Archives July 2012

Last night’s running club board meeting was not all that exciting.  The big news is Ali and I have taken over handing the club membership responsibilities.  This is in addition to our other hats we already wear for the club including social networking coordinator, public relations, web site maintenance, club information technology support, race director and race timer.  Yes it is a lot of responsibilities but I try to take it as a compliment that we have skill sets that allow us to do each of these things relatively well.

Part of this process is migrating our entire membership database online which should make the process more efficient while requiring less maintenance once everything is migrated.  The hope is this efficiency will allow us to grow the club membership which is a win for everyone involved.  The more members we get, the more we can give back to both the members and the various organizations we help support.

A membership in our club is a fantastic value for anyone, even if you don’t run to be honest with you.  In addition to the various fun social events the club sponsors, we have made arrangements with various local businesses to provide discounts for our members.  If you run the numbers, you will quickly realize that your $25 membership can literally pay for itself in one lululemon shopping trip and repay you many times over during the course of the year.

After the meeting I went to South Street with the usual suspects for some drinks and food.  I actually wasn’t going to go as I wasn’t really feeling very social but once I had a Bud Light or two I was glad I reconsidered.

I felt like burning off some frustration last night so after work I headed outside for some bar work.  The sets had various exercises including quite a few on the pole portion of my high bar.  The hold in the picture is called a clutch flag.

I continued the body weight work later indoors on my parallelettes as I tried to get through some of the growing pile of Tivo recordings.  I actually am starting to just delete certain shows without watching them.  They were shows that Ali and I would typically watch together.  I have found some of them just aren’t all that fun to watch if you don’t have someone there to exchange commentary with so they have been dumped.

Last night the neighbor’s daughter knocked on my door and asked if I had any spare eggs, she was making a cake but was eggless.  Well I just happened to have a full carton of eggs that I planned to hard boil but had not gotten around to yet. I gave her 4 eggs and was rewarded a couple hours later with a piece of cake.  A fair trade if you ask me.

As I was in the office I saw Thina shoot by my window, evidently she managed to get loose and immediately came over to see her best friend (me).  Unfortunately just as I was getting up to go see her I saw the hispanic owner walking across my yard with leash in hand. He leashed her up and took her back to her unhappy home.

Today Howard announced his long time cherished bulldog, Bianca died.  He and Beth were very attached to the dog and Howard broke down repeatedly when he tried to talk about her.  Of course I immediately felt compassion for what he was going through, knowing and dreading how I will feel when that day comes for me.

Nothing like having someone spit in your face to start the week.

Friday night I was busy getting done whatever was left to be done in anticipation of Randall and Tracy’s visit.  They were supposed to leave the east coast early Saturday morning and show up at my place around 9.  Of course based on my past experiences over the years with Randall and ETA’s, I certainly put the odds of him arriving later than 9 pretty high.

Saturday morning I woke up early and quickly finished up what needed to be done outside.  I told Ali I would pick up the dogs as well so they could see Uncle Randall, their favorite uncle.  As I was on my way to pick up the dogs I got a text from Randall saying he had to stop at the bank which didn’t open until 9, new ETA is 11 ish.  There was absolutely no surprise on my part in the news he would not make his original arrival time.  Honestly it worked out pretty well for me anyway.

I used the extra time to do some laundry and replace the mower blades on the Craftsman tractor for the first time.  For a few months the cut has been getting gradually worse.  I looked at the old blades and saw they were pretty beat up.  I had never done the blades on the Craftsman so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  I looked at the manual, assuming I had to pull the deck off to do it (which looked like a pain in the ass to do).  I was surprised to see the official recommendation was the deck could remain on the mower for the change.  You basically were supposed to be able to throw a socket on and pop the blades off.

To make things easier for me I pulled out my floor jack and jacked the front of the mower to give me more room underneath to work.  It also gave me more room to do another much needed maintenance item, scraping the grass off the inside of the deck, which there was a ton of.

I used my wonder bar as the grass removal tool.  I quickly discovered that having your nose in close proximity to dried, rotting grass on a mower deck is not a great experience, the stuff stinks pretty bad.  I had a pile of grass scuzz 8 inches deep under the deck when I was done.

Changing the blades was actually quite easy which I was happy to see.  The blades I put on were a heavier duty version of the stock blades, hopefully they will hold up a little better.  Unfortunately the sandy soil and thick summertime grass really hammers mower blades quite quickly.

