Archives 2011

Our weekend was consumed by the sport of running.  We timed a race on Saturday and ran a half marathon on Sunday.

The race we timed was a bit of a mess pre-race.  We had people on the registration tables that had no experience with it which always is a recipe for problems.  The funniest moment of the morning was when a panicked looking man and his pregnant wife approached Ali and I.

He pulled on the door of the bank building behind us, hoping it was open so his wife could use the bathroom.  We told him the building was locked and we had no access to it.  He said his wife HAD to go to the bathroom and the lines for the four port-potties was 20 people deep.  We told them that they were the only facilities on site.

The were not happy and scurried away, unhappy that we didn’t have dedicated pregnant woman bathrooms available.  I am pretty sure that if they went over to the port o potties and explained the urgency someone would have let her cut in line.

The race actually had a big bump in participation from the year before which is always nice to see.  Timing of the event went smoothly.

Usually when we get home from a race Ali wants to hit bed in short order.  This time she actually stayed up and helped me quickly knock out the chores that needed to be done before we BOTH laid down to nap.  I broke my normal no nap edict to ensure that lack of rest would not be an issue leading up the race on Sunday.   We napped for a long time, 1pm to a little after 4.

The other thing I tried to do throughout the day Saturday was hydrate.  I drank much more water than I normally would.  We topped off our prep with a spaghetti dinner Saturday night.

We left our house at 5am Sunday morning to head up for the race which was about 40 miles away.  I managed to actually miss a turn and wound up paying a toll to cross a bridge before I realized my mistake, dumb ass.

Once we got on site we grabbed our stuff which included a bag with various handouts, the race shirt and the bib which doubled as the timing device.  Of course since I am a bonafide race timer myself I was interested in the bib timing set up.  The back of the bib has two small RFID devices affixed.  I believe they also have tiny little batteries in them that increases their broadcast range so they can be picked up by mats on the ground.

This method of timing has a lot of advantages like runners only have to stand in one line on race day instead of one to sign in and another to get their timing device.  Also these bibs are one use devices that are intended to be thrown away after each race, eliminating the need for personnel to collect and organize them post race.

Of course there are draw backs as well, mostly cost and prep time.  Each and every race you need to buy a new set of timing bibs and program them.  This adds a considerable amount of expense to a race.

We ran into a number of people from our running club pre-race.  A half marathon will draw people from a much wider radius than a 5K.

There was a very funny moment pre-race.  The lines for the port a potties were long as they always are.  No runner wants to have to feel like they need to relieve themselves once the race starts.  It is pretty customary to make sure you are empty before a race.

Well evidently one of the lines wasn’t moving for a loooong period of time.  Evidently whomever was in this one toilet was having a lengthy/difficult/messy BM. (something I would NEVER do at a race)  Well one of the guys in the line just lost his patience.  He marches up to the port a john, bangs on the door while yelling “Hey! Are you still alive in there??!!”  Of course he got not reply.  After another minute or two an obviously embarrassed man exited from the unit without making eye contact with any of the crossed leg, crotch grabbing members of the line he was holding up.

Finally the race start approached.  The crowd of 800+ runners walked a couple blocks down to the start line.  The race actually had a chip start as well, something we have talked about doing but have not to this point due to added expense.  A chip start means there is a set of timing lines you run across in the beginning to START your personal time.  Otherwise, your official gun time would not reflect the 30 seconds you shuffled along until you actually crossed the start.

Ali repeatedly warned me that I should not go out gangbusters early on.  There is nothing worse than bonking (hitting the wall) early in a long race because you went out too fast.  Ali, Christy and Michelle had agreed ahead of time to just “jog” the race instead of run it hard so they could all finish together.

I went out at a steady pace that I felt I could maintain.  Early on it was starting to feel quite humid, my sunglasses kept fogging up which was annoying the shit out of me.  Eventually I flipped them up on top of my head and left them there.

The course was very scenic, twisting back and forth through neighborhoods early on.  There were a couple pleasant surprises like the band of young kids playing rock in someone’s front yard to pump up the runners.  I thought that was f’in great and held my thumb up in approval as I ran by.

There were also a decent amount of spectators/volunteers out watching/directing the runners, offering their support.  I tried to thank as many of them as I could as I passed by.

One of the things I wanted to make sure I did during the race was not run out of fuel.  I chose to grab Gatorade at every water stop instead of water for the additional caloric intake.  I was also thrilled when they were handing out Chocolate flavored Goop around the half way point.  It tasted good and gave me a nice little burst of energy.

There were a couple key parts of the race.  The 7  mile mark was significant for a couple reasons.  Once I passed it I was in unchartered waters as far as CONTINUOUS running.  Yes I ran 13.1 miles in training but that included brief stops where I drank and stretched.  A crucial part of this event for me was to NEVER stop, even as I grabbed gatorade I kept running awkwardly, even though it caused me to choke on the fluids more than once.  I wanted to RUN the entire distance.

The 7 mile mark also started the most difficult portion of the race where you spent two miles going across a bridge and back.  The bridge had a high apex which broke a number of participants down to walking mode.  Again for me, walking was simply not an option.  Once I passed the 9 mile mark on the way back from the bridge I knew the worst part of the run was behind me.  I passed the girls coming the other direction while I was on the bridge, they looked like they were enjoying their run.

About halfway into the race it started raining intermittently.  It was a welcome rain that helped keep the temperatures down even if it did totally soak my shirt.  If it was bright and sunny I am sure my performance would have suffered.

It was somewhere around the 9 mile mark that I picked up a pacer.  There was a young (found out she was 22 later) blonde girl that I had been jockeying back and forth with for a good portion of the race.  I eventually just got shoulder to shoulder and ran with her for awhile.  I had figured out that her name was Lindsey from her family/friends yelling out to her earlier in the race.

