Archives 2011

Last night I spent the better part of 3 hours doing prep work for the race that is being held this evening.  After entering the remaining paper entries I had to do some additional configuration in the timing software since this is an oddball race.  Instead of being based on individuals this race is based on teams.  Businesses bring their team to the event and then the top 3 finishers from each business accounts for that teams “time”.  It’s kind of fun but it also brings with it a unique set of challenges.

This race typically has a lot of participants that are not regular runners.  Because they are not runners that means they will not already be in our database.  Not being in our database means that there is much more data entry time involved with paper entries.  Thankfully this year we incorporated the option of online registration which helped some but even so we already have put in about 200 pieces of paper into the race.

Having non-runners at the race also means they aren’t familiar with the pre-race process.  For sure there will be a lot of people that will either have the wrong bib number or timing chip which leads to scoring errors on the back end.  These people also don’t necessarily understand that we need the timing chip back after the race.  Last year we didn’t get a bunch of chips back.

And of course this is the only race we do all year that is during the evening, on a weekday no less.  I have to cut out of work a couple hours early, not that I am complaining about that.

If I ever added up the total amount of hours Ali and I spend doing race/club related work I would probably shoot myself.  Sometimes it really equates to a part time job with an extremely low hourly wage. Hell I am not even thinking about the time and expense for things like the trip I made last week specifically to pick up paper entries.  This involved over an hour of drive time and the associated gas to travel 45 miles in the van, probably $10.

So last night I saw the news of Steve Jobs death flash across Facebook like wildfire.  It seemed pretty much everyone was posting about it along with their own little words of remembrance.  I didn’t feel like being a me too guy so I just commented on Homey’s post about it.

From what I know about Jobs, he was borderline maniacal to work for.  His dedication to his vision was so intense that it took special individuals to be able to weather his storm.  Noone however can argue with the end results of his obsessive pursuit of ultimate technology.

For years and years I steered away from anything and everything Apple, categorizing people that were Apple lovers as attention seekers or those that worked in a narrow market of graphic design/production.  I felt similarly when the first Iphone came out, more lemmings just drinking the Apple juice.

Well when I finally succumbed to the Apple fever and got my first Iphone 3G a few years back I understood.  Yea everyone and their mother was getting an Iphone but it wasn’t just to be a me too person, it was because the device was fantastic.  Tablet type devices had been around for a decade or more but Apple finally did it in a way that even the complete novice could understand. It was nothing short of brilliant.

Equally brilliant was their app store that made it insanely easy to get apps/music/movies/podcasts onto your phone without ever having to connect the phone to a PC.  Its is/was simply a great product.

Now who knows how much direct responsibility Jobs had in the vision of these products, I have no idea. Regardless, he excelled at promoting them at getting people excited about technology.  People fed off his energy and passion for what he was pitching.  If you don’t think that matters, watch Apple’s new guy pitching the 4S, what a difference.

Well Steve is now gone but his legacy will go on for decades.  Thanks bud.

Ironically, the day Steve Jobs died is the day my Iphone 4 did as well, sort of.  It didn’t die but every app and podcast that was on it was wiped out when I migrated my pc at work which is my main Itunes store.  At first glance I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, I can always download the apps again since Itunes knows I bought them.  What I didn’t think about was any local data/configuration for these apps is now toast.

That means anything that needs logon info needs to be reconfigured.  Even more troubling is any and all games I had on the phone that had my progress saved are now back to ground zero.  Well that f’ing sucks.  Oh well, it’s my bad in the end.  I am using the fopaw as an opportunity to clean house on the device, at least 50% of the apps I have on there have no reason to be at this point.

Yesterday after work I saw one of the more and more prevalent signs of our shitty job situation, a human sign.  Once things really started going in the shitter a half decade or so ago I started seeing more and more of these flesh and blood sign posts showing up.

I guess using a person as a sign holder allows businesses to get around local regulations that would prevent them from posting conventional signage on a street corner.  I suppose paying some poor dude $50 -$75 day to stand there holding a hunk of cardboard makes economic sense, I imagine they think they get some sort of business from it.  Personally I can’t say I ever frequented a business because I saw someone holding a sign.

Well anyway, this particular human sign was working as hard as I have ever seen a guy work.  He was basically dancing with the sign non-stop.  I was at a busy intersection for quite awhile and this guy never stopped.  As I passed the older, thin, black gentleman with a gray beard I saw his shirt was drenched with sweat.  I thought to myself “Damn, now that is a good human sign”

I have seen many poor human signs, the ones that just hold the sign in front of them while leaning on a pole or sitting in a chair.  I guess like any other profession, sign holding has people that are good and bad at their jobs.  You have to give the guy credit, at least he is out there earning some money instead of expecting others to earn it for him.

This malady I have been in this week is in a weird holding pattern.  My symptoms are neither worsening or getting any better.  Instead I feel like that guy in an arm wrestling match that gets bad start and is forced to just hold his arm at a negative angle, not giving any more ground but not making any up either.  I need to wrap the thumb.  I skipped the gym the all week but I am going back today, even if my routine is senior citizen-like.

