after study has shown that the best, most efficient way to deal with major killers like cancer and heart disease is through a combination of prevention, lifestyle changes, and early screening. Alas, our health care system does basically the exact opposite, funneling most of the money toward pricey drugs and procedures that people need only when they’re already sick.

There isn’t much profit in selling prevention and lifestyle changes, but there’s a really good one in selling pharmaceuticals, high tech medical procedures, and high deductible insurance policies.

This should be enough for health care skeptics to chew on. Do I expect sweeping changes such as this to ever take place in the US?  Nope.  The infinite amount of resources at the command of pharmaceutical, insurance and medical companies to enforce their will upon the US Government system makes any hope of such change impossible to achieve.  The best most of us can do is just hope we don’t get seriously sick as if the thought of how our health care system runs currently doesn’t make you sick enough already. 

12.2 BILLION DOLLARS and 56 percent increase in profit in ONE YEAR…. one year…

If you would like to read the entire article, go here

It was yet another jam packed, tiring weekend as you can tell by the headline above. Friday night we tried to get to bed at a decent hour since Saturday was a 4:30 wake up call.  This time it wasn’t because we were timing a race.  Instead Ali was participating in a race, her first ever sprint triathlon.

Triathlons comes in various sizes (distance).  This sprint tri is a 400 meter swim followed by a 10 mile bike ride and wrapped up with a 5K run.  Ali was nervous about the event.  She had trained for all facets of the event but putting them together while trying to perform as well as possible was a bit daunting.

We immediately were not impressed with some of the prep for the race.  When we entered the FGCU campus there was absolutely zero signage telling you where to go.  We wound up doing three loops around the campus before we finally followed a vehicle that knew where to go.

We parked, unloaded her bike and walked up to the check in tables.  A couple more things struck me as odd.  They sorted people based on their FIRST name.  I have never seen a race use first name instead of last name to sort participants.  They also had no electronic timing device.  Instead each triathlete had their number written on 4 different parts of their body so it would be easily visible to write down at the finish. After we checked in we walked down and met Michelle who arrived a few minutes after us.   

A tri is different than a running race in terms of prep.  You need to stage all of your stuff ahead of time so you can quickly transition from swim to bike to run.  We hung Ali’s bike on a rack and she got her stuff all organized and ready to go.  Once her equipment was in order we had a lot of time to just sort of hang out.  We arrived on site around 6:15, the race didn’t start until 7:30.

We saw a lot of familiar faces from the running events we time.  We talked to various people for awhile and then moved inside to the pool area for the pre-race instructions.  Once again a lack of forethought was displayed when the event organizer resorted to talking loudly to the group of 300 athletes since no bullhorn or speaker system was available.  I thought it was pretty lame, especially since this was a beginner tri where there could be a lot of first timers.  Being able to hear the instructions is kind of important.

Doing the swim portion of a tri in a pool is unusual.  Normally the swim occurs in an open body of water.  They came up with a decent system to reduce the amount of chaos.  The pool was an olympic sized 50 meter with 8 lanes.  They set the athletes off in waves of three, every 20 seconds.   They had people in order of projected swim time, fastest people went first.  You would go up and down the pool in  a snake-like pattern, going to the far end, crossing over into the next lane and then repeating until the entire pool was covered which adds up to 400 meters.

Ali was very conservative in her projected swim time so she was at the rear of the pack.  She didn’t get into the water until a half hour into the race.  Ali took off and did well, however it didn’t take long until yet another example of poor planning came to light.  This race allowed day of race sign ups.  They automatically threw all these people at the end of the line.  Well the problem was some of these procrastinators were solid triathletes that were quickly swimming over, through and up the backside of the slower swimmers ahead of them.  It was a bit of a mess.  Some of these people were being assholes, complaining about getting slowed down by the people in front of them.  Hey, tough shit, don’t sign up the day of the race buddy.