For at least a mile I ran with her without saying anything.  Her pace was pushing me to run faster than I probably would have on my own which was great.

Eventually I blurted out to her, “Lindsey you are my pacer”  She laughed and said, “That’s funny, I am using you as my pacer”

We had some brief conversation as we chugged along.  I found out that this was also her first half marathon and the people yelling out support were her neighbors and family.

As we got down to only a mile or two to go the conversation stopped as we both were concentrating on getting through the race although we still stayed side by side.

I was surprised as we neared the finish that some people were actually walking between mile 12 and 13.  I would think at that point the proximity of the finish line would pull you in like a tractor beam, no matter how you were feeling.

Finally, the finish line was visible off in the distance.  Lindsey accelerated as we were maybe a 1/4 mile out.  I did my best to keep up but her kick was more than I had left in the tank.  She probably finished a good 50-75 yards ahead of me.

I crossed the finish line, received my medal from the cute Hooter’s girl and tried to bask for a few moments in accomplishing a goal that literally came out of nowhere.  For the first 42 years of my life I had an unrealized goal of being able to run the 10K distance that I saw my dad complete several times during my childhood.  All of a sudden I found myself completing a run of more than twice that distance, some crazy stuff.

After I crossed I found Lindsey and thanked her for helping to pull me through those last few miles and she said the same to me.  It was cool that two first time half marathoners could wind up propping the other up in that manner.

I went and grabbed some refreshments as I knew that it would be a little while until Ali and the girls came across the line.  I cheered them on as they crossed just under the 2:30 mark.

My chip time of 2:10:52 wasn’t bad.  According to my GPS, that I forgot to stop until 20 or 30 seconds after I crossed, the course was actually about .3 of a mile long.  It showed my average pace was right around 9:45 which I was ok with.  For a first official half marathon I had nothing to complain about.

After the race they were serving beer and wings along with conventional post race refreshments.  Neither of those options sounded very good to me.

We hung out with the group for a little while before piling in the car to head home.  On the way back Ali and I traded stories about the race.  Of course my experience was very different from hers since this was my first half marathon race and her 6th.

Completing this race is a little feather in my athletic cap which is among other events like the Miami Triathlon, my final season pitching in Junior Legion ball and the epic 1999 win at the Pottstown Rumble.

The rest of our day at home was understandably low key.  Both Ali and I were moving around very slowly as we accomplished the few remaining house chores.  I also had my second nap of the weekend, a world record, albeit a much shorter 1 hour variety.

This weekend was one of those that will be permanently etched in my brain till the end of days.  “Do the hard thing, the power will come” will come to mind when I look back on the event.

Here are the full results from the race if you would like to peruse them.

 

 

 

 

 

So yesterday I called back Jay, the Rhinoshield sales guy.  I told him that I talked to the wife and I have her pretty much convinced but I was wondering if he could do to “help me out a bit on the price”.  One thing I have learned from my buddy at work is if you don’t ask for something (a discount in this case), you more than likely will never get it.  I also chose my words carefully, asking him to “help me” as opposed to “give me”.  You would be surprised how that simple word substitution can affect the tone of the question.

Anyway, after some out loud computing by Jay he agreed to knocking another $300 off the price, cool.  He is supposed to come back out Monday so we can hammer out the details.

My buddy Troy asked me out of the blue earlier this week if we could resurrect the LRLI tournament which has been dead since 2007.  When I investigated the possibility of bringing it back I realized that the web site I created for the tournament years ago only existed on my old home server which has been turned off for weeks.  I just haven’t gotten around to disconnecting it totally yet.

So I turned the system on and after muddling through several complications I was able to get the LRLI breathing again.  Troy and I have been working diligently on getting the new field of 32 contestants set up.  The tournament runs hand in hand with the NCAA March Madness.

Unfortunately I can’t tell you much beyond that as much like Fight Club, the first rule of the LRLI is “Never talk about the LRLI”

This weekend will be busy.  Saturday I have to time a 5k.  Then Sunday I turn around and run my first ever official half marathon.  I was actually starting to feel somewhat sick last night.  I slammed a glass of Airborne and feel ok this morning.  Based on my recent running experiences I don’t feel very positive at all about the race.

The one thing I can cling to is I have had similar situations leading up to races before, albeit the much shorter 5K variety.  When I set my personal best 5K time, before the race my legs felt TERRIBLE so you just never know how far adrenalin will carry you.

I have talked about painting the exterior of our house for the last few years.  Like many aspects of our house, the builders used minimal quality materials when painting the house.  Not only is the paint on the house chalky, it is also stained in several places.  In addition the stucco surface has a bunch of hairline cracking in it.

If I did the job myself I planned to use elastomeric paint which has the ability to stretch.  Supposedly this type of paint is a good choice with stucco to help hide these cracks.  Doing the job myself would be quite labor intensive, probably the main reason it hasn’t been done yet in addition to the fact that I simply dislike painting in general.

Well last week Ali just happened to pull out a card from one of those advertising packs you get in the mail now and then.  It was from a company named Rhinoshield.  Rhinoshield is an exterior ceramic coating as opposed to plain paint.  I went on their website and did some looking around.

The process seemed pretty extensive (especially the prep work) and the 25 year no questions asked, transferable warranty was really appealing.  Of course I assumed all of this came at a premium price although I had no idea how premium it would be.

So I had a guy come out yesterday to give me a quote.  He was a younger guy named Jay (nowadays if you are in your 20’s you are young kid to me). He measured the house and gave me some background about the company.  He said that Rhinoshield is pretty much the best solution to cracking stucco.  Not only do they fix existing hairline cracks first, they lay down a super elastic primer on top of the repair before laying on the tough, thick ceramic top coat.

