Archives August 2010

Anyone that reads my stuff knows that I generally look upon lemming movements with disdain.  For those of you that may not know, a lemming is an animal made famous by their migrations that take them over a cliff to their death.  The lemming doesn’t think, instead he just follows all the other lemmings over the cliff.

An Iphone is a lemming phone, no doubt about it.  Everyone has heard of them and tons of people have them because they are “cool”.  There are lots of other phones out there that have better technical specs, run on faster networks and offer similar operating systems yet the Iphone rules all.

I don’t really like being an Iphone lemming but I have to admit I love mine. I like it so much that I upgraded my 3G to an Iphone 4 yesterday.

I skipped the gym yesterday to head to the Apple store.  My co-worker told me he upgraded his over the weekend there and they had some in stock.  I figured on a Monday over lunch it wouldn’t be very busy, I was wrong.  They had at least a dozen people working the floor and they were all with customers.  It made me feel even more like a lemming.

All of the Apple store employees seemed hip and with it as you would expect.  All of them except the one that eventually helped me, a woman that had to be at least 70 years old.  It struck me as very odd to see someone that old working in an Apple store.  Well as long as she could help me I didn’t really care.

There was no consultation needed.  I told her exactly what I wanted, the 32GB model and I was upgrading my current Iphone 3GS.  She went in the back and brought one out.  The entire checkout was handled on a modified Iphone Touch, it was pretty cool, you never go to a register.  Even with an old lady at the controls the upgrade process went very smoothly.  In the span of 10 minutes I was upgraded and out the door.

The first thing I did was call Ali on the new phone.  The second thing I did was try out the new camera which is a huge upgrade from the 3G version.  The higher resolution, video capacity and front/back lenses are all great.  I was equally pleased how easy it was to migrate across everything from my old phone.  I got everything moved across intact including my two Exchange push email accounts. All my apps, pictures, and text messages all moved across cleanly.

I messed around with the various features yesterday.  The better screen quality is noticeable, everything looks very clean.  The faster processing speed is also very apparent.  The response I got from the phone was much quicker than what I had become accustomed to on the 3G.

I downloaded the Netflix app and loaded up some King Corn to test it out.  Within a few seconds it was streaming beautifully. I also grabbed some additional apps to play with.  I spent the $5 for Imovie that allows you to do editing of video on your phone.  I messed with it a bit yesterday, it wasn’t exactly easy to do.

I grabbed this simple, stupid but fun and addicting game called Angry Birds.  Download it and you will see what I mean.  I also grabbed Call of Duty Zombie Wars.  This is a FPS for the Iphone.  It is a good demonstration of the graphic power of the device.  It also was a demonstration of why you shouldnt do a FPS on an Iphone.  I found the control system incredibly clunky and annoying.

The multitasking is very nice, finally I can stream Stern via Pocket Tunes while doing other stuff on the phone.  Some of the features like multi-tasking and voice control Ali could do on her 3GS but didn’t realize it.  She was happy to learn the new tricks.

I still qualified for the free case from Apple.  To get one you had to download a special app.  In the app you are able to pick from a wide variety of cases.  The one I picked will show up in 3 weeks or so.  Until then I will just need to be extra careful.

My old Iphone 3G although cut off from 3G still runs on wireless.  I was able to check mail and surf the web on it after the cutover.  My plan is to probably sell it on Craigs List.  It looks like I could realistically get $150-$200 for it.

This morning was my appointment with D. Wayne.  Yea I said his name was Dwayne before.  I just thought he was strange and liked to stretch his name into two syllables.  He told me his actual name is David but he goes by D. Wayne “in the business”.

You may recall that D annoyed me greatly on the phone.  He talked my ear off with information I generally didn’t care about.   I was already heavily jaded against him just by that call.  Imagine how I felt when he told me he was going to be a half hour late for our appointment.

So D pulls up and starts his inspection. D was a little guy, lucky if he hit 5’7″ in heels.  He annoyed me again when he chastised me for not having regular service done on the unit.  I told him I have done much of it myself.  He also said that my 3 month filter change schedule was too long, he said it should be changed every month.  I was like WTF, on the filter itself it says every 3 months.  D said it should be every month, especially since we have dogs. Um ok D.

D reiterated what I already knew, our original AC installers sucked ass.  They did a real half assed job.  He said that the probability of our house ever passing the air flow test was slim to none, to fix all the leaks would eat up that $1500 anyway.

It was interesting comparing how he went through the house compared to the first guy.  D basically just looked at the air handler, the plenum in the attic and the condenser outside. He didn’t make any mention of the air vents that Chris said were too restrictive nor did he suggest a second return to pump more air through the system.