Last night I watched the 2nd episode of Terra Nova.  Boy it was lame.  If this is an example of the ability of the writers for the show they are in big trouble.  I mean really, for the 2nd episode of this movie style series you are going to basically remake The Birds?  Two thumbs down.  If the next couple episodes are stinkers like that one was I will be checking out rather quickly, regardless of how many cool dinosaurs they show.  I have a certified mountain of good content I could watch instead.

Last night after watching a couple more Breaking Bads we turned off the light.  I have definitely slipped into some sort of illness following my epic bathroom episode Sunday night.  My nose has been running, I have a dry cough and my energy level is back in the dumps.  Well I started coughing as I laid in bed.  Well the last thing I felt like doing was coughing germs all over the room.  I certainly don’t want Ali to get ill this week considering she will be running 26.2 miles on Sunday.

I pulled myself out of bed and banished myself to the guest bedroom where I spent the night.  My alarm clock was Sadie jumping up on the bed and scaring me.

So I wonder if all of these Wall Street protests will amount to anything significant at all besides some press coverage.  If you dig into the financial atrocities that have been committed by Wall Street and the financial super powers it is surreal.  What is more incredible is not one individual, group or company had a single criminal charge filed against them for stealing literally trillions of dollars via fraud.

In many cases, these scum were actually rewarded for their treachery, receiving contracted bonuses paid for with bailout money.  Disgusting is far too mild of an adjective to describe the situation.

The lack of punishment for these acts should tell you all you need to know about who really runs this country.  It’s not the government, it’s the money that owns the government.  The same money that is used to brainwash the masses so they don’t see the trap door they are being walked across.

The world sucks, sorry.

For my day home sick yesterday we had nice weather.  For a good portion of the day we had all of the windows in the house open.  Not only did it let fresh air in, it helped to get the smell of the soup out of the house, the same smell that I now associate with explosive diarrhea.

Although I had no more severe toilet episodes on Monday, I definitely felt the aftermath of the night before, I was just wiped out.  All day long I just had no energy.  I spent the day living the life of many a welfare recipient,  rotating between laying down, watching tv, doing stuff on the computer and staring out the window.  How people are able to just sit home day after day without doing much is beyond my comprehension level.  One day of it is enough to drive me ape shit.

Ali, who’s work schedule has recently become less demanding, was home all day as well.  She spent pretty much the entire day in front of her computer doing “computer work” that can swallow up huge amounts of time without batting an eye.  It will be a good thing if she is able to work more 3 day work weeks consistently. It should help her and my levels of happiness.

I watched the first episode of Terra Nova yesterday, a new mega-costly series on Fox.  The premise of the show intrigues me and I liked the first episode.  However I am very hesitant to invest much  emotionally in the show.  Series like this are almost always doomed to an early grave.  Having epic, movie like effects means epic costs for each episode.  Unless the show becomes a SMASH hit and immediately vaults to  the top of the ratings the cost/benefit quickly swings the wrong way.  That being said, it is the type of show I definitely will enjoy.  Let’s see how long it sticks around.

Last night I plowed through 3 more Breaking Bad episodes.  Did I mention that the show is excellent? It is streamable on Netflix, add it to your queue now.

It looks like I may have to be making that call to DAS about the neighbors chihuahuas after all.  After I knocked on the door to complain about the dog a few weeks ago it seemed like they actually were making an effort to take the dogs inside more.  Well that effort appears to be fading.  I am once again regularly being treated to the shrill shriek of the one chihuahua when I venture out into our back yard.  I really would prefer to not have to go this route but we are now at the 10 month mark of this problem existing.  I think I have been as patient as can be expected.

I may actually skip the gym today.

Ali was away Friday evening and most of Saturday so that left me solo to do as I pleased.  I decided to make my Friday evening more productive than normal by heading outside and do the weeding awhile, one less chore for later.  Friday night I stayed up way too late watching Breaking Bad episodes, I think I turned the tv off around 12:30 am.  It’s such a good show.

Even with my jump start on the chores Friday I still found my Saturday pretty encumbered.  It was like 70 or 71 in the morning so I took advantage of it by opening up the front screen door, the first time I have done so since April probably.  The dogs were quite happy to have an unobstructed view into the front yard.

I headed outside with the weed whacker to complete the grass maintenance the I started on Thursday night.  It had been at least 3 weeks since I whacked weeds so I was overdue. We had a few dry days which allowed the majority of the water that was still above ground to soak in so I hopped on the tractor as well to knock down some areas that were previously submerged.

I then headed inside to continue.  After doing my normal robot assisted floor cleaning I decided to pull out the steam cleaner to go over the rugs.  As always it had been too far in between sessions and the carpet needed it.  The dogs hate when I do this chore and banish themselves outside on the lanai while it is done.

I had to go down to the running store to pick up entries for an upcoming race we have Thursday evening.  By the time I got back Ali was not far behind.  After having a Tivo and pizza session we dug into the pile of paper entries to get them in the system, we worked right up until bed time.