So Randall and Tracy pulled up a little after 11.  The dogs were quite excited to see Uncle Randall.  Sadie of course was thrilled to meet Tracy too.  Nicki was cautious for a couple minutes but warmed up to Tracy very quickly as well.

I had never met Tracy before, her and Randall have been seeing each other for coming up on 6 months.  It took me all of 15 seconds to realize I liked her.  With certain rare people I can somehow gain an almost immediate comfort level with, Tracy is one of those people.

We sat down and hung out for a little while to catch up.  This is the first time I have had any guests in the house since Ali and I split. I think the last time Randall was over was around the holidays.  I showed them the slightly different layout of the house as well as the newly repainted/decorated master bathroom.  Both of them agreed I did some solid work in there.

I suggested that maybe it would be fun to take the dogs to the dog beach.  Both Randall and Tracy said that sounded like fun.  We all loaded up into the party van and headed out.

I had not looked at all at the tide charts before heading out.  Depending on the time of day, the dog beach can sometimes be almost completely submerged.  Well we did not hit that time, we hit the exact opposite.  In fact I never have seen the tide out so far in any of my visits to Lover’s Key, I was really surprised.

We let the girls off leash.  Sadie wasted no time going out and making new friends.  She would dart around sticking her nose in the leg of anybody she could, it was funny.  Both of the dogs surprised me when they actually went in the water ahead of me.  Typically I need to wade in first before they will venture in.

We walked around the beach and enjoyed watching Sadie and Nicki interact with the many other dogs.  Of course Sadie was much more of the social butterfly.

I felt bad as I could tell Nicki must be having some aches and pains in her legs/hips.  She wouldn’t manage more than a slight jog before she would go back to walking speed.  I keep forgetting she will be 10 on her next birthday.  It is tough for me to see her get older.  I can tell she would love to run around as much as Sadie does.

As always the other dogs at the beach were very entertaining.  There was one lab that was running around inside of a hula hoop looking toy.  He then went one degree further, picking up a second hoop and running around with both. We talked to a few of the other dog owners as all the canines were playing.

One disadvantage of the tide being so far out was a LOT of shells were exposed.  As I was walking in the shallow water I inadvertently stepped in an area that was filled with some that were very sharp.  I came out the other end with several painful slices on the bottom of my feet.

So we hung out at the dog beach for around an hour, we all had a very nice time.  Of course the dogs loved it but they were also exhausted.

They added a new thing to the dog beach, a dog washing station.  It seems that every time I take the dogs to the beach they come out of it with some sort of ailment.  I thought the dog wash would help, I could quickly give them a rinse to wash off the troublesome sea water.

There was only one problem, the knob that controls the water is one of those spring loaded varieties that requires you to hold it on at all times.  If you are by yourself I have no idea how you could wash your dog since you need one hand to keep the knob on, one to hold the hose and a missing third hand to hold the dog still.   Luckily Randall served as my third hand, keeping the faucet turned on while I quickly hosed down the dogs.

On the way back we took the dog’s back to Ali’s place, I thought it would be cool if Ali got to see Randall and meet Tracy.  Both Randall and Tracy thought Ali’s new place was really nice.  We hung out for a little bit before heading back to the house to take showers for dinner.

One thing I like about Randall is he doesn’t mind my obsession for going to Carrabas, he in fact appears to look forward to going there as well.  We just always have a good time going there.  Of course since it was a Saturday night we had to wait, probably somewhere around a half hour. We passed the time drinking.

Our meal was good as usual and we had a good time.  When the check came the waiter handed it directly to Randall, I was like “Wtf??”  Evidently Randall said something ahead of time.  Well I told him that wasn’t cool.

We decided to decide who would pick up the check the only way that made sense, via an arm wrestling match, right there at the table, winner pays. After holding Randall’s arm upright for a period of time to gauge his strength, which was pretty good, I cranked my wrist and was able to break him down, winning me the privilege of paying.

When we got back to my house we hung out on the lanai for awhile just shooting the shit.  By the time we called it a night I was running on fumes and immediately fell asleep.

Sunday morning of course I was up first, although a bit late for me, not rolling out of bed until maybe 6:45 am.  Randall and Tracy slept in for a bit which was fine with me.  The report back I got on sleeping on the queen inflatable was not glowing, at least from Randall.  He has been spoiled by years of king size comfort at my place.  I will need to add a king size bed onto the fridge to do list.

