Wet fireworks, PVS

Saturday we wanted to knock out the majority of the house chores since Sunday was going to be absorbed by the race in the morning and then a 4th of July picnic later.  Ali started the mowing before she had to leave and I finished up.  After I was done I was cleaning off the mower deck that was clogged with wet grass. As I did I felt my finger poke through the mower deck, argh!  My most recent repair was still intact but the area right above it had sprung a leak.

Well it was finally enough for me to bite the bullet and order a replacement mower deck as well as a few other parts that are worn out.  I figured spending 300 bucks to get another couple years out of the thing instead of three grand to get a better model is a good move right now.

I spent a lot of time in the garden on Saturday too.  Even though now is technically not a good time to grow stuff in the garden in our backyard I thought I would throw some seeds in the ground anyway.  The small raised bed area I recently set up should provide some higher ground to grow stuff that would normally drown in the standing water that can overtake our property this time of year. I also created a high mounded area to plant more carrot seeds.

I threw a bunch of seed in the ground including several varieties of carrots, corn, peas, black eyed peas, onions, beets and a couple tomato plants.  It will be interesting to see how much luck we have getting stuff to grow.

One of things Ali did when she was out was stop at Michaels.  She came up with the idea of having a custom frame made with 50 spots for 50 state sign pictures, a cool idea.  Of course they don’t sell these normally but Michaels can make custom frames.  Ali had some sort of coupon that supposedly knocked 50% off the price.

Well later when she was home I asked her about the frame.  I asked what they said it would cost.  I cringed when she said $300 or so!  What??  Luckily Ali was unable to complete the order on the spot.  I suggested to her that spending $300 on a custom frame right now might not be the smartest thing considering we just dropped a bundle on the trip.  I told her that $300 would pay for the new deck on the mower or towards the four new tires the Camry desperately needs.  Surprisingly Ali didn’t put up resistance to my objection, maybe even she knew it was sort of nuts to spend that much money on a frame right now.

Much of our Saturday night was spent doing prep work for the race July 4th.  In the span of two days about 160 people entered the race on paper.  Paper entries are a real pain in the ass for me as a timer.  Each entry has to be entered by hand.  Paper entries also come with varying degrees of legibility and completeness, adding to the annoyance factor. So as we spent a good portion of the evening putting these entries in, I found myself getting incredibly annoyed.

The reason I was annoyed was because this race, which is quite large (over 800 entries) does nothing to encourage runners to sign up early and online.  The fee for the race is dirt cheap and there is no financial penalty for someone if they wait to sign up the day before the race, they pay the same thing as if they signed up a month prior. 

Since Ali and became the official race timers we have stressed again and again how this practice is unrealistic with electronic timing and puts an undue burden on us as we try absorb the influx of last minute paper entries.  The answer to this is to use ladder fees where people are rewarded for signing up early.  If they want to wait until the last couple days to sign up that is fine, but is going to cost you and extra $5.

It’s a win/win.  People that are dollar conscious will make the effort to sign up early to save the money.  Those that still want to procrastinate can do so but that extra $5 will go a long way towards increasing the clubs funds from a race which allows us to give more money away.  People that sign up online eliminate the paper problem and are able to be instantly entered into the race.

Well the powers that be have up to this point refused to change the standards for this race and I fired off an email complaining about it.  It doesn’t seem like a big deal to them because they don’t have to deal with the hassle it creates on the back end.  I got a reply back about the tradition of the race and how it has always been a certain way.  I pointed out that it was that way before we started chip timing it, you can’t handle it the same way now. The whole exchange annoyed me greatly and kept me lying awake in bed much later than I would have liked since I had to get up at 4AM.

The race was busy, we had close to 150 people walk up on the day of the race.  This race also has ridiculously low entry fees, even for day of race entries, so people had no problem just waiting till the last minute.  Luckily I brought all three laptops so we could enter people very quickly.  I was also lucky that a canopy was set up over the timing equipment at the finish line as it started to rain shortly after the race began. All in all the timing of the race went very well, despite the volume.  Any errors I have seen in the results up to this point have been of the human variety.

When we got home Ali almost immediately retired to the bedroom.  Of course that left me to do all of the post race processing as well as cleaning up/putting away the equipment.  I knew a nap would be a good idea since we were going to a party that night but I just didn’t have time.

