Archives 2011

Jeremy recently had a run in with what is wrong with the governments efforts to bail out banks.  He closed on a condo that was purchased from a “distressed” seller.  However in the process of the closing he got some numbers that made my stomach turn.

The seller originally bought the condo for around 100k prior to the real estate boom.  At the height of the boom she thought she would take advantage of her sky high property appraisal and refinanced the condo for 300K!!!!!!  She basically wanted free money, thinking whenever she sold the condo for 300K plus she would be fine.

Well we all know what happened, her condo value plummeted and she was left holding a 300K tab for her property that was now worth less than third of that.  Well of course like many people today, the former owner did not want to take responsibility for her ill advised money grab.  She instead stopped paying on the property.

So not only did she stiff the bank on her loan, she was actually rewarded for her behavior at closing, receiving a $20K payout from that same bank for selling the property.  This is so wrong on so many levels.

The government basically is rewarding the dead beet owner for ridiculously over financing the property and the bank for being stupid enough to do it.  Who gets to pay the bill for that irresponsibility?  You and I do of course.

The question is what do you do about it?  Every single government program is riddled with scum bags that are just working the system, regardless of their true need for the benefit.  If you reward bad behavior, you encourage it.  However there are also the millions that legitimately need the assistance and whom are not looking to defraud anyone.  You can’t ignore their needs either.

Hell I am pretty sure the exact same situation occurred next door with our old neighbor.  I know he made no payments on his home for at least a year before it was eventually short sold.  I would not be surprised if he got a little bonus check from the bank as well.

 

I have an appointment today to go to our employee med clinic to have my thumb looked at.  It will be interesting to see what sort of diagnosis I come out of there with.

The headlines have been filled with stories about all of these retailers crossing over to the formerly taboo practice of being open on Thanksgiving.  This practice was initiated by K-Mart somewhere around 15 years ago.  I distinctly remembering my grandmother, who used to be a manager there, being disgusted when they started doing it.

It seems like a lemming mentality has strongly taken hold.  Places that really have no real point to be open early are open early.  Hell the lady at Dunkin Donuts told me they are opening at 1AM so early morning shoppers have coffee available.  It really is pretty stupid.

I like how the ads I see from retailers say they are open on THURSDAY, deliberately omitting THANKSGIVING from the text, somehow making it sound less offensive.

You can bet that this practice will only expand in the future.  Once the door to such practices is opened, it is blown off the hinges and will never be closed again.

Tomorrow we will be involved in the huge Thanksgiving 4 mile race in a big way.  Most years we have either run, helped with the pre-race registration or both.  We have never chip timed this event because of the huge amount of people that participate, last year that number was somewhere around 2300.

Well this year the race director and I agreed we would try to chip time the race but not the entire race field.  Instead when people registered they had an option to sign up for either a competitive chip timed race or an untimed (clock at the finish line) fun run.  The chip event will start 10 minutes before the fun run.

We have almost 1000 people that opted to pay an extra $5 to be chip timed.  1000 is still a big number.  In order to expedite body movement the race director bought custom timing chips for the race.  This accomplishes two things.

The timing chip can be given to the runner ahead of time if they do an early packet pick up.  If they do an early pickup they can totally avoid standing in ANY lines on the day of the race which is ideal.  They also are able to exit the finish chute without waiting for someone to remove the chip from their sneaker.  The timing chip also becomes their little tidy souvenir from the race.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the real world race conditions.

After the race we are picking up mom for our small Thanksgiving celebration.  Tofurkey once again will be center stage on the menu.  It really tastes quite good believe it or not.  At this point I really don’t mind at all a meat free feast.

In the past Mom sometimes would stay over a night around Thanksgiving but she has no interest in doing that this year because she has to work at 10am on Friday.

I want to bring mom’s Thanksgiving newspaper with to our place so I can scan the ads.  If there are any deals that I find sufficiently interesting Ali and I may venture out together early Friday to scope out some deals, in the SSR.

I have plenty of potential to do’s for the long 4 day weekend.  In addition to maybe hanging some Christmas lights, I would love to get the bi-annual pressure washing done for the holidays. The pool cage and sheds are an non-festive shade of green right now.  However right now, wrapping my right thumb around a pressure washer trigger is impossible.  I would either need to awkwardly use my left hand for the process or use the trigger lock out which keeps the flow going continuously.  Maybe I will ask Ali if she would like to get broken into the wonderful, wet world of pressure washing.

The weather this weekend is supposed to be FANTASTIC. Cool nights and mild daytime temps with low humidity make me smile.

 

 

So the last couple days the news headlines have been about the deficit “SUPER COMMITTEE” failing to come up with an agreement on how to move forward with deficit reduction plans.  I am so surprised a consensus couldn’t be reached, not.

It looks like the main sticking point is the Republican absolute, over my dead body, refusal to let the Bush tax breaks for the rich expire ($200k or more income) as they were scheduled to years ago.  Their mega wealthy puppeteers simply will not allow it.   As long as the right continues with this plan of unilateral negotiation where they demand cuts without giving anything in return, we can expect next to nothing productive to be accomplished.

An individual that finds himself in severe debt has a pretty established plan, reduce expenses and increase income.  Well this common man mentality does not compute to rich politicians, they only want to go half way.

This is just the latest in an unending series of fails ever since the tea party loonies got a foothold in congress.  I don’t suspect it to stop until congress is completely under one party.  It is beyond obvious that bi-partisan simply does not exist anymore.  It’s all about special interests and the dollars that support them.

On SSRFanatics I hooked up with a guy that was selling the complete GM service manual for SSR’s on dvd.  Well it is actually for SSR’s and every other GM vehicle made from 2003-2009.  It’s two full dvd’s of information.  I figured it will come in handy sooner or later and for $20 I can’t go wrong.

My thumb is still f’d up. Although I am not back at the “can’t hold a toothbrush stage” I can not bend at the thumb knuckle very far at all without staggering pain.  Last night Ali handed me our bug trap that had a spider in it.  I took it outside and flicked my wrist as I instinctively slid open the trad door with my right thumb.  That simple movement bent me over in pain.  I am going to see if I can get over to our employee clinic today for a look at it.  Going through the Mudder with my thumb like this would suck.

So Saturday morning was another timing gig, this time at a new venue in Marco Island.  The race was to commemorate the opening of a new bridge that was paid for by stimulus money.  I was quite concerned going into this race since it was new which almost always equates to problematic.  Well there were problems but not as many as there could have been.

Our first issue was finding the registration location.  We had an address but in total darkness, did not see anything.  After stopping at a near by 711 and being told there was “some park” around the corner we found where we were supposed to go.