So we decided to get some exercise in on Sunday morning at the water park.  I loaded three bikes into the back of the truck carefully, mine, Randall’s and one of Ali’s that she let us borrow for Tracy.  The plan was Randall and I would do a ride while Tracy ran and then her and Randall would ride while I did some lap swimming.

I gave Tracy the spare key to the truck so she could come back and grab water as needed while we were out.  She took off running as Randall and I headed out on bike.  Shortly after we turned out onto Livingston Road Randall yelled for me to hold up.  I doubled back to him.  He said both of his tries were very low on air, he forgot to check them before we took off.

Ok no problem, I brought my air pump with, so we head back to the truck.  Well we then realize we do have a problem.  The pump is in the cab of the truck and Tracy has the  key.  I told Randall to stay put, I would go track Tracy down on my bike and grab the key.  Well I did two laps around the park and didn’t see her.  Evidently she turned in before she got to the outside trail since she wasn’t familiar with the park layout.  By the time I got back from my second loop she had come back to the truck and Randall was pumping up his tires.  Oh well at least I got a nice 4 mile warm up ride.

SO Randall and I finally get back out on the road and take off.  Heading north we had a favorable wind and were really pacing pretty quickly, for me at least.  My GPS was showing 21 or 22 mph for a good portion of the northern part of the ride.

Randall was leading during this part of the ride.  I made it a point to not follow him closely to avoid drafting.  Drafting makes the back rider’s ride significantly easier but to me it defeats the purpose of training on a bike.  In a triathlon you aren’t allowed to draft so I don’t like to draft in training either.

When we hit the turn around point I went out in front and stayed there until we got back to Immokalee Road.  I did a good job of keeping a strong pace against the wind, especially early on, keeping our pace at damn close to 20.  Eventually the wind started to erode my endurance and the pace dropped two or three mph during the last couple miles I was in front.

When we got to the light we caught up to an older guy that was biking.  I asked him how far he was riding today.  I was impressed when he said it was a 60 mile day, damn.

So Randall lead for the last few miles of the 12.25 mile ride, keeping a strong pace.  When we made the final U-turn and headed north again he picked the pace up, at one point we were holding 24 for a period of time.  I was quite spent when we got back into the park.  My GPS showed an average pace of 19.2 which might be the best average pace I have pulled for that ride.

So I went up to the ticket window for the water park to score wristbands for myself and the rest of my “family”.  I gave them to Randall and Tracy.  I told them just to slap them on their wrists and walk in without looking suspicious when they were done riding bike.

So I went over to the lap pool and got ready to swim.  I was much later than normal to swim laps, it was probably almost noon when I started.  As a result there were more people in the diving board/lap swim area although there was no one actually swimming laps.  The line for the diving boards probably was 20 people deep however.

Although no one was swimming laps, there were kids f’ing around in the lap lanes.  The dividers for the lanes are evidently very interesting to children. They seem to have a hard time not mounting them and riding them like a horse.  I had a feeling this was going to be an aggravating swim, I was right.

It didn’t take long until I had to swim around children screwing around in the lanes.  At first I just gave them stink eye through my swim goggles but when I almost swam into a fat kid f’ing around by the wall of my lane I had enough.  I stopped and said “hey buddy, stay out of the swim lanes”.  At the same time that I told the kid to move, the young girl life guard noticed and told him to move as well.  She was a bit overwhelmed since she was assigned to watch the very busy diving board area as well as the lap pool with it’s clearly marked LAP SWIM ONLY signs.

At the same time she said something to the hispanic kids that were riding the lane divider as well as taking turns pulling each other into the lap pool.  The kids seemed to totally ignore the girl.

As I finished my second 400 I stopped to adjust my goggles and ear plugs and saw these hispanic kids going wild at the far end.  I look at the girl lifeguard and raise my hands in a “WTF?” motion, wondering why she is unable to get the kids to stop.  She gave me a frustrated look and tried again.

Of course I was very annoyed with the kids but I did realize ultimately it wasn’t their fault, it was the stupid parents that are too ignorant to understand why this is a problem.  Of course they were nowhere to be seen. Thankfully there was a shift change and a young guy rolled into that spot, he was finally able to convey to the kids that the lap pool was not a spot to play around in, there are 4 other pools where they can do that.

Randall and Tracy came in from biking just about the same time as I finished up my 1200, it worked out well.  We found a couple chairs and then decided to head up to the food stand.  I knew since it was later in the day we were going to be dealing with a long wait.  It really amazed me that after 5 years they have not come up with a better system of making their processes more efficient.  I actually sent them this little tip via their website.