Sunday morning Ali got up early to go do her last long run (8 miles) before her marathon next week.  I told her my plan was to ride my bike down to the water park where she could meet me to do some swimming.  I decided to break my ride into two parts.  I first did the 10 miles to Dunkin Donuts where I enjoyed a small coffee and a donut.   I was quite surprised that I was able to pull off my fastest pace ever on a ride of that distance, averaging over 20 mph.

The reason I was surprised was I had not done any “hard” riding in quite awhile dating back to a couple weeks before the Ireland trip.  I had some favorable wind during the first 2-3 miles of the ride that allowed me to pace 22-23mph for a good chunk of it as well.  Make no doubt it though I was working hard once I saw that I had a shot to do the 10 miles in under a half hour.

For the last 9 miles of the ride after DD I didn’t push the pace quite as hard but I still wound up averaging 19+mph over the entire roughly 19 mile ride, I was quite pleased with my unexpected speed.

I arrived at the water park maybe 15-20 minutes before they normally open at 10, Ali wasn’t there yet.  I parked my bike near the playground and went inside, looking for something to try to muscle up on.  For some reason this playground and the entire park for that matter, has no plain old straight bar.  The closest thing I found was some rectangle shaped curvy tracks that some plastic things slide back and forth on.  The shape of the “bars” prevented me from either getting a false grip or being able to rotate my wrists around it so I got stuck at the top. Oh well.

So when I made my way back to the main parking lot it was a couple minutes after 10.  I saw the Camry was now parked out front.  The weird thing was the Camry was almost the only car parked out front, there were 2 or 3 more but this seemed very odd.  I know that by this time at the very least the vehicles of the waterpark staff will adorn the back rows of the lot.  They were not there.

I didn’t give it much thought right then, instead I loaded my bike on the car and changed my clothes.  I mentioned to Ali that it seemed odd that it was so empty.  Yea the October weekends last year were not very busy but nothing like this.  As we turned toward the park I was now aware something was up by the lack of the sound of flowing water.  As we got closer we saw the curtains at the admission window were pulled down, f me, it’s closed.

On the window was a sign saying the last date they were open was September 25th, last weekend.  DAMN IT. Evidently the water park determined that it was not cost efficient to stay open weekends during October anymore.  That really sucks.  I actually quite enjoyed having the park nearly to ourselves last year at this time.  Even though I can understand the financial reality that would have made this change necessary, for selfish reasons I was pissed off about it.  I mean we are in south Florida, the weather in October is still great for water activities.   Oh well.

Since swimming was now off the agenda Ali asked if I minded meeting Michelle at Wal-mart.  Her and Ali wanted to buy dirt cheap sweats they could wear the morning of the race since it was supposed to be cold in Chicago with temps in the 40’s.  They wanted to be able to just pull the sweats off and toss them when they didn’t them.  Michelle had her two little boys with who were acting like little boys, high energy and crazy.  It was funny.

Sunday afternoon was consumed by watching the Eagles implode once again.  Unbelievably for the 3rd game in a row they relinquished a large lead.  It was just an awful game.  The team just has no guts at all.  Juan Castillo seems like a great cheerleader but when it comes executing a defensive scheme and changing it up as game conditions change, he blows.  The team is in total disarray.

Now ironically the Eagles have a pretty established track record of being slow starters.  I can recall quite a few years where they came out like slugs but then would wind up the year stringing together a half a dozen wins or more together.  Well they are all set up to do that again I suppose.

There were a number of goats in yesterdays game.  That idiotic play at the goal line where Ronnie Brown runs into a pile and is in the middle of being tackled while stupidly trying to throw a pass was incredibly moronic and wound up being called a fumble.  At first I thought he ad libbed into that play but I later found it was designed to be a trick play, just not run quite that way.  A good team should not need to pull shit like that to punch the ball in the endzone, that is how bad the Eagles have been in the red zone.

The Eagles rookie kicker, whom I just had commented to Ali has been surprisingly good so far this year missed two easy field goals, either of which would have made a difference in the final outcome.

The vaunted Eagles secondary, the best that money can buy, has sucked, routinely getting beat for big play after play.  And of course the entire defense as a whole has been atrocious, unable to make stops when it matters the most.  Coming into the game the 49ers were the LAST rated offense in the league, DEAD LAST.  The Birds gave up 400 yards of offense to them.

This team is just a mess.  It seems like they are missing an emotional leader on both offense and defense.  Somebody on the field that can slap the team across the face and get them to bear down and focus instead of playing like brainless boobs.  Listening to Fat Andy talk after the game did nothing to make me feel any better.  What I came away with was “I don’t know what the F to do”

The only positive that could come out of continued struggles by this team of stars is Andy could actually finally be sent packing if he fails to make the playoffs with arguably one of the most talented rosters in the league.  His message is old and I never felt like he was good enough to take the Eagles all the way to the end (Like Donovan)  I really would love to have a coach in here with fire in his belly instead of just a belly, a large one.