Jay was a cool kid, we got along well.  He thought my 73 inch tv was beyond kick ass.  He liked our dogs as well, always a plus.

So eventually we got down to numbers and to my surprise they weren’t as bad as thought they could be.  Yes it was still a hell of a lot of money but when I factored in not having to basically ever worry about painting the house again along with a 12 month same as cash financing plan that was available it suddenly made the option more realistic.

I told Jay I needed to discuss it with my wife which he understood.

Ali was on board with the idea, especially with the free 12 month financing which would allow us to budget the cost pretty easily.  The older I get, the more I find myself interested in doing high quality, long lasting home improvements that both add value to the house and minimize future maintenance.  If it ever comes time to sell the house, a transferable paint warranty is a nice little perk. If I did it myself I would save a couple grand but it would not look nearly as good or last nearly as long.

So I will probably call Jay back today and ask him if he can help me out a little bit on the price, might as well ask.

So yesterday I fought more with the buggy, slow Sony Dash website in an effort to get my new, geeky alarm clock configured.  My efforts were met with frustration as I continued to experience time outs and extremely slow response.

I happened to find a Sony Dash group on FB.  I posted there my frustrations with the site and was surprised to get a response from a Sony rep that monitors the group. She said that there were some issues with the site that were being checked out.

Then magically, maybe an hour after I complained, the site all of a sudden was working great.  I guess they found and squashed the problem. Well all of a sudden I could actually explore some of the multitude of widgets available for the Dash and man are there a bunch of them.  There are 227 clock widgets alone.  In total there are over 1500 apps available.

I had fun checking some of the apps out.  I have my Dash now set up on my nightstand.  It will take some tweaking to get everything the way I want it.  The cool thing is I can get on the Dash website at work and configure what is on my Dash at home.  I don’t think I’ll be retiring my regular alarm clock though for those times I absolutely have to make sure I get up.

So I ran 3 miles at the gym yesterday.  Once again it was an uncomfortable struggle.  I am really not happy with the correlation between running longer versus my performance on shorter, faster runs. When I started to running 7-10 miles it seemed logical that runs of significantly less distance should feel more comfortable.

Well that hasn’t been the case at all, in fact my shorter 2 and 3 mile training runs have felt more difficult then when I was doing exclusively shorter, faster runs for my sprint tri training in the 2nd half of 2010.  I find this discouraging.

This poor short run performance paired with the gut wrenching 7 mile run I had last Sunday really has knocked my confidence level down for the half marathon I am doing on Sunday.  I need to make sure I start conservatively.  Gassing at the 6 or 7 mile mark would be a recipe for disaster.

Ali posted a link to a NBC news video in her Facebook feed.  It was a story about small cities in the country that are more or less dying.  I was curious why she would post such a thing until I saw what city the story was about, good ole Reading, PA, my home area.

The gist of the story is how many small cities in America are on the verge of collapse and Reading is a pretty damn good example.  Of course the idea that Reading is a shithole is not news to anyone that has lived in or around it in the past 25 years.  However it seems like things have gone from bad to horrific.

The story talks bout Reading’s glory days when it was home to many manufacturing companies and then how it rediscovered itself by becoming the outlet capital of the NE United States.  Well there is no glory left to be found in Reading, it has the highest welfare rate in the entire state, with nearly 35% of it’s population at or below that income level.

The story depicted a town who now is best known for being a place that people can’t wait to get the hell out of.  It made me a bit sad to see Reading shown so negatively but unfortunately it is reality,  Not exactly the 15 seconds of fame the town was hoping for.

I have no clue how you even begin to fix a mess that large.  The majority of the buildings are ancient and badly in need of repair, if they can even be repaired.  The tax rate in the town is so high it is ridiculous.  Who wants to pay a fortune in taxes to live in an area that is such a mess? Not me and evidently not many other people either.

 

Last night I decided on the spur of the moment to shampoo the carpet.  Ali came home and was surprised to find me zipping around the house with the Bissel.  I don’t believe Ali has ever run the steam cleaner in the 10 years we have lived here nor even suggest that we use it for that matter.  The dirty water I was dumping down the sink confirmed it was time for the chore to be done. Winning!

Yes I saw a good portion of the Charlie Sheen interview on 20/20 last night. Wow.  He spoke in a very manic manner.  Although he may have not been on drugs at the time of the interview, it appears that his long history of drug abuse has really fried his brain.  Some of the stuff he was saying was just so bizarre.

His pattern of speech is populated with certain keywords that he overused repeatedly, like “awesome”, “Rock star” and funniest of all “WINNING”.  The way he used winning was what made it funny. He would just randomly insert it into sentences where it normally wouldn’t belong.  The funniest use of all was when the female reporter asked him about reports that he was bi-polar.  Charlie replied back that he is “bi-winning”.  Ali and I laughed out loud many times during the interview.

Ironically Charlie called into the Stern show yesterday as well.  He actually sounded slightly less bat shit on the phone then he appeared to be on the show last night.  Charlie is definitely looking rough around the edges. It seems that it is only a matter of time until he kills himself via a drug binge.  Even people with “tiger blood” have to die sometime.

My Sony Dash that I got off of Woot finally arrived yesterday.  After I was done cleaning the carpets I tried working on setting the device up.  What the F is a Dash you ask?  Think of the 3Com Audrey on roids. (yea I had one of those too)

The Dash is an internet appliance that has over 1000 apps available for it.  By default it comes with basic stuff to do things like grab the weather, news headlines, and music via it’s built in wi-fi connection.

If you do some digging you can have it stream video content from the web, Netflix, Pandora, Facebook updates and a boat load more of stuff.  Of course it also makes a kick ass alarm clock.

