Archives January 2012

I posted the pictures I took with my Camileo video cam(like a Flip) during the swamp ride.  The Camileo shoots full 1080P video and also boasts of being able to take 5MP stills.  Well I discovered that the pictures are indeed decent, as long as you don’t try to use the 10x zoom.  The zoom is purely digital so the further you zoom the more resolution you lose.  Some of the pics where I tried to zoom in tight look very shitty.

As you would expect, most of the pics are of gators since we saw so many of them. In the background of this picture with Randall is the big gator we came up to on the path.  All of the pics can be seen here.

Ali wound up staying home yesterday and spent some time out in the garden.  She pulled out 3 rutabagas, including a HUGE one.

We never tried to grow these before, evidently they like the growing conditions in our backyard garden.  Ali did some research and found that you can prepare rutabaga for the most part the same way you would do potatoes.

She decided to take the big one and cut it up, boil it and then mash it along with two heads of cauliflower from our garden, a pseudo mashed potatoes.  Ali added some margarine and almond milk during the process as well. The end result was surprisingly good.  I will never turn down a rutabaga/cauliflower mash from here on out.

In addition we had juice that included a crazy amount of ingredients including carrots, red lettuce, kale, broccoli, beets, spinach, tomatoes, celery, cucumber and apple.  It didn’t taste awful.

So last night as I was walking out to the parking lot a co-worker asked me why I had a crazy bitch magnet on the back of my truck. I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked at my tailgate.

Sure enough, there was the magnet.  At first I thought another co-worker may have slapped it on as a joke but then I realized this reeked of Randall shenanigan’s.

When I informed him I found the magnet he made a weak attempt to act like he had no idea what I was talking about.  He however was far too proud to carry on the charade for long.  He was thrilled I drove around all day with the magnet on my Tacoma.

I am hoping he will be equally thrilled once he receives his payback.  My creativity knows no bounds in this regard.

I left work a little early Friday to attend to the myriad of pre-race items.  Randall showed up around 6:30.  Jeremy, whom originally said something about arriving around 5:30 showed up closer to 8 instead, as expected.  We grabbed a couple pizza’s from the near by pizzeria and polished them off.

After I had all of the race prep done we had some time to crack the seal on Kinect Sports 2, a title I bought a couple weeks ago specifically for this weekend.  This latest version of the game adds a number of different sports to the Kinect library with varying degrees of success.

Tennis was pretty fun and well executed.  I think Randall and I just played singles matches against the computer, I don’t think we matched up head to head on that one.  Randall played a couple games of darts and that seemed pretty realistic as well.

We then loaded up baseball, I took on Jeremy.  I found the control in this game very awkward and dumb. Unlike Wii baseball where you at least have a controller to hold on to when swinging you are grabbing onto nothing in Kinect baseball, it’s not cool.  The timing when hitting also makes little sense. If you swing when you actually would in real life you will be lucky to hit a ball just inside the opposite field foul line.  Instead good hitting requires you to swing ridiculously early.

Pitching is equally dumb.  Sure you can easily throw fastballs and curveballs but they all wind up at the same spot, right over the middle of the plate. (unless there is an additional control detail I don’t know about)

Fielding is the triple header of dumbness.  Sometimes on a fly ball you have the opportunity to try to “catch” the ball.  The mechanic for doing so is clunky at best.  This opportunity seems totally random as there are times when a ball is hit right towards an outfielder yet you have no chance to catch the ball and the batter is awarded an automatic double.  The game just has all sorts of suck in it.

Well despite it’s flaws, Jeremy adopted well to the dumb game play, handing me an embarrassing 22-5 shellacking.  I redeemed myself somewhat with a come back victory over Randall in the next game.  Even with the positive result it didn’t change my opinion on the game, it’s dumb.

We then fired up a 3 player, 3 hole golf game.  I was not impressed with this either.  There are some cool gee whiz features like being able to say which club you want to use.  However when it came to actual game play the wheels kind of fell off.  Again not having anything to hold while swinging your “club” really takes away from the realism.  There also seemed to be a lack of control when it comes to directing your shot, other than the distance based on the club selected.

Despite only playing three holes the game seemed to take forever, thanks primarily to Randall.  Before almost every shot Randall would do an aerial view of the the shot as well as take a few practice swings.  In contrast Jeremy and I would just stand up in front of the tv and flail our arms, realizing quickly that what we do has very little effect on where the ball goes.  I cared so little about the game that I couldn’t even tell you who won.

Finally Randall took me on in football.  This game didn’t suck as much as baseball and golf but it certainly didn’t impress me overall.  I won the game with a field goal as time expired.  You can see my triumphant moment here.

By the end of the game it was after 11.  Considering we planned to be out the door by 5AM we needed to get to sleep.

Jeremy got to be the beta tester for our new queen size inflatable bed.  I was impressed with how easy the bed was to set up.  It was up and ready to go in 5 minutes or less.  Jeremy reported the comfort level of the bed wasn’t too bad at all, cool.

We took two vehicles Saturday morning.  Ali left earlier than we did so she could get a head start on setting up the course.  Randall, Jeremy and I piled into the party van a few minutes after 5 and headed out, stopping for a quick DD pitstop on the way.

When we got on site we got busy, there was already a bee hive of activity at 5:30 in the morning, a full two and a half hours before the race. Randall and Jeremy filled in where needed and I seemed to be bouncing between various things as required.  Once daylight hit Jeremy put on his event photographer hat and got busy.  Randall was stationed behind one of the laptops as the data entry guy.  By the time the last day of race sign up was entered we had set a new race record with 777 participants, an awesome number.

I once again set up the start mats for this race.  The layout of the event makes this a challenge because the start line is close to a half mile from the finish line.  About 15 minutes prior to the start of the race I walked down to the start line to get everything ready.  Once I was there I realized I forgot a very important thing, the laptop I use to capture the start times.  I was glad I had given a walkie talkie to Randall who was back at the finish line, I asked him to bring the laptop to me.  The race started a couple minutes after 8 AM as a result but it wasn’t a big deal.