After the game I had to go to the airport to pick up mom who was returning from a 4 day visit with my uncle who lives in the Washington DC area.  I took the van and brought the girls with as the official welcome home crew.  When I picked mom up I sort of expected her trip details to be negative, just because that is what I have come to expect in most situations from her.  However I was pleasantly surprised that her stories about the trip were all very positive, she had a great time, which I was very glad to hear.  It sounds like Randy really went out of his way to make the trip special for mom including arranging for an old high school friend of hers to join them for dinner the one night.

Sadie made herself right at home on mom, sitting on her lap for most of the ride back to her place.  I just dropped mom off since it was getting late and didn’t have the girls on leashes.

Ali had been cooking a monster soup in the crock pot for most of the afternoon.  It had a lot of stuff in it but the highlight were the huge collection of home grown black eyed peas some of which we have been accumulating for a year or two.  In addition Ali put a bunch of other vegetables in there like tomatoes, onions, carrots and more.  The soup was good, especially after I hit it with a bit of salt.  I had a bowl and a half.

I was quite tired Sunday night and had passed out after reading a few stories in Wired before Ali got out of the shower.

Well later I recalled having a weird dream.  I was watching some of my YouTube videos of muscle ups and they were making me nauseous.  Well eventually I woke up to realize I was actually nauseous.  I felt sick in my stomach.  I looked over at the clock which read 12:37 and moaned.

Well I laid there for awhile, trying to talk myself down.  I heard sounds emanating from my gut that were not good at all.  I tried different positions in bed but nothing helped.  I knew IT was coming.  I get out of bed and quietly head to the guest bathroom.  I took out my retainers to preemptively avoid them becoming vomit holders.

Well surprisingly I never vomited although I felt like all it would take was a quick finger down the throat to do so.  Instead I had a brutal session out the other end that went off and on for at least a couple hours.  It was pretty damn awful.  I would lay back down in the guest bedroom, exhausted only to urgently have to scramble back to the throne again and again and again.  It was right up there in my bad bathroom experiences of a lifetime.

Thankfully I eventually was able to pass out.  I slept until Ali came in around 5:30 when she heard my alarm clock and realized I wasn’t in bed.  I was out cold with the comforter wrapped around me burrito style.  The only thing I can attribute to the episode was something in the soup although Ali had no similar digestive issues.  Unfortunately the smell of the soup, specifically the onions, was still in the house last night.  The association of the smell with the bathroom nightmare will pretty much guarantee I will not be having any more of the soup, despite us having enough left to feed 20 people.

I fell back asleep until 8am and called off work.  The best word I can use to describe how I feel is “depleted”.

There is a guy at my gym that never shuts the f up.  I actually have known this guy for quite awhile, he used to also go to that old shit hole, Powerhouse.  Once Powerhouse closed their doors and snuck away like a thief in the night I didn’t see this guy for quite awhile until he showed up at Retro maybe 6 months ago.

This guy is short and probably somewhere in his late 50’s nowadays and like I said, he never, ever shuts up.  85% of the time he spends in the gym is spent talking.  A few times over the years I have got sucked into his gab vortex but I have become pretty adept at avoiding it now by never making eye contact and always looking tired, annoyed or rushed.  Even so, sometimes he will bash through my defenses and insist on cramming an unwelcome conversation in there.  I have a finite amount of time at the gym to get done what I need to get done.  I don’t want to waste 15 minutes of faking interest in what this guy has to say.

The guy really is something else.  Today while I was doing my 300 I saw him engage at least a dozen different people in the gym in conversations they would rather not have.  This guy is ALWAYS the one to start the conversation, you never see anyone walk up to him and start talking.

It’s almost like he is a crackhead that is jonesing for his next hit.  As soon as the guy is done with a set he is instantly surveying a 20 foot circle around him, desperately searching for his next victim of stupid small talk. If he doesn’t have someone to blab at he visually looks unsettled.  I wonder if they have a pill for that…

So I saw on my little Windows 7 weather widget a bunch of rain drops for the next 3 days so I figured I better get my ass out on the tractor to mow the grass last night.  I also saw on the widget that the forecast lows for this weekend were actually in the middle 60’s.  When the thermometer hits the 60’s here after a long hot summer that is always a big deal.

You see for close to 6 months we never drop out of the mid 70’s over night.  Once we see our first 60 something evening that means the more comfortable winter weather is at least on it’s way.   I have had quite enough of the wet and steamy weather for 2011, thanks very much.

So anyway the property was still damp from the rain earlier in the week but at least most of the standing water was evaporated.  It is getting a bit late in the year to do post-work mowing.  I finished up the job via tractor headlights.

Ali is out of town tonight and a good chunk of tomorrow at some meeting. My weekend plans are varied.  Besides the normal home maintenance I would like to take a shot at putting the new brake pads on the Camry, building on my successful Tacoma brake transplant the week before.

I’d like to head outside and work some more on my muscle up progress.  In addition to my stretched out forearms, I have a bruise on my chest under my nipples that has been healing up.  I’d also like to get back to our Sunday water park visits, something we haven’t been able to do consistently for several months for various reasons. With my still touchy knee, running is off the menu for awhile but I’d like to at least bike and swim.

