X marks the spot, super shirt
When I got home last night I had a package from Brooklyn, I was very excited to get this. One of the core Bar-barians, Zef (aka. Zakavelli, Devon) sent me a genuine Bar-barians shirt. He did this as a thanks for the work I have been putting into the Bar-barian forum with the monthly challenges. It was a very nice gesture.
Originally I didn’t plan to even wear the shirt until I could at least complete the old BBR’s, after all the shirts are earned, not bought. However Zef told me he would be honored if I wore it in one of my upcoming videos so of course I will be happy to oblige him. Also those that are familiar with the Bar-barians will immediately notice the logo is in silver. If you complete the requirements you get a shirt with a GOLD logo. 🙂
The shirt immediately vaulted to the top of my most prized article of clothing list, right up there with my Tough Mudder gear and Crossfit Clitheroe hoodie. It will reside on a hanger in my closet, never to see the inside of any drawer.
Getting the shirt puts even more fuel on my internal fire to push to hit my goal.
Last night I attended a “meeting” regarding new FEMA flood maps in our area. This has been an issue for over a half decade. Basically FEMA has been pushing to rezone/update the flood maps in our area for a long time since the old data was inaccurate. If they would have been allowed to move ahead unchallenged, 50,000 + people would have suddenly been dumped into a flood zone designation which would REQUIRE the homeowner to buy additional flood insurance. Well it’s required as long as you are carrying a mortgage on your house.
Well the county has actually done a good job of running interference on this, appealing the new maps and getting FEMA to postpone the change while additional imaging of the ground was collected and provided.
Well finally it was announced we were in the final countdown before the new maps hit. The county had preliminary maps on their web site so residents could look up their property. I wasn’t thrilled when I saw our house was redesignated as an AH zone, a designation that would require us to buy flood insurance.
Even with that designation I had a wildcard. If I was willing to pay for a survey elevation of our house pad, which is 3-4 feet above the surrounding ground level and then file some paperwork with FEMA I could still be exempt from paying for the insurance. It would be a pain in the ass for sure but worth it in the long run.
So anyway, I went to the meeting, which was really just a glorified flood map convenience store. You walked in, gave them your address and they looked up your property with the very latest proposed maps, even newer than what I saw online.
The guy that was looking up my property said the county had just gotten FEMA to accept even newer, more detailed lidar images of the ground levels in our area. These images allowed the county to prove that the house pads were safely out of the flood zone without a separate elevation survey. As a result my new flood zone designation was now X, a designation meaning there was only a .2% chance the property could flood. Basically if our house floods it’s pretty much the end of the world anyway so who cares.
I returned home and gave Ali the good news, the last thing I am looking to do is pick up another insurance bill.
This weekend will be very busy, working in house work around the Naples Half Marathon, our biggest race of the year. My role is never more on center stage than it is for this race. Not only do the race results determine large cash prizes, I will be providing results to various local media outlets and other services tied into the race. It is a pretty big deal.
This year for the first time we will be chip starting the race, setting up timing mats for the 2000+ runners to cross at the start. I also plan to utilize the second timing system to pop up the names of runners as they head to the finish line to simplify things for our race announcer.
It will be a hectic few hours on Sunday morning for sure. Ali will be both working the race and running in it. She has been doing pretty well with her training, hopefully she can improve from last year’s time.
I still hope to wedge in some fun things this weekend since I have Monday off for MLK day. In addition to chewing up some more episodes of 24 I have Cowboys & Aliens in a Netflix sleeve at home. It also would be fun if I got to take Ali back to Bird Rookery Swamp with the dogs so she can see firsthand what all the fuss is about.