Archives 2010

I have been forgetting to mention something else that will be available for the Camaro that is just another reason I can’t wait to get one.  They are releasing an Iphone app that lets you control the OnStar functionality right from your Iphone!

Utilizing OnStar I can talk to and in some cases control my car from my phone.  Let’s say I flew out of town.  I realized when I was in Pennsylvania that I may have forgot to lock the car.  I could open up the app on my phone, connect to my car and lock it (or unlock it) form anywhere that I have phone service.  It allows you access to all of the car stats that OnStar does like maintenance records, car vitals and more.  Give me the geek factor, I love it!

So yesterday I see the headlines that an insider leaked that Brett Farve is NOT coming back to the Vikings this year.  This announcement comes after yet another off season of indecision where Brett refused to commit one way or the other regarding his return to QB the Vikings after a very successful campaign last year.

I really think he is acting like an asshole plain and simple.  Just like he did to the Packers, Brett basically has held the Vikings hostage this entire off season, not allowing them to plan accordingly for their QB position. Now that training season is opening he is planning to say “thanks, but no thanks?”.  It’s a shitty move.

Now of course there are many, myself included that expect any retirement announcement to be bullshit and that Brett will once again flip flop and decide he wants to play right before the season starts.  I can only hope if he does make a retirement announcement that he actually stays retired, otherwise don’t waste everyone’s time watching another tearful, embarrassing,  goodbye.

Yesterday my gymnast rings showed up.  Ironically the place I ordered them from on Ebay is in good old Lancaster, PA.  I immediately unpacked the rings and straps and hung them on the Iron Gym.  I did some deep dips and some rows.  The rings and straps felt secure and were easy to adjust.  Of course I can also use the rings outside on my pull up station.

Gymnast rings are a great tool for body weight exercise.  The instability they introduce into any exercise is fantastic for overall strength as you engage more muscle to stabilize yourself. I look forward to utilizing them regularly.

Last night we went over to the new neighbor’s place for a birthday party.  It was nice to spend some time to get to know them better.  I also discovered that the boyfriend has incredible mechanical skills.  He was a professional mechanic and has a tool collection that puts mine to shame.  You name it and he has done it.  The best part is he is more than happy to assist me in anything.  I asked him about the Moto Guzzi and it’s issues, no problem he said.  I am going to take the carbs off and let him look at them. He told me exactly how to troubleshoot my one weed whacker that only runs on full choke.  He rattled off tons of things he has done as he gave me a brief tour of his collection.

I plan to try to learn as much as I can from him, what a valuable resource to have and he’s right next door.

Ali heads up to PA today for nearly a week long visit.  I have no definite plans but I will enjoy my alone time.  It’s nice to mix things up once in awhile.

For awhile now I found myself somewhat annoyed with my Facebook friend list.  When Facebook took off it became very easy to find old classmates, work associates and other people that you may have not had any contact with for years.  Even Mr Anti-social me found myself with around 150 people on my friends list.

Well for some reason yesterday I decided it was time to clean house.  If you are like me, a whole bunch of your “friends” on Facebook are on your list for pure voyeurism.  You saw the name of somebody you hadn’t had contact with for years or they see you.  One of you makes a friend request, it gets accepted and then you spend a couple minutes looking at their pictures to assess their current physical condition, glance at their bio to see how life is treating them and then boom, you are done.

Many of these requests are like two strangers passing in the night.  There is no communication that takes place, only the accepting of the request so each of you can inspect the other and move on.  Well I decided I had enough.

I spent a good 30-45 minutes cleaning up my friends list.  I had a few parameters I used to guide me in the process, some of which I posted on FB as I was removing “friends” left and right.

Obviously if you never made any attempt to communicate with me you were in trouble.  I mean we both had our quick fix, why continue?

I also removed people that do nothing but whine in their status updates.  I do enough whining of my own with out having to read it from others.

People that have a cardboard cut out on FB were goners, meaning they have an account but do nothing with it.  What is the point?

People that don’t post any current photos of themselves got axed.  If the most recent photo you posted was from 1985 you obviously are trying to hide something that I don’t want to see anyway.

The nothing but “the kids did this and the kids did that” posters got hammered.  If I wanted to be FB friends with your kids I would have made the request with them.

In total I eliminated over a third of my friends list.  It wasn’t very hard to do and now my feed list is much more manageable.

Take a good hard look at your list, I am sure you will find a lot of fat that can be trimmed.