Saturday afternoon I decided to shoot my first running club instructional video.  Ever since we went to chip timing we have witnessed runners having all sorts of struggles performing the simple task of attaching the chip to the sneaker.  I constantly found myself amazed just how hard of a time some people have with the process.  In the short 2 minute video I clearly illustrate the best way to attach the timing chip.  Evidently my effort was appreciated.  Since I posted it to the club web site and email list I have gotten quite a few people that liked it and said it cleared things up.  Mission accomplished.

On our way to the party we stopped for a quick visit with my mom.  We hadn’t seen her since our trip.  She has had an eventful last month.  In that time period she hurt her knee and had surgery within a couple weeks.  She had arthroscopic surgery, similar to what I had for meniscus damage.

Mom is getting around on her own albeit slowly.  She is not enjoying being hampered.  I could tell her knee was still very swollen, I remember the feeling all too well.  Mom already knew most of what there was to know about the trip from reading the blog.  We gave her the two small souvenirs we picked up along the way, a Mt Rushmore magnet and a small jar of spices from Pickle’s Place. We didn’t stay long as we had to get to the party and we had a bowl of macaroni salad Ali made in the trunk.

This party was being held by a guy from the running/triathlon club we are members of.  He has a gig where he house sits some very nice places in downtown Naples during the summer.  Evidently the owners had no issue letting him use the place for a party, especially since it was held outside by the pool area.

The party was pretty wild.  It seems that people that are hardcore into endurance events are also hardcore into partying when they have the opportunity.  There were a number of people there that were already pretty drunk.  I didn’t waste any time and started on the cooler full of Heineken I brought along.

Within the first half hour I saw a minor miracle.  Neither Ali or I brought bathing suits, we didn’t know a pool was going to be there.  Well the host did something I would never survive doing, pulled Ali into the pool with all of her clothes on, not once but twice.  Ali was amazingly good natured about it, imagine that.

It started to rain pretty consistently for an hour or so but that didn’t slow the party down.  In fact the numbers continued to swell as the fireworks approached.  Yes, this house was close enough to the beach that we could actually watch the fireworks there.  The evening was filled with lots of funny antics.  The host actually lent me one of his bathing suits that I used to hang out in both the pool and hot tub. 

When the fireworks actually started almost all of the party goers walked down to the beach for an unobstructed view.  Ali and decided to hang in the hot tub instead to watch the show, we had it all to ourselves which was cool.  I can’t say I ever had watched fireworks from a hot tub before.

After the show finished Ali and I were ready to head out.  Unfortunately there was no getting out initially between the walls of people and other cars that parked us in.  We didn’t get to get out of there until 9:40 or so. 

I was really drunk.  I typically drink  Bud/Miller/Coors Light.  I had 8 or 9 real beers and was feeling it.  Obviously Ali had to drive.  It didn’t take long till we remembered why we avoid the Naples fireworks displays.  The streets around the beach are designed for old fart millionaires to putter around in their Cadillac and Lexus vehicles, not to handle 20,000 people trying to exit at once.   It took us probably close to an hour and a half to get home.  I can’t give an accurate time since I passed out midway in the journey.

By the time we got home I felt like I freaking zombie.  Between the drinking and being up since 4am it took all of my will power to complete the act of showering.  I was so tired.  I actually stayed in bed until 8:30 am the next day, a miracle.

I felt like hell.  My legs and ass had been getting increasingly more sore from my Friday workout and the hangover complications left me shuffling around the house like an old man.  I didn’t really start feeling better until the afternoon.

Ali went to work Monday.  I spent about half the day completing things that didn’t get done Sunday.  The rest of the time I chilled playing some WoW and taking in more Lost episodes.

Speaking of WoW, I accomplished another virtual milestone.  I got my last character to level 80, the maximum level in the game. I levelled every class in the game to max level.  This is something that does not occur often.  It means nothing to you unless you have delved into the WoW world.  If you you know of Stormwind, murlocs and the Lich King you will know the time it takes to accomplish this task.  If you don’t you are thinking “How stupid, who cares?”

Monday evening Ali had her first training session for speed work, ironically it is run by the host of the party.  He was so wrecked at the party I could hardly believe he was able to walk the next day.  Ali said the training was fun but difficult. 

I think I am suffering a bit from PVS (post vacation syndrome).  It’s an odd thing going from a non-stop two weeks of sensory overload where everyday was filled with new sites, sounds and experiences to being plunked back into your daily routine.  It’s hard to really describe exactly how I feel.  It’s sort of like if you run real fast on a treadmill and then suddenly step off.  You feel like you should still be moving but you are actually standing still.