I forgot to take notice of Ali’s start and finish times in the pool.  The race did not offer any split times so if you weren’t tracking it yourself you had no idea how you did in the individual events.  We are guessing the 400 meters took Ali somewhere around 15 minutes.  Ali popped out of the pool tired but she immediately took off, jogging to the transition area to get into her bike gear.

I cheered Ali on as the left for the ride.  I then just hung out watching other people come back in until Ali returned.  Michelle started earlier than Ali so I encouraged her as well while I was waiting for Ali to get back in.  I was out there with my camcorder trying to get footage.  I would keep looking off in the distance trying to determine if Ali was approaching.  Wouldn’t you know the one time I was looking somewhere else Ali rounded the corner without me seeing.  By the time I got the camcorder running she was already past me.

As soon as Ali got her bike on the rack she was off and running.  By this time it was very warm and humid outside, I knew she would be roasting her ass off.  Again I only saw her going out and coming back in.  I was able to catch Michelle finishing the race on the camcorder before Ali got back.  When Ali came into view she was obviously tired but you could tell she was in good spirits and excited that she was about to finish her first triathlon.  She crossed the line right around 9:30 am.  If you figure her delayed swim start her total time was right under 90 minutes, a great first time effort.

Ali was tired and sweaty but all smiles.  She felt very proud to have put another feather in her cap.  I was proud of her and immediately walked with her to the food and beverage area so she could get something to eat/drink.  Ali and Michelle traded stories of their experience.  Michelle said she really enjoyed the event and actually felt that she could have pushed a bit harder, she was worried she would run out of gas if she went too hard.  Ali said it was very tough, especially transitioning from the bike to the run.  The bottom line is they both did it, congrats were in order.

After we got home it didn’t take long until Ali was passed out cold.  Before I headed outside I quickly ripped my footage from the event off the camcorder and threw it on to YouTube.  Click here if you want to check it out.   I also put on my tri bathing suit and had Ali take some joke pictures for Jeremy, he loves me in spandex. I later jumped in and did 20 laps of our pool which added up to less than half the distance Ali swam.  I was beat just doing that.

Once Ali retired for a most of the afternoon nap I headed outside for my own personal marathon of yard work.  My primary goal was to get the entire 1000 feet (x2 for both sides) of fence line weed whacked.  By this time it was hellishly hot and muggy outside.  In no time I was sweated through my shirt. 

About half way into the job the weed whacker shut off and smelled hot.  It resisted my attempts to restart it.  I figured I would let it cool off while I went and got those last 10-12 bags of mulch I needed to finish the remulch project.  While I was at Home Depot I also picked up an “action hoe” similar to what I have seen Paul James use in Gardening by the Yard. (which is off the air now sadly)  It is an excellent tool to weed a garden.  You basically scrape the hoe back and forth over the soil to cut weeds off below the surface.  I have been basically doing the same thing with a hand held tool which took forever.  The action hoe will dramatically speed up that job.

So I got back, spread the bags of mulch and then resumed the weed whacking duties.  Thankfully the cool down period seemed to be all the weed whacker needed.  Thank goodness for my pipe insulation padding on the handles of the whacker.  I was out there for well over two hours just weed whacking.  Without that padding my forearms would have been screaming.  Today my forearms are just mildly sore instead. 

While I was weed whacking I stumbled across another kildere nesting on the ground.  Every year we seem to have one that picks the bare ground in our back yard as a nest.  As I approached, the momma bird got off her eggs and acted like she was hurt, trying to lead me away from the eggs.  I assured the bird I meant it no harm and continued on my way.

Ali came out from her nap late in the afternoon to see me still hard at work, despite the early wake up call.  I assured her I was ok although the large iced coffee I scored from DD on the way home from Home Depot certainly helped.

After I weed whacked I briefly took the tractor out and mowed along the fence line and some other areas to make it easier for Ali when she was out mowing.  In the process I managed to stupidly drive over the live extension cord that is used to power the pond pumps.  Luckily the GFCI outlet it is connected to prevented me from getting electrocuted in the process.