The race timing went well.  I didn’t have the issue with start times like I did at the half marathon.  I put a cone on the left edge of the mats and stood there to provide an additional barrier, requiring runners to pass over the mats a bit further in.

It was great fun seeing the people finishing with their dogs, there were was an abundance of smiles everywhere.

Ali was in charge of running the awards ceremony and was on the mic.  She does exceptionally well in this role consistently.  Everybody seemed to be very happy with how the event turned out.  Despite the largest crowd ever we didn’t see any major logistical snafus.  This has been backed up with the post race survey results which have been overwhelmingly positive.

We had the race site pretty much all cleaned up a little after 10.  We headed up to the Humane Society to look at the animals and for Jeremy to take some more pictures, something we have done for the last few years.  For some odd reason, the Humane Society does not open up early on the day of this race so runners could tour the facility, instead they stick to their 11 am open time.  I really don’t get that.

Well anyway, we had like 20 minutes until we were actually allowed inside so I told Ali we would do a “quick” DD run to the location on Pine Ridge.  Well quick turned into 45 minutes thanks to traffic.

We had a good time looking at all the animals in the beautiful Humane Society facility.  Ali spent the majority of the time interacting with an adorable black little puppy named Pistachio.  Luckily for me Pistachio had an adoption pending.  If I gave the ok I am pretty sure we would be adopting cute puppies annually if it was up to Ali.

We wound up not getting home until after noon, almost a full 8 hours after we left the house.  Jeremy didn’t have much time before he had to head back to the east coast.  I said something about doing burgers for lunch however I also had to get the race results processed and online. Jeremy was nice enough to offer to prepare the burgers since he has some pretty solid grilling skills.

He wound up preparing some really good burgers, better prepared than anything I ever grilled.  Topping the burgers with fresh tomato and avocado made them even better.

Well Jeremy was just about at his departure time after lunch but we quickly went outside to my bar park.  I had told Jeremy that I was going to show him how to do a muscle up.  I hopped on the bar and did a few as an example.  A few of them were really solid with next to no intermediate pause during the transition.

Jeremy then grabbed a hold of the bar, swung a few times and then kipped up, awkwardly managing to get the bar under both of his arm pits.  He struggled to try to get to a position where he could press over the bar but couldn’t quite do it.

After I gave one more real world example of a muscle up Jeremy tried again.  Once again he got his body suspended via his armpits.  Again he struggled mightily to get all the way up.  Somehow through a combination of leg flailing and repositioning his arms he eventually got all the way up and over the bar.

Despite the blatant ugliness of the attempt it fulfilled the most basic premise of a muscle up, getting from fully extended under the bar to on top of it without your feet touching anything.  Going in I thought he had no shot to ever get on top of the bar in any manner.  Kudos to him for pulling it off.

Before he left I dumped the content of his camera memory cards onto my system.  He took something like 1300-1400 pictures of the event.  I thanked him for coming over.  It was too bad he couldn’t have stayed longer to join in the fun.

So once he left Ali and Randall hit the sack for a well deserved nap.  I still had some gas in the tank so I completed the remaining post race clean up before I laid down myself briefly for maybe an hour or so.

Saturday night Ali suggested we take Randall to her new favorite restaurant, Sweet Tomatoes.  Randall had never been to one.  By the time we got there it was close to 7:30, after the time that the Q-tips will typically flock to eat.  As a result the place wasn’t as full as I thought it may be on a Saturday night. We all enjoyed our meals and Randall gave it his stamp of approval, saying he will have to visit the location which is very close to his condo.

Randall and I, despite starting our day 2 hours before the crack of dawn decided to watch Cowboys and Aliens when we got home.  Ali wasn’t interested in the movie and retired to the bedroom, she was exhausted even with her afternoon nap.

The movie was a disappointment, despite having Jon Faverau as director and Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford on the cast.  When I saw the previews I thought it looked quite entertaining.  I just never found myself very interested in what was going on. I’d have to give the film a B to B- unfortunately.

So we started off our Sunday with something I haven’t done in quite awhile, the DD 20 mile ride. We didn’t try to break any speed records but still averaged around 17 mph, which included a return trip that had a pretty decent headwind.

When we got back we made a recovery juice from items Randall brought with which included grapefruit, orange, pineapple, lemon and lime.  The grapefruit taste was a bit strong for me but it wasn’t a bad mixture overall.

Ali had made arrangements to go use my mistaken Groupon purchase to see One for the Money with Christy.  Randall and I had plans to do our second long bike ride of the day, this time using our mountain bikes to ride the 12-13 mile loop inside Bird Rookery Swamp. Randall had brought both his road bike and mountain bike for his visit.

My “mountain bike” is a bit of a joke.  It is a roughly 25 year old Huffy that I bought prior to my first marriage.  I have had this thing FOREVER.  The bike is in pretty poor shape as you can imagine.  The original tires are still on the bike.  The sidewalls are filled with cracks due to their age.  The shifter for the front gears is seized and no longer works.  The brakes are also horrible, I don’t think I would be able to stop if I was rolling down a hill.  I was skeptical if the bike would even survive the ride.  Well I put air in both of the totally flat tires and didn’t notice any immediate leak so that was a good start I guess.

We packed water and a couple sandwiches for the ride and threw them in the backpack I strapped on. I brought a long my newly received Camileo full HD video recorder I just received on Saturday.  It also supposedly had the ability to take 5 megapixel stills.

The ride to the swamp was close to 3 miles from our house.  Biking on the mountain bike feels eons different from a road bike.  The upright position, fat tires, heavy frame and slower speeds make for quite a different experience.  You are working much harder to maintain much less speed.

When we arrived at the parking lot there were a few cars parked there, maybe 4 or 5.  There was a small group of people there with bikes whom we found out were on their way out.  They said they took the bikes in  a way but found the terrain a bit too challenging and headed back.  Of course the woman telling us this looked like she had an easy 75 pounds she could lose.

The woman did clue us in to a group of baby gators maybe 50 yards from the parking lot on the left.  There were at least 10-15 of them in a small area of water.  This was the first of what turned out to be an incredible amount of gator sightings for the ride.