Well my initial experience getting the Dash up and running has been less than favorable.  In order to get your Dash communicating with the outside world you have to register the device to talk to the Sony/Chumby services on the web.  Well for whatever reason, these websites were either totally broken or stupidly slow.  I would go through the process to register the device only to be told when I went back to my account that I had no devices registered.  It was really quite frustrating.

I did manage to get my Pandora account up and streaming while I fumbled around on the web which was nice.  The Dash has a lot of potential but I still have not gotten through the first steps that allow me to download and check out all of the additional apps.

One downfall of using the Dash as an alarm clock, it is AC power only.  Also, I read that is the Dash loses it’s wireless connection it will break the alarm functionality if you have the device set to wake you with something like one of your Pandora channels.

The 7 inch touch screen seems to be very nice although the speaker quality is mediocre at best.

I’ll post more thoughts on the device once I get the damn thing set up correctly, whenever that is.

Like I mentioned yesterday, Ali opted to stay an extra night in Orlando after her half marathon on Sunday.  The discussion was it was hard to drive back three hours after a race so it would be more relaxing for her to stay the night, sleep in and then drive home leisurely.  Sounds good I guess.

So I get home yesterday and expect to walk in to Ali feeling somewhat refreshed and happy to be home. Instead she looked frazzled and stressed as she was in the middle of mountain of pots and pans. She decided to make a vegetarian shepherd’s pie last night, a recipe she found somewhere.

She was so buried in cooking her being away for three days seemed to be totally forgotten.  It was basically “Hi” and that’s it.  Although I appreciated her effort to prepare a nice homemade meal, walking into that chaos was not exactly great, especially in a “welcome home” situation.

Last night I wanted to try one more 180 hard mode attempt.  Hard mode involves switching your hands at the top of the pull up movement instead of the bottom.  I tried it once before to just see if I could do it and got 4 reps.  I managed 8 reps last night but it looked ugly.  On a few reps I almost fell off the bar as my grip slipped.  I wasn’t real happy with the attempt.

The other day I ran some preliminary numbers on a potential convertible Camaro purchase.  They weren’t exactly pretty.

My original goal when I first dreamed about a new Camaro purchase in 2009 was to be able to slide into one after paying off the Camry Hybrid.  Part of that slide included keeping the payment amount in the same ball park.

Well since that goal was established there has been a small price increase and my sights shifted upward when the convertible option was announced.  A drop top Camaro in SW Florida, how perfect, right?

Well anyway when I ran numbers, the potential monthly payments were not as close to the hybrid payments as I would want.  There are several variables that could influence where that number falls like what discount plan I can manage to secure as well as interest rate and loan term.  But even with those variables, the bottom line is to get the payment more where I want it to be it will require a large down payment.  Accumulating the additional funds to comfortably drop that lump sum could require additional saving, and waiting.

Of course the thought goes through my head questioning is it really worth it?  After all it’s just a car, albeit a car I would want to keep as long as I am breathing.  That reality is what has kept me from doing an impulse buy a long time ago and is what driving me to make sure I can do it without having a major negative impact on our current financial situation.

 

 

 

I just happened to stumble across a small portion of the Academy Awards last night.  I saw James Franco doing some presenting.  I immediately wondered who the host of the awards was this year.  Normally it is some sort of comedian although I think last year they went out of bounds and had Hugh Jackman host.

Well then I see Anne Hathaway come out and also present.  After a few minutes it becomes apparent that James and Anne are THE hosts of the show??  WTF?  I wonder whose bright idea that was?  They were pleasant enough but it certainly seemed like a totally underwhelming choice to host what is supposed to be THE big deal in Hollywood. I think in total I may have watched 11 minutes of the show.  I just don’t care about it.  Jimmy and Annie did nothing to change my feeling about that.  It was sort of like if you had Jessica Simpson do the Superbowl halftime show.

I heard some reviews of the broadcast this morning and they were pretty much all negative.  If the people that organize the awards thought they did a good job in the host selection department I would suggest the people doing the selecting are re-selected.

I thought Anne looked good.  James looked very creepy and harsh.  He looks older than his 32 or 33 years.

Ali had to head up to Orlando around noon Saturday.  I started up on my outside duties first.  I kept quite busy.  I finally decided it was safe to trim back the cold damaged part of the areca palms around the pond.  I was holding off just in case we got another freeze.  I then mowed and weed whacked the entire property, something that hadn’t been done in months.

I then moved inside and continued in whirlwind chore mode, sweeping the house, unleashing the Scooba on the hard surfaces and doing laundry.  As always, especially when Ali isn’t around, I MUCH prefer getting as much done around the house up front in a weekend so I can back load the rest with stuff that I WANT to do.

I had made arrangements to go visit my mom that evening.  The point of my visit was to hook up the fax portion of her printer and to get her tax stuff.  Later in the day I decided I would just do her taxes on the spot since it doesn’t take all that long.  Of course the dogs were thrilled to get a trip to Grandma’s place.

Mom wanted the fax part of her printer hooked up so she could fax her resume in for job opportunities since that is a pretty common request.  It only took me a few minutes to get that hooked up and working.

I then loaded up Turbotax.com to do mom’s taxes.  Mom was convinced she was going to have to pay in a significant amount of money to the government this year because of her SS benefits that had no taxes taken out.

Last year I filed mom’s taxes with the free version of turbotax.  This year they sucked $20 out of me.  Sure I could have used the free version again but if you get the BASIC version it will carry over all of your info from the previous year, a huge time saver.  I decided $20 was worth my time.

So I carefully went through mom’s tax forms and answered the questions presented to me.  The entire process is very straightforward.  In the end it turned out that mom actually was going to get back a small refund instead of having to pay in, she was VERY happy to see that considering she is unemployed.