Sunday evening I pick my mom up at the airport.  My uncle was nice enough to pay for her to fly up for a few days to visit.  Mom needs to do a lot more busting out of her self created box of limitations.  This is a good way to kick start it.

Boring entry, I know.

Yesterday at the gym I had another muscle up first, successfully completing 4 individual muscle ups on the bar between the cable machines.  It was the first time I had ever seen anyone do a muscle up in person at the gym in my 25 years of gym attendance.  I just happened to watch it from first person perspective.

Last night after work I was excited to try the next progression in muscle ups, doing more than one at a time.  When I did my single reps the night before it went well, I thought it was quite possible I could string a few together. My instinct was right, I managed to do two sets of three reps each but it was tough.

When I did my single reps I was very careful placing my hands into as much of a false grip as possible.  Well when you string the reps together, the false grip is out the window after the first rep.  When you swing back down you are back into regular pull up grip whether you like it or not.  Pulling back up from that position is more difficult since you are starting your pull lower.  I definitely noticed the difference but was still able to yank myself back over the bar which was great.

My forearms and elbows really started to get uncomfortable during the second set.  The torque put on the forearms during the downswing and on the elbows on the up transition is pretty severe.  After I was done it felt like my forearms were cramping u p.  I need to not go gangbusters with the muscle ups right off the bat.  The last thing I need is to tear something from doing too much too soon.  You can see the multiple reps here.

Last night I used my 360 and it’s slick, new ESPN app to watch the Phillies/Braves game.  Xbox Live is just fantastic.  The game comes through in clear HD and you can even split screen between two things at once if you care to.  Now if I could just get live normal ESPN programming full time on it I would be majorly stoked.  Right now it is mostly ESPN 2 and ESPN 3 content.

I was too tired to see the end of the game but I did see the Phils tie it up and go into the 10th inning.  When I woke up and saw the Phils pulled it off I was pretty stoked for a couple reasons.  The win gave the Phillis 102 victories this season, the highest total the team has EVER pulled off.  The win also eliminated the Braves from the playoffs.  If the Braves would have won, they would have had a 1 game playoff with the Cardinals to see who makes it as the wild card. How sweet it is, especially when I think back on the dozen or so straight years when the Braves ruled the NL East.

In the American League there was a similar scenario, the Rays and Red Sox were tied going into the last game of the season, again there would have been a 1 game playoff if both teams won or lost.  Well the Rays came back from a crazy 7-0 deficit late in the game and beat the Yankees on a solo home run in extra innings.  The Red Sox on the other hand wound up losing by a run to the shitty Orioles, eliminating them from the playoffs.

It is odd the way both leagues had identical situations going into the final day, I don’t think that has ever happened.  Another irony was the parallel paths down the toilet both the Braves and Red Sox followed.  Both teams had huge leads going into September and responded by shitting the bed in a major way.  It’s going to be a long off season for those two.

So the other day it was announced that the the winner of a GOP straw poll in Florida was Herman Cain. Herman who?  Cain is a rare black republican that has some strong credentials but who has also been a ghost in the media coverage of the Florida debates.  I have no idea how he would have won any sort of poll.  If anything his “win” demonstrates just how weak the republican field is in the big picture I suppose.

Personally, I would like Ron Paul to get more serious attention, unfortunately he is far too moderate for the Tea Party cronies that are calling the shots with their fat check books. He also is much too logical for the average Jersey Shore loving American that knows little more about a candidate than whatever one liner the media prints the prior day. Plus military contractors hate the fact that Ron Paul wants to get us the F out of Iraq/Afghanistan yesterday and most everywhere else since that is the butter to their corrupt, war mongering bread.

Yesterday Amazon announced their new Ipad competitor, the Kindle Fire.  I have to admit, I am impressed.  The Android based device takes the Kindle namesake to a new level with a beautiful color 7″ screen and the ability to do more than a Kindle including movies, tons of apps and the power of Amazon’s huge digital resources behind it.

The device is Wi-fi only, it would have been totally killer if they could offer the free 3G service some Kindle’s bundle in.  However I can understand the omission when you look at the price point, $199, wow.  When you compare this to the entry level Ipad 2 which is more than DOUBLE that you have to stand up and take notice.

Amazon also announced a slick new touch version of their original Kindles that utilize E-ink technology still.  They look pretty damn nice as well and you can slide into one for as little as $79.  Apple might actually have some competition in the touch pad market.

So when I managed to get my first muscle up last week it was certainly no thing of beauty.  As Jeremy accurately described, it almost looked like I was pulling myself out of the pool.  In a way I was doing that.  Once I got my chest up to bar height I would adjust my right arm under my body and use my forearm as a lever to allow me to get on top of the bar.  To me, if you get from hanging under the bar to on top of it, it’s a muscle up, even if it is an ugly muscle up.