Our normal club volunteer coordinator was not at this race so Ali and I became the ring leaders, telling people where things went and what needed to be done.  Ali dealt primarily with the registration area, I dealt more with the finish line logistics.

The geography of the race was less than ideal.  The registration area was in the park but the start/finish line was a couple hundred yards away out on the main road in Marco.  I had to scurry back and forth between the two locations several times.

The lines being out on the main road was also a problem.  The police were supposed to have the road closed around an hour before the the 7:30 start time.  Instead cars will still flowing by well after 7am.  We were setting up our finish line as traffic drove by a few feet away, not a good thing.

Once I had the finish line set up I ran back across to the registration area to help Ali.   As I sat down I encountered another misstep.  They had contracted a local radio station DJ to provide “entertainment” pre-race.  He was set up about 50 feet from the registration tent with both speakers pointed directly at us.

We couldn’t hear a thing over the guy’s maddening non-stop routine.  In the span of 5 minutes I was wishing physical harm upon this guy, he was driving me nuts.

We also had a big issue with phantom registrations.  No less than a dozen times we had people come up telling us they were registered for the race yet their names were not on the list.  There were all sorts of alibi’s, “so and so was supposed to sign me up” “I sent it in the mail” “I signed up online but my son didn’t show up on the list”  Unfortunately in the heat of battle we just do not have the time to give each case a full inquisition so we wind up putting these people in the race, taking their word for what they tell us.  If this turns into an annual event we will need to fix this.

When such a mixup occurs we have to enter these people into the race with a new number.  After one such mix up I went to the day of registration table and grabbed the next available bib number to assign.  As I was entering the info I had the one volunteer  spin around and start bitching at me because I took a number.  She said she had already assigned that number to somebody.  She said I(me) CAN”T DO THAT.  I had to stop myself from laughing in her face.

I told her the number was still in the stack of unused numbers, if she needed it she should pull it.  I told her all she had to do was simply write the next available number on the entry form.  She was pissed at me but I didn’t give a shit, there were too many other things to worry about.

About 5 minutes before the start of the race I ran back over to the finish line.  I had to quickly get the starting mats up and running.  It takes a couple minutes for the timing box to initialize so I delayed the start of the race by a couple minutes, oh well.

Ali and Christy were running the race.  The addition of a steep bridge to the course added a big challenge.  Hills just are uncommon in Florida running events.  Ali did well, finishing in under 28:30.  She was shocked and excited when I told her she got second in her age group. Ali had only placed in her age group once before and that was years ago.  She accepted her second place trophy with pride at the awards ceremony.

All in all things went well, despite the problems I outlined earlier.  The group of volunteers they had were very enthusiastic and followed direction well which is what you want.  If this turns into an annual event there will be some minor fine tuning to be done but nothing major.

After unpacking the car, doing the post race duties and eating lunch Ali said she was retiring for her nap.  I told her I had several projects to work on.  I am trying to get out of the habit of doing as much housework as I am accustomed to since Ali has been pulling 2 day work weeks for the past month or so.  She should be able to knock out items I would normally take care of with that schedule. I still ran the vacuum in the house even though Ali pledged she would do it on Sunday.

So I embarked on various small projects.  They involved things like weeding the garden, installing more hooks in the small shed for bike storage, cleaning the tractor, installing chicken wire along the base of the garden (keep out rabbits), replacing two defective yard sprinklers and finally washing the Camry.

My thumb, which had remained painful but functional all week, was worked hard during the projects.  I paid for it later.

Mom had told me earlier in the week that she wanted to try out Sweet Tomatoes for her birthday dinner instead of a more traditional sit down venue, an odd request but I was happy to go again.  We picked her up a little after 5.  She had just finished her Saturday 6 hour shift at work.

We heard a lot of updates about mom’s new job and unfortunately they aren’t as shiny as a week prior.  The boutique mom is working at is very small and is just maintained by the owner and mom.  The owner seems to enjoy standing all day, even though there is a single chair there.  Well mom is not used to standing on her feet for that long, and it has not been much fun, her feet are killing her.  Even though mom could certainly sit down if she wanted to, she almost feels obligated to stand since the owner always is.  I am sure all that standing is not fun, the last time I had an on your feet all day job was in the late 80’s when I was a meat cutter.

Evidently it also is quite warm in the store.  Mom said she literally has sweat rolling down her face during certain points of the day.  There are a couple fans in the store but mom said they don’t help much or maybe she again doesn’t want to look bad by standing in front of them constantly.

Plus if there isn’t much floor traffic the job can be incredibly boring.  Boring jobs make time pass very slowly.  I have first hand experience with this.

So anyway, the less than stellar job report reflected in mom’s mood, it was pretty obvious she wasn’t all that into going out to eat.  When I suggested that perhaps after dinner we could go look for some more comfortable shoes mom acted like I just had an alien pop out of my chest, saying she HAD to get home so she could soak her feet.  She said she now goes to bed at 8pm. Um, ok.

Mom reacted in a similar way when I suggested that she drive her Rav 4 out to our place on Thanksgiving Day so I could give it the thorough cleaning it sorely needs. I also noticed while I was driving her car that the brakes pulsate, I could replace her front rotors and pads and eradicate that problem for her as well.  Again, this was viewed as unreasonable. It sounded like she now has determined that doing anything extra on a day that precedes a day she has to work is just impossible to accommodate.

We gave mom a Publix gift card for her birthday.  Not the most extravagant gift but a very useful one, free groceries are always a good thing.

Mom said she liked ST but I think it still was not a great choice for a birthday dinner.  It would have been better to go to Watermark like I originally suggested.  We told mom we would see her on Thursday and dropped her off.

As Saturday night drug on my thumb was getting incredibly painful again, it actually reached the same levels of pain as the week prior.  A couple times I bumped it against something and went through the roof, it hurt that bad.  I again iced it and took some Advil while I watched Robin Hood.

I fell asleep during part of the movie but what I did see was not what I expected.  I am by no means a Robin Hood expert but I thought it was basically he was the guy that was good with arrows that stole from the rich to give to the poor.  Well the movie wasn’t about that at all, I guess you would call it a pre-quel.

Instead it cast Russel Crowe as Robin Hood,t he big psuedo-general dude, leading England against a French invasion.   It’s only after the french are repelled does he become the character we all know.  The movie was ok I guess.  I’d give it a who cares B.

Sunday morning I was glad to wake up to a slightly less painful thumb, at least I could use it somewhat.  We made plans to meet up with Christy to go biking mid-morning,  We put in a total of almost 19 miles.  The highlight of the ride was saving two turtles that got them stuck out in the middle of a road with high curbs.