My reward for helping mom out was a very tasty chicken parm dinner that she prepared.  I brought a bunch of stuff from our garden that was used to make a nice salad as well.

Another reason I wanted to keep my Sunday clear was I had exercise plans.  I intended to run the same big loop that I did when doing the half marathon distance, approximately 7 miles.  I wanted to follow that up with swimming in the pool at the water park.

When I did my 13.1 miles the temps were around 50 and the sun was nowhere to be seen, hidden behind thick clouds.  On Sunday when I started running the temps were about 25 degrees warmer, the air was humid and the sun was shining down brightly.  I knew this would translate into a more difficult run but still, I figured if I did 13, 7 shouldn’t be such a big deal.

I went out at a pretty decent clip early on with my first few miles being paced in the mid to high 8’s.  I didn’t feel too bad.  Somewhere around 4 miles the wheels started to come off.  I am not sure if was more hamstrings that were sore from a 300 on Friday or a layover from being in the seated position for endless hours in the van a few days prior but my legs felt bad.

Each segment of the square that I was running is straight AND long.   Mentally I was starting to feel defeated as I couldn’t even see the point where I had to turn right for what seemed to be eons.  I tried to snap out of it.  I’ve had periods during long runs where I started feeling pretty bad but was able to pick things up later on, not yesterday.

The longer I ran the slower I ran.  By the time I turned back onto Livingston Road my legs were begging me to stop as I trudged along at a snail’s pace.  There was incessant mental dialogue going on that went something like this.  “All you have to do is stop running and the discomfort can end” followed by “What the f?!  You ran 13.1, this is only 7, don’t you dare stop you f’ing p%ssy!”  The battle between these two voices in my head added to the anguish of the run, I just wanted it to be over. During the last mile or so I was running incredibly slow, between an 11 and 12 minute mile.  I was that spent.

Finally the punishment came to an end when the GPS clicked to 7.00.  I staggered around like I drank a bottle of whiskey.  My legs almost felt like they were not there.  I sat and tried to recover for a long time, at one point turning the truck’s AC on full blast to try to cool down.  It seemed impossible that just a few days ago I was complaining about being frozen solid.

I listened to a message from Ali after her half marathon.  It sounded like she had a rough time as well but she survived it.  Finally I felt ok enough to drive up to the water park parking lot.  When I walked in I saw a sign posted saying the lap pool was closed for repair.  Oh well, no swimming I guess.  I was so damn tired I could have cared less.

Instead I took a dip in one of the pools to clean up, sat in a lounge like a zombie and then grabbed lunch there.  It was enjoyable.

When I got home I had a few more things I wanted to get done around the house which I took care of first.  Then I headed out to my pull up station.  I needed to make another attempt at the 180, this month’s Bar-barian challenge.

I had made two previous attempts at the challenge and both times wound up with 11 reps.  The last time I tried my hands slipped off the bar before I could try a 12th rep.  This time I tried to address the issue by getting some weight lifting chalk, applying it both to my hands and the bar.  The chalk made a big difference and I was finally able to squeeze out a 12th rep, barely.

I actually relented and took a two hour siesta afterward, my body was just spent.

Later I finally got to watch the most recent Predators movie.  I really didn’t know what to expect, I have always been a big fan of the series, especially the original.  I really liked this latest creation.  They did a nice job assembling the cast and it came damn close to capturing the magic of the original.  The only thing missing was Arnold, otherwise the film had all the action and suspense you could hope for.  Definitely check it out, A-.

Ali comes back home today, she spent an extra night up in Orlando with the girl she ran the race with.  Outside of the trauma of running the half marathon, it sounds like she is having a good time.

 

 

 

 

 

Wow I could get used to these two day work weeks.  Just imagine how many chores I could get done around the house with 5 day weekends?

Man what is going on in Wisconsin is pretty incredible.  Their new tea party governor is cutting his own throat if you ask me.  He has been unwilling to budge one inch on his union crushing proposals and the state workers affected as well as a huge portion of the middle class labor in America are f’ing pissed off about it.

It almost reads like fiction.  Democratic senators leave the state to delay the vote?  Republicans sneak a vote through and then immediately march out of the building while democrats scream at them, calling them cowards?  I mean wtf, this is just nuts.

The Wisonson governor’s stance is controversial enough that even our newly elected tea party governor has stepped away from it, refusing to endorse the madness that is going on in the midwest.

Just like most things that involve politicians, things are not as they seem.  This has been touted as the ONLY way to balance the Wisconsin state budget.  The governors office released a ton of numbers that would paint state workers as some ridiculously overpaid and lavishly benefited group of people.  When you look at real numbers, you see just how stupid these claims are.

The true culprit behind this is the larger tea party agenda.  If they are able to castrate unions, which are one of the largest financial backers of the democratic party, they castrate the democrats in campaign spending.  You need to look no further than the election results in Florida to see that spending tons of cash DOES sway weak minds.  If you further tip the scales it only makes that situation exponentially worse.

Hopefully you saw and heard the fake phone call that was made to the Wisconsin governor.  If that doesn’t pull back the curtain for you I don’t know what will.   The guy is just a puppet pushing through the agenda of the ultra-rich. The funny thing is that the tea party PR geniuses are very good at making the average Joe Shmo middle class think they are actually working for them.  Read this too.

The political division in the country is reaching Civil War type levels.  It is pretty disgusting.

Ali will be away for a good portion of the weekend for a half marathon she is running Sunday.  I have a number of things planned like normal house chores, visiting mom to set up her fax machine/pick up her tax documents, running 7, swimming and maybe finally watching Predators which has been sitting in it’s Netflix envelope for weeks.