As we headed out the trail we were having very few issues with traversing the terrain, it wasn’t very tough at all.  I was surprised how quickly landmarks came up via bike compared to the pace we set when walking with the dogs.  We got to our picnic table lunch stop in no time at all.

Once we got out to the big 11 mile loop portion of the trail we started to see gators by the dozen, they were everywhere.  Winter must be gator spawning season because we saw clumps of baby gators all over the place.  You never saw just one.   The cutest sighting was when we saw three or four baby gators laying on the back of what I assume was their mother.

As we got further back into the loop we saw something large on the right edge of the trail.  We soon realized it was a gator, a very large one, that was just laying there hanging out.  This thing looked quite impressive.  Randall and I were not quite sure how it would react as we passed it so after taking a few pictures we hopped on our bikes and pedaled quickly by.  It didn’t flinch one bit as we passed by no more than 10-15 feet away from it’s tail. Wow, that was pretty damn cool.

It turned out that gators on the trail is evidently a pretty common occurrence as we passed by a number of them, just none quite as big as the first guy.  A few of them scampered into the water as we approached but for the most part they just laid there and watched us pass by, still as a statue.

At first I was stopping and taking pictures of every gator we saw.  Eventually we saw so many it was old hat so I only took pictures in special circumstances.  I was pissed when later reviewing the pics to see the only way the Camileo takes decent pictures is if you use it in it’s unzoomed state.  The zoom is a purely digital so you lose all resolution if you try to zoom in to the full advertised 10x amount.  I would have gotten much better pics with my Iphone.

So about half way into the loop Randall and I started to wonder why we decided to do the entire thing.  Although the terrain was not brutal by mountain bike standards it was still off road riding which requires more effort than casual sidewalk cruising.  In addition to that we were doing the ride in pretty much the lowest gear on the bikes meaning you are cranking revolutions like mad.

Randall’s mountain bike has a hard seat, not meant for long amounts of sitting.  His ass was killing him during the second half of the ride, despite the full suspension his mountain bike employs.  The one thing my old shitty bike had going for it was a bigger padded seat.  Even so, I was quite uncomfortable during the latter stages of the ride as well.

As we hit the last portion of the loop Randall and I were much more focused in just getting done than looking around.  Unfortunately the last part of the loop also had some of the more annoying terrain with soft, wet, rutty ground that required more pedaling effort.  The loop is actually more of a square with four long, straight as an arrow sides.  Seeing an endless straight line yet to traverse contributed to our mental fatigue at that point.

For the vast majority of the ride we did not encounter any other human beings, passing a few groups walking out very early and one family on bikes that were sucking major wind on the way out. Finally, finally, finally we exited the trail, some 3 hours after we entered it.  On the walkway back to the parking lot we saw a couple walking in with a HUGE Great Dane on leash.  I stopped and talked to them briefly and gave the dog, Elvis, a few pats on the head.

So all we had left was the roughly 3 mile ride back to our house on the road.  The trip to the swamp didn’t seem too bad at all.  The ride back simply sucked.  By this point in addition to our rear ends, multiple other parts of our bodies were sore or uncomfortable.  To make things more miserable we got to enjoy a headwind until we got back to Immokalee Road.  Both Randall and I were extremely happy to pull into the driveway some four hours after we left.

Despite the physical discomfort later in the ride we both really appreciated what we got to see out there.  Being that close to full size gators in the wild is something neither of us experienced before.  The beauty and isolation as we rode through the swamp alone was just a unique and very cool experience.  Maybe sometime Ali and I can go in there via bike although I would never encourage her to try to do that entire loop.

After we got back both Randall and I took showers.  Between the two bike rides I just felt totally out of gas, walking around in a zombie-like trance. In total we put in something like 37 miles on two wheels, half of that on mountain bikes.   After making the dogs supper I told Randall I was going to lay down for like an hour.  That hour turned to two when I woke up in the pitch dark at about 6:45.

Randall was originally going to drive back Sunday afternoon but he decided to just stay over Sunday night as well instead of driving across the alley being tired as hell.

I prepared dinner for the three of us, 3 cheese tortellini with garlic bread.  Ali was impressed that I handled all aspects of the meal without her assistance.

Sunday night everyone retired relatively early.  It was quite the busy weekend.

Randall was up early this morning and shoved off for the east coast when I left for work.  I thanked him for his help with the race and the other weekend activities.  It was a good time as always.

So we now have been doing the juice thing for around 2 weeks so I feel like I can give a report card thus far.  I just realized that besides the single slice of lunch meat I put on my daily sandwich for lunch at work I have also not eaten any other meat during these two weeks which wasn’t really a goal going in but a nice side benefit.  I could easily swap over to a PB sandwich instead and actually be taking in more protein.

If I would have decided to go with my original idea of a total juice fast I am sure the transition would have been more dramatic and harsh.  I’m glad we went down the road of moderation where I basically replaced my dinner with a juiced meal as well as fruit juice I have been downing after the gym as a recovery drink.

Physically I haven’t had any negative side effects that I have noticed.  In fact over these past two weeks I have set several PR’s in different areas, how much of that has to do with the concentrated nutrition I am getting via the juice is unknown.

So going forward I  intend to keep juicing as a permanent part of my diet, maybe just not my exclusive dinner.  I’d like to still mix in my tilapia once or twice a week but I am going to really try to stay away from the microwave meals that have been a staple of our diets for the last decade or more. Yes they are a good way to practice portion control and lower your caloric intake.  The trade off with preservatives, chemicals and sodium is not all that great. I also plan to continue consuming almond milk with my lunch instead of cow skim milk.

The other day I pulled up the results from my health screening I am required to take as part of our insurance plan.  They take body measurements, blood pressure and do extensive blood screening.

The first thing I noticed was they had my weight wrong.  When I was weighed the woman said I was 172, the report listed me at 192, maybe she has sloppy looking 7’s. My waist measurement was almost down to hot chick level, measuring in at 29 inches. My overall health score was 87 out of a possible 100, a good score but I was curious what would have cost me 13 points.