Hi there. I just wanted to make a quick suggestion regarding how the food stand at Sun n Fun is run. I have been coming to the water park for several years and have always noticed that the service at the food stand there is very inefficient. The wait in line can be crazy long at times because it moves so slow.

 I think a big part of this is the way people are serviced. When you walk up to the window they take your order, you pay for it and then you wait for your food. Well certain food items, depending on what you order, may be in the process of being made or might take extra time to prepare.

 Instead of telling the customer their food will be out in a couple minutes and then bringing it out to them, they have people just stand at the window and wait, without taking the next order.

 There is a good chance that the person behind them might have an order with food that is all ready to go, why wouldn’t you take advantage of that opportunity to move the line ahead?

 It seems like a pretty simple logistical change that could make things move along a bit faster for everyone involved.

So anyway after something like a 20-30 minute  wait we sat down and ate lunch.  Although the service was slow, the food was good.

After eating we headed for the lazy river.  Tracy did one loop, Randall and I hung for two.  Originally I figured there would be some water slide riding but I came up with a different idea since the skies were looking very ominous.

I asked Randall if he wanted to head to the outlets, specifically to hit the Under Armour outlet I know he likes. (Randall is a HUGE UA guy).  Then after that I said we could go to Trader Joe’s since I knew Tracy was excited to check out our local location since there are none around her.  She loves Trader Joe’s.  The plan got two thumbs up from Randall and Tracy so off we went to go back home, change and head right back out.

Both Randall and Tracy had a real good time at the outlets, scoring a number of deals.   I grabbed a couple 10 dollar shirts and called my shopping good to go.  I spent the rest of the time watching Randall scurry about like a kid in a candy store, it was funny.  We were at the outlets right up until their 6pm closing time.

On the way to Trader Joe’s Randall said he was hungry for Mexican food so we went to Tijuana Flats where we had good meals.  I tried to stay pescatarian with a fish taco made of grouper.  I also grabbed the three hottest sauces they had and dared Randall to try them.

The last time we were at Tijuana Flats I offered a similar challenge and Randall foolishly complied, sticking his tongue into the burning hot “Ghost” hot sauce.  His reaction afterward was hilarious. Well Randall had no interest in a repeat performance so I instead dipped my tortilla chips into the sauces.  They were hot for sure but nothing some quick gulps of soda couldn’t control.

So then it was on to Trader Joe’s.  I forgot to warn Tracy about how cold it was in there, it literally feels like an ice box when you first enter the store.  Tracy braved the cold temps, her excitement for being back in Trader Joe’s helped keep her warm.

Randall and her had fun walking the aisles while loading up their cart with good food at good prices.  I was just a spectator this time around since my freezer was still well stocked with Trader Joe’s food.  By the time we got out of there it was after 8.

When we got home Randall and Tracy immediately got to work on getting packed up to go.  Originally they didn’t plan to be on the west coast so late.  I helped them load up and they were on their way.

The weekend surely didn’t quite go as I predicted.  The video camera didn’t come out once, the Xbox remained turned off the entire time (the tv wasn’t even turned on), and only a few beers were consumed.  Even so it was quite nice spending time with Randall and Tracy.  Tracy seems like a genuine great match for Randall, seeing them both happy was a good thing.

Hopefully sometime in the near future I can trek over there on a weekend to hang at Tracy’s place with them, I hear it is pretty sweet.

For a couple weeks I had been corresponding via email with my credit union regarding getting an extended warranty on my SSR.  With my new financial situation where large, unexpected bills are potentially much more troublesome I am concerned about something major (really expensive) failing on the truck.  As much as I love my SSR, there is no denying that reliability is not a strong suit of the vehicle.

I had a rather annoying experience going back and forth via email trying to get this done so finally I just called in and got it hammered out.  I was able to get a 6 year-60,000 mile, nearly bumper to bumper, zero deductible extended warranty for the truck and roll it into my existing loan.  The new payment is still under what I have budgeted each month for the truck so it is a win/win.  I get one less thing to worry about without my budget bottom line taking a major hit.

Last night I headed outside to prepare the grounds of Hotel Duffey for a visit by Randall and his girlfriend.  I did a speed mow followed by an equally speedy weed whacking session.   Tonight I need to get a few other things ready for their arrival.  I am looking forward to meeting Tracy, it seems like Randall and she have been having a great time together.

