Brakes jobs and oil changes, Real Stupid, F you wind, Four more, a win, Walking Dead
Ali went running Saturday morning with Michelle. I started working on the chores early, once again wanting to finish up so I could play amateur mechanic in the afternoon. When Ali came home she went out on the mower while I did all of indoor to do’s.
After lunch I headed out to get the supplies I needed for the car work. I first stopped at the Super Wal-mart to dump old oil and pick up supplies to change the oil in the party van. I then headed to Auto Zone where I bought rear brake pads for the Camry, some tail lights for the van, and a few other odds and ends.
Replacing the rear brake pads on the Camry went smoothly. Like the front pads, there was still a lot of life in the old rear pads although they were considerably dirtier than what I pulled from the front. I finished up the work in around an hour.
I then headed to the van. I had a driver last week tell me that 3 of my 4 brake lights were out, I had no idea. When I pulled the old lights a couple of them looked like they literally flamed out with visual evidence of high heat. I called Ali out to be my brake pedal pusher to help me verify the new lights work.
Time was running tight. I had bought tickets to see Real Steel in Imax on Fandango for our belated anniversary plans. We agreed we would go to the Carraba’s up there before hand. Since the movie was at 7 I hoped to get to dinner around 5:15 or so. Even though we didn’t leave the house until around 4:45 we got there pretty much on time.
We had a good dinner. I slammed down 4 Bud Lights in short order and was feeling it a bit. I was acting kind of silly as we drove over to the theater. We actually had a bit of time to kill before the movie so we walked around in the Petco next door.
I had seen that Real Steel had favorable reviews on Fandango with an average rating of 7.5 out of 10. Watching robots fight should be a fun time. I even sprung to see it in Imax which wound up costing just shy of $40 when you add in Fandango fees. Well it was not money well spent.
The only cool thing about the movie was seeing the robot fights. Anything that involved human beings was pretty damn stupid. The dialogue and plot seemed like it was written to appeal to 3rd graders, it was really bad. Hugh Jackman who stars in the film plays a character that is basically an asshole for 85% of the movie, he doesn’t come off as likeable at all really. The Rocky IV type ending was over the top, even for a hardcore Rocky fan as myself.
My eyes were sore from rolling them around in my head so many times. The flick would be fine as a streaming Netflix title but to pay $40 to see it was a monumental fail. I’ll give it a B- to be nice.
During Ali’s run on Saturday she fell and banged herself up. She had a swollen knee among other injuries. As a result I wound up doing my Sunday morning bike ride solo, it turns out that was a good thing.
On the ride to DD I again averaged over 20 mph, making my best time by a few seconds. Although I definitely didn’t have a head wind, it didn’t feel like I had a big push from behind either. Well the ride back was pure hell.
I had a head wind and tons of it. At certain points there were gusts that felt capabale of almost stopping me in my tracks. I dropped gears and was going hard to maintain 14mph, it was ridiculous. A couple miles into the return ride after a particularly strong gust of wind I stopped my bike and while I was panting for air I started cursing at the wind, loudly. What is the point of the swearing at an act of nature you may ask? Well of course there is no point. In fact if anything it seemed like I pissed the wind off. The rest of the ride I just grabbed onto my drops, pedaled hard and kept my mouth shut. My legs were jello when I got to our driveway.
After a dip in the somewhat chilly pool (77 degrees) I headed out in the driveway to change the oil in the van before the Eagles game. While I was under there I admired the new brake line and calipers that were installed a few weeks ago to the tune of almost $600. I wondered if I could have performed that work as well and knocked half off the bill.
Hey the Eagles won a game, how awesome. In the first half of the game they played well on both sides of the ball, building a 20-0 lead. The defense it particular played much better, stopping the run and actually tackling. I even saw a few hard hits, something that has been MIA around here pretty much since Brian Dawkins headed to Denver. The secondary also made plays, pulling down 4 interceptions.
Unfortunately the Birds have yet to put together a complete game. The offense went 0 for the second half scoring no points. The defense also started to break down. If the Eagles didn’t make that 3rd and short play I saw nightmares of the Skins driving down the field to tie the game up. Thankfully it didn’t happen.
Sure there are still warts on the team but at least this was a win, a division win no less. Luckily for the Eagles the division looks pretty mundane this year. Even at 2-4 the Eagles are in the thick of things.
Despite riding a hard 20 miles in the morning and changing the oil in the van I was feeling sort of down after the game. Maybe it was the overcast conditions that hung around uncharacteristically all day long. Well anyway I thought I could help my state of mind by heading outside and trying to best my consecutive muscle up total.
It had actually started to rain lightly shortly before I went outside but I didn’t care. I figured the gloves I was wearing would help me hold the bar. I managed to get out four consecutive reps and narrowly missed a 5th rep. I was happy for the improvement but I wasn’t real happy with the form. Just like Friday at the gym, for some reason my body was defaulting to doing a one over method where the one arm leads in front of the other. After my four in a row I did 6 single reps where I tried to focus on doing cleaner reps and was able to do so.
So I started watching another AMC show that I heard was good over the weekend, The Walking Dead. Yes it is a show about zombies. I was skeptical if I would actually enjoy the show after the novelty of zombies wears off. Well the answer is, yes. The storyline and characters in the show are very good, I have already gotten through 3 episodes of the tragically short 6 episode first season run.
I had heard from Jeremy that it was a good show but it wasn’t until I heard it was streamable via Netflix that I decided to jump in. When it comes to watching tv series streaming is really THE only way to go. The only negative is Ali has no desire to watch / listen to the exploits of the living dead so I have to watch the show with my headphones on. It’s a small price to pay.
If you have Netflix, add this to your queue.