I suggested to Ali that for dinner we could do another Steak and Shake run since I wanted to go BACK to Home Depot to get another extension cord.  Ali was totally into any plan that didn’t involve her cooking.  So the dogs and Ali piled into the van for the quick trip.  I ordered the same meals as we did last time at S&S except I bumped the shakes up the LARGE size.  I was a bit disappointed this time around.  I again requested a thin shake but it seemed like that part of the order was missed, the shake seemed to be the same consistency as Ali’s.  I didn’t feel like walking the damn thing back inside and risk having someone add a little saliva to the shake to thin it out.

When we got home I still had more to do.  First I worked on the one tail light in the van.  The left one did not work correctly when the lights were on.  To fix it I needed to strip and redo the splices in the wire harness for the bulb.  It was one of several things I want to get done on the van before we embark on our road trip next month. 

While I was out there I heard some loud voices across the street.  I had the van running during my testing so I couldn’t really make out what was being said.  However once I turned it off I quickly determined there was an argument going on.  There was a screamfest going on over across the fence line.  One of the neighbors thought it would be fun to weed whack, trim hedges and race their ATV back and forth the property line at 8:30 at night.  The neighbor next door did not appreciate the racket and told them so.  Well it sounded pretty damn ugly.  It sucks to have neighbors you don’t like.  Both Ali and I are praying the vacant house next to us is not purchased by a bunch of a-holes.

Sunday was Mother’s Day.  I set Ali up with breakfast in bed that included two pieces of peanut butter toast, orange juice, a card from the pets and some carnations from our garden in a small vase.  Ali appreciated the effort.  We were picking mom up for lunch at Carrabba’s later in the day.  I wanted to get some stuff done before leaving.  One of the to do items was to put the new battery into the Moto Guzzi and get it running.

I expected the process to go smoothly, after all how hard is it to connect a battery? Of course it didn’t.  I unboxed the battery and attached the terminals. When I turned the key to the start position I had no lights.  Hmm, odd, I cranked on the battery terminal a bit to make sure it was tight, again dead.  I take the battery out and hook up my charger to it to get a voltage reading, 12.49, perfect.  I hook the battery up to the bike again and still, it’s dead.  “F’ing thing” I mutter to myself as I ripped the battery out.  I had to get ready to go to lunch with mom.

When we arrived at mom’s condo we were surprised when we looked at her floor.  One section of her wood floor had a bad warp in it since she moved in.  The warp was gone and 9 sections of the floor had been replaced.  Evidently she used some of her connections at work to get it fixed at a reasonable number.  The blemish was annoying mom in a big way so I know she was glad to have it fixed.

We got to Carrabas a few minutes before noon.  We were happy to see the place was not full at all.  Mom and I enjoyed our meals, Ali wasn’t thrilled with her veggie lasagna.  During the meal we did some recollection about growing up.  It is always interesting for me to hear mom detail all of the stuff she did was she younger.  I couldn’t help to contrast it with the pretty limited list of things she allows herself to do now. 

After our meal we talked mom into going to Home Depot once again.  She mentioned she was looking for a few plants to decorate the condo.  Ali also picked up some additional plants for our place while we were there.  We dropped mom and her new plants off.  She planned to get busy with some planting.

When we got back I still had a lot of shit to do.  Ali went out on the tractor and mowed the back yard as I finished up the inside chores.  I told her I felt guilty for having her do anything much on Mothers Day.  She said she was fine with it.  Well as soon as I was done inside I went out and finished up mowing around the immediate house area so she could go in and relax.

I decided that I did not want to ever have to worry about mowing the extension cord again so I used an old edger tool I got from my Uncle Bud (the thing has to be at least 40 years old) to create a small slit in the grass that I could shove the cord into.  I cut a nice little line that lead from the rock border around the house down to the pond area.  It didn’t take very long to do and looks a lot better as well.  I’m not sure why I never buried the line before.