Yesterday I did some pull ups on the Iron Gym and dragon flags at home.  I used the cabinet the 73 inch tv sits on as my grip for the dragon flags.  Man they are a tough exercise but they build a strong core.

I am frustrated by my inability to completely heal these elbow/forearm problems.  I have had off and on problems with them for probably a year at least.  It makes progressing on my bar work tough.  When I do pull ups my first few reps sound like tight string breaking as the tendons and muscles in my forearms unwillingly contract and expand.  I have never seen a doctor about it but I assume it is some sort of arthritis/tendinitis combination.  I have been trying to freeze the area at night with an ice pack to assist in the healing.

Last week I had my first ordering experience with Zappos.  I had heard many positives about Zappos from other people but never visited the site myself.  I was hunting for a pair of Adidas Originals Firebird track pants.  I was blown away when I saw they sell their clothing with FREE next day shipping, WTF??  Not only that but if you buy something and need to return it, that is free as well!  Their prices didn’t strike me as out of line which made the free shipping gig even sweeter.

I ordered two pair of track pants, the Firebird and a pair of Nike’s.  I deliberated at length on sizing.  Track pants aren’t like jeans where you can order a certain waist and length.  With jeans I would normally wear either a 32″ or 33″ waist and a 34″-36″ length.  Well with track pants it is small, medium, large, extra large, etc…

The longest inseam I saw was 34″ but that was on the XL size which supposedly was for someone with a 36″ to 38″ waist.  Well I hoped that the elastic waistband would contract to something even smaller.  I was wrong.  My package arrived the next day as promised.  I eagerly tore into the box to try on the pants.  First I tried on the Adidas.  They were ridiculously big, practically falling off me.  The Nike’s were not as loose but still way too big.  I was surprised to see that I had plenty of length with the 34 inseam, actually too much as they were dragging on the ground.

So I got to try out the Zappos return system as well which was pain free as well.  Now I have to consider getting mediums with the Adidas pants and maybe a large with the Nike’s.  This is one of the few times that being tall is not an advantage.

Friday night instead of our normal pizza and Tivo routine Ali and I instead went down to the beach to do an open water swim with the local triathlete group.  We got there a couple minutes late and just missed the main group who had already started swimming down towards the pier.  We met up with Ali’s training buddy Christy so we figured we would just do our own swimming together.  In retrospect I was glad we didn’t swim with the big group.

I have NEVER done any sort of distance swimming not to mention distance swimming in an open body of water.  The water was rather rough for the gulf with a pretty regular stream of waves coming in.  Undaunted I donned my swimming goggles, stripped down to my spandex tri trunks and headed into the warm water.

Well I officially suck at swimming.  I struggled right from the start.  Initially I tried to use form that was similar to what I would do in the pool where I would exhale under water and breathe when I brought my head up to the right.  Well I was drinking so much gulf water it felt like I was 91 octane.  It was nuts, every time I would come up for air I had water breaking across my face.

I also was tiring extremely quickly. I would do maybe 20 – 25 strokes and find myself stopping to rest.  Even with my stop and go style I was able to stay ahead of Christy and Ali due to my long appendages allowing me to cover decent distance in those few strokes.  By the time I was halfway into the swim I threw all semblance of proper form out the window.  I was swimming with my head out of the water at all times so I could see waves coming.  I also was doing some weird hybrid stroke that was half free style, half side stroke. It was REALLY a struggle.

In total I think we swam more than the 1/4 mile that is required for the Miami triathlon but there were so many stops and starts it was nuts.  On the good side, the water conditions were pretty extreme so maybe it is good to experience the bad first. On the bad side, my swimming endurance is horrible.  I really need to work at it.

After we got out of the water we talked with the other members of the group that probably swam close to a mile.   We made no bones about how much of a struggle it was just to do a fraction of what they swam.  It’s a starting point I guess.

After the swim Christy joined us for a post swim meal at Moe’s where we all enjoyed tremendously over sized burritos.  We made plans to get together the following night as well since Christy’s husband was out of town.  We thought it would be cool to go see Inception.

On Saturday I mowed grass while Ali cleaned inside.  It was the first full mowing test since my extensive work on the mower.  The Cub Cadet held up well throughout the entire session.  I didn’t have any problems with the drive belt slipping and the cut was more even.  I couldn’t help but yearn for the all out power I experienced on the Gravely as I slowed to less than walking pace to get through the thicker grass.

On Friday we picked up my refurbished Trek from the bike shop. Wow, it looked like an almost new bike.  They did a real nice job with it.  I was looking forward to putting it to the test.