All of my blood numbers were all solidly in the good range, then I saw the culprit.  My blood pressure was listed as 114/94.  The 94 is outside the good range which is supposed to be 80. Hmm that’s odd.

When I was going through my thumb ailment I had my blood pressure read each time I was in the clinic and all three times by BP was right around 120/80 so I’m not really sure why my diastolic number would have been higher that particular morning.  I also wondered if the woman who evidently misrecorded my weight could have also flubbed my BP reading?  Who knows.

Ali whom underwent the same screening last year and scored 100 was very excited.  She crowed she must be healthier than I am, even going so far as to brag on FB about the score disparity. I had to laugh.  I’ll be happy to test my fitness/health against her in any way she would like, I won’t even post the result on FB.

I had some good numbers last night in my 2nd Bar-barian forums normal mode attempt.  I was a bit hesitant about doing it the day after trying the hard mode version the prior day.  I managed to increase my total amount of diamond push ups by 13 reps over the first attempt, netting 118 total over 5 sets. It’s a pretty good number that moved me up a few spots on this month’s scoreboard.  My GUTS routine surely helped me there.

This weekend will be a crazy one with Ali’s race going down tomorrow.  Sign ups for the event have been very strong, we will probably set a new record in attendance.  Both Randall and Jeremy are coming over for the event.  Jeremy will once again serve as event photographer, a role he has excelled at the past few years. Randall will just be helping us hold everything together as well as doing data entry for the runners entering the day of the race.

Randall will be staying over until Sunday.  We are talking about going biking at Bird Rookery Swamp which will be fun.  I also hope to crack the seal on Kinect Sports 2 and dominate as I normally do.

So yesterday in email I saw a Groupon offer come in.  It said that I could get a half price movie ticket or so I thought.  I had jumped on a half price movie ticket deal via Groupon before so I was happy to pick up two more tickets at half price.

So I get the confirmation in email.

“Your Groupon for 2 Tickets to “One for the Money” (up to a $30 value) is ready to print!”

WTF?  I quickly realized these tickets were to go see One for the Money, a movie I have less than zero interest in seeing. Shit, my reading comprehension bites me in the ass once again.

I have this tendency to speed read, picking out what I determine as key words on a page and often skipping others, confident I got the gist of it.

Well time and again this has bitten me in the ass in various situations.  I suppose I’m lucky it only cost me $12 this time around.  The movie is something Ali might enjoy, she said she might see if Christy wants to go with her.

So I made my second attempt at hard mode of this month’s Bar-barian challenge which is 5 sets of max rep body weight dips with a 45 second break between sets.

The first time I made an attempt I had to disqualify myself because I wasn’t happy with my form, I was cutting my extension short at the top. Well this time I really concentrated on my form and it was much better. Unfortunately I somehow lost my ability to tell time, messing up the break duration three out of four times.

I was annoyed when I watched the video back and saw my mistake, meaning I once again had to disqualify myself.  I am not sure why I lost the ability to do math.  In my head I was adding 45 seconds to the time I hopped off the bars and subtracting 5 from that as the time I needed to start getting back on to give me a pad, or so I thought.  Oh well it was still a good clean set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC4ngROmgok

Yesterday the chrome items I ordered for the SSR showed up.  One item is a chrome cover for the water pump pulley and the other is a chrome cover for the license plate area.  Well Ali is not a fan of the license plate cover, she thinks it will look tacky.

I assured her it will look cool when I have it installed but now she has planted a seed in my head.  I don’t want my truck to look like it should have a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror.

Last night I posted a picture of my juiced dinner prior to my stirring it with a spoon.  There is absolutely no denying it looks downright gross.

The concoction included spinach, apple, celery, kale, broccoli, beets, carrots and a tomato from our garden. It was the first time I used the carrots we bought at the farmers market which had been residing in the garage fridge.

The carrots were rubbery for some reason, about the consistency of a hot dog.  It made no sense, there is no way they should be bad.  They didn’t look spoiled otherwise so I just cleaned them up and used them anyway.  Maybe that is what happens to carrots if you don’t have them in the crisper portion of a fridge?

I have all the stuff I need to clean the IAC valve on the Tacoma.  Now I just have to find the time and courage to do it.  The job will performed while the Tacoma is in it’s normal parking location just in case I run into complications that could leave the truck immobile as a result.

Yesterday after work I decided to try a move that I have worked off and on for a few months, a one arm static hold with a chin up grip.  You basically pull yourself up with a chin up grip over the bar and release one hand and try to keep yourself up there.  In my prior attempts at this the move the best I could muster was a brief split second pause before I would drop down.  I just could not hold it.

Well I threw the Iron Gym up last night and grabbed on.  I released my left hand and was amazed I was still up on the bar 3 or 4 seconds later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS46lycNzjE

I tried the move with my left arm and was not able to duplicate it yet.  Still, the progress is encouraging.

Jeremy and I talk a lot of politics in our endless IM conversations, probably more than we should since we have some core differences that we don’t seem able to bridge.  Jeremy has become a staunch Ron Paul supporter.  I have liked Ron as well, even longer than Jeremy, dating back to the 2008 presidential campaign.  Hell I had planned to even throw Ron a vote in Florida’s primary, which would be my first for a republican presidential candidate in 20 years.

Ron Paul has some stances on certain issues which I really like.  I agree that we have wasted epic amounts of money in Iraq and Afghanistan which has served little more purpose than to stuff the pockets of war profiteers while costing us the unnecessary death of thousands of brave American soldiers.  Ron would get us out of there, pronto.

I am a little less enthusiastic about Ron’s plans to pretty much pull out of everywhere else in the world and exclusively worry about what is going on inside our borders.  That guy named Hitler (and many others up to and including present day) kind of demonstrated why you can’t just turn the other cheek.

I like how Ron has called out the Fed as being basically a bunch of crooks all in on the secret handshake deals with the corrupt financial system in place in our country.

