Archives December 2012

When I look back at the title of last year’s end of year blog entry, “2011 the best year yet?” it seems quite ironic considering what has transpired since that time in my life.

Ok let’s handle the easy stuff first, scoring the goals I set for 2012.

Get the master bedroom and bathroom painted – CHECK, splitting up for some reason gave me the kick in the ass I needed to finally get those two rooms painted after a couple years of procrastinating.  It was a huge pain in the ass doing this solo.

Replace carpet – nope, that won’t be happening anytime soon.

Resurface the pool deck – no but it really needs to be done.  I hope to contact Rhinoshield sometime in 2013 to do it.

Run a sub two hour half marathon – BINGO, I killed the Hooter’s Half, running it in 1:55 (knocking 16 minutes off previous best) and change in pretty horrible conditions with minimal training leading up to it.  That was a testament to pure mental will power more than anything else.

Complete the BBR’s (Bar-barian Requirements) – Nope, not close.  I tried to really train hard for this early in 2012 and kept hurting myself from overuse injuries.  I just don’t know that a 45 year old body of my size and proportion can recover fast enough to get it done.  Regardless I am going to still try, hard.

Another Tough Mudder – yep but surprisingly not with Randall.  Instead Charlie and I took down the course which featured a colder ice bath and much more “shocking” finish line.

Volleyball – Um I think I played a tournament.  Oh yea, I played with Tabby and then did a King of the Beach thing with Tabby, Randall and Jeremy.  Vball is just an afterthought in my life anymore.

Travel more – umm well the separation derailed pretty much all travel plans for me, I think the most traveling I did was by tire to Miami a couple times and Titusville

SSR upgrades – yea I did a number of upgrades including the expensive in dollars and time radio upgrade.  I also had a Corvette clutch installed in the truck as well as two new cat convertors, muffler, exhaust tips and panhard bar.  I have put about 6,000 miles on the SSR in my first full year of ownership.

Cranking up my overall happiness – hmmm well the separation from Alison was an effort to do just that on both of our part. It’s too early to make a final call on how successful the move will be.  To say there have been a few ups and downs would be a large understatement.

Ok so let me recap the high and lowlights of 2012.

In 2012 I gave up most meat (beef,pork poultry, etc..) the only meat I consume at this point is seafood and not much of that.  Alison has been a vegetarian for years but I had continued on my carnivore ways.  Well for me the moment I decided to stop for good was at the county fair.  As we were walking around the farm animal displays which included pigs and cattle I looked at these animals and took pause.  Instead of the normal, “aren’t they cute” and move on response, I looked long and hard at the faces of these animals.  I asked myself why it is that I would want to have these innocent animals killed to become a frozen patty on a plate.  I decided at that moment I didn’t want that and have not looked back.

I  haven’t noticed any fall off in my physical well being since making the change.  If anything, 2012 had the most personal physical bests I ever jammed into a 12 month period.

I did a lot of auto maintenance work in 2012, most of which was taped and published on YouTube.  I did brake jobs, replaced starters, alternators, IAC valves and more.  There is something very satisfying about fixing your own vehicle.

Speaking of YouTube, in 2012 I developed a an advertising juggernaut utilizing primarily YouTube and the ads that can be run with your videos.  I had a meteoric rise in monthly ad dollars and before my AdSense account got cancelled I had made almost $100 in one month.  The cancellation of my AdSense account was the source of much frustration and anger.

At first the anger was directed towards Google and their no warning cancellation policy when it comes to AdSense terms.  But in the end the anger should have been at myself for not thinking through recommending people to click on my blog ads.  I did not realize I was inviting others to violate the Adsense TOS.

I was really bummed out about the cancellation but I eventually got the ad dollar wheels turning again, making my mom into a new AdSense user and totally recreating my YouTube channel which took endless HOURS of work.  The main reason you see as many YouTube videos out of me as you do is not actually just because I am a video whore, it’s also because I have all the ad dollars I make funneled right to my mom as a small financial shot in the arm.

In 2012 I fought FEMA and won, jumping through a ton of hoops (and a case of beer) to get a bogus flood insurance requirement dropped.  It was one of several cost disputing/cutting efforts of the year, many of which were necessitated to cut costs associated with the separation. I no longer have a number of services that I once did.  I have been able to shave my electric costs down remarkably, last month I had a bill of $106, insanely low when this same house used to generate bills as much as triple that number at times.

I haven’t had many visitors in the house this year, my dad, step mom, Patrick and his girlfriend visited back in February.  Randall and his girlfriend Tracy stayed for a long weekend and finally Charlie stayed for a very fun few days earlier this month.  Other than that it has been basically me, myself and I (and Tuki) most nights.