So after a busy day of housework we got ready to go to the movies.  The plan was to pick up Christy, get the Imax tickets first and then eat dinner.  Many times the Imax showings can get sold out.

After grabbing the tickets we went back to the same Carrabas as last week.  It was funny that we hadn’t gone to the movies or Carrabbas for quite awhile and then wind up doing both in two consecutive weekends.

I slammed 4 beers during the meal and was feeling a bit silly.  Silly means I talk more for the better or worse.  I was still feeling it as we were waiting for the movie to start.  At one point while the previews were playing a woman stood up in front of us and I said in a voice loud enough that she probably heard “you make a better door than window”. Yea I was a little buzzed.

For some reason I assumed that since we were watching Inception on IMAX that it was also in 3D. It wasn’t.  Initially I was a bit disappointed we weren’t handed a set of glasses but the sheer size of IMAX does a good job of immersing you in the movie regardless of the amount of dimensions.

The movie was good, all three of us liked it.  The special effects were incredible.  I’m not talking about the normal, awesome computer generated stuff.  There are fight scenes that just make you scratch your head and wonder how they could do that, even with the assistance of computers.  The plot would be very hard to follow if you were not paying close attention at all times as it gets several layers deep. I’d give the movie an A-.  It is definitely best viewed in a theater. (or a 73 inch tv with the lights out) 🙂

On Sunday Ali went to spinning with Christy and then planned to run afterward.  I planned my own brick.

I was excited to give my newly cleaned Trek a try.  I mounted my under seat bag and water bottle holder onto the Trek and shoved off.  I immediately noticed that I couldn’t get my bike shoes snapped into the pedals.  My buddy told me they were SPD pedals but I am thinking they may be one of the SPD variations, no matter how I tried I could not get locked in securely.

So I had to do an about face and swap the pedals off my other road bike.  I was already sweating profusely just swapping the pedals due to the high humidity.  I hadn’t even hit the open road yet.  Once I completed the swap I hopped and, clipped in and was on my way.

The first upgrade that I enjoyed was the shifting which is all controlled from the brake levers that also act as shifters.  It is click index shifting.  I move the right lever to the left and I go down a gear, I moved the second black lever on the same side and I go up a gear, it shifted very cleanly.

The Trek 2200 is an 18 speed bike where as my Dawes is a 14 speed.  Having the additional gears means additional speed although I never got all the way to 18th.  I think I went as high as 16th gear.   The normal Immokalee Road headwind was present but not as brutal as it can be for the ride.

I was able to maintain a solid pace for the first half of the ride and surprisingly keep almost the same pace for the second half.  At the halfway point I had a bit of a scare.  I was stopping to get a drink as I was sweating buckets.  Just before I was at a dead stop I was like “Oh shit, I forgot I am clipped in”  I quickly snapped my right foot out of the pedal but the movement shifted my weight to the left beyond recovery.  I fell to the left INTO the lane of traffic.  I only fell maybe a foot or two into the lane and luckily there were no cars coming by at that instant.  It had the potential to be ugly. My fall knocked the chain off and gave me a nice little brush burn across the thigh but other than that I escaped unscathed.

As I got closer to my house I realized that I had a chance to do the ride in under an hour.  If my memory is correct, I think my best time on the Publix ride was 1:03 something.  I pulled into our driveway at 59:29, beating the 1 hour mark.

Needless to say I really like the Trek.  I just ordered a cheap GPS mount so I can have my numbers right in front of me at all times.

I wanted to do a brick so even though I was tired and a sweaty beyond belief I wanted to get on the treadmill.  I immediately threw on my running shoes, grabbed some water and a towel and started running at a 9:13 pace.  Originally I hoped to pull 3 miles, instead I once again stopped at two.  I was just beat.  I hopped in the pool afterward but just to cool off, I didn’t do any laps.

After Ali got home we both ate lunch and then crashed.  We were both extremely tired from our respective bricks.  My normal, no nap edict was out the window.  I HAD to sleep. We slept for two and a half hours and I still didn’t feel like getting up, my body was toast.  The rest of the day I felt wiped out.

Over the weekend I got to dig into my two new video game additions, the Cataclysm beta and Starcaft II.  I didn’t play Cataclysm too much but enough to make a level 7 Worgen.  I got to a point where there is a bugged quest that slows your progress and stopped there.