I like that Ron is into cutting costs in a serious manner.  I do not like his “cut off your nose to spite your face” approach.  His proposals to abolish several federal agencies whose tasks are to regulate various aspects of our existence, some of which are pretty damn important seems downright reckless. Sure there are tons of unnecessary regulatory bullshit out there that does not not serve the greater good.  However there are also crucial things that have to be regulated.  Ron’s all or nothing approach to this does not seem well thought out.

His deregulation stance is probably what I find the most disturbing.  If you watched Inside Job like I did you got a front and center view of exactly what happens when big business is allowed to write their own rules.  Ron’s apparent trust for everything to just work itself out just is not logical and certainly is not based on history.

Then there are the other little quotes I read from Ron like he doesn’t believe in recycling, thinks the over population of the planet has no effect on global warming, that public education is socialism,  anti Roe vs Wade stance,  and his answer to health care is wishing more hospitals were run by churches. (not his real answer which is here but still not a good one)

Anyway these warts and a few others have made me decide to not even bother throwing a vote to Ron in the Florida primary.  In the big picture, Ron has no shot because he doesn’t have the support of big money corporations/lobbyists (which is a positive to me).  Unfortunately he is basically the 2012 version of Ralph Nader.

Another spin off of the political discussions I have with Jeremy is the talk about the tremendous federal deficit.  I find these discussions both with him and the debate in the media extremely frustrating because some very simple facts are being tossed in the trash, despite being one of the core reasons we are in this ever growing hole.

Before I present my case let me be clear that of course I believe the government needs to practice much more fiscally sound policies, there is abuse everywhere.  However to me it is hypocritical that an American public that for the most part does a piss poor job of minding their own fiscal house (record credit card debt, immediate gratification mentality, rampant consumerism) to be ultra focused on the deficit. It’s like saying “YEA WE SHOULD EAT HEALTHY” as you sit in Burger King inhaling a Double Whopper with cheese.

I also deplore lazy people that give public assistance programs a bad rap by unfairly tapping their resources, using them as their primary support mechanism.  I want people to take responsibility for their own well being.  At the same time I temper this with the knowledge that there are many more people that have a legitimate need for help.

Iit would be quite easy for me to simply adopt the attitude that “Hey, I can pay my bills, I have health insurance, I have a job.  What the f do I care if you don’t?  You must be lazy”  That is an ignorant, me first attitude in my opinion that I find nearly as disturbing as the free loading mindset.

Ok so anyway back to my point.  People have become so mindless that when they hear “raise taxes” they use absolutely no perspective in forming that opinion based on history.  I read this article yesterday that outlined the history of federal taxation rates from Eisenhower to present day.  Let me give some Cliff Notes numbers in case you don’t want to read the entire thing.

Back when Eisenhower was president the tax rate on the rich (over $400,000 income) was an incredible 91-92%.  Yes that is not a typo. The rate on capital gains (investment income) was 25%

Let’s fast forward to the Godfather of Republican presidents, Ron Reagan.  During his administration the tax rate for individuals earning more than $215,000 was 69%.  Even though the percentage rate was less the dollar figure it kicked in at was lowered dramatically. Capital gains taxes actually ROSE under Reagan, starting at 20% and increasing to 28% by the end of his term.

The rich started their push when Bush Sr. took the reins (surprise, surprise), who dropped the very high rate on the big earners and instead increasing the rate on middle earners, this was the beginning of the very deliberate redistribution of wealth. Under Old Bush the rate was dropped all the way down to 31% but the income level it affected was dropped to include those making $86.500 and more.  Bush did keep capital gain taxes more or less steady at least, ending at just under 29%.

So then we got to Clinton whom we can all agree was the last president to serve during what was a time period of economic prosperity.  Things were good on most accounts. Remember, we actually had a federal budget SURPLUS during Bill’s term.  It’s amazing we managed to do that despite a raise in the base tax rate for the rich.  He upped the tax rate on the rich to almost 40% but moved the income level to trigger that rate higher starting at around 300k at first and then 350k later.  He did throw the rich a bone by lowering the capital gains tax from 29% to 21%. Remember, this was a very good time for our economy.

Next up comes the infamous George W. Bush, the guy that somehow bamboozled America into actually reelecting him to a second term. ( a testament to the state of over all American awareness or lack there of) One of his first moves was to take that surplus in the social security fund and redistribute it as tax breaks, (benefited the rich the most) what a brilliant stroke of genius!

W also thought that the answer to a post 911 economy (besides using it to enlist in a war of false pretense) was to lower the taxes for everyone but especially for the rich.  After all, if the rich are doing well that means everyone is doing well right?  Trickle down economics are the bomb!

W dropped the top tier tax rate by 4 percent down to 35% while increasing the income level for the rate up to $357,000.  However his biggest gift to the rich was dropping the tax rate on capital gains, the way most of the ultra-rich get richer, to a bargain basement 15%.  Rich people LOVED George W Bush. Oh do you know that good old W, the republican “conservative” borrowed more money than all presidents prior to him COMBINED? Yep.

So in addition to being handed an economy in free fall which included a failing financial industry, automobile industry, high unemployment and two wars that bleed cash like an open wound, Obama was also handed the lowest taxation rates in history to pay for all of it. These rates have stayed intact during the Obama administration but through no desire of his own to do so.  The republicans have basically been holding the the country hostage to keep these rates intact, refusing to act on important legislation if any talk of restoring Clinton levels of taxation to the system is included.

So to me, this does not take a rocket scientist to figure out.  People that exclusively rail on government spending as THE sole source of this mess are turning a blind eye to history.   These people act like the country has prospered under the Bush Tax cut decade, nothing could be farther from the truth.  All those cuts did was succeed in enlarging the wealth disparity in our nation to historic levels while handcuffing our ability to pay the bills because of the decrease in revenue.

The money in this country has done a masterful job of making people forget what taxes were when the country was last truly successful and prosperous, before the assault on the middle class began.  Before you form your political opinions I would only ask that you look at the big picture instead of the one titillating headline at a time that is fed to you by the media.

What a swell guy.

Late yesterday afternoon Ali emailed me and asked if I wanted to run with her after work.  She was supposed to do a 45 minute run with negative splits, meaning the second half of the run is faster than the first.  I was still a bit sore from my 10 mile PR on Saturday but I told Ali I would go with her. I try to never miss an opportunity to encourage exercising together.