My work on the Tacoma MAF last week proved to be a failure.  The check engine light came back on Friday afternoon.  So now my plan is to run a couple of bottles of injector cleaner through the motor and then reset the light again.  If it comes on once again replacing the MAF would be my next logical step. 

Ali made a delicious quiche last night for dinner.  I didn’t come back inside from mowing until 6:30.  After dinner I was feeling just wiped out from all the bust ass work in the heat and the early morning, no nap, Saturday.  Unannounced I went back to the bedroom around 8pm and crawled into bed.  Ali was surprised to find me back there when she came inside.

I told her I was tired and just wanted to lay down for a bit.  Before I knew it I was out cold.  I woke up at 10pm when Ali was trying to fumble with my alarm clock to see if it was set right.  I was startled that I was asleep that long.  I told her I had to get up anyway to take a shower, brush my teeth and all that jazz.  It was bit odd to wake up from a two hour “nap” only to try to go back to sleep a half hour later.  I laid in bed for awhile until I managed to fall back asleep.  I had another long, involved dream that seemed to go on most of the night.  I don’t remember a single detail about it.

I have had a lot of these long dreams lately.  They seem to have the side effect of making my sleep less than restful.  I wake up those mornings feeling pretty rotten. 

I have some interesting excerpts from a Men’s Health article regarding our health care system and a comparison to what is generally regarded as the bests system in the world, France.  Even you health care haters may take pause. It deserves it’s own post.

My 32 bit internet explorer has been performing horribly under Windows 7 x64 bit at work.  It has sucked so bad that I either would use the 64 bit version or more recently almost exclusively Firefox which performed just fine.  I had spent some time trying to chase down the reason in the past with no success. Well today I think I found the culprit.

Today I did another search on the issue and came up with this hit.  The article talks of how some Java browser add on (Java Plug-in SSV Helper) can bring your 32 bit IE sessions to a crawl.  Well I didn’t expect something as simple as disabling the add on to make much of a difference. Well I was wrong.

I disabled the add on, closed all my browser windows and relaunched 32 bit IE.  Wala, just like that it is back to being responsive instead of acting like it is fetching pages through a jar of molasses.  If you are running 64 bit Windows and notice your 32 bit browser is blowing chunks I suggest you give this easy fix a try, or just run Firefox.

So the ripped open areas on my palm looked/felt better so I thought I would try to do a few pull ups at the gym yesterday.  Well by the end of the session I had a bloody palm again.  Some of the dead callused skin looks like it dug in and caused the area to open up again.  It was stupid of me.  Today I will try some false grip pull ups that don’t involve the injured area of my hand.

Speaking of pull ups, I recently joined the message board of bar-barians.com. Bar-barians originally was a bunch of inner city guys that got together to do some INCREDIBLE exercises on a bar.  Their amazing videos have helped grow the “hobby” of extreme body weight exercises.

I was encouraged to join the board by a guy I found on YouTube doing pull up videos.  Since joining I was pleasantly surprised at what I found.  Even though many of the people in the forum are very advanced in their strength and gymnastic ability, they are more than happy to encourage and help others that still have a long way to go.

I posted my home made pull up station on the board which seemed to validate my commitment to the bar.  The vibe on the forum is very positive, very supportive and very motivational.  So far I really like it.  The coolest thing is bar-barians span the globe.  I see people from everywhere getting involved.

Last night I knocked off a potential weekend project by cleaning the MAF (mass air flow) sensor on the Tacoma.  The research I did on the 171 error pointed to a dirty MAF as the most likely suspect.  During my research I found that cleaning the MAF is something that should be done every 30,000 miles.  It was never done for the first 112,000 miles, until last night.

Removing the MAF wasn’t very difficult.  Once I removed it I simply sprayed it down repeatedly with a cleaner that is designed specifically for the MAF.  While that was drying I sprayed some of the cleaner into the throttle body to remove some of the carbon build up.  It was recommended to do that while cleaning the MAF.