I have played a lot more Starcraft 2.  It is so well done.  The cinematics that are built into the single player missions are very cool and really keep you wrapped up in the storyline.  In SC 2 you have the ability to control much larger groups of units.  It is such simple fun to grab a huge group and just send them into an area in auto attack mode.  Watching all the chaos unfurl on your screen is just total eye candy.

I have found the single player missions challenging but not too difficult up to this point. I really like the game and highly recommend it.

Last night I decided to take a bite out of what would otherwise be weekend work and get the weed whacking done.  There were some very ominous clouds to the east with distant thunder but luckily they remained to the east.  I hadn’t trimmed in at least two weeks, maybe three.  As a result it took a long time, I didn’t finish up until around 8.

Today after work I am hoping to participate in my first NATS swim in the gulf.  It will be my first time trying to do distance swimming in an open body of water. I really have no idea what to expect.

The Phillies traded for Roy Oswald, a good pitcher even though his win – loss record this year doesn’t show it.  I guess they haven’t given up on this season yet afterall.

I did a few sets of dragonflags at the gym yesterday.  I am getting better at being able to hold them as well as return to the upright position after going deeper.

I have a busy day ahead of me, a busy weekend as well I’m sure.  Don’t feel much like talking.

Since I wear a lot of Eagles gear I have found that I am asked quite often, even by strangers,  what I think of the Eagles chance this season since they dumped McNabb. (and 13 other players) Everyone seems to act like McNabb was the only big change the Birds made this off season but in fact they dumped a ton of players and in the process are now the youngest team in the league.  They only have one non-kicker over 30. The average age on the team is 24 years old.

It may look odd to read this but I am probably more excited this season than any in at least a half a decade.  To me, the unknown that a team of talented young players brings is more exciting than what I was looking at otherwise.

Yep if they kept McNabb I could expect the Eagles to finish above .500, make the playoffs and then have McNabb ultimately fall apart when the chips are down.  McNabb has always been a gifted athlete but when push comes to shove and the pressure was high I just had no confidence in him delivering.  To be fair, sometimes he did deliver in high pressure situations but those were few and far between.  The sloppy, slow, way he ran the Eagles towards the end of the Super Bowl will never get out of my head.

Anyway, with Kolb I have no idea how he will do.  Maybe he will suck, the Eagles will finish 4-12 and I will be wishing for number 5 to be back.  But, he may do GREAT.  It will be such a pleasure to see a QB that doesn’t throw half a dozen balls in the dirt every game or one that artificially inflates his completion percentage by throwing tons of 3 yards passes.

I’m ready for something different and that is one thing that I am guaranteed to see this year.  I’m pumped for it.

Yesterday at lunch I decided to try do a small training brick at the gym.  I hopped on a stationary bike and put in 5 miles at a good pace.  I then jumped on a treadmill and ran two miles at an 8:34 clip.  I felt pretty good through out and had a thoroughly sweat soaked shirt as testament to my effort.  I am hoping as I continue the training that I am able to stretch the run to 3 miles and still get the brick done under the time constraints of my lunch break.

As I was going at it I was watching The Longest Yard in the cardio theater, the newer one.  I forgot how much I enjoyed that movie, a total man flick.

I was surprised when I got home from work and saw a box from Gamestop by my front door.  It was my copy of Starcraft 2.  The game was just officially released on Tuesday, I expected to get my copy toward the end of the week.  It was a pleasant surprise.

I also got a surprise email yesterday morning from Blizzard, the makers of WoW.  They said I was selected as one of the few beta testers for the new expansion, Cataclysm.  Basically they give you access to the new game so you can check it out and report any bugs you find along the way.

I spent a good chunk of last night installing both games.  Both installations took a very long time.  Finally I got to play a bit of Starcraft 2 shortly before heading back to bed.  As expected the graphics for the game are fantastic.  The detail in the various buildings and units is awesome.  They also have maintained the basic control scheme which is a huge plus.  Even without playing Starcraft for at least 5 years I was able to step right back into it and have a base comfort with the controls.

I only played the first couple missions of single player mode so far.  I will surely offer up more opinions as I get deeper into the game.

I didn’t get a chance to play Cataclysm yet, it didn’t get finished downloading/installing until right before I went to sleep.  I told Ali that one of the new things in the games is a new race that can be selected, Worgen.

A Worgen is basically a werewolf.  With my reaction to full moons, Ali thought it would be quite appropriate for me to create a Worgen.

With my copy of Starcraft 2 I got some codes that allow someone to play either Starcraft 2 or WoW for 10 days for free to check them out.

If you have any interest in the codes let me know, first come, first serve.