Ali originally suggested we go run the trail at the Bird Rookery but I told her I thought it was too late.  Running there in the pitch dark is not my idea of a good time, there are many nocturnal creatures that roam the swamp after all.

Instead we went to the track at the near by middle school, a place we ran quite often when we started our Florida running hobby 5 or 6 years ago. As a bonus the stadium lights at the track were on because of some kid’s soccer thing that was going on.

It was a strong run.  During the second half we were pacing what I did on Saturday and even faster for periods of the run.  Ali was there with me stride for stride. She probably ran the fastest 25 minutes she ever has.  I’d say I was surprised but I’m really not.  I have seen Ali run strongly before.  She did very well.

It’s this knowledge of her true inner speed that makes me critical of her when she settles for less.  I have more confidence in her ability than she does sometimes.

Yesterday I got an unexpected call.  It was from one of the members of SSRFanatics, named Roger.  He asked me for my phone number earlier in the day.  Roger said he was one of the Florida “Ambassadors” for the forum.  Roger is retired, has an SSR with a custom paint job and just loves the forum.  As an ambassador he goes out of his way trying to be helpful to other SSR owners.

Well when I ordered those parts for the SSR last week I never received any sort of confirmation of the order from the place that sells the parts besides the automated Paypal receipt, which I thought was odd.  A few days went by and I still never heard anything.  I hopped on the forum and asked if anyone else had ordered from this place lately, wondering if maybe they were out of business?

Well Roger was one of the people that responded back to me on the forum, saying the guy was reputable and he has known him a long time.  Well it turns out I think my post was the reason for Roger’s call.  He told me he actually called the guy that sells the parts and asked what was up.  Evidently he has had computer problems recently and was disconnected from his email.

I thanked Roger for taking that step for me.  His point seemed to be that my post could have been seen as others as red flag potentially even though I certainly wasn’t harsh, I was just seeing if I was alone or not in not hearing anything back.  Roger said he has a long list of reputable places to get SSR stuff from and he would send it to me.

This started what had to be at least a 20-25 minute phone conversation.  Well it was mostly Roger speaking, man did he like to talk. In a way he reminded me of my dad who ironically is his namesake. He told me various SSR related stories and how he has forged personal relationships with many people on the forums.  He said how he much prefers to have a phone conversation with someone as opposed to pecking on a keyboard.  I had to laugh out loud when I told him I am the polar opposite, preferring electronic versus phone communications by a large margin.

Well eventually we hung up.  I thanked Roger for making the effort to call me.  The forum is just filled with individuals like this, it is really a nice community, even if most of them are six decades old or older.

We had our most complex juiced meal to date last night.  I am not even sure if I can recall everything that was in it.  The combo included beets, kale, spinach, apple, carrots, broccoli, celery, and tomato.  I can’t recall if we threw an orange in there as well.  Anyway it wasn’t bad and I was able to down it quickly.   Ali isn’t able to drink the vegetable juice as quickly as I can, in fact she often doesn’t finish it. She much prefers when we do the fruit based juices.  Too bad because the veggie juice is where it’s at.

Juicing makes quite the mess.  Despite my best effort to cover the chute as I add ingredients there always is blow back that explodes up and outside the juicer.  The counter is getting wiped down twice a day right now.

Last night I started on the latest season of Dexter.  It was interesting catching up on the plot shifts since the last season.  I have no doubt I will enjoy this season as well as Breaking Bad.  But you can also be sure that the moment I am done with those I will be right back on the 24 bandwagon.

Man juicing takes some dedication.  Tuesdays are one of the days Ali gets up hella early (4:15 am) to go to swim training with her T2 group.  Well I told Ali I would get up with her to make a fruit juice for both of us to have later.  I have been using the juice as a post gym recovery drink.

So I made up a batch of orange, strawberry, blueberry, apple, blackberry juice.  Yea it was weird being up and about almost a full three hours before I normally leave the house.  Oh well, the juice isn’t going to make itself.  Staying healthy is hard work.

So when I got home Friday evening Ali was on the phone.  It didn’t take me long to figure out she was on the phone with the woman that runs the cleaning business we have come out once every 4-8 weeks.  Evidently the woman told Ali earlier in the day the crew would show up around 4:30.  Well it was close to 6 pm when I arrived home.

Well of course Ali had to call the woman, nobody called Ali to say they weren’t coming.  Ali was frustrated, she went through the house and picked stuff up in anticipation of their arrival.  It was par for the course as far as our overall experience has been with the cleaning crew, frustration.

Yes when they are actually inside the house they overall do a nice job of cleaning the place, attending to details we normally wouldn’t do ourselves.  They also have done so with a rather rough touch, breaking/damaging a couple sets of venetian blinds, a screen and breaking a broom.

However the biggest frustration is the lack of organization.  Ali has asked repeatedly if it would be possible to schedule a set day for cleaning to occur, like for example, the second Friday of every month.  Well this appears impossible for the woman to do.  Each and every time Ali tries to schedule her it requires far too much effort to get it all coordinated.

When Ali told me that once again Vanessa’s crew didn’t follow through I told her it wasn’t a big deal, I’ll help Ali clean, we can knock it out in an hour and keep the money in our pocket.  I know Ali likes not having to clean but if we both do it together it really doesn’t require extraordinary amounts of time/effort.

So Saturday morning Ali and I pulled ourselves out of bed at 4:30 AM to go to the GCR club run.  Ali had talked about running with me since neither Michelle or Christy were going to be there.  She thought it would be good to see if she could keep up with the faster pace I generally prefer to run at. Well it turned out that Christy was able to make it so Ali decided to run with her instead.

I decided to push out solo with the intention of doing 10 miles at whatever pace I could manage.  Early on I passed a number of people.  I then came up upon a group with Matt, the trumpeteer/race director extraordinaire whom also is a strong runner.  He decided to break from the pack he was in and come with me.