As much as I didn’t like the guy, he did give me some good information.  After our first quote Ali and were thinking that going with the higher SEER unit was the best choice, even with it’s significantly higher price tag.  D showed us a chart that showed the energy savings of a 16 seer unit versus an 18 seer unit.  The 18 seer unit used around $150-$200 less electricity a year than a 16 seer model.  Well if you do the math it is easy to see that it would take 25 years to make up that initial price difference.

That changed our focus down to the 16 seer model.  This outfit pushes Amana equipment, the first estimate was for Trane equipment.  D’s sales pitch was very car sales-esque.  He said we would get a $500 discount if we decide to blow off the air flow test, another $500 no-FPL discount and ANOTHER 10% if we make the purchase during the first two weeks in September.

The Amana equipment was being sold with a full 10 year parts and labor warranty which is another nice perk instead of the extra that coverage would cost me with Trane.  When D was finished his final quote was a full $1700 lower than the 16 seer Trane quote I got (if I paid for the 10 year warranty from Trane) I thanked D. Wayne for his time and told him I was looking to get at least one more quote before making a decision.

I really didn’t expect D to come in that much lower in price.  I called up Chris, the first guy that came out and told him the numbers.  I told him the quote was on Amana hardware.  Chris said that explains a lot of the difference.  He said that Amana is not good stuff. It’s cheaply made and does not perform as well as a Trane.  He said their company does not sell Amana because of the problems.

I played devil’s advocate and countered that if the Amana is being sold with a 10 year bumper to bumper warranty how bad could it be?  Chris said that based on what he saw in his years as a field tech that Amana equipment just isn’t that good.  I had to weigh if he was giving me an honest opinion or just an excuse to make his higher quote seem more viable.

Another consideration was Chris doing additional work to increase the overall performance of the system.  In addition to the new equipment they would be replacing all of the ac vents, installing a second return,  increasing the diameter of the vent that feeds the far side of the house and replacing that secondary distribution box.

I told Chris that my preference was to go with his company but I couldn’t ignore the big difference in dollars.  He said the best he could do is knock another $350 off the price of the Trane system.  He also is going to get me a quote on some other lower cost models for comparison.

I’ll have to talk it over with Ali but I am still leaning towards going with the Trane equipment.  Our AC system is so shitty I feel like it would be money well spent to get higer grade stuff and have an installer that will do more than just swap it out and leave the other problems untouched.

My gym session today was ridiculous.  It was supposed to be a chest/back day.  I abandoned chest after an anemic performance on the bench.  I had no strength and every movement was aggravating my elbow/forearm.  My attempts at back work were equally frustrating so I just said F it and finished up with 15 minutes on the cross trainer.

The forearm stuff has been going on forever but the weakness was sort of weird.  I am not sure it is day 2 hangover from the brick on Sunday or what.  I just had no power at all.

I decided I am laying off anything at the gym that hurts altogether for awhile.  That means cutting out a lot of stuff including most barbell work, pull ups and pretty much anything that involves gripping.  Instead I will concentrate on tri-training, abs and anything else that doesn’t aggravate that area.

If prolonged rest doesn’t work I have no choice but to see a damn doctor.

We have not had any sort of break from the daily downpours out at our place.  I decided it was best to just avoid a muddy, wet, blade dulling attempt to mow the grass altogether.  My hope is to be able to mow it this week if we get a break in the wetness.

I really hate when our property gets waterlogged like this.  The one bright spot is new wildlife enters our yard when it takes on a swamp like appearance.  We had multiple egrets, ibis and even a couple ducks swimming around in the back yard.

On Saturday I once again wanted to get pretty much all house chores done so we could have a chore free Sunday.  Ali went running with her girl friends Saturday morning and then napped for almost 3 hours Saturday afternoon so it was mostly a solo project.  I didn’t really mind, what needed to be done yet was mostly things I do anyway.

Saturday evening we were invited over to the new neighbors house for a birthday party for Neal.  We met some of their other friends which was cool. Ali and I both had a good time.

Sunday morning Ali and I decided to do a joint training brick.  We would put our bikes in the truck and drive down to the water park.  The plan was to bike, run and then head inside the park to swim.  On the way to the park a very bad thing happened.

We were on Immokalee Road and there wasn’t very much traffic around us.  I spotted ahead of me in the distance something moving across the road.  It didn’t take me long to determine it was a turtle.  There was only one car in front of me and nothing else really close I was planning to swing over to the side, put on my blinkers and take the turtle safely to the other side of the road.