This will be the first visitor in the house since I have been separated.  The accommodations for guests is a currently a little more sparse than it used to be.  The old king size guest bed has now become my bed and has been replaced by a queen size inflatable, although I have been told by two people it is actually pretty comfortable.  The “end table” is now a breakfast tray  and no guests have gotten to experience my $200 Craigslist reclining sofa set yet.

We don’t have set in stone plans yet for the weekend but I am pretty sure some biking, beer drinking, dining out, video game playing, muscle ups and use of a video camera will be involved.

There have been a number of changes obviously in my life over the last several months since Ali and I separated.  One of those changes was kind of unexpected.

If you have read my blog over the years, you know that despite my age I have continued to enjoy gaming albeit the vast majority of that gaming has been via the MMORPG, World of Warcraft.  The game used to consume a LOT of my spare time.

I kind of figured that I would be doing more gaming once I was home alone since I wasn’t cutting into time spent with anyone else but me, ,myself and I.  When Diablo 3 came out in April I played a decent amount of it but that has sort of fizzled for me as well.  I literally haven’t touched WoW in at least 2 months, probably closer to 3, the longest period of time I have ever gone without playing the game.

So when I analyze this change I come up with a few answers.

My attitude towards most stuff in general has shifted since the split.  I am now very interested in doing things I have not done before.  I almost feel like if I am not pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone I am missing the boat of life.  WoW is definitely part of my comfort zone that I sunk into over the last 7 years, a virtual existence that allowed me to insulate from real world problems.

Plus in general I just have more to do now with half the amount of hands on deck to handle the myriad of responsibilities associated with the house.  Most nights by the time I am ready to settle down I just don’t feel like playing, in many cases I would rather just catch up on some Tivo programs or watch some of the new tv content now available to me via my HboGo hookup. (last night up until 12:30 watching episodes of 24)

Hell maybe I am finally outgrowing gaming, something I never thought could happen.  My console gaming systems are basically never used for gaming.  My Xbox 360’s are internet video hubs almost exclusively.

Does this mean I am done with WoW for good?  I don’t know,  but I can pretty much guarantee the weeks where I spent upwards of 30 hours in it’s virtual world are ancient history. That’s a good thing no matter how you look at it.

After work I headed over to the running store to meet up for the Dash n Dine.  The Dash n Dine is something the running club does during the summer once a month.  Basically a bunch of people show up, go for a short run and then return for food and drinks.  I actually had never attended one before, I guess because of always having to go home to let the dogs out in the past. I actually wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to go last night either based on the weather.  On the way to the store I was driving towards pitch black clouds with lightning flashing down on a regular basis.

When I got to the store I was handed a signed  Eagles retro mini-helmet.  The helmet was from Tommy, a guy I met via the running club.  The helmet by itself was cool but it also was signed by Ron Jaworski!

Tommy has hooked me up before, giving me an old Eagles program he had from the 70’s.  You ask how he has these connections?  Tommy used to be a trainer for the Redskins for a long time during their glory years.  He even has a Super Bowl ring.

Tommy also happened to show up for the event.  I thanked him for the helmet. It’s really a generous thing for him to hook me up with Birds gear.

So we had a good crowd gathering, we headed out into the still foreboding looking weather.  The run was back into an area called Freedom Park, somewhere I have passed many, many times but never checked out.  It’s a cool place with a boardwalk that winds through a scenic natural background.

I wound up running with Todd and Jake, two guys that are much better runners than I am but I wanted to see if I could at least keep pace over a shorter distance.  Of course it started to rain shortly into the run.  It was light at first, it turned into a deluge later.

One of the guys had brought his dog along.  Once we got on the boardwalk part of the run he let the dog off leash, I am not quite sure why.  The dog had a great time running ahead of us on the boardwalk.  He would wait for us to somewhat catch up and then dash ahead.  He even was nice enough to leave a brown smelly speed bump in the middle of the boardwalk at one point.

Eventually a young 13 year old kid that was running close by corralled the dog and held it for the owner to releash.

So I was doing a decent job of keeping up with Todd and Jake but I definitely was working harder than I anticipated for what was supposed to be a fun run.  My right knee started to bother me more and more as we kept going.  To keep pace I needed to extend my stride more than I normally would.  This was also the third time I had run in the last four days, much more than my normal one day a week running schedule.

Finally the pain reached the threshold that I didn’t want to ignore, I told them to go ahead without me with probably less than 10 minutes to go.  I limp walked for a minute or so, annoyed that I stopped.  I then started back up running with a conservative stride which was easier on the knee.  The knee pain could have also been from running in my gym sneakers instead of my normal NB 1080’s. We ran farther than probably anyone else in the group so I was the last one back.