So last night I am watching episode 14 of the 1984 version of V.  In it there is a fight to the death match lined up between two of the V mega bitches, Lydia and Diana.  Both women sport incredibly huge 80’s hair with hips to match.

Before their match Lydia says to Diana menacingly, “I have NEVER been bested in mortal combat”  Diana instantly fires back, “Idiot, if you had you would be dead…”

It made me laugh out loud and was good enough that I rewound it to show Ali.

A couple weeks ago I stumbled across an Iron Gym on Woot.  It was cheap, only $20 shipped, but had positive reviews from others that bought it in the past.  An Iron Gym is an ultra-portable workout station that allows you to turn any conventional doorway into a pull up station.

I was somewhat worried about the quality of it based on the low price.  However after I put it together last night and tried it out my concerns were set at ease, it felt quite sturdy.

The device allows me to do pull ups with three different hand positions, including a parallel grip that I can’t do on my outdoor pull up station.  Attaching the bar to the door is a 2 second process, it uses your own body weight as leverage to keep it firmly attached.  I did pull ups on all three grips and even was able to do front and back tuck levers on it without difficulty.

I put the Iron Gym on the floor and used it to do deep push ups as well as a brief L sit.  If that isn’t cool enough it ALSO comes with a set of ab straps.  You attach the straps to the bar and then you can do various leg raise exercises.  It’s a pretty damn great piece of equipment for $20.  The only negative I saw was that it was made in China of course.

I had to laugh as I went through the small manual which included the Iron Gym nutrition guide.  I was surprised that the dietary advice would be that hard core, surely not to be followed by the typical tv gym equipment purchaser.  Hell I don’t even follow that strict of an eating regimen.

So Ali took the bikes in on Monday, hers to get fitted and my free Trek to get tuned/cleaned.  She called me mid-day with a status report that she assumed I would be yelling about.

The guys at the bike shop said the Trek needed a new rear cassette, chain and two new tires.  They said both the cassette and chain were worn which didn’t surprise me knowing how hard the bike was ridden.  The quote I got to fix it made me sit up a little straight, $375. The price got adjusted down a bit once our NATS discount was applied.

The fact that I got the bike for free tempered what might be my normal reaction, “that is a f’ing rip off, I’ll do it myself”  Instead I told Ali to go ahead and have them do the work.  I figured after this maintenance I should have a pretty high quality road bike that will be good to go for years to come.  It should be done in  a week or so.

There was a story in the Naples News the other day about how the Collier Tourism board is applying to BP to get $750,000 dollars for advertising.  Their justification was they needed the money to tell people that we don’t have oil on the beach in Naples.

I find myself being annoyed with this.  Believe me, I want BP to pay for everything that is f’d up as a result of the oil spill.  But I also can’t stand when people hop in line to get a free handout if they don’t deserve it.  I want the billions of dollars that BP has set aside to go first to those that are directly and immediately impacted by this mess, not those that view it as just as an opportunity to skim some dollars off the top just because they can do it.

It reminds me of those famous stories of people in Louisiana after Katrina blowing their pre-paid, government provided credit cards in strip clubs.  It was just fun money for them.  Of course BP doesn’t have the luxury to verify the validity of the thousands of claims pouring in.  People know this and use it to obtain cash that they really don’t deserve.

It’s sad human behavior that repeats whenever disaster hits and/or any sort of hand out is available.

Yesterday after work I tried doing both front and rear tuck levers on my bar station in the back yard. (not as good as the picture which is a partial tuck)  A full lever is a static bar hold where your body is more or less parallel to the ground while your arms are fully extended.  The amount of torque this move puts on your core is extreme.

I am trying to progress into at least doing partial tuck levers.  A full lever with my dimensions would be a pipe dream but you never know.

Today is the official release of Starcraft 2.  I was a HUGE fan of the original Starcraft game and played it to death.  The original came out at least a decade ago if not longer.  The new version of course has graphics that are light years ahead of the original.  I can only hope it has the same compelling action, strategy and game play as well.  Starcraft is sort of high tech chess.

I pre-ordered my copy a couple months ago so I expect to have it in my hands late this week.  I am sure I will get pwned regularly in multi-player competition but the good thing about Starcraft is single player mode is very enjoyable.

I lost my lifting gloves but I was sort of happy about it.  The gloves were too big and offered no wrist support.  I just wish I realized I lost them while I was at Dick’s.

I started feeling sick AGAIN late yesterday afternoon.  However after eating dinner I felt somewhat better and again this morning I feel about the same.  I better update my will.