Well the bruises on my forearm had healed a bit so I figured as part of my mini-workout last night I would head outside to try some more of my slow awkward muscle ups.  Up until that point I had always used my right arm as the lever to get me over the bar.  To mix things up a bit I also did a rep or two with my left arm leading just to see if I could.

Ali came out to see since she hadn’t seen me get over the bar in person.  She agreed it was weird the way I was able to pull myself up onto the bar but she was proud I finally managed to do it.  She went back inside with the dogs but I wanted to try a few more reps.

I decided I was going to try a “conventional” muscle up where you start with a small swing forward, and then as you swing pack you pull up and over the bar.  This is a move I have tried countless times in the past couple years but never got any further than banging my nipples off the bar.

I again utilized a close grip but this time I actually gripped the bar as opposed to just laying my wrists on top of it like I do for my slow variation. I still tried to rotate into as much of a false grip as I could.

I stepped off the supports forward to give me a little forward swing and then as I went back I raised my knees and pulled hard.  My body followed a nice arc around the bar and I found myself on top, able to easily press on top of it.  This was IT!  A 100% legit muscle up!  I was very excited and asked Ali to come out and see.  I handed her the Flip camera to record the event since we all know, without video, it didn’t happen.

So I followed the same routine and was able to again muscle up with no major problem.  Really it looks like I did it quite easily watching it back which makes it even more strange since I have struggled for so long putting the pieces together.  I was quite excited and Ali was excited for me since she knows how long I have wanted to accomplish this feat.

Looking back, I think I have had the strength to do a muscle up for quite a long time.  The key difference this time was changing my hand position so they were relatively close together.  That change forced my arms to follow the path necessary to provide clearance for my chest to ger over the bar.  In the past I had a wider grip and my motion was too much of a vertical up and down thing instead of the elliptical body path you need.

Regardless of how I got here, now that my body knows how perform a muscle up I certainly am going to progress from here.  Next up is trying to string multiple reps together and then experiment with the many variations out there.

I had the stitches pulled out of my head this morning.  Took all of 5 minutes.  I was told the wound is healing nicely.

Here is the muscle up video.  I am proud enough of it that I don’t want you to have to click a link to load it in another tab.  I prefer it live here front and center until my blog vanishes into the cyber graveyard.

 

I had my 6 month dentist appointment yesterday.  I had a couple small spots they put a sealant on and I also got a mold taken for a new top retainer.  Both Ali and I have switched over to using real Invisalign retainers instead of the type that are made locally.  The local flavor of these retainers have a very poor durability record.  At $125 a pop it gets annoying.  With the Inivisalign retainers they charge you $250 but you get 3 retainers for that price.  Since they are much more durable to start with our retainer issues should be handled for the foreseeable future.

My brakes have still been performing as expected since the rotor/pad change.  I have a set of brake pads for the Camry as well.  I’d like to get them put in there sometime this weekend hopefully.

The work I did on the fuel system thus far seems to have snuffed out the weird warm engine/bad idle problem.  As added insurance I dumped a bottle of fuel system cleaner in the gas tank this morning before I filled up.  If I would have taken the truck to a garage for the brake/idle issues I am quite confident I wouldn’t gave walked out of there spending less than 5 bills.  I dropped about $140 in parts to accomplish the same end result and that includes extra supplies I needed since this was my first time.

So Vick’s hand isn’t broken, just bruised.  I guess that is good news.  Mike also stepped back from his whining about the refs yesterday which is a good move.  Even if there is an issue there, his complaining about it post game does nothing positive.  It just makes him look like a sore loser scrambling for excuses.

Even with the Eagle’s problems, at least we aren’t the Vikings.  They have blown three large leads in their first three games.  I tuned in for the end of this weeks Viking / Lions game.  In a series at the end of the game the Vikings could have sealed a win by driving in for a TD.  Instead I saw poor old Donovan throwing worm burners and behind recievers just like the good old days, resulting instead in a game tying field goal. The Lions promptly marched down the field in OT and won the game. The Vikings are a mess just like the Redskins were a mess last year.  Hmmm I wonder what the connection is between those situations?

Right around now was the time I had targeted several months ago as the time I could finally initiate the Camaro purchase.  Sadly I still don’t see it happening anytime soon.  It seems that our spending is pretty much equating our earning recently, resulting in a lack of growing our savings.

Right now I am thinking that I may need to wait until the 2011 tax return hits to pull the trigger.  The goal is for us to be able to put down enough up front to make sure our monthly output is the same or less than what we budgeted for the Camry.   That way our monthly budgeting can remain the same more or less.  Boy it sure would be nice if my last raise wasn’t in the prior decade.

Friday night our friends Rick and Michael came over for a get together.  This was actually more of a send off. You see they are going to be moving to New Orleans in a week or so. We have known Rick for nearly a decade as he lived next door to us for a few years.  Although once he moved we didn’t stay in close contact we still kept in touch.

Well this opportunity came up pretty quickly.  Rick and Mike had moved into their beautiful new home not all that long ago.  Hell we were there a couple months ago and were just in awe of how perfect the place is. To hear they were leaving was pretty surprising.