Mid-afternoon my thumb still was hurting but I determined I could at least still hang on a bar.  I wanted to go out and do a hard mode attempt for this month’s bar-barian forums challenge.  I had told a couple guys on the forum I would.

Hard mode ups the stakes with 3 muscle ups, 30 dips, 15 pull ups, 30 push ups and 3 more muscle ups, completed in as little time as possible.  I physically felt pretty low between my hurting thumb and overall lack of energy. I still wanted to try it.

I ran into an unexpected road block early, missing on one of my early muscle ups, it kind of set the tone for the attempt.  The 30 dips really burned me out.  I dropped off the parallel bars at 22 reps and then had to hop back on them for the last 8 reps.  The pull ups were broken apart as well into a set of 10 followed shortly by a set of 5.  For the push ups I managed to stay in position for the entire 30, trudging through the last 10-12 at a slow pace.

Despite my struggles, I was right around the 5 minute mark with just 3 muscle ups to go.  I grabbed the bar and tried to get over it and failed miserably.  I just had no pop left in my upward movement.  This lead to a very frustrating few minutes.  In total it took me 3 minutes to get those last three muscle ups.  After a couple more failures I knew I had no choice but to let my body rest longer so I could get them done.  Taking additional rest time during a timed event doesn’t work out well.

I wound up with a disappointing time of 8:05.  I am confident I can do much better if try again feeling more upbeat and without an aching thumb.  I hope to give it another go before month’s end.  You can see the attempt here.

So the Eagles played in prime time last night against the division leading Giants in New York.  A bleak Eagle forecast was made bleaker by the news that Mike Vick and the number one receiver, Jeremy Maclin were both out with injuries.  A loss seemed to be in the  picture for sure.

Of course with as crazy as the NFL is anymore,  this resulted in a win.  Vince Young threw three interceptions but drove the Eagles down the field in a ridiculously long 19 play drive to score the go ahead TD.  The defense, which had played well all game looked like they were going right into collapse mode, allowing Eli Manning to pick up a quick 50 yards on a couple plays with time running out.  I was like “here we go again”

Well for one of the few times this year the defense actually came up big, making a play when they had to, forcing Eli to fumble the ball which the Birds recovered, game over.  It was a very improbable win.  I still have no illusions of this team going anywhere in the big picture but hey, it’s a win.

Now as you can tell by the blog entry title, the win was pretty much secondary to me anyway.  I was too busy hating Desean Jackson.

Desean has been a malcontent this season.  He is pissed off that the Eagles refused to renegotiate his deal before the season.  Well I assume there have been some undocumented locker room ramifications of his discontent which was put on center stage by Andy deactivating him for last weeks embarrassing loss to the Cardinals for missing a mandatory meeting.

A reasonable person would think Desean would be back on the field with something to prove. Well he did, he proved his a first class asshole.

The first time Desean touched the ball was during a punt return where he performed one of his familiar , run backwards 15 yards before going forward moves, resulting in a loss.  He does this all the time.  NBC flashed a stat that since the Giants game in 2010 Jackson’s punt return average has been less than THREE YARDS per attempt .  That is awful.

So in the 2nd quarter the Eagles found themselves backed up to their own goal line after a good Giants punt.  Vince Young launched a ball down the sidelines that Jackson caught.  He ran past midfield before he was pushed out of bounds on the Giants sideline, it was close to a 60 yard gain.

My mouth fell open as Jackson flips the ball at the Giants defensive coordinator, hitting him in the chest.  He followed up with more theatrics, letting the Giants know how bad ass he was.  Well this of course drew a penalty., wiping out the huge gain  The incident instantly shook me out of the sleepy haze I was in.  I was incensed.

It’s not like this is the first time Jackson has exhibited this behavior, he does it all the time.  The only difference is this season he has made so few big plays we haven’t seen it as often.  Ali was in the office paying bills but she heard what was going on and came out to see.  She couldn’t believe it either.

I immediately grabbed my phone and updated my FB status with “Desean Jackson is a fcking asshole. I could care less if he ever plays for the Eagles again. He is just a punk.”  Even after Jackson ran back a big punt later in the game I could have cared less.  I don’t want a guy like that on the team, period.

Late in the game he once again proved he hadn’t learned a damn thing, taunting the fans after making a first down catch.  Hey Desean, you fcking idiot, the Eagles have been TERRIBLE this year and your lack of production is a nice big chunk of that problem.  SHUT THE F UP AND MAKE PLAYS.

I sincerely hope the Eagles just let the asshole walk at the end of the year.  Let him go play on a team like the Raiders, they love pompous asshats.

Now I see ESPN running things like “Is Vince Young a better option than Michael Vick???”  I had to laugh.  Yes Young at least drove the Eagles down for a winning score late in the game, something Vick hasn’t been able to do with much consistency at all.  But to anoint him as the answer after one game, a game where he also happened to throw 3 interceptions, is a bit ludicrous.  Of course the Eagles do have a track record of doing just that.  After all that is how Vick got his job and subsequent overpaid contract.

Whatever, this team is going nowhere fast.

 

Last night I wanted to take another shot at the normal mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge.  On my first attempt I went over the top with being slow and controlled, turning in a very slow time of 4:50.  I wanted to try to go much faster this time without throwing form out the window.

Prior to the attempt I had a couple pinches on my ankles that I disregarded.  After the third pinch I realized that my right sneaker was covered in fire ants.  I took my sneakers off and smacked them together to propel the fire ants off of them.  I decided to just do the attempt in my socks so I wouldn’t get bitten mid-set.

I pulled in a good time, 2:53, a huge improvement.  I was also pleased that my form didn’t suffer much with the faster pace.  My time got me out of the cellar in the standings.

I still have been waking up in the middle of the night, last night was a little different though, I woke up between 1 and 2am.

My thumb is pretty functional at this point.  The swelling that more or less immobilized the thumb for a couple days is better but the thumb still hurts.  The pain has shifted into the thumb joint.  It just feels sore, almost what I imagine arthritis feels like.  I am hoping it continues to heal.

This weekend we have a race at a new venue to time which is always dangerous.  The first year of a race is the toughest since a lot of bugs are normally flushed out.  This race is back and forth over the bridge that connects Marco Island.  It will be a tough run for the participants, that bridge is steep and long.

We are taking mom out for a belated birthday dinner on Saturday night as well.  Other than that we will just be doing what we do.