Matt is great to run with, not only can he help push my pace, he is an accomplished talker whose conversations help the miles pass without much fuss at all.  By the time we completed the 10 mile run I CRUSHED my 10 mile best which I had only set a few weeks ago on Christmas Eve of roughly 90 minutes.  I covered the same distance in 1:26:59, knocking a full 3 minutes off my previous best.

My average pace of 8:42 was well under what I will need to break 2 hours in a half marathon.  The training run gave me a good shot of confidence that I could grit out those last 3 miles at a similar pace.

On the way back from the run we stopped at a local farmer’s market Ali and I both had heard about.  There were a ton of produce stands there, most of them organic in nature.  We figured this would be a great spot to grab juicing supplies.

As expected there was a great selection of fresh fruit and vegetables.  We filled up three reusable shopping bags with fruit and veggies.  We definitely will be stopping there more often.  You are getting fresher, local produce and in most cases paying less for it than you would at the grocery store.

When we got home Ali retreated for a nap.  I wanted to head outside and tend to the yard.  Ali originally said we could eat lunch after her nap.  Around 11:30 I was feeling weak and low on gas, probably from the 1000 or so calories I expended during the run.  Well Ali had only gone back to nap a little after 10:30 so I just went inside, ate a quick PB and headed back out.

I gave the yard the full treatment weed whacking and mowing it all.  I hadn’t run the whacker in probably close to two months.  All in all I spent close to 3 hours out there busting ass.  Well probably about a half hour before I was done Ali, whom I found out later had been up for about 45 minutes, came outside and asked if I wanted to eat.  I told her I did already.  Ali made a frustrated gesture and marched inside.

Well this pissed me off.  I decide to allow you to continue sleeping while I labor outside and you are going to be pissy with me? Uh no.  When I came inside Ali vocalized that she was annoyed because I should have left her a note or something telling her I ate.  She said how she was up for 45 minutes and was patiently waiting for me to tell her I was ready to eat.

I told her I thought it was pretty stupid to be giving me shit for busting ass outside while she napped and if she was that hungry she could have came out and asked me when she woke up.  So if I wasn’t tweaked enough already I became more tweaked when instead of starting on the cleaning when she woke up she was doing some other organizing around her desk.  I expressed it would be nice, since I was outside doing stuff if Ali had started on the cleaning so I didn’t have to spend as much time doing that as well.

Well as you can imagine it was a disagreement that was not going to have any solid resolution.  I wound up assisting on the interior cleaning, handling the dusting, counter cleaning and vacuuming portion of the project.  During the course of cleaning both of our resentment levels subsided.

Saturday evening we decided to use our two complimentary passes to Sweet Tomatoes.  We had a very nice meal as always there.  Ali just LOVES the place.  On the way home we made a stop at Target.  We wanted to pick up a decent inflatable bed.  We figured it could be an option for either Jeremy or Randall this upcoming weekend since they refuse to sleep together in the same bed for some odd reason.  It also would come in handy in a month or two when my brother Pat and his girlfriend potentially could be stopping by along with my dad and step mom.

We have two old blow up twin size air mattresses that don’t hold air very well and require manual inflation.  The new bed we got is a double high queen size bed with a built in inflator, a nice upgrade.

Saturday night I was up till 12:30 am finishing up season one of 24. The ending was pretty shocking.  So shocking that I forced myself to stay awake to watch part of episode 1 of season two to get an idea of what happens next.  I could honestly dive right into season two but instead I am going to digest the seasons of Dexter and Breaking Bad that Randall so kindly lent to me.

Originally Ali had talked about maybe going on a bike ride with me Sunday morning and then later in the day heading back to the swamp with the dogs for another hike.  Well she awoke Sunday morning proclaiming how she wanted Sunday to be a rest day since she has a hectic week on tap with her race going down this upcoming weekend.

I jabbed her a bit about it although I really didn’t care, my legs were quite sore from my run the day before anyway.  Well as I was waiting for the pool store to open I was browsing my phone and saw Ali decided to gripe on FB about my not jumping up for joy to embrace her day of rest.  That is her passive aggressive thing.  I decided to be the good troll and posted “Blah. Blah. Blah. Rest when you die.”

So when I got back we headed right back out to the swamp.  The dogs could hardly believe their good fortune.  First they get to go on a DD run and then right back out to the swamp??!!

When we arrived we were greeted once again by the huge gator out front. He was just sunning himself on the bank.  That sucker is massive.

It didn’t take long for the dogs to do what is becoming a traditional swamp dump.  Hell, Sadie was so excited she dumped twice.

We had a nice walk but we actually cut it a bit short compared to the week before.  Despite it being in the brisk 50’s early in the morning, by the time we hit the trail a few hours later it was heating up.  The dogs were definitely getting pooped.  So after eating lunch at the picnic table we headed back.

During the walk we came across another guy and his dog.  As we were talking he mentioned how he heard of some dummies that actually let their dogs off leash in the swamp.  He said he heard in some cases the dogs were actually killed by gators.

I had talked to my dad about going to the swamp with his dogs, the problem is he hates keeping the dogs leashed.  Well I will have to tell him if he doesn’t agree to keep them leashed in this situation we aren’t going.  A gator can take a dog down in a split second and you won’t even know it’s there.

Sunday afternoon I headed out for an extended session on my bar park.  I set up my gymnast rings as well.  I had a couple firsts during the session, my first back to back ring muscle ups and my first slow muscle up where I don’t use my forearm as a lever to pull myself up.  I broke the session into 4 different videos including my long awaited Muscle Ups for Dummies tutorial. Here are the links, slow muscle up, muscle ups for dummies, lever training, ring muscle ups.

I watched a portion of the two conference championship games.  Both games games were real nail biters.  The Ravens suffered a crushing loss when Billy Cundiff pulled a short field goal that would have tied the game, sending the Patriots to the Super Bowl. I commented to Ali that I can only imagine just how awful Cundiff must feel.  He just let the air out of a couple million Raven fans sails all at once.  I hope they have him on suicide watch.