I figured the Corolla in front of us would see the turtle as well since there was absolutely no traffic around it so it could easily change lanes and miss it.  Well Ali and I watched in horror as the Corolla brake lights did not illuminate once, it’s direction or speed did not waver one bit as it exploded the turtle in it’s tracks.  It was horrible to watch.

Well I was instantly enraged.  I immediately caught up to the car and was surprised to see 4 clean cut kids all dressed up in shirts and ties.  They were laughing and talking like they just didn’t obliterate an innocent animal a few seconds prior.  I gestured angrily at the car, letting them know that I witnessed what just went down.

The Corolla dropped speed, falling way back.  I dropped my speed as well until I was doing 5-10 mph under the speed limit so they had to get next to me.  I was so furious that I really was entertaining running their vehicle into the curb as payback for their inhumane act.  Instead as the car approached I slowly inched towards it, rolled down my window and pointed at them.

In a very angry dramatic fashion I pointed at them and then gave them an equally angry thumbs down.  The finger would not have been appropriate.  The kids were no longer laughing, no longer talking and instead just looking straight ahead. Luckily for them I was turning left and they were going straight.

Ali got the license plate of the vehicle.  She wondered if there was any sort of law against willful roadkill.  I told her I was pretty sure there wasn’t.  I did say that I may be able to find out who owns the vehicle and at the very least send them (hopefully the kids parents) an anonymous letter letting them know what went down.

To me there are two possible scenarios.  One is the driver was carrying on with the other other three guys in the car and paying absolutely zero attention to the road.  The other is the kid is a total lowlife that thought it would be fun to run over a turtle.  I guess I’ll never know. All we can hope is that karma is indeed a bitch.

Ali and I were both shaken up from the incident.  Throughout the day yesterday I kept replaying that visual in my head.  I thought to myself that it was literally a matter of a split seconds that determined that turtles fate.  If it would have been a couple seconds earlier or later I would have been able to deliver it to safety instead of witnessing the poor animal get splattered across the road.  Have I mentioned lately how much people suck?

Well I guess a tri-brick was a good way to keep our mind off the turtle massacre.  First up we did a little more than a 12 mile bike ride.  Ali struggled with the ride.  She lead early on but when we couldn’t even maintain a 15 mph pace I pulled ahead.  I asked her if something was wrong.  She just was struggling pedaling against any sort of head wind.  To be fair she also had run 6 miles the day before.

Once we got back to the parking lot we had her try out her new bike shoes with clips. A couple years ago Ali tried riding a bike with clips and promptly fell over while clipped in.  That incident has scared her from trying bike shoes/clips since.

Well I gave her a brief lesson based on my bike clip experience. I held the bike upright so she could practice getting snapped in and out of the clips.  After that we launched her out the parking lot so he she could get the hang of it.  She did a good job and was able to snap herself in and out without falling.  Ali also said she could immediately feel the difference being able to fully engage her legs.  Hopefully she continues to get more comfortable with the clips.  I think it will make a big difference in her bike performance.

So next up was a run.  We ran around the park.  By that time it was VERY warm.  I told Ali I have not run outside in MONTHS.  All of my running has been of the treadmill variety.  I felt fine however.  Ali peeled off at the 2 mile mark.  I wanted to do a full 5k so I did another half lap around the park and finished just under 30 minutes.

Next we gathered up our stuff and headed inside to swim laps.  Originally my goal was to do 400 meters which is 8 back and forths in the 25 meter pool. The first 50-100 meters did not feel good but after that my unconventional technique kicked in that at least allowed me to continue without feeling like I was hyperventilating.

I finished the 400 a minute or so ahead of Ali.  She was timing herself.  Her time was like 11:30 so that means I did the 400 in 10 minutes and change which is good for me. I was fine with doing 400, especially after biking and running.  Well Ali said that she felt good in the pool and was going to swim some more.  She said I could just chill out, yea right.

Of course I couldn’t allow Ali to do more than I did so I took off after her.  By the time she had enough we had covered 1000 meters.  She said that she could have swam even more probably.  I told Ali that it was a good thing she was my training partner because if it was just me I would have stopped at 400.  Thanks to her I pushed myself beyond what I thought I could do.

Needless to say we were both majorly pooped after that.  We spent the next 2-3 hours hanging out at the water park.  We didn’t do much water sliding at all, just two trips down the inner tube slide and a few loops around the lazy river.  Other than that we just sat under on the big umbrellas and dozed off a bit in between eating lunch and an ice cream sandwich later. We both enjoyed just hanging out and people watching.