It was still raining hard at that point.  Everyone was huddled under the overhang of the shopping center.  By the time I got there a lot of the primary food of pizza and burritos had been consumed.  I managed to snag one slice of pizza before it was gone.  I then rounded that off with some nacho chips and a few bites of Ali’s burrito she snagged earlier.

Although there was free beer being served which I would have loved to take more advantage of, I instead slammed down two glasses of water before drinking one Miller Lite.  I didn’t want any return of the bizarre gout like symptoms I experienced the last time I rehydrated after a run exclusively with beer. Even with my precautions, when I took a leak when I got home my urine was really dark, a sign of dehydration.

I was totally soaked from running in the rain.  I looked like I just jumped in the gulf.  Luckily I ran shirtless so I had something to put back on.  I just happened to “win” a singlet as a door prize as well that I actually wound up wearing home.

I had a good time at the Dash n Dine and hope to get to attend them on a regular basis.

My knee today aches enough that doing my normal squat routine at the gym may be in question.

Last night I tried to make up for my nutritional sins committed the night before at the movie theater by eating clean.  I made some carrot, beet, spinach, tomato and apple juice.  After downing that I followed up with a wrap.

I didn’t have any specific agenda last night.  In general I still feel like I am in a bit of a haze.  The lack of sleep over the weekend and my general lack of clear direction has me a bit flustered.  When I was at the gym yesterday I had an incredible lack of motivation or focus to be there.

That lack of motivation apparently extends to writing anything interesting right now.

5 day recaps are a pain in the ass, just saying.

My mini-vaca started off with a bang July 4th with my timing the biggest 5K the running club puts on all year.  This race is always a huge pain in the ass for me because a large percentage of the runners sign up last minute on paper, I guess primarily because it is a holiday race that includes a lot of people from out of town.

Well we got HAMMERED with people walking up race morning to sign up.  It was madness.  I had a non-stop stream of applications getting piled on the table.  Thank goodness I had a guy helping me that is adept already at race environments.  In total we had almost 150 people walk up and register on the spot. It might have been the most walk ups I ever had to deal with.

Timing the race went relatively smoothly.  The worst part of it was when an 82 year old man collapsed from exhaustion about 10 yards from the finish line.  When he fell he ripped huge chunks of skin off his arm, it looked simply awful.  Paramedics came and cleaned him up.  I think he wound up just driving home.

After the race I went home and knocked out the post race stuff and then started working on some other things.  My hope as always was to get stuff chore shit cleared out to free up the rest of my time off.  In this case I wanted to allow myself time to do the bathroom painting project.

I decided against trying to see any live fireworks shows since I had the dogs still.  Quite often a lot of people that live around me will set off their own personal fireworks displays which scares the dogs.  I didn’t want to leave them home alone with nobody to come hide behind.  Ironically this year I didn’t really hear much commotion at all going on.

Wednesday night I finished up stripping all the stuff on the walls in the master bath to prep for it’s transformation.

Thursday I hit the project hard.  The first thing I had to do was fix the holes in the wall, especially the carnage left behind from pulling the shelves off the wall.  I first patched the holes with spackle and then hit the area with Kilz primer to cover up the glue stains that were left on the wall.  In retrospect I didn’t do a very good job at patching up the shelf area, luckily I later was able to somewhat conceal it with a picture.

Next up was the part of painting I really hate, masking. Unfortunately it is also the part of painting that makes the biggest difference in the final outcome.  Masking is tedious, detail work, something Ali is very good at, me, not so much.

I got busy, slowly plodding my way around the bathroom, masking off every edge there was. I probably spent over an hour laying blue tape. It sucked, plain and simple.

I had the bathroom window open because of the fumes from the Kilz. Without thinking, I taped the window area while it was still open, meaning it was staying open until I was done painting.  It also meant that a steady flow of warm, humid air was going to be making my work rather sweaty.

I started laying the paint down, first using the brush to do the corners and edges and then the roller to cover large amounts of wall real estate quickly.  I find painting with a roller to be relatively strenuous.  The textured surface and flat, shitty, original builders paint really required me to push the roller into the wall to get good coverage.  I worked myself into a decent sweat in a short period of time.

All in all I worked on the bathroom for probably 6 or 7 hours on Thursday.  By Thursday night I was yanking off the tape and starting to put stuff back together.