I have a bit of the post trip blah’s. It’s odd that I would be missing the arctic-like weather.  It’s probably just missing the fun we had while being immersed in it.  Since we have been back I have thought several times how cool it would have been if my dad and Teresa would have bought the house next to us that was on the market forever. The fun would have been endless.

Trickle down economics works, right? WRONG.

Look at this carefully and then reevaluate your position on what exactly is going on in the country.

 

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

 

 

So let’s see how much I can pull back from the last week or so.

The plan was to leave very early Thursday morning as I wanted to get the majority of the driving done on the first day.  Sure pulling out at 5am wasn’t much fun but it was a necessary evil for my plan.  I grabbed my XL Dunkin Donuts coffee and hit I-75. The dogs were happy as always to be in the van but they had no clue what adventure awaited them.

The first day really didn’t have anything all that notable to report.  We have been up and down this route far too many times for it to hold much intrigue.  The highlight of the day was stopping at South of the Border and discovering their “pet toilets”.  It was a small little fenced in area complete with fire hydrants and a small dog house.  I’m not quite sure how we never saw it before in our various stops at the world famous tourist trap.

In total we drove just over 900 miles on Thursday, a staggering amount that matches the dreadful drive across Texas.  We stopped around 8 pm in Virginia, finding a pet friendly Hampton Inn to crash in.

We had decided last minute to make a pit stop at Ali’s brother’s place to surprise our nieces.  The drive to their place up 95 was a large pain in the ass as we hit various traffic snarls that delayed our arrival several times.

When we finally got there we let the dogs go into the house first.  Lauryn and Laiken were shocked for a minute when they saw two dogs coming towards them until they realized it was Nicki and Sadie.  Then they saw Ali and went berserk screaming “Aunt Ali! Nicki! Sadie! Uncle Shawn!!!”  They were so excited and so surprised.

Ali’s parent also were there, they had no idea we were showing up either and were equally surprised, minus the screaming.  I hadn’t seen Ali’s parents in probably three years, when I last came up to play the Rumble with Randall.  Where as Ali has been a regular visitor to PA over the past few years, I have hardly set my foot in my home state.

Nicki was initially scared for a brief period but she quickly warmed up to everyone.  I was surprised that she seemed to remember Ali’s dad who she hasn’t seen in at least a half decade.  She went right over to him.

After the initial excitement settled down we headed over to the neighbor’s back yard which was fenced in.  They have a small dog named Zoe that the girls wanted me to meet.  The yard also gave our dogs a chance to burn off some energy after sitting in a van for the better part of two days.

There was actually some snow left on the ground despite the unseasonably warm temps that were close to 70 degrees.  Nicki and Sadie had no problem getting along with Zoe and soon the three of them were running around the yard playing.

I played with both the dogs and my nieces.  I made some snowballs and tossed them to the dogs.  They were confused when the balls crumbled as they tried to snatch them with their mouth.  It was funny to watch.

We had a great evening with the girls, they are both at a very cute age.

Friday night a tremendous windstorm went through.  I could hear the wind howling through out the night, at times I could feel the house moving a bit in protest.  When I went outside with the dogs Saturday morning I saw the aftermath.  There was a bunch of  stuff blown over/around including their heavy gas grill which was relocated on the deck by a gust of wind.

The wind also seemed to blow away the warm weather.  The strong wind was a very cold wind as well.  I quickly grabbed a sweatshirt. The girls were sad that we had to go so soon but we told them hopefully we would see them down in Florida sooner rather than later.

Our fears of not experiencing winter during the trip were put to rest as we traveled westward.  We drove through many periods of light snow.  The drive was a bit treacherous as the strong winds buffeted the van constantly on the highway.  I am sure our mileage during that leg of the trip was very poor.

We pulled into dad’s place mid afternoon, finding it surprisingly easy despite it’s very remote location. As we pulled into the winding driveway we got our first in person look at the property which is very large, 18 acres in total.   The house looked very nice with porches in the front and back.  I saw my brother Pat’s car was already in the driveway, he was visiting for the first time as well.  I didn’t know that Pat had a girlfriend, Maureen, who was visiting as well.

Dad let his dogs out so the re-acquaintance session could begin.  It took very little time before the 4 dogs were running around in the yard.  Dad’s place had significantly more snow than we saw in the east but there were bare spots on the ground.

We walked around the property with the dogs, enjoying watching Sadie and Nicki play in the snow, a substance that is foreign to them outside their brief experience with it in Yellowstone last year.

Dad and Teresa’s house has been under renovation for around 7 months.  Although the work is not done it is getting close to completion.  Several of the rooms were totally gutted and redone, including the master bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.  Of course the rooms looked great.

The showpiece of the house is the big stone wall in the living room area.  This also where the  wood stove is located which does a nice job of heating that area.  It sort of gives the house a ski lodge type of feel. The house also has a number of sky lights which flood the living area with natural light which is a really nice touch.

Evidently the house only recently became suitable for guests due to the renovation mess.  My step mom worked her ass off getting everything ready.  I really appreciated her effort, it looked great.

It didn’t take very long until Dad suggested that we go try out his new toboggan on the big hill in the back.  We trekked outside into the cold air that felt downright frigid when teamed with the steady icy wind that was like daggers on your skin.  Hey, we wanted winter weather right?

All of us took turns going down the hill.  Dad and I tried both solo and tandem runs.  My trip down with Ali went better than my solo attempt.  The hill was rather steep and long, the walk back up top was a chore.  Despite the angle of the hill Sadie had no problem chasing each rider both down the hill and back up every time.  She was just having a blast.

Nicki started looking very cold as she was standing in the snow, she was shivering.  I actually picked her up and held her for a bit to try to warm her up.

After we each had at least one run down the hill we were all ready to retreat inside.  The arctic wind even felt especially  cold, even to to my Dad and Teresa  who have been living in it all winter.