 

So I finally got to finish up Burzynski last night.  The remaining portion of the movie finished painting the picture of unbelievable conspiracy by various arms of the government to steal Burzynski’s discovery of antineoplastons out from under him.  It basically went like this.

While the FDA spent over a half decade trying to prosecute Burzynski there was a quiet effort to patent antineoplastons by a big pharm company Burzynski worked with years prior in coordination with the US government.  He had already patented his discovery years prior.  Any degree of due diligence in the patent office would have revealed these repatenting efforts were invalid and should have been denied.  Instead the patent office approved 11 patents for antineoplastons by the US government, shared with the pharmaceutical company.

In a nutshell the plan was to get Burzynski thrown in jail so he would be unable to dispute the patent infringement.  This was a joint and coordinated effort between the FDA, the National Cancer Institute and the patent office.  It is truly sickening.

Another doctor in the film made a good comparison.  In the late 1600’s there was a doctor that pointed out that the simple act of doctors washing their hands would stop the spread of a deadly disease that was thought to be isolated to pregnant women.

A woman would die from this fever and a doctor would perform an autopsy.  In many cases this same doctor would go right from the autopsy back into the delivery room without washing his hands, inadvertently transferring the disease to another pregnant woman.

When this doctor suggested doctors simply start washing their hands he was scorned and ejected from the medical community for expressing something outside of the current established medical practices.  He was later sent to an insane asylum.

Sounds pretty ridiculous huh?  Well how ridiculous is it that the accepted way to treat cancer is with radiation and toxic chemicals that have tons of horrible debilitating side effects, including causing additional cancer??

Burzynski’s methods are not toxic, not radioactive and have been successfully CURING cancer in individuals that were told they had no hope for upwards of 30 years.

It’s almost the modern day version of the scientist simply telling doctors to wash their fcking hands!  The major difference is his discovery threatens a trillion dollar a year industry built on the back of treating cancer the same way.  That money wants to squash innovation, not nurture it.

The fact that Dr Burzynski believes so much in what he is doing that he has fought off repeated attacks by the US government is pretty damn amazing to me.  A much lesser man would have just been quietly bought off and this technology would have been hidden away from the world.

Dr Burzynski’s treatments are finally in the third and final stage of FDA trials certification.  For some reason the FDA makes this stage ridiculously expensive, costing somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 MILLION dollars.  No wonder the only entities that can normally push new drugs/treatments are the callous big pharm monsters that much prefer treating conditions than curing them.

As I said to Ali last night, it is just another of the countless examples of how this world is nothing but corruption as far as the eye can see. We are all just resources that are being harvested.

I woke up AGAIN last night between 3 and 4am even with shifting my shut eye time to around 10:30. Bizarre.

Last night after work I wanted to give my healing thumb a test by doing a test run of the normal mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge.  The test went well as I completed the routine in just over 3 minutes, a large improvement from my ultra-slow and controlled first attempt that took nearly 5 minutes.  I didn’t have the Flip running since I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do it all.

I have been going to my dentist for a long time, probably 10 years.  I like the people that work there and the care they provide.  However in the last couple years they have been aggravating the hell out of me with their billing practices.

When we first started going there we rarely ever saw a bill, they submitted their charges to our dental insurance and were paid the negotiated, lower rate.  They never tried to bill us anything over that.  Well for some reason that changed a few years back.

Now every time Ali and I go to the dentist we get a nice THANK YOU bill in the mail.  In many cases these bills are sizable.  Of course I am never the type to just pay an unexpected large bill without doing some investigation and mitigation if at all possible.  I have been through many rounds of phone calls with them where they try to explain their ridiculously poor billing system that does an awful job of breaking out costs so they can be easily digested.

The dentist recently started collecting partial payment up front based on what our estimated split should be.  But even with that practice, we often STILL see bills for additional dollars.

The office also has adopted a very annoying practice of sending me a bill before they even receive reimbursement from the insurance company.  To me it makes sense to wait until you have the money in hand from the insurance company before billing the customer for what you THINK they will owe.

So anyway, in this latest billing snafu I received a bill for a little more than $200.  This was determined to be my portion for a late September visit that included a cleaning and putting sealant on two small dents on different teeth.  The total charges for that visit was $542.  Ok well some quick math would determine my 20% of that bill should work out to about half of what I was being billed for.

So I called up the dentist once again to dispute their voodoo math.  I presented my numbers and asked why there was a disparity.  The only answer I got back was the dentist was office was not on contract with Cigna, my dental insurer, so maybe stuff was only being covered at a 70/30 ratio instead of 80/20.  I quickly pointed out that even at a 70/30 split the numbers don’t come close to adding up.

The best she could do was to tell me to look at my EOB statements and see if something was turned down for payment and she could resubmit it. Ok great, I will do that.

So I get a hold of my EOB’s and take a look.  For each procedure I had done there is a column for what the dentist charges and the contracted provider amount that was paid out.  I was confused by this since if the dentist was not “in network” for my carrier why would I be seeing negotiated reduction pricing on the EOB?  That difference in pricing is the clear culprit.  The dentist is billing me based on full boat price instead of what Cigna says they agreed to bill at.

So I decided to call up Cigna to get a clarification.  They confirmed that the dentist is not in their network. However through some other 3rd party they are actually supposed to be honoring the reduced billing  amount.  I found this very interesting.

I asked the Cigna representative how do I convey this to the dentist?  She said that she would call them herself today to attempt to clear things up which was a much better option.  I am sure my saying “Cigna says you are billing too much” would not have gotten me anywhere.

I asked the Cigna rep to call me and let me know the result of the conversation so I can follow up again with the dentist office.  I do not take being unnecessarily billed for things lightly, in case you haven’t noticed.

Ali applied the 5.01 update to her Iphone yesterday and it whacked all sorts of shit.  The biggest problem was it screwed with her calendar which she meticulously maintains.  I advised her that since her calendar has had a long time problem with duplication that she writes down her existing calendar items and I blow it away so she can start fresh.

When I looked in her calendar in Outlook she still had stuff that was set up by PocketMirror, the app we used eons ago to get our Palm devices synched up.  I also discovered that the default iCloud settings are problematic if you are using something like Exchange with ActiveSynch.

By default iCloud is set to back up your calendar items and contacts to the cloud.  Well this winds up causing duplication if you use Active Synch which has it’s own processes already in place to keep items between your Exchange mailbox and Iphone synched up.

So anyway, I turned off cloud synch of calendar and contacts, wiped out Ali’s calendar and all was well.  Yea it will take some time for her to get all of the items in there but it needed a good housecleaning anyway.