When we got back out to the truck I had a voice mail from a woman that saw my Craigs List ad for our eliptical machine.  It has sat in our exercise unused for years.  When I am doing at home cardio it is always on the treadmill.  I figured it would be nice to reclaim that space and get a few bucks for it as well. Well we made arrangements for her to come out and look at it shortly after we got home.

She rung the doorbell no more than 15 minutes after we got back.  She checked it out and said she liked it.  She offered me the mandatory less than asking price which I accepted.  There was one problem, transport.  When I talked to her on the phone about it I had mentioned I would be willing to take it to her place if she bought it since she lived relatively close.  Well since she pulled up in a CRV I knew there was no way she was going to be able to fit the eliptical in that.

I told her I would load it up on the truck.  The cross trainer is very big and awkward to move. It was  a chore just for me to get it out of the exercise room.  I loaded the thing into the truck and followed the woman to the condos she lived in.

When she told me she lived on the second floor I panicked until she mentioned there was an elevator.  Before we went inside she warned me that there was a a fully decorated Christmas tree in her living room.  She said her daughters dared her to leave it up all year so she has. Um, ok.

Getting the machine into her bedroom was a bitch.  I had to remove the foot pedals just to squeeze it in there, I needed every fraction of an inch.  Once it was in the bedroom she pointed to where she wanted it, beside her bed.  The bedroom was not large.  I didn’t have space to lift the trainer up on end and spin it around.  I wound up lifting the entire thing and somehow crawling over her bed at the same time to set it in place.  I certainly hope she has no plans of moving it anytime soon.  She thanked me for all the help.  I surely went far above the normal Craigs List protocol for the transaction.

On Sunday night I watched Book of Eli.  It wasn’t very good.  In a nutshell Denzel Washington plays a bad ass god warrior that drops bad guys like Rambo.  I thought the message of the movie was sort of stupid.  Killing in the name of God is what terrorists do, right?  I’d give it a C, not even worth a Netflix rental.

I plan to get an Iphone 4 over lunch today.  My review will be upcoming.

So yesterday I followed through on my intent to get multiple estimates on replacement of our home AC. I contacted another local place.  I called a couple minutes after 8 and was told some woman would call me back within a few minutes.  Instead I got called back mid-afternoon by some guy named Dwayne, which already cost them a few points before we even got started.

It only took me a few seconds to categorize Dwayne as first class blabber mouth.  All I wanted was to schedule an appointment to have someone give me an estimate.  Somehow this morphed into a 15 minute conversation where Dwayne rambled on.

Dwayne asked me if I heard their radio show.  I said no, I have heard their ads on the radio.  Evidently this place runs a half hour AC Q&A show every Saturday on a local station.  Dwayne said that people LOVE it and he strongly encouraged me to listen.  I said “cool” in a very weak attempt to display interest.

Dwayne then went into a sales pitch on the phone, basically already making excuses for their higher prices by pointing out the excellent service they offer and how they automatically cover everything they sell for 10 years parts and labor.  Of course, you pay for that additional coverage it is just included in what they quote you.

I was in two different sales positions in my illustrious adult work career.  I immediately thought to myself “this guy is a terrible salesman”  He was laying it on much too thick and trying to sell me something before he even knew what I needed.  I finally was able to steer him away from the bullshit long enough to actually get an appointment set up for Tuesday morning.  I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn’t buy from these people just based on that phone conversation, Dwayne totally turned me off.  Instead whatever quote they give will be just used as a tool to negotiate a lower price with someone else.

Last night I did my third entry for this month’s Bar-barian challenge which is max continuous push ups.  I did this attempt on my new push up handles. There were far fewer people that did the challenge on handles so I thought it would give me an opportunity to represent better.  I squeezed out 33 reps which was a decent number.  Earlier in the day Jeremy had hinted he thought he could compete with me doing push ups on handles.  I am eagerly awaiting his video response.

Later I worked on some more static holds, most notable was the frog stand. The frog stand is a balance movement that engages your muscles in a unique manner to maintain an upright position.  You basically assume the position and then hold it.  Once you can hold a frog stand for 60 seconds it is time to try an advanced frog stand where your arms are straight and your knees are not resting on your elbows.

I also utilized our bar stools for another hold.  Basically you put your hands in between your legs and press.  As you do you raise your body off the stool and at the same time you try to raise your knees as high as possible.  I had Ali try both exercises, she failed at frog stands but was able to do the other hold.

I had a funny moment when after doing a frog stand normally with my fingers pointed forward I thought it would be a challenge to try one with my hands reversed.  That was a mistake.  With no fingers to resist my forward momentum I promptly tipped over and banged my head into the floor.