I fell asleep at the end of regulation of the Niner/Giants game but read it was decided by a field goal in overtime, winning the game for the Giants.  It set up a rematch of the 2007/08 Super Bowl where the Giants shocked the world, ending the Patriots quest for a perfect season.  I guess it should make for an interesting game but of course since the Eagles aren’t involved my interest level will never be more than mild at best.

I was somewhat shocked to hear that Joe Paterno died.  But then when I thought about it some more I really wasn’t.  I always had the feeling that Joe lived to coach and if he ever stopped coaching his reason for living would be gone.  It’s sad that my thoughts turned out to be true but the real tragedy is what transpired in the few months preceding his death which will forever tarnish his 50 + years of accomplishments.

So last night I had yet another juiced dinner, using the same combination as the night before.  I actually doubled up the quantity of each item so I had another serving for Ali when she got home.   I now have had almost a solid week of liquid dinners and it really hasn’t been bad.

I am glad I decided to take a more balanced approach to the juicing, if I tried to do exclusively juice it would have been a logistic head ache as well as probably not a great thing for me overall. Although an all juice fast will fill my body with a ton of hard core nutrition that is absorbed quickly and would promote weight loss if I was carrying a bunch of flab, it won’t provide much fuel for the strenuous exercise I regularly participate in.

Last night I finished up with episode 20 of season one of 24.  If I allow myself to ponder the possibility of one individual going through as much as Jack Bauer has so far in a 20 hour period it would begin to approach laughable.  However I just strap in, disengage the brain and enjoy the ride.  It’s good stuff.

We get a one weekend breather from race timing this week before ramping back up for Ali’s race next weekend which always proves to be very stressful.  The web site for the race has been suffering from some outdated styling/functionality for a couple years.  Ali and I have talked about cleaning it up but neither of us have been able to get around to it.

Well with my recent positive experience using wordpress.com to hold Dufisthenics, I thought a similar approach would be a good fit for the race site.  Lots of web sites are built with a WordPress back end.  Well with minimal work I was able to set up what I think is a much cleaner and appealing site.  WordPress makes it possible to do so without even touching an HTML editor.  It is too close to the race date to flip things over now but once I give Ali a tutorial on how to get around the UI we will probably run with it.

This weekend I would like to give the property a quick manicure with the weed whacker and tractor.  It should be the last time it needs to be touched in a month or two.  Since Randall and Jeremy are scheduled to arrive next week I don’t want things looking ratty.

Saturday morning we are planning to do the club run.  I’d like to extend my run to the 10 mile route to start in earnest my half marathon training.  It may be a daunting task based on how sore my lower body is today, a carryover from Wednesday’s squat/run combo.

I may or may not be doing my first 99 Tacoma Idle Air Control Valve work depending on the arrival of the impact screw driver and gaskets I ordered.  Of course the regular home chores will be wedged in there as well.

I ordered a couple new bling pieces for the SSR.  One item is a replacement for the frame that surrounds the license plate.  It is a sharp chrome piece with SSR badging. When you back up the logo gets illuminated which looks super sharp.

The second item is a chrome cover for the water pump pulley.  This pulley is a bit of an eyesore as the exposed nut has a tendency to rust.  The cover blings things up quite a bit.

Ali has been complaining about our bed for quite awhile.  It is a probably 7 or 8 years old at this point.  It is a pillow top bed.  Well evidently a downfall of a pillow top mattress is it will develop “ditches” where your body normally lays.  If you lay on our bed right now you will quickly find the valleys where we sleep.  Even with semi-regular flipping and turning of the mattress we haven’t been able to alleviate the problem.

Ali has been having episodes of waking up with back pain for a few months and has been bugging me to get a new mattress.  Well I got an email from Sam’s about a special on a Serta firm mattress set.  It was an internet only special.  I looked up the reviews on the bed and they were very good, averaging 4.7 out of a possible 5.

Now going to a firm bed from our bowled out pillow top is going to be quite a change.  I am banking on the two toppers that we have to take some of the firm edge off, I don’t like a rock hard bed.  I told Ali if I don’t like the new bed I’ll just sleep in the other room. 🙂

I had another juiced dinner last night.  It was a combination that sounds pretty odd, tomatoes, celery, carrots, spinach and a naval orange.  Ali and I discovered that celery can quickly take over the taste of a juice so we have been using it sparingly.  Well last night I put 4 or 5 stalks of it in the drink. I threw the orange in just on a whim because we have a big bag of them.

Well it turns out the orange did a good job of balancing out the celery taste.  The concoction went down without issue.

I also have been trying out almond milk with my lunch instead of the skim milk I normally drink.  Almond milk has much fewer calories, no sugars and higher amounts of calcium than regular milk. It also lacks the chemicals that can be found in cow’s milk due to the hormones they are injected with to increase milk production.

Almond milk’s taste and consistency is different but not awful.  The only drawback is it lacks the protein you get in regular milk. With as much exercise as I do I really need to keep my protein intake to proper levels.

The internet was going crazy about the proposed SOPA regulation that was being jammed through congress. In a nutshell it is legislation that is intended to give the government power to regulate something that was created on the premise of being totally open, the internet.  This is being pushed primarily by the entertainment industry as a tool to curb piracy of their content.

Sure it isn’t nice to “steal” movies/music.  This legislation however has wording that could cause all sorts of collateral damage that is totally unacceptable.  It seems as though the tidal wave of dissent regarding SOPA has had an effect on the lunkheads in Washington.  The latest I heard was they are backing off the legislation, at least in it’s current form.  I have no doubt they will still try to wedge this through in a slightly altered form perhaps attached to some other bullshit sounding legislation.

If you would like a 4 minute lesson on what SOPA is and why it sucks, watch the video below.

I heard some interesting conversation regarding the current political climate.  The discussion was regarding the republican party really not wanting to win the election, evidenced by the joke the primary has been thus far.  Mitt Romney certainly is shaping up to be the latest Bob Dole or John Kerry.

The thought process goes like this, as long as republicans have enough of a foothold in congress to prevent democrats from gaining a super majority they can simply stalemate any legislation their rich puppeteers don’t like, preserving the current environment where the rich get richer and any and all problems can be cleanly laid on the back of Obama.  It’s a win/win for them.