Today is my mom’s birthday. Mom has had a rough go of things since her last birthday with her more off again than on again employment issues.  She also has been struggling with the aches and pains of getting older which is never fun.  I am hopeful her recent reentry into the employed field will kick start this upcoming year into a much better one than the year prior for her.

Mom is exactly 20 years and one month older than I am. When I was younger that amount of time seemed monumental.  Now it doesn’t seem like much at all.

I already called and wished her a good birthday.  We are going to take her out to dinner Saturday night to Sweet Tomatoes per her request. Should be fun.

My gouty/sprained thumb is getting better.  I have regained much of the functionality  in it.  It’s still swollen and somewhat sore but at least I can hold a tooth brush and turn the ignition key in the truck with my right hand again.

I saw the Bob Costas phone interview with Jerry Sandusky that aired last night.  The best adjective to describe it was, creepy.  Jerry’s lawyer was live and in studio for the interview.  I was pretty shocked that first of all Jerry would even agree to do an interview at this point and second that he basically said he was innocent of all charges of sexual abuse.

He admitted he showered with the boys after “workouts” and that there was “horseplay” (a word he used often) that went on but he flat out denied there was any sexual contact.  Jerry’s lawyer said he is confident that several of the victims will flat out deny that any sexual wrong doing occurred.

I find it hard to believe that anyone that heard/saw the interview would be swayed one bit towards believing Jerry was innocent, despite his claims to be.  He didn’t come off as anything  more to me than a sick, perverted old man that has fooled himself into thinking he can get away from his darkness one last time.

I think Jerry would be best served to never speak publicly again and consider gargling with a .357 magnum to save the world from seeing just how awful this is going to become.

Once again last night I found myself waking up between 3 and 4 am after a dream, 3:46 am to be exact.  It seems that this is the designated waking period regardless of when I close my eyes.  Last night I was out at a ridiculously early 9 pm.  It’s very odd.

I have been watching a movie I heard about on Bubba of all places the past few nights called Burzynski.  It a documentary you can stream on Netflix or watch via the link I just provided.  You really should check it out.

In a nutshell, Dr Burzynski has devoted his life to finding cancer curing alternatives that didn’t have the awful and sometimes deadly on their own side effects that conventional chemotherapy has.  Well he has done it.

He utilizes something called antineoplastons, a non-toxic substance, to treat cancer.  He has been treating patients since the 80’s and has had a remarkable success record, in many cases completely curing patients that had inoperable tumors who were given death sentences by the conventional medical community.

I am only about a third of the way through the movie at this point but already what I have seen is pretty shocking.  There has been a tidal wave of opposition to his treatments from the aspects of the medical community that make fortunes treating cancer the old way.  They basically have been trying unsuccessfully to put him out of business for two decades plus.

It isn’t only the cancer business that is trying to squash the great innovation, even agencies like the Texas Board of Health and even the FDA has gotten in on the witch hunt, not because there has ever been anything proven medically wrong with Dr Burzynski’s practices rather because of the financial leverage that has been applied to these agencies from the corporations that wish to see cancer eternally treated instead of cured.  They don’t want a cure for cancer, it’s bad business.

Now Burzynski’s treatment is of course not the silver bullet that cures all cancer all of the time.  However the studies show that somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30% of his patients were cured of cancer where they had no shot using more established practices.  If I had cancer I would take a 1-4 or 1-3 shot at beating it over zero anyday.

It’s just another example of big business trying to squash innovation in the name of preserving their cash cow, regardless of the morality involved.  This happens so frequently that it seems to just be accepted practice.  Food, medicine, banking, government, it’s all corrupt at it’s core.

A lot to say today, refill the cup of joe.

So my three day weekend got kicked off with a very laborious project, tree trimming.  I normally do this project once a year and do it during this time period because of the cooler temps and a desire for the trees to look nice for the holidays.

In the past Ali has helped me with the project but her dislike of the process has been well established and she had no desire to miss her fraternity luncheon in order to lessen the load on me.

I was outside early, right around 8 am with loppers and extension ladder in hand.  I also tried to dress for the job wearing jeans, gloves, glasses and my wide brim hat from Duluth.

I like to do this project systematically, working front to back.  The front tree is one of the tallest on the property, it is also one of the messiest.  It had a bunch of old cross thatch branches that were hanging haphazardly from the upper section of the tree along with the some old cut branches that were protruding out too far, detracting from it’s appearance.

After I was done with the loppers, knocking off any low hanging branches and those straggly, messy seed branches I still had more work to do.  I grabbed my machete and started hacking at some of the remnants of branches of years past.  Swinging the machete is very hand/arm extensive as well as requiring some practice to get the angle of impact right for effective wood removal.

After my hack and slash session I still wasn’t pleased with the top section of the tree where there are a number of cut branch stumps extending out too far.  I decided to get some power tools involved.  I pulled out my chainsaw that I haven’t used in ages.  I was quite skeptical I would be able to get the thing started with the way ethanol loves to clog carburetors and fuel lines when left untouched for prolonged periods of time.   Surprisingly, getting it running wasn’t all that tough.

I knew running a chain saw while untethered 15 feet high on a ladder was a dangerous act.  If a safety conscious person saw me slicing through branch stumps above my head with the blade about 18 inches from my face, they would have shit a brick.  I remember thinking to myself as I was cutting, “I am pretty sure that one of these years I will die doing this”

After rotating the ladder around the tree I finally had it looking half decent.  One tree down, 28 to go.

Each year this job gets a little more difficult as the trees get bigger and taller.  It is just an exhausting process.  After I finally got done lopping limbs for over 4 hours my reward was now being able to go back around the yard and pick everything back up.

The clean up process thankfully doesn’t involve working over your head on a ladder.  Instead it incorporates bending over a thousand times to pick up yard waste.  I would stuff the back of the Tacoma with as many branches as possible and then drive them back to the fill pit to dump them.

The ONLY good part of this process was Nicki was laying in the truck with me, enjoying the ride.

Finally, finally I finished up the dreadful project, somewhere around 7 hours after I started.  It felt good to finish but I was just spent.

Well I had no time for rest.  Ali and I were signed up to run a rare night time 5K Friday night.  The race was scheduled to start at 5:30.  It was the first time I ever took a shower BEFORE running a 5K.  I was covered in tree grunge.

We left for the race around 4, I said I wanted to get there about an hour early.  The race instructions advised parking in the county parking garage near the race.  With county garages if you have a beach sticker you can park for free.  Before we left I saw the Camry’s beach sticker had actually expired in August but I figured they would just let us park for free, after all it’s Friday evening, far from prime parking garage time at the beach.