At first when I just had bare walls, but bare walls of a different color, I was a bit underwhelmed.  I thought the color looked good but I wasn’t real excited about it.

On Friday I came up with a few items that I thought might complement the bathroom.

The first stop was Bed, Bath & Beyond where I got new dark brown bath mats, a dark brown shower rod and a shower curtain that actually had the three main colors of the room in it, white, dark brown and the tan on the walls.  If you know me well, you know the fact that I actually picked out some complimentary accessories is a minor miracle.

The second stop was at Michaels, the craft place.  We have had an old print of Tiger Tail Beach in Marco Island for years, it has sat unused, propped against a wall in the hobby room.  I just happened to notice that the colors in the picture would actually complement the color on the walls.

This was a large poster style print print that had a large white border.  Well they did not have a frame with those dimensions but they did have a 12 x 36 frame that caught my eye.   I knew that was a little narrower than the image on the print but I estimated I could trim it to size and keep the core of the shot.

So when I got home I used the paper insert in the frame as a template and cut the guts out of my beach print.  It actually worked out perfectly.  I hung the picture on the wall where the old shitty looking shelves lived.  It looked quite nice hanging there and also served a dual functionality of covering up most of my less than stellar patch work.

Once I had everything back together and all the new stuff in place this is what I wound up with.  Now it looked like a transformed room.  Now I was pleased with the fruits of my labor.  Now I dreaded doing the entire thing over again in the master bedroom.

Here are all the pictures from the project.

On Saturday I got up and did a sweaty 7 miles.  I really ran it pretty hard.  If I didn’t slow down early on to talk to a few people for a few minutes I may have been able to cover the distance in less than an hour.

I also needed to clean, especially the freshly painted bathroom that had grime and grit in various spots.

The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back for me since the dreaded painting was done and the chores were handled.

I did have a bad Saturday night.  I woke up at 3:15am and absolutely had no shot of falling back asleep.  So instead I pop out of bed and do stuff.  I never paid my bills or washed the sheets before at 3:45 am so I guess I can check that off my bucket list.

On Sunday morning I met up with a running club buddy for a long bike ride (for me) of 25+ miles.

After that I ran a little less than 3 miles with him.  By the time we were done I was totally out of gas.  After running the day before and basically being up most of the night I felt horrible.  I slowly pedaled back to the water park where I had originally planned to get some laps in.  I unceremoniously said “Fck that”, and hopped in the truck to go home.  I almost felt like my blood sugar was dangerously low.

I got home and stuffed a ton of food in my mouth.  After that I laid down and thankfully got a couple hour nap in, boy did I need it.

Sunday night I decided to go see the new Spiderman and treat myself to a delicious and nutritious movie theater dinner of pizza, M&M’s and a Diet Coke.

I enjoyed the flick but it didn’t blow me away.  It was interesting how they changed certain aspects of the evolution of Spiderman.  If push comes to shove I would still take Toby’s version of the series.  I’d give this iteration a B+ which is kind of low on the super hero movie scale for me.

So yesterday I followed up my complaint to animal services via the web site with a call, verifying they got the complaint.  I was glad I called because for whatever reason the complaint was not in the system.  I gave the guy on the phone the details of the situation.  He sounded genuinely angry at the owners treatment of the dog.  I asked what would happen next.

The guy said an animal control officer would be going to the house to inspect the dog’s living conditions and if they are found to be in violation they will be warned.  He said if I still see the dog getting out I should let them know. Ok fine.

I later talked to a friend of mine from the running club who is deeply involved in animal rights in the county.  He told me that county animal services basically does a dreadful job of enforcing code when it comes to animals.  They will issue warnings but then do not follow up to see if the warning is heeded.

Evidently in a case like Thina’s not only would they find her living conditions suck, they also should be forcing the owners to license the dog, make sure she has her shots, and if they don’t want to pay $60 a year, get her spade as well.

My buddy said he is quite familiar with how this goes.  It’s bad enough that Thina has to endure living in a home where she is little more than a lawn ornament.  If she continues to run free around the neighborhood and runs into a loose male dog now all of a sudden one mistreated animal multiplies into 7 or 8 when the puppies come.  It’s a vicious cycle that is fueled by irresponsible and ignorant pet owners.