The entire process wasn’t difficult at all.  I may have spent 30-45 minutes on it total.  After cleaning up I attached my code reader to the truck and cleared the code.  So far the light has remained off however I won’t know for sure if I fixed it unless the light remains off for a couple weeks.  If it returns that means a new MAF would be in order which is rather pricey.

When I found that video of the 2011 Camaro HUD I just happened to see a link to an Iphone HUD app.  Basically it is an app that utilizes the Iphone 3G/3GS gps to provide a HUD in ANY vehicle.  It is pretty awesome and cheap to boot.  I think it was two or three bucks.

The app has two modes. In HUD mode it reverses the image on the screen of the Iphone so when it relects back to you in the windshield it looks correct.  You can also have it display normally if you want to just prop your Iphone on the instrument cluster for daytime use.  HUD mode will not be effective during the day, the Iphone is not bright enough to overpower daylight.

I used it in non-HUD mode on the way home.  It worked great.  You can set speed markers that warn you if you go over a desired top speed, a nice way to prevent speeding tickets.  It also has the ability to alert you to known red light/speed cameras using a national database.  If you approach such a trap it will warn you so you can react accordingly.

I was excited to see how it looked at night.  I hopped in the Tacoma as it was getting dark and tried it out.  I was bummed when I realized that something in the construction of the Toyota windshield caused an annoying double image to display, regardless of the position or angle I used.  If I held it against my side window it looked perfect.

I suppose if you are interested in the app you should hold your Iphone up to your windshield at night and see if you see double or not.  Still even without using it as a true HUD it is well worth the money for me for the pure geek factor.

As I was working on the truck I was listening to guys on the radio give some details of the charges against LT, the ORIGINAL LT, Lawrence Taylor.  As the details were revealed of the charges the sadder and more disgusted I got.  LT has had a very troubled history over the years with drug, tax and violence issues. However, if this is true he has set the bar at a new sewer-like low level.

He is being charged with raping a 15 year old.  The picture being painted is the 15 year old was actually an unwilling prostitute.  Not only are they charging him with having sex with her, he is accused of slapping the girl around as well.

Even though I am a lifetime Eagles fan, I always admired and respected what LT did as a player.  He was a man among boys on the football field and he dominated the game for years.  Even with the various problems he has had in his personal life, I still always thought he overall was a decent guy.  Well if these allegations have any degree of truth he will have erased any positive thoughts I could possibly have about him.  He will permanently be a low life piece of shit that deserves as much punishment as can be brought against him.

This weekend will be a fun one.  Ali will be competing in her first triathlon tomorrow morning.  I have never been to a triathlon so I am interested in taking it all in.  Ali is nervous about the event since it is a whole new challenge. I am positive she will do quite well.

We will be taking mom out to eat on Mothers Day.  It’s always nice to visit with mom.  Of course I will be filling in the gaps in the weekend with various to do’s.

My volleyball career has been on life support.  The past few years I have only played a handful of times, literally.  The last time Randall and I played it really went poorly.  As a result I have been in no rush to get back on the court anytime soon.  Well Randall told me about a tournament that sparks my interest.

Over the past decade the rules of beach volleyball have changed dramatically.  All of these changes were made to speed up the game at the pro level as well as to make things more exciting.  Unfortunately these rules removed a lot teeth from my game which already had a gap filled smile.

This tourney would be a chance to once again relish in side out scoring and a full size court, the two changes that I hated the most.  One of the reasons that I have always loved the Pottstown Rumble is they still adhere to the old school rules.

A bigger court gives me a lot more real estate to hit into.  The combination of a bigger court and side out scoring also removes the hesitation I find with modern rules and aggressive serving.  My serve used to be a real asset in my game.  Now I am more concerned with keeping the serve just in so I don’t cost my team a point.

I have no delusions that a big court and old rules is going to also magically fix some of the physical limitations I have found playing a young man’s game after four decade plus on the planet.  What it will do is make the game a lot more fun for me, regardless of the outcome.  Fun comes first nowadays.