So I swing into the garage and some old woman comes up.  I wave to her, expecting her see my 2011 sticker and wave me on through.  She doesn’t. Instead she carefully inspects my sticker and says, “your sticker expired in August, you have to pay $8 to park”  I was astonished at this woman’s lack of courtesy.

Obviously I am a Collier County resident, else I wouldn’t have a sticker in the first place.  Obviously it is just a formality for me to get a new one. Yet this old coot saw fit to try to inflict some financial penalty on me for no good reason other than to be a bitch.  Well I told her there was no way I was going to pay $8 to park, that was ridiculous.  She said then I would have to exit the garage which I did.  I did happen to say loudly out the window as I exited “Thanks a lot for cutting us a break!” as I used a bunch of obscene adjectives describing the woman.  Ali agreed with my frustration with the situation.

So we found another spot to park and check in.  We were all ready to go with nowhere to go.  Evidently we really didn’t need to show up an hour early.  We spent some of the time standing around and being chilly.  We tried to warm up by walking down to the beach and looking around a bit.  It’s the first time my feet touched sand in months.

Finally we heard an announcement that the race was starting in about 15 minutes and we should head to the starting line.  Neither of us knew where the line was so we just followed everyone else and started walking, and walking, and walking.  I couldn’t believe how far away the starting line was from the registration area.  It literally had to be damn close to a mile, unheard of.

This was the first year for this race so they evidently had a few things to learn.  This again made itself evident a few times during the event.  Before the race Ali asked me what my goal was, I told her simply my goal is always to PR.  To me a “race” is exactly that, a race not against others but yourself.

To be honest, a PR goal was not very realistic since I haven’t done much consistent running since August when I fried my knee during the Ireland trip.  After a prolonged break I only rebooted my running program a few weeks ago with cautious, short runs on gym treadmill, none of which exceeded two miles in length or 9:15 mile pace. Regardless, I planned to push myself to do the best I could.

Once the race started another flaw in planning was revealed as they had runners running with traffic on the road for almost a mile.  Running 101 is you always run against traffic to ensure both the runner and driver have a clear view of each other to avoid potential impact.

I started off pretty fast with short bursts of extra speed to get myself out into open spaces within the pack of 200+ runners.  During the first mile or so I passed a lot of people.  I then settled into a group that was all running a similar pace.  In my situation it seemed like almost all of these people were women.

I settled into a pretty steady pace, taking turns setting my sights on whatever rear end was in front of me and tracking them down one at a time.  After mile 2 I tried to accelerate the best I could.  My pace felt good but I hadn’t looked at my GPS at all during the race to verify it.

As we approached the finish I saw the final race issue.  After a sharp 90 degree right turn you were running on a boardwalk.  At the end of the boardwalk there were STEPS.  I have never in my life been involved in a race where you ran down steps. It’s just dumb and dangerous.  After the steps you were on the beach for maybe a short 50 yard sprint to the finish.

As I crossed the finish line the race clock was just under 24:30 which would about equal my PR I set during the Naples triathlon 5K segment in June.  However based on my GPS which I started once I crossed the start line I had a time of 24:11 which would indeed be a clear new PR.  On the downside, my GPS also showed the distance as .05 miles short.  Ali’s watch showed the same shortness although somebody else said their watch was right on so who knows.

Regardless with all of the circumstance leading up to the run, my lack of training, injuries and 7 hours of tree trimming beforehand, I was quite glad with my result.  I attribute part of it to my body weight being low, it definitely helps my efficiency.  The other part of it I attribute to just wanting to get it done.  If you go into an event with anything less than a can do attitude you will not do, I guarantee it.

I waited for Ali and Christy to finish which they did right around the 28 minute mark, a great time for both of them.  Afterward I decided to rehydrate with beer, in total I had 4 beers, the two free each runner was entitled to.  (I drank Ali’s two as well)

Slamming those beers when I was dehydrated from the run was a surefire recipe for quick drunkeness.  I hadn’t had a sip of alcohol in quite awhile.  I forgot that it is nice to be drunk once in awhile.  I was drunk enough that Ali drove us home after we hung out on the beach for a bit.  Despite the course shortfalls and the nazi parking garage lady, overall we both enjoyed the event.

On the way home I commented to Ali that my right thumb started really hurting.  It felt like it was sprained.  It was odd because although my tree trimming adventures heavily utilized my hands, I don’t recall doing anything in particular that was an “Ow, I just smashed my thumb” kind of deal.

Well when I woke up on Saturday it was even worse.  My thumb was clearly swollen and I could do next to nothing with it.  I was still baffled with the injury.  Trying to adjust to do things that I normally do exclusively right handed is always a fun time.

Sometime during the day Ali mentioned the word “gout”.  Gout is usually a condition you associate with people that generally abuse their health, something I generally do not do.  I knew a little about gout and have heard of it being caused by certain foods and in some cases, alcohol.  I wondered if drinking that alcohol when I was in such a dehydrated state could have actually given me a case of gout in my thumb.  Gout is basically a build up of uric acid in a joint which causes painful swelling and tenderness which were exactly my symptoms.

Throughout the day I worked around my tender thumb the best I could.  At one point I had Ali releasing the emergency brake on the SSR because I couldn’t push the button.

Speaking of the SSR, I did some minor work on it this weekend.  I first snapped in the replacement door reflector for the passenger door.  The seller nicely sent me another after my first one came through with a broken mounting tab.

Then I installed my modified air cleaner.  A SSRFanatics member took a regular air intake and modified it, cutting out the front plastic hood to allow greater airflow as well as dressing it up with some additional chrome.  I was impressed with his handy work.

Removing the old box took a bit of trial and error but eventually I got it figured out.  I was surprised when I removed the old box and discovered the side of it was totally broken, something I had not known.  Anyway after maybe 15-20 minutes of work the engine bay of the SSR looked a little slicker.  Who knows if the additional air flow will translate into additional horsepower.

We got some good news from mom this weekend. She got a job.  It is a seasonal job working at a small boutique.  It is only three days a week, Fri-Sun from 10-4.  It’s not a bad fit for mom although either a few more hours or a higher hourly rate would be helpful.  Mom was offered the job shortly after completing her interview which made her feel good.  Even though the job certainly isn’t going to make mom independently wealthy it will hopefully help rebuild some of her confidence and sense of worth that was lost because of the bullshit her old employer subjected her to.

Saturday night we had to do race prep for the 20k we were timing Sunday.  Although I wanted to get to bed early since we had to get up at 3:45 am, I still tuned in to Fox to see the UFC’s debut on broadcast tv.  It was a much hyped heavyweight championship match between Junior Dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.