When I drove home last night I looked at Thina’s property.  The front gate was wide open but the dog was not visible.  What was visible was the garage door was cracked about 6 inches.  I have a bad feeling the answer these idiots have to keeping Thina contained is to throw her in the hot as an oven garage.  During the heat of the day a garage in SWFL is not much different than a sauna. The reason I suspect this is because that is where they put her during one of my trips to their front door with the dog.

I have been in contact with my neighbor across the street about this bullshit as well, she is an animal lover as I am.  She is disgusted with what is going on as well although she is accustomed to dogs being treated poorly in our area.  She plans to reenforce my call to animal services with a call of her own.

I plan to call them back today as well.  First I want to get a case number so I am able to track what is going on.  Second I want to let them know that I suspect the owners have now locked the dog in the hot garage.

Before I headed out to the Ultimate Bowl last night I went home to change and feed the dogs dinner.  Outside my front door was a BIG box.

I knew I had a box arriving from New York, I didn’t know it would be that big.  Inside was a set of heavy duty, homemade parallelettes.  They came from my long distance calisthenics buddy Lou, one of the many great people I have come to know through my involvement with the Bar-barian forums.

Lou makes me look like a total beginner when it comes to exercise.  He eats, breathes and sleeps exercise, 24/7.  His intensity is something I use for inspiration on a regular basis.

Anyway these parallelettes were actually something he made.  He put together some metal parts from an old job he had at a lumber company with some 4×4’s to make a super sturdy set of bars.  He used these for a long time but eventually bought himself a professional set, so he sent me these, for free, no less.

I hope to keep these things forever and perhaps extract some of that magic Lou energy along the way.

So I headed out to the Ultimate Bowl, arriving at the arena around 6:45.  The parking lot didn’t seem to be any more or less full than it was for last weeks game.

I decided to get my first non-$7 ticket for the Tarpons, laying out the big bucks for a seat in one of the corners down low.  I figured since it was the last game of what I assumed would be a perfect 12-0 season I might as well go crazy.

After grabbing a slice of pizza and a beer I found my seat.  Damn it was nice being that close.  I also enjoyed upgraded seating amenities including a padded bottom and a cupholder, sweet.

I took turns watching the pre-game action on the field and walking the concourse.  I downed a couple beers pretty quickly and felt a bit fuzzy.  I walked by the merchandise stand repeatedly, weighing if I should buy anything or not.  Actually the thing I was considering buying the most was a pink Tarpons t-shirt for Ali.  However logic won out as I visualized both my and Ali’s existing t-shirt collection.  Neither of us need another one.  Still, if they would have taken credit cards at the stand, impulse may have won out.

Being that close to the field has other advantages besides the nice close vantage point, you also get to interact with the players.  Before the opening kick off the Tarpon players slapped hands with the fans, including mine, it’s all part of the feel good effort the team puts out for the fans.

The Tarpons opponent for the championship were the Cincinnati Commandos who won the Northern Conference.  The Commandos had three losses this season, unlike the Tarpons sparkling 11-0 record.  I think pretty much everyone in the arena just assumed the Tarpons would steamroll their way to the championship, just as they have the entire season.

Well that assumption took a quick punch in the mouth.  The Tarpons kicked off and on the Commandos first play they immediately scored on a long TD pass.  The pressure continued to be applied and before the first quarter ended the Tarpons were down 21-8.

Well the Tarpons were also down briefly in last weeks playoff game.  They shrugged it off and went on a torrid scoring streak.  The fans were simply waiting for them to step on the gas.  Well the Commandos played really well, they picked a few balls off, put a lot of pressure on the Tarpons QB and had a pretty potent offense of their own.

At one point later in the game it looked like the Tarpons were ready to finally make their move, they were down by less than a score and driving for a TD.  Instead they turned the ball over and it was the beginning of the end.  The crowd was mostly quiet for the last 5 minutes of the game once the outcome became obvious, there would be no perfect season. The Tarpons lost the game by a final score of 62-44.

Despite the outcome I still had a good time at the game.  One of my personal highlights was at half time.  One of the cool things the Tarpon QB does is come out early from the locker room during halftime and play catch with the fans in the stands.  He basically goes around the field and throws a ball to people in the stands and they throw it back to him.

Well my beer induced buzz was still in effect at halftime so I had no issue standing up and waving my flag pole length arms for number 7 to throw to.  He spotted me and sent a pass my way which I snagged cleanly and then threw back to him in rhythm.  It was cool.

Despite the disappointing end to the season I really am glad that I rediscovered local arena football this year.  For whatever reason I found it significantly more fun then when I was a Firecats season ticket holder.