They had some very good fortune when their house sold the very first day it was listed, who said there is a real estate slow down? The quick sale makes their moving plans much easier.  We just sat around, ate pizza and talked for awhile.

They brought Zoe with, Nicki’s first dog friend.  Zoe was funny, scurrying around the house.  She also had fun exploring the fenced in yard without a tether to slow her down.   When Rick took a look over at his weed surrounded, rundown looking old house next door he was sad.  He used to keep the house in pristine condition, seeing it with 4 foot tall weeds along the walls had to be depressing.

When it was time for them to go it was an emotional moment for Rick.  He and Ali hugged for a long time, both of them shedding tears in the process. It’s very sad to see them go but that is tempered with the knowledge that they are going to an area that they are thrilled about.  We are excited for them.  Our trips out west normally involve passing close to New Orleans so hopefully we swing by there the next time.

Saturday morning I was a streak of lightning around the house, getting pretty much all of the housework done before Ali left for Miami after lunch.  I wanted my Saturday afternoon free to dedicate to working on the truck.

It was an overcast day with off and on rain so I thought it best to do all of the work in the garage.  I backed the truck in and used my new 7000 pounds of lifting power floor jack to get the front end in the air. Prior to starting the brake work I reviewed the 9 minute YouTube video that went over the steps pretty thoroughly.

Taking the brakes and rotor off was not very difficult.  As advised, I hung the caliper with a bungee from the upper control arm to keep it from destroying the brake line.  I was ready to install the new rotor so I popped open the box and immediately knew I had a problem.  The old rotor had a much deeper area around the hub than the new rotors I bought.

I already knew why I had the wrong rotors, my truck is an oddball.  Despite being badged as a SR5 Tacoma, it actually appears to be equipped like a Prerunner. I have had this bite me in the ass before.  So it was off to Auto Zone to get the correct rotors which cost about $5 more each.  The dogs were happy to get a bonus ride in the van out of the deal.

So when I started to reassemble the passenger side brakes I noticed an odd issue once I put the caliper back on, the wheel didn’t want to spin freely.  I looked closely and saw the rotor was not spinning straight, it had a slight wobble. The problem was the rotor was not seated firmly on the hub.  The only way I could make it seat all the way was to temporarily use the lug nuts to press it on. I had to do the same thing on the driver side as well.

I noticed the old pads were not very worn at all, not even close to the metal tabs that make the warning squeal.  The old rotors were not deeply grooved or pitted either.  I can only assume they had a slight warp that I couldn’t really see.

The reassembly of the brakes went fine.  I was annoyed when I realized I forgot to apply brake grease to the passenger side, I had to take it back apart to grease up the pin and pads.  I applied the grease to the metallic plate on the back of the brake pads as I saw done in two of the example videos I watched.  Hoyt told me that the grease is actually supposed to go on the caliper itself.  Oh well, hopefully it is greasy enough.

Once I had the truck back together and on the ground I pumped the brakes a few times to reseat the pads.  Before I took it out for a road test I wanted to do the fuel system work to address the mysterious warm engine idle woes.  First thing I did was look for any hoses that were dry rotted, everything looked intact.  I then removed the MAF.  In the process of doing this I saw that the air filter was MUCH dirtier than expected.  I didn’t think it was changed all that long ago but it was as dirty as I had ever seen it.  That could be an issue right there.

I cleaned the MAF and then sprayed a ton of carb cleaner into the throttle body and down through an opening that leads to the IAC, another potential trouble spot.  I put everything back together with a mental note to grab a new air filter on Sunday.

I pulled out on to the road cautiously, unsure of the results of my first brake job.  I did a few slow stops at first and then progressed to stopping from greater speeds.  The brakes gripped well and I didn’t feel the pulsing in the pedal I have felt for the last 9-10 months.  I parked the truck in the driveway and felt proud for successfully completing my first brake job. If you want to see the pictures I took during the work you can see them all here.

Saturday night I watched my latest Netflix dvd, The Town.  I remember hearing good things about the movie when it was out.  It features Ben Afleck as a modern day bank robber extraordinaire and is set up in the Boston area.  The movie was fine, one of those see it and forget kind of flicks. It gets an average B in my book.

After it was over I flipped over to my Xbox dashboard.  Before I started the movie I saw that Xbox live was streaming a live concert from Las Vegas sponsored by iheartradio.com.  The concert had a ton of big names in it so I thought I would flip over to check it out.  I thought it was kind of cool to be treated to a concert for free.

Well I have no idea who the young black woman was that was singing when I flipped it on.  She had this outrageous blonde wig that almost looked Princess Leia like with two big buns on either side.  Watching her performance via Xbox Live was a joke.

Evidently Xbox Live is handled with kids gloves since lots of kids use the service.  As a result they were hitting the button whenever a suggestive/dirty word came out.  Well the end result was almost like watching a silent movie, it had more silence than singing.  I continued to watch just because it was just so ridiculous.  I tapped out when they brought Rascal Flats on.  Despite the excessive use of the dump button, using services like Xbox live to stream live events is the way of the future.