Both Cain and Dos Santos were both unbeaten in the UFC. Cain was favored since he excels in many aspects of MMA where as Dos Santos is primarily just a great striker.  Well the fight ended shockingly at the one minute mark of the first round when Dos Santos hit Vlelasquez with a looping right above the ear that knocked him down.  Junior jumped on top and landed a couple more shots that knocked Cain silly before he could recover, fight over.

It was an exciting albeit very short outcome.  I was happy for Junior.  He was one of the coaches in the most recent TUF season and he seemed to be a really, really good guy.  You always like when nice guys finish first.  To his credit, Cain is also a very solid human being and was nothing but gracious in defeat.

Waking up so early in the morning never seems to get much easier.  I literally had to drag myself out of bed.  Our general rule is we want to get on site two hours before the race starts.  Since this race was a longer 20k it was starting at a very early 7am.  Since we live farther away than anyone else involved in race support we have to get up earlier.

This race is historically on the small side and doesn’t have a ton of walk up entries since not just anyone can roll out of bed and say let’s go run 12+ miles.  Ali and Christy were once again going to run the race.

Timing wise this race is good in some ways and not good in others.  The good part is the long distance means I have plenty of time to get the finish line up and running.  Some of that relaxing pace was absorbed by my using start mats for the race to get runners a chip start time, something runners appreciate and is good practice for the half marathon I am timing in January.

The bad part of timing this event are the people that sign up with no intention of “running” the distance.  They think there is absolutely no big deal with them walking the majority of the course.  Well the last runner crossed the timing mat almost three hours and twenty minutes after the start, an insanely slow 16 minute mile pace.  Somehow we need to do a better job of communicating to runners that if you can not cover the distance in the course maximum (in this case 2:45) then you need to train harder so you can do so instead of requiring the club volunteers to wait around for you to casually stroll across the finish line.

Other than the turtles, the timing for the event went fine.

By the time I got home and completed the post race duties it was almost time for the Eagles game against the lowly Arizona Cardinals.  My interest level for the game was very low.  I feel extremely apathetic about the Eagles after this season of massive underachievement.  That is why I decided to do yet another race related project during the game.

For the first time we are chip timing part of the Thanksgiving Run.  In order to do this as efficiently as possible I hashed up a plan with the event organizer to buy special chips just for this race instead of reusing the chips as we normally do.  By doing this we allow runners to pick up their chip prior to race day, totally eliminating their need to stand in any line the day of the event.  It also means we don’t have to do the labor intensive chip collection process at the finish line either.  Runners can just walk out of the finish chute and keep the timing chip as a souvenir from the race.

Now there is one downside to this plan, all of these chips have to have their unique code read into the timing system one at a time.  2500 chips were bought.  Although we were not going to use even half of that many for the event I figured I would just get them all entered so it was over and done with.  5 hours later I was close to losing my mind.

The chips came pre-numbered so in an ideal situation I would be able to just grab and swipe the chips over  a reader in rapid fire. However in the very first pack I noticed a problem in my number sequence, inexplicably a couple chips were in the wrong order.  Great, this now meant I had to take an extra second or two to verify the chips were indeed in the correct order.  When you multiply this small moment of time by 2500, it adds up a large pain in the ass.

While I was in the process of swiping and stacking I thought to myself more than once, maybe I should stop and do a mid-way save of the data, just in case.  I decided to just go full steam ahead since I have never had an issue entering chips before.  When I finally swiped chip 2500 I hit the save button in the application and got the busy cursor and it wasn’t going away….

As I sat there I saw the CPU hit 100% utilization.  I looked at the memory usage and looked in horror as the app just kept consuming additional memory, a surefire sign it is going to crash.  The thought of losing 5 hours of tedious work had me ready to pick up the laptop and smash it on the ground, literally.  Then, as if the computer gods sensed my panic a dialogue box popped up that allowed me to quickly save the file.  Shortly after doing so the program totally crashed.  Wow, talk about skirting with disaster…

As annoying as scanning those chips were, at least it helped divert my attention from the Eagles game which I basically listened to more than watched.  Man where do I start?

Like I mentioned I went into the game really not caring about the team much at all.  They have become the leagues biggest joke.  Well after this game the punchline got even funnier.

Just before the game started I hear the announcement that Desean Jackson was not playing.  He was being punished for missing a team meeting Saturday. Shit!  I ran over to my computer to see if I quickly could change my fantasy football line up but could not.  Now Desean and his prima dona attitude gets to cost me virtually as well.

I am really sick of him and to be honest I have never been a real fan as long as he has been on the team.  Despite his good numbers his rookie season I was instantly turned off by his showboating and his love of trying to run backwards before going forwards.

Since then he has been consistently inconsistent.  He will manage to have a huge game three or four times a year but disappear for the most part the rest of the season.  I described him to some guys at the gym as the next Terrell Owens although that wouldn’t be quite accurate since Owen at least was much more consistent in his performance.

Like I mentioned last week, I think you would be hard pressed to find any football expert that would even claim Jackson is the number one receiver on this team, Maclin has taken over that role. F Desean Jackson, I would not give a shit if he is on the roster next year or not.

So lets get to the game.  A good portion of it was filled with uninspiring play on both sides of the ball.  Hell we didn’t even get a chance to see Kevin Kolb return to Philly, he was sidelined with an injury.  Instead we got some real tall dude I never heard of to QB the Cardinals.  The Eagles have a real good record of making backup QB’s look like pro bowl starters.  Once again they held true to form.

Even with their sloppy play, the Eagles entered the 4th quarter once again with a lead and once again they managed to blow the game. It was just ridiculous as the team found a new way to lose.  They are in a word, awful.  Let me just point out a few lowlights.

Steve Smith, the long time, high profile wide receiver that the Eagles acquired as part of their “dream team” building, is a fckin dog.  He has contributed next to nothing this year.  On Sunday he finally got more playing time since Jackson was sat down and Maclin was hurt several times.  On the long third down play he caught the ball with maybe a yard and a half needed to get the first.  He made absolutely no effort to get any additional yardage  and instead fell down immediately to avoid contact.  That shit doesn’t fly here Steve.  Hopefully your tenure as an Eagles is very brief.

The Eagles defense still sucks, just as it has sucked in almost every game this year.  I have never seen a team roll over and die as much as this team has.  Of course the finger has to point right at Fat Andy and his decision to replace Howdy Doody with a guy that has never coached defense in the NFL.  That is proving to be a huge mistake obviously.

How about Asomugha lining up offsides to negate a 3rd down stop which later turned into a game winning score?  Inexcusable, but that is exactly the type of brain farts this team executes with startling consistency.