Ali was excited last night to receive her Vibram Five Fingers.  Their arrival was a complete surprise to me, she didn’t even mention that she was getting them.

The theory with these things are they allow you simulate barefoot walking/running which some “experts” say is a benefit to developing the lower extremities in a way that today’s modern, ultra-cushioned, ultra supportive sneakers don’t allow.

I don’t know if they work or not, all I know is the look funny.  It makes you look like a character from the Flintstones.  Ali was walking around in them all night last night and said they were comfortable.  It will be interesting to see what her running experience in them is.  I’ll take my ultra padded, shock absorbing to the max running sneakers, thank you very much.

I spent much of last night doing more testing of the various tech I am going to be using at this year’s fantasy football draft that is going to be held at our house next Wednesday night.  You may recall last year I had a live video stream of the event and the remote owners connected in via AIM.  I had the computer with their AIM windows displaying on the 73 incher.

Well this year we are taking it a step further.  We are going to try to connect the remote owners via Skype video calls which will give us full, real time, two way interactivity.  In my research into this I discovered that the production version of Skype does not support group video calls however the 5.0 beta client does.

So last night we gave it a test.  I connected myself, Ali and one of the other guys in the league into a three way video call.  It worked great.  You can connect up to 5 people in this manner.

In addition to the Skype connection I still plan to have the video stream, AIM client and my Trendnet Webcam up and running for those that don’t have Skype access running.  My biggest concern is swallowing up the bandwidth coming into the house with all of that going on simultaneously.  It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

Yesterday my buddy Hoyt sent out several email forwards.  One in particular caught my eye, it was a long article about the evil of artificial sweeteners, specifically aspartame.   It attributes high intake of artificial sweeteners with a variety of physical ailments.  One product in particular that was mentioned by name was Diet Coke.

I drink Diet Coke.  Whenever I am going to have a soda it would be Diet Coke. I also consume various sugar free products.  I wouldn’t consider myself a heavy Diet Coke drinker.  On average I have 2-4 per week.  I know a lot of people though that drink the stuff like water.

I guess it really is common sense.  How many times in this world do you really get something for nothing? It sure sounds great to get the sweetness of sugar without the calorie hit doesn’t it?  But if the true cost of that is poisoning your body then obviously it isn’t a good trade off.  If nothing else, reading the info is going to make me reevaluate some of the decisions I make when it comes to what I am consuming.  Case in point, this morning I used real sugar packets instead of the Splenda I would typically add to my coffee.  Read the information and make your own choices.

I heard an interesting quick explanation of why a full moon affects certain people’s behavior/personalities.  Everyone knows that a full moon affects the tides in the oceans due to increased gravitational pull. Well the brain is composed of many things but most of all it is made of water.  The change in gravity can also change the composition in your brain temporarily.  The shift in water can change the way the electrical pathways in your head fire, affecting different people in different ways.

It just so happens that in my case the pathways that seem to be most affected are connected to the mood section of my brain.

This weekend will be typically busy although due to a week of heavy rain I may just say F cutting the grass and wait till the various ponds dry up so it can all be done in one session.  We are also skipping the gulf training swim tonight.  Ali has a busy day and I could do without an hour of swallowing salt water.  I’ll get my swim time in our pool this time around.

Want a brief glimpse what a 2011 Camaro convertible looks like?  Here you go!! Looks fantastic.

So I met up with a guy from the AC company we have used in the past for repairs to give me an estimate on system replacement.  When I saw the guy, Chris, I knew he looked familiar.  It turns out he used to be a repair tech and moved to sales about a year ago.  He was actually the guy that first discovered the pool of water we had sitting in the bottom of our return duct a few years ago.

I told him how we were looking at replacing the system to take advantage of the federal tax credit and the Florida EnergyStar program.  The EnergyStar program was just announced and Chris said they didn’t have all the details about it yet.  If I got both rebates I would be able to save $3000 on the installation.  If we were FPL customers we would have the possibility of collecting even more rebate money.

Chris inspected what we had.  I told him the original installers seemed to do a pretty piss poor job.  He confirmed it looked pretty shoddy and he laughed when he saw the distribution plenum in the attic tied up to the rafters with some tape.

He said our current ac equipment was a base 10 seer system.  A SEER is a measurement of efficiency of an AC system.  For comparison sake, in order to qualify for the rebates/tax credits you must install a minimum of a 16 SEER unit which is significantly more efficient.