So the first thing I did Sunday morning was head out to get the new air filter for the truck in the party van.  Of course I had the girls with.  I stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way to get a large cup of coffee.  The woman at the drive up saw Sadie sitting in the passenger seat and asked if she would like a munchkin.  I told her as long as it wasn’t chocolate we could give it a try.  She actually gave me two, one for each dog.

I handed the munchkin to Sadie.  She took it in her mouth but then jumped down on the floor and put it down to investigate.  After a few cautious licks and sniffs she chewed it up.  I handed the other one to Nicki but she had no interest.  I gave it to Sadie and it was gobbled down in a second.  I guess she officially likes munchkins.

So I grabbed a new air filter and a bottle of fuel system cleaner while I was at it, figuring it couldn’t hurt.  When I got home I popped the filter in and left the fuel system cleaner in the truck to be used before my next fill up.

Later in the morning I headed outside to film my first muscle up on my home bars.  I was a bit nervous going in since when I did it at the gym, none of the attempts were on real, stand alone bars.  I wasn’t sure if I would get the same results.  Well I was quite happy I was able to get over the bar in every attempt.  I did them on all three pieces of outdoor equipment, the pull up bar, parallel bars and the high bar.

I was quite happy to have pulled it off, this time on tape.  From here I can now work on improving my form.  Just being able to get over the bar under my own power gives me the confidence and motivation to keep progressing.

I sat through that miserable Eagles game.  The game was an absolute mess, besides the STELLAR performance by Lesean McCoy. The first two touchdowns the Eagles gave up were a sloppy mess.  On the first one Casey Matthews, who they moved from middle to weak side linebacker, blew a coverage assignment badly and let Brandon Jacobs run free to catch a TD pass.  The second TD was another long one where horrendous, shoulder pad high tackling was shrugged off.  I never heard of the guy that made the catch.  He schooled the Eagles later with another TD while being double covered.

So once again the shitty defense was on display, allowing big runs left and right and not having the ability to slow the Giants down when it really mattered.  The defense has been awful all three games so far.  The Juan Castillo experiment has not started well.

I am really sick of Desean Jackson.  He is so inconsistent.  For every two balls he catches he drops one that hits him in the hands. It is starting to look like our real number on receiver is Jeremy Maclin, too bad he pulled a hamstring.  Steve Smith was a great pick up, thus far he hasn’t shown to be good at much besides bump setting passes into defenders hands.

Vick was injured for the 2nd time in as many games, this time possibly breaking his right (non-throwing) hand.  After the game he was whining that the refs were not calling late hits on him.  It really came out poorly in my opinion, too many sour grapes. Let the coach cry about the refs.

The headlines today are about if the the Eagles made a mistake paying Vick HUGE money to stay.  Uh duh, yea.  Late last year I pointed out that Vick had clearly come back to earth and teams had figured out how to minimize his effectiveness. Just look at his passing numbers since late last year and the first three games this year, they are average at best, certainly not anywhere close to a 100 million dollar man standards.

Plus Vick’s play style is a recipe for injury.  Only once has he made it through an entire 16 game season without missing a game. He is into his 30’s now, that isn’t going to get any better.

It really is disappointing to see this team, with all of the off season moves, come out and still show such a weak personality.  To me, that all points back to the fat man who after the game uttered his typical “I have to do a better job…” bullshit that Eagles fans have heard for 10 years plus.

It was just a miserable game that removed what was left of the optimism going into the season.  Sure there is a long way to go and in the NFL things change quickly.  I can only hope the change for the Eagles is dramatically up instead of down.

So Ali completed her first Olympic distance triathlon yesterday as did Randall.  Randall struggled in the swim but Ali did too unexpectedly.  She said areas of the swim course were not marked well and she had a real hard time judging what direction to go at times.  She is sure the course was longer than the posted .9 miles.

Ali really struggled on the bike portion of the event.  This would be to expected since she puts so little emphasis on her bike training.  Unfortunately of the three parts of a tri, being solid on the bike is probably the most important since it is the longest distance you travel.  The steep overpasses that the bike course included just sucked the energy out of Ali’s legs. Ali chalked it up as a learning experience. It was the longest endurance race she has ever undertaken.  It will only hold that title for a couple weeks since Ali’s marathon is rapidly approaching in early October.

When Ali got home after 5pm she was back in bed within 15-20 minutes.  She stayed there until 8 or so when I encouraged her to get up.  She acted annoyed that I got her up.  She said she wanted to get up around 7, I let her back there till 8, I don’t see the problem.

Randall finished the event in 3:27 and change, under his high end 3:30 prediction.  Even with his long swim time, his biking background allowed him to make up a lot of time.

I still felt somewhat disappointed that I didn’t participate but my knee still has not been relieved of the soreness/stiffness that shelved me. Oh well.

Ali started her own blog.  I found it curious she would do so since I have set such a high standard for the past 8 years. It will be interesting to see what spills out in there.