We had a nice relaxing evening on Saturday eating a home cooked meal and playing Scrabble in front of the warm fireplace.  Teresa is an expert Scrabble player and beat us easily.

Our first night in NW PA was spent firmly entrenched under the covers.  We made the mistake of closing our bedroom door which cut us off from the auxiliary heat the fireplace made.  As a result the room felt frigid.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the temps in the room dipped into the upper 50’s.

On Sunday morning Dad had made reservations to have breakfast at some nearby resort/lodge.  I put the bench seat up in the van so we could all pile into one vehicle. The drive there was very scenic, along a river.

We had a good breakfast at the lodge despite it also feeling quite cold.  I had my jacket on during the entire meal.  The lodge itself was very rustic and comforting.  During the meal I got to catch up with Patrick a bit.  He talked about his job, which is extremely interesting and challenging.  He does engineering for a company that creates motion tracking devices for primarily military purposes.

After breakfast we headed to a nearby town so Dad could get a Sunday paper.  As we pulled up to the small store the van all of a sudden started backfiring and almost shutting off.  Instantly I was like “oh no, not again”.  I thought I had my fill of van problems during last summer’s trip to last awhile.  I had to work the gas to keep the van from shutting off.  The problem came and went during the trip back to dad’s place, I was just glad we got back.

I theorized that maybe the MAF sensor was going bad.  I was pretty sure that whatever the problem was it was sensor related because of the sporadic nature of it.  When we got back I pulled off the air box to take a look at the sensor, of course I couldn’t tell much just by looking at it.  Dad said he knew the local garage owner and that he would call him first thing Monday to see if he could look at it.  The rest of Sunday the van was on my mind, I had nightmares of this issue delaying our trip back home AND costing a ton of cash in the process.

Pat and his girlfriend headed back to Pittsburgh shortly after we got back from breakfast.  I mentioned to him about the half marathon I am supposed to do in a couple weeks and told him he should fly down and do it.  Surprisingly he seemed open to the possibility.  Pat is a great runner, much, much better than I could ever hope to be.  He has two marathons under his belt and is now aiming for a 70 mile ULTRA run.

On Sunday afternoon we headed to yet another small town that was having a chainsaw carving festival.  Yes, I said chainsaw carving.  My first impression when dad mentioned it was “oh, great….”  but it actually was quite interesting.  Seeing these artists create these intricate sculptures out of a hunk of log was fascinating.  The patience and creativity that was on display really impressed me, not to mention they were doing this in VERY cold weather.

Bears obviously were the most popular object to create with a chainsaw as we saw dozen’s of them for sale.  Teresa actually bought one piece for their house.  Ali was feeling the itch to buy something although we really didn’t need anything.  In the end common sense won out and we walked out empty handed.

There were a number of dogs present at the event.  We didn’t bring ours because of chainsaw noise.  I petted one of them a couple times.  She looked like she was a boxer mix.  It was funny, when I would pet her she would turn around so her rear end was facing me, perhaps inviting me to sniff her ass in a dog-like fashion.  I decided to stick to petting.

One of the artists had a big black lab that was laying in a round lounge chair.  Ali and I both did a double take as we saw the poor guy covered in the wood chips that were getting shot out of his owner’s chain saw.  The dog appeared to care less.

By the time we saw all of the exhibitions we were once again frozen solid courtesy of more winter wind.  Despite my long sleeve t-shirt, two sweat shirts and winter coat I was shivering.

We headed home and again tried to stay warm by the fire.  Teresa ran out and grabbed pizza for dinner.  Dad and I went out on a walk with the dogs.  Along the front of the property we ran into the maple syrup guy.  He was tapping the sugar maples along the road.  I had never seen this process before and found it very interesting.

During the course of the conversation I found out a ton about the maple syrup creation process.  They tap the trees for about one month during spring when the trees come out of hibernation.  Each tree will produce about 10 gallons of sap during this period, much more than I expected.

It takes about 50 gallons of raw maple sap to produce 1 gallon of finished maple syrup.  This guy had roughly 4600 trees tapped in the area.  Some trees just had these buckets hung directly off the tap.  Other sections had multiple trees connected together via tubes that fed via gravity to larger collection barrels.

The process seemed extremely labor intensive to me but the guy said he loved it and does it as a side business.

Sunday evening we watched an odd film that my Dad and Teresa had on dvd.  It had no dialogue, only images, video footage and music.  The film is based on the prophecies of the Hopi indians which basically predict that man will destroy himself and the world through his own ignorance.

The film is filled with images that depict mankind as almost insect-like, buzzing about the planet in mostly meaningless daily lives, oblivious to the world they exist in.  It was filled with powerful messages if you managed to pay attention.

Monday morning I woke up and did a double take.  The forecast had called for an inch or two of snow.  It had actually started snowing before we went to bed.  We we wound up getting at least a half foot of snow if not more.

The van was buried with snow going half way up the tires.  I had nightmares of getting it to the garage in these sort of conditions.  Ali was surprised as well when she saw all the snow.  Of course, the dogs loved it.

As soon as I let them out they rocketed into the winter wonderland, running about wildly.  It was so funny to see Nicki bounding through the snow.

Dad called the garage to see if he could look at the van, luckily he said he could.  I spent a good twenty minutes clearing the vehicles off.   It felt so weird to be brushing snow off a vehicle after such a long hiatus.

I was quite worried about the drive to the garage.  I had never had the van on snowy roads although I hoped it’s 5000 pound heft would make it a decent snow performer.  Once we got out of the driveway and off the road that runs in front of the house the roads were surprisingly decent.  I left a large buffer zone between the van and dad’s vehicle just to be safe.  The party van performed admirably.