He also said that all of the vents in the house would be replaced with a less restrictive variety to improve air flow.  I had mentioned to him how airflow to the far side of the house was very poor. Chris also suggested that we add a second return to the system.  Unfortunately the only place it could go is on our bedroom wall.

After doing his survey he sat down to work out quotes on two different options, both of which utilized Trane equipment which is some good stuff.  The first quote was for a higher end, 18.5 SEER system.  This unit has a two stage air handler and air compressor.  The advantage of this configuration is the ability to run in a low power mode.  This low power mode can normally be used to maintain temperature in the house.  The higher power mode is only used when the system detects it can’t keep up with heat or if rapid cooling is needed.

This system is expensive, normally $9200 installed. Trane happens to be running a $1000 rebate on this system currently so it would knock the price down a grand.

The other quote was for a 16.5 SEER Trane system.  This unit had a two stage air handler but a single stage compressor.  It will use more power than the 18.5 system. This unit only had a $100 rebate on it but it was much less expensive, $6800 installed.

Trane equipment is good stuff like I mentioned early.  The high end system has a two year bumper to bumper warranty that covers everything and 10 and 12 year parts warranties on everything else.  The cheaper unit has 1 year bumper to bumper and a 10 year warranty on everything else.

Trane offers an extended warranty (not the dealer) that actually seemed like a decent deal.  On the 18.5 system for $900 you can change that warranty coverage to 12 YEARS bumper to bumper.  Basically it would mean for the next dozen years if anything goes wrong with your AC, it’s covered, parts and labor.  The cheaper model allows you to get a 10 year bumper to bumper for $700.

I talked to Chris more about the Florida rebate.  One of the requirements is the air vents are tested to verify that they have no more than 15% of air flow leakage.  I KNOW our existing system leaks.  That plenum that is hanging from the rafters leaks badly.  One of the things I liked was Chris said that box would be totally replaced and the secondary distribution box on the other side of the house would be as well.  The replacement of the ceiling vents should also address another potential source of leakage.

The point of this is the Florida rebate is a bit of a crapshoot.  I would need to pay someone else to do this air flow testing and there is no guarantee that even after replacing the system that it would pass the leakage parameters.  So basically I would be rolling the dice that few hundred bucks I spend on the test would turn into a $1500 rebate if it passes.  If it doesn’t pass it’s like rolling a 7.

I thanked Chris for the information and the quote.  I told him I planned to get several estimates.  He told me that if anyone quoted lower on the same equipment that I should let him know.

To be honest, I liked Chris.  He is likable, honest and knows what he is talking about since he was in the field doing service for years.  I could have easily just given him the go ahead.  However I know that the practical thing to do is get some other companies in the mix to play them off each other.  Yea it’s a pain in the ass having to leave work to meet up with them but if it saves me a few hundred by doing so it’s worth it.

Yesterday Jeremy asked me if I heard about the latest Florida cash for clunkers program.  I said I had not.  Florida is rolling out another program tied into saving energy.  This time they are targeting inefficient older home AC systems.  In a typical Florida home, the central AC is by far the biggest consumer of energy so it is a good thing to target.

They are offering $1500 in rebates if you replace your system with a new efficient model. On top of this there additional federal tax savings available.  In theory, you could wind up saving approximately 50% off the cost of an average sized unit.

When I mentioned this to Ali she was very into pursuing it.  Our AC system is nearly 10 years old.  It also was installed in a haphazard fashion and has a bunch of leaks in the plenum.  You may recall the water I have sucked out of the return a couple times since the air handler was installed tilting AWAY from the drain.

So I am going to be making some phone calls today.  Getting this rebate is more involved than the appliance rebate program.  In order to qualify you have to have a test done that indicates that your ducts/vents leak no more than 15% of the air flow into the attic.  Some homes may never be able to achieve that level depending on the accessibility of the vents for repair.  I know with our vaulted ceilings I sure as hell would not want to be doing anything in that area.

We’ll see what sort of response/numbers we get.  I am sure most HVAC dealers are going to be hammered.

We have had two days in a row of mostly overcast weather.  This is very rare here in SW Florida.  Usually during the summer you will have your quick hitting storm and the rest of the day will be relatively sunny.  It’s funny how you just take stuff for granted.

Friday we once again headed down to the gulf for another swim training session.  It was not very enjoyable.  This was the third time I had done it and all three times the water conditions have been rough.  There also was a large sandbar off the coast and even with swimming 50 yards off the shoreline I was still hitting the bottom with my hands.

I also decided to stretch my distance, probably more than I should have.  I think in total I swam a little more than 3/4 of a mile, of course that was broken into 10-12 stop/starts.  The rough water took it’s toll on me.  I took in a bunch of water again including one full force muggy where I was desperately breathing for air and instead got all water from a wave. It sucked.