Then we have Mike Vick dialing up probably his worst performance of the year.  I said in the beginning of the year I had a lot of hesitation with throwing a ton of money at Vick.  He has not been all that good since week 10 or 11 of 2010.  He is turning the ball over left and right and making many, many poor decisions.

This team is just an utter mess.  To lose at home AGAIN, to back up QB AGAIN with a 4th quarter collapse AGAIN is just beyond the scope of what a worst case scenario for this team would have been 2 months ago.  This isn’t a team, it is a bunch of talented individuals that evidently can not be coordinated under the tutelage of Andy “I have to do a better job of blah, blah, blah…” Reid.  It now takes a minor miracle for the Eagles to even think about the playoffs, including them winning their last 7 games in a row.  Yea, good luck with that.

For the past week or so I have had some odd sleep patterns going on.  More often than not I find myself waking up between 3 and 4am.  I have recollections of it being right after I got done having some sort of vivid, bizarre dreams and they aren’t the cheery, happy variety.  I usually awake feeling relived whatever I was dreaming about was a dream.  Luckily so far I normally am able to fall back asleep eventually but I am hoping this is not my new sleep thing.

Ali plopped a bill on my desk from the dermatologist.  It was for nearly $300, my share of the recent skin cancer surgery I had.  I found myself disgusted as I looked at the numbers.  I was in their office at most two hours.  The time the doctor actually spent working on me was if I am being generous was 15-20 minutes, tops.  The bill for the procedure, almost $2300. That is just plain ridiculous.

It’s no wonder health care in this country is so fcked up.  Doctors over bill insurance carriers, knowing they will get paid a portion of the actual bill.  Then they stick the patients with whatever is left.  It’s insanity.  I plan to call the doctors office for an explanation of how 20 minutes of time adds up to a $2300 bill.  Even though I know the effort will be fruitless, at least I can express my displeasure at their practice of financial rape.

 

 

 

 

So yesterday at the gym I saw the announcement that Joe Paterno  would retire at the end of this season.  I assumed this was something he agreed upon with the board of trustees of the university.  Well evidently that was not the case as this morning I saw the headline that Paterno was blown out last night and will never coach another PSU football game.

I am sorry to say I have to agree with the decision that was made.  Joe’s failure to escalate the situation in 2002 allowed Sandusky to go on for nearly another decade as a child molester.  As I mentioned yesterday there is a good chance that Joe knew of the situation prior to 2002.  It is also very likely that the actual number of young boys that were molested by Sandusky far exceeds the 8 or 9 that are listed in the grand jury indictment.

If I am theorizing on why Joe would not have gone further in making sure Sandusky was stopped I would imagine it was because he was afraid of how it would reflect back on him.  Of course in retrospect, some embarrassment back then would have been a far better trade off than the utter humiliation he now faces being blown out of the school he has been the figurehead for the last 50 years.

I saw the students are going nuts over the firing.  I can understand they are upset but maybe because they are too close to the situation.  If you step back and look at the circumstances there is no way you can justify Joe’s lack of action.

I applaud PSU for not being afraid to dole out punishment for this obscenity without hesitation, firing at least a half dozen high ranking university officials, including the president of the university himself.  Today there seems to be a lot of wrist slapping instead of ass kicking when it comes to paying the consequences for your actions.  Kudos to Penn State for knocking heads.

I had talked to Ali about working some smoothies into our diet.  Often Ali has been making us cut up fruit deserts that have blueberries, strawberries and greek yogurt.  With a smoothie I figured I could dump a couple scoops of protein in as well.  With Ali’s vegetarian diet her protein intake is not all that strong. Ali said she had hemp protein powder already in the pantry so I figured I could just use that.

So I pulled out our cheap blender that is probably around 15 years old.  I dumped in some ice, some frozen berries, and about 4 tablespoons of the hemp protein powder.  If you have never seen hemp protein powder it is not very appealing.  It doesn’t smell or look very appealing with it’s dark green color.

So I put the lid on the blender and hit the blend button.  After a second or so of hearing the ice cubes get moved around I then just heard the motor whizzing along but no blending going on.  I banged on the jar to try to get the process going repeatedly but had no luck.

I pulled the lid off and saw just a disgusting mess of hemp powder covered ice cubes.  I realized that this blender just was not designed to grind ice, the bottom of the blender is just too small and the cubes just get wedged above the blade.

So I dumped the mess in the blender and decided to try again, dumping in yogurt, some soy milk, some more berries and more hemp powder.  I was able to blend this concoction.  It still looked gross since there was still some green paste on the inside of the blender from the first attempt.

So after thorough blending I poured some of the mixture into a small glass and tasted it.  It wasn’t very good but I could deal with it.  Ali originally thought the smoothie could be her meal replacement but since she only got down a little more than half a small glass it wasn’t very filling.  I told her the key was to drink the smoothie like you would a shot, hard and fast.

I guess we will need to do some more planning for future smoothies.  One thing is for sure, it won’t include hemp powder.

I have off tomorrow for Veteran’s Day.  I already have my project for the day planned out, the dreaded tree trimming chore.  I normally will do this once a year, methodically circling the yard and trimming the overgrown cabbage palms.  Each year this gets more challenging as the trees get bigger and taller.

I like to do it this time of year for a couple reasons.  The cooler temps make the job a little more tolerable.  Plus doing it in November gets the trees in nice shape for whatever Christmas lights I decided to put out this year.

For a couple years I was trying to do the trimming almost exclusively with a long pole saw. Doing it this way worked but it was very frustrating trying to cut branches 20 feet overhead.  It burned my shoulders to a crisp. However last year I bought a long extension ladder and a better loppers so I could get right up in the canopy and cut with reckless abandon.

After the cut-a-thon it becomes a branch clean up marathon as I fill the back of the Tacoma 5 feet high with branches and dump them in the pit out back.  I figure the chore will take a good portion of the day.

I can’t expend all of my energy however because Ali and I are signed up to do a 5K Friday evening.  It will be my first 5K race (or any kind of race for that matter) since the sprint triathlon I did in June.

On Sunday I also have a 20k race to time.  I guess the Eagles play at some point, I think they play the Cardinals.  I am really down on the team after the Bears game.

I’m sure the SSR will get some attention as well.  Maybe I will try to install my modified air cleaner.

I saw Facebook is no longer going to offer the feature to import blogs into FB as I have done for at least 5 years.  I’m not sure why they would remove functionality but whatever.  Those of you that like seeing the blog via FB format instead are going to have to deal with just clicking the link that is posted via my Twitter feed.