We dropped off the van at the garage which was tucked away back off a main road.  The owner, Gary, said he would look at the van in an hour or so and let us know what he found. Of course the van did not sputter or hesitate once during the drive there, typical.

Once we got back dad and I started on the snow removal process.  He hopped on his tractor to start on the driveway.  I grabbed a shovel and started working around the house.  At least the shoveling helped keep me warm.

I then headed up on the roof of the house.  Dad said there were a couple spots where ice dams form because of poor design.  Dad said something about trying to clear the snow from these areas with a garage broom from the ground.  I thought it would be much easier to do from up on the roof.  I grabbed a ladder and carefully maneuvered my way up top.

I pushed the snow off the bottom section of the roof line. I then turned the broom on it’s side and used it as a poor man’s sledge hammer to break up the majority of the ice that was already formed there.  I spent a good half hour up on the roof trying to clear what I could.

When I got down dad asked if I wanted to use the tractor to finish up the driveway clearing.  Sure, who turns down a chance to use power equipment? It took some time to get used to how to position the bucket for optimal snow removal but after a little while I more or less had the hang of it. Sitting on the tractor for that period of time froze me to the bone.  I was woefully underdressed for the conditions.

Later in the day we heard back from the garage.  He said the crank position sensor on the engine was showing intermittent errors and he replaced it.  The bill was a reasonable 180 bucks.  Hell the guy’s labor rate was a measly $38 an hour, you have to love that.   We picked the van back and headed back to dad’s.  I was relieved that what could have been a major van issue was apparently handled.

On Monday night I offered to take my dad and Teresa out to dinner instead of making Teresa prepare another meal.  We wound up going to the hotel owned by the prior owner of dad’s house, the Vowinkle Hotel. I had to laugh when we walked in the dining room and there was NOONE there.   We had the place to ourselves.

Despite the lack of patrons, we had an enjoyable dinner that was capped off by some really good homemade deserts.  We got to meet the prior owner, an older man with poor hearing.  At the bar was sitting a truly bizarre looking older woman.  I wish I had my phone with to take a picture.  “She” looked like an old drag queen.

I awoke early on Tuesday morning, knowing I had to get everything packed and ready to go.  I tried to be proactive and start the fire in the woodstove but gave up after a half dozen attempts.  When dad got up he struggled a bit as well to get it going.  Evidently I wasn’t using enough paper.

It was bittersweet to be packing up to go.  Ali, myself and especially the dogs had a good time.  We love Maggie and Clara, dad’s dogs, a bunch too.  To have to say goodbye after a quick visit was sad.  However the visit went about as well as we could hope. We got to experience full blown winter and all that comes with it.  Seeing the four dogs interact in the snow was endlessly entertaining for us.  It was also great to see first hand what hopefully will be THE house that dad finally gets to enjoy the rest of his retirement in.

We said our goodbye’s and slowly pulled out.

Sadie seemed legitimately bummed about leaving.  Her and Clara played non-stop during the visit and seemed to be great buddies.

The first day of the trip back to Florida was not much fun.  The driving conditions were pretty miserable.  We went through a combination of snow, sleet and rain throughout the day.  Much of the twisty roadway was up and down mountains which really made the miles go by slowly. I was pretty miserable since I elected to drive the entire day because of the bad conditions.

I had another “oh no” van moment about half way through the day.  The check engine light came on during a long climb up a mountain.  The light corresponded with a fluctuation in power level.  this time it definitely felt like what happens when a MAF sensor flakes out.  The lack of power continued to happen until we stopped for a bathroom break.  When I turned the van back on the problem was gone although the check engine light remained.  The next day the light actually turned itself off and we had no further problems.

I was quite glad when we reached Colombia South Carolina around 9pm after putting in close to 700 miles, I was beat.

After hurriedly making the dog dinners and taking showers we hit bed since we wanted to be on the road by 6Am the next morning.

I could hardly believe it when maybe 15 minutes after I fell asleep I was awakened by Ali.  She said the fire alarm was going off….

I was pissed, knowing that more than likely some idiot either pulled the alarm or set it off by smoking.  I was hoping it would just shut itself off but there was no such luck.  I had to drag myself out of bed and throw clothing on top of my pajamas.  Ali threw a bunch of stuff in bags and took it outside with us in the remote chance this was an actual fire, which it wasn’t.

After maybe 5-10 minutes of standing outside the firemen issues the all clear and we were allowed back in the hotel.  I was so annoyed that I wasn’t able to fall back asleep for at least 45 minutes.

I woke up at 5am to get ready for our departure.  I had to practically pull Ali out of bed at 5:30.  It was tough but we were in the van by 6.

The first stop was at the car wash right down the street.  The van was disgustingly dirty from it’s exposure to raw winter weather.  A quick trip through the no touch car wash did a surprisingly good job of removing most of the crud.

The next stop was at the nearest Dunkin Donuts.  DD coffee is almost a pre-requisite start of a road trip day.  I consumed a couple gallons of coffee during the trip I’m sure.

The final leg of the drive home went quite well.  We had good weather, reasonable traffic and fast roads.  We pulled into the house around 4:30, just as our neighbor was walking up to our place to drop off the mail.  (she took care of Tuki for us)

The rest of the evening was mostly spent scrambling to get stuff unpacked and the house more or less in order.  Unfortunately Ali said that she had started feeling sick.  She is hoping to stave it off with a healthy dose of Airborne.  She is supposed to run a half marathon on Sunday.

All in all the trip went about as well as we could hope.  We got a full dose of winter, had a fantastic time watching the dogs experience the elements, spent some quality time with family and managed to log 3000 miles without any major incidents.  We pwned it.

All 300 pictures can be seen here.  There are some real good ones in there.