Ali and Christy were concerned when they could hardly see me off in the distance.  I emerged from the water totally spent.  I was so delusional that I accepted a Corona Light that Christy kindly offered me, forgetting that Corona Light might be my least favorite beer on the planet. I just stood there trying to catch my breath for a long time.  We headed out as the sky was looking very forbidding.

Ali and I had talked about heading to the water park on Sunday so I wanted to get anything around the house done on Saturday which I did.  While Ali mowed I worked inside after doing various outside duties.  While I was outside I took a picture of our very robust corn plants.

Saturday night we watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.  Wow, what a bizarre movie. I told Ali that whoever created this had to be on LSD or some sort of mind altering drug.

It was funny but just so damn silly.  The best part by far for me was Steve the Monkey.  I’d give it a B.  It would probably be a great movie to watch drunk.

Sunday morning I blew off any brick training.  I made the mistake of doing Romanian dead lifts on Friday and as a result my hamstrings felt like they were a couple inches short.  Plus, I just didn’t feel like it.

Ali got up very early by Sunday standards and met Christy to run before going to spin class.  While she was gone I got did whatever needed to get done yet.  When Ali returned she was exhausted.  We agreed she should lay down for a nap before we go to the waterpark.

Well while Ali was sleeping it started to pour, hard.  By the time she got up we once again had standing water all around the property.  The rain had stopped but the skies still looked very menacing.  We came up with a game plan.  We would dress for the waterpark and head there first.  If it was open and it wasn’t pouring we would hang there for a bit.  If it was closed we would just hit some stores that we needed to get stuff from.

Well when we pulled up we saw bodies up on the water slides.  It wasn’t raining but you could see the line of rain very near by.  We figured we rarely make the time to do something like go to the waterpark so we might as well give it a go.  We figured if it does rain, we will already be wet.

The first thing we did was swim a few laps in the two 25 yard swimming lanes.  I think in total I did 300 yards. That was plenty, I was panting pretty hard by the end of it.  After the swimming we headed for the water slides.  We did all of the 5 slides at least once, some more than once.  It started to rain pretty steady while we were on the slides.  The good thing was there was no lightning which would have closed the park.  The rain didn’t seem to dampen the activity of the people that already paid their 10 bucks a head to be there.

The slides there are a bit annoying.  The seams that connect the sections of fiberglass are too pronounced.  When you are sliding down on your back you feel each and every one of them. Ali and I noticed on our trips up there was a much shorter line for the slides where you went down on your back and a much longer line for the inner tube slide.  We saved the inner tube slide for last.

It becomes obvious why the inner tube slide has the most demand, it is the best one.  Not only does riding on the inner tube eliminate the back pain from the seams, that slide is a particularly cool ride where a good portion is in total darkness.  You emerge from the slide into the lazy river where you can enjoy a casual trip around the park.

The weather the entire time we were there was rainy and overcast but neither Ali or I cared, we had fun.  After a few trips around the lazy river and walking around the grounds we dried off, changed and headed out.  I really hope we can hit the park again while it was still warm and sunny before football season to make a day out of it instead of a couple hours.

After the park we stopped at Home Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond and Sports Authority.  Sports Authority was the biggest stop of the three.  I scored new lifting gloves, push up bars, an ab roller wheel, portable air pump (bike) and a second tri-style lycra suit.  Exercise can be costly. Luckily Ali had a bunch of coupons along that saved us money at both B,B&B and Sports Authority.

On the way home we decided to utilized the $15 Coldstone gift card that had been collecting dust in our house forever.  I thought I would try something different and get blueberry ice cream with crushed graham crackers and walnuts. It was in a word, gross.

I told Ali it tasted nothing like blueberry.  Instead it just tasted like some sort of artificial flavor, sort of like ice cream bubblegum.  Ali encouraged me to go back inside and tell them I didn’t like it but I declined.  I picked it and since ice cream isn’t a real big deal for me I just left well enough alone.  I ate maybe a third of it and left the rest to melt.    Tip to Coldstone customers, avoid blueberry.

It continued to rain for most of the day.  Our property had various lakes around it.  The deafening chorus of happy frogs last night was incredible.  It was so loud the dogs were hesitant to even head outside.

I finished the single player campaign in Starcraft 2 last night.  As expected it was an epic final battle and the final cinematic admittedly gave me a few goosebumps.  I thouroughly enjoyed it.  This is far from the end of my SC 2 experience.  There are numerous single player challenges I can undertake and after that the endless world of PVP combat awaits.

Last night I also successfully replaced the tube on my Dawes front tire.  I struggled with it a bit more than I should have.  I wound up attempting and undoing it three times until I got it right.  The wheel is back on the bike and ready for action, whenever that may be.

Yesterday I had a good idea.  I created a survey on Survey Monkey to send out to our running club email list.  The survey was very simple, it asked if runners avoid signing up online for our races because of the additional $3 Active charges them to do so.  The numbers that came back where staggering.

70% of the first 100 responders said they absolutely avoid using Active because of that charge.  Roughly the other 30% said they already sign up online but would welcome lower fees. Only three people said they would still prefer paper.

These results were huge reinforcement for my point at the meeting which was argued against by some board members. The numbers were indisputable.

I forwarded these results out to the board and as a result got the ok to change one of our upcoming races to eliminate the surcharge and have it absorbed by the race instead. It will be interesting to see how the change affects our online registration percentages.

Ali came home from work late last evening with tears in her eyes.  She was stressed out from work.  Her job can be very annoying at times because her duties require other people to do things in a timely manner.  If they don’t it affects her workload which is very frustrating.  Well evidently yesterday was particularly bad in that regard. Ali gets very bent out of shape if she feels “behind” at work.

We are supposed to do more swimming in the gulf tonight and I hope to do another training brick Sunday morning.  The gaps in between will be filled with various house chores I am sure but hopefully a sufficient amount of doing whatever the F we feel like as well. I invited mom to stay over Saturday night but she turned me down.

When the Camaro came out last year it was immediately put up in tests against the 2010 Mustang and Challenger.  Pretty much across the board it would win these comparisons and clearly won the performance tests with shortest braking, fastest acceleration and 1/4 mile times. The V-6 Camaro stomped the Mustang and Challenger equivalents.

Well Ford went all out for the 2011 model making a number of changes, the largest of which was an all new 5.0 liter motor that produces 412 HP.  That number is still short of the 426 HP that is produced by the Camaro’s significantly larger 6.2 liter power plant. However the Mustang is also several hundred pounds lighter than the Camaro.  These numbers resulted in a dramatic shift in power in the performance numbers.

In the latest head to heads I saw the Mustang was now about a half second faster than the Camaro in both the V-8 and V-6 variations in the 1/4 mile test.  In the Challenger/Mustang/Camaro face off the Camaro now was rated last instead of first.  Wow, what a difference a year makes.  I still want one. 🙂

Last night was another running club board meeting.  You may recall last month there were some fireworks when I proposed some changes that went against the grain of some long time club members that are resistant to change.  In the past there have been a number of hotly contested issues at these meetings.  Far too often after the argument occurs the actual issue gets tabled and not followed up on, perhaps to avoid further conflict. Well I wasn’t ready to let my issues die on the vine.

Once again I pushed for changes to our registration procedures and pushed for the changes to start sooner rather than later.  Again I met up with some resistance, some of which I found particularly annoying as conclusions were being drawn that made no sense.  After an extended session of back and forth points from various board members we sort of agreed to move forward with some changes, dipping our toes into the water slowly.

I also was voted in as an official board member last night.  Even though I have attended many, many board meetings over the past few years I have never been an official board member meaning I couldn’t vote on stuff,  bring up motions and things of that nature.  It was by my choice that I wasn’t a board member, I didn’t want the stigma.  Well last night we all sort of figured I might as well be one as my issues and opinions are often main topics in meetings since I am the timer.

Last night I was also annoyed when I found out that Ali and I were committed, without my prior knowledge to time yet another event in October, a regional cross country event.  Evidently this possibility was brought up nearly a year ago but was not brought back up to either of us until last night.  The lack of communication is a common theme in our club and as always I found it aggravating.

On top of that, this would probably be one of the most challenging races I have timed to date.  There will be 5 different races going on back to back with the different groups like varsity boys, varsity girls, jv and so on.  Timing it will be an all morning event.  Sure I like a challenge but I also like getting paid for my expertise and time.

If I was an independent timer I would be charging at least a grand or two to do this.  It makes me think seriously about the viability of buying some used equipment of my own and timing races as a source of additional income to do things like pay for a Camaro.

My lengthy, humorous, volleyball tip list has been one of the more popular pages on my site for a long time.  The other day I thought that a similar list, written with the same toungue in cheek fashion about tips on life could have some equal giggle value.  So I simply copied my existing vball list and started over.  Hell I even left the volleyball background.  Feel free to take a look at the birth of what is sure to become another internet craze. See it here.