The news of course had many big things going down including several tragic shootings, the presidential election and the fact that the world did not end a few days ago.  But you already knew that.

So I guess I should talk more about the obviously biggest event of 2012 or the last decade and a half for that matter, the decision Ali and I made to separate.  We made the decision to do so in March and she moved to her own place in early April.  The decision was a mutual one that involved no shenanigans on either of our sides but instead a genuine effort for both of us to move ahead in our lives in a happier place than we both found ourselves. This decision shocked a lot of people as most viewed us as a solid couple that got along.  For the most part they were right.

The change for both of us has been filled with ruts and potholes as would be expected since both of us have basically been married for our entire adult lives. (two marriages for me)  The change that we both have had to deal with has been large and at times very, very uncomfortable.

I basically have been using it as an opportunity to force myself into new situations.  Whenever I found myself questioning if I should do something or not, I would ask myself “have I ever done this before?”  if the answer was no, then that pretty much meant I needed to do it. For example, jumping out of a plane from 18,000 feet in the air.

Of course part of this change involved setting my foot into the adult dating world.  It has not been easy or natural in the least. I have had enough awkward pauses to fill a sit com.  I may as well stepped foot into the middle of Siberia at times with how foreign the dating world feels.  Dating, for me, is hard.

Probably the hardest time of all has been this holiday season since it involved such painful items as separating Christmas ornaments and having our first Christmas morning where we woke up in different zip codes.

Many people are also very surprised with what Ali and my interaction has been like since the split.  In most cases when couples split there is a very clear division (like my first marriage), ours is not one of those cases.  Ali and I still are friends and support each other in different ways. We still interact and see each other on a regular basis.  It definitely has not followed the typical divorce 101 handbook.

I have had a lot of physical bests this year, despite turning 45 a couple weeks ago.  I did my first 110 pound weighted dip, first 90 pound weighted pull up, first one handed push up, first set of 10 dragon flags and many more.  One of my proudest accomplishments was pulling off a set of 30 pull ups a few weeks back, something that even surprised myself.  The sub 2 hour marathon and my second successful completion of the Tough Mudder were nice little feathers in the hat as well.

Of course at this age injuries are hard to avoid and I had my fair share of them, most recently the knee that was practically locked after the Mudder.  Who could forget the stupid injury to my bicep when I crashed trying to do weighted dips?  I also had a chronic problem with left wrist that lasted for damn close to 4 months.

The Eagles really sucked in 2012.  It was definitely the biggest waste of the NFL Sunday Ticket to date.

2012 has been a rough year for Nicki.  Her well being has taken a dramatic downturn since Ali and I split.  In what seems a blink of the eye she has gone from a healthy/active 9 year old dog, to an old girl that is showing every second of being 10.  The thyroid medicine she is on has made her hair long, dry and shaggy to the point where she looks dramatically different from just a year ago.  She is gimpy and slow, no longer able to run other than the occasional few step trot. She can’t be trusted to not dump in the house if left alone for more than a couple hours.  I can’t help but feel that is partly because of her reaction to the split and change in her living conditions.  It makes me feel guilty and sad.

You know I could really dig into the monthly entries and come up with more to blab about but if you are that interested about it use the BLOG ARCHIVES drop down menu and take a peek yourself.  There are some gems in there.

Ok so let’s talk about 2013 goals.

More than ever before, I go into this new year really, REALLY unsure about where my winding path will take me.  All that was familiar to me for so long is in the rear view mirror which can be both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Home improvement goals are not major.  Getting the pool deck resurfaced/painted would be welcome.  Getting the hobby room and garage painted would be nice but far from important.  I have some outdoor projects to complete but none major enough to require mention here.

My physical goals are always about do it again, faster, better, more.  I’d like to run a half marathon quicker than I did last year. I want to get a 35 pull up set.  I want to be able to complete the old BB requirements.  A front lever, back lever, planche, controlled handstand and human flag are all objects on my radar as well.

Wow I can’t believe I finally got jumping out of a plane off my goal list.  It resided there for at least 5 or 6 years if not longer.

I hope to be able to do some traveling this year.  I have a couple visions in my head, one is top down in the SSR driving north and west until I run into the Pacific Ocean.  The other is traveling overseas to meet some of my international bar enthusiast friends.  There are quite a few whose hands I would like to shake (or cheeks to kiss).

Of course the number one personal goal is always happiness, continued (most of the time) health and an ability to both offer and absorb kindness/laughter/knowledge both to and from the world around me.

Peace.

And of course, a HUGE shout out to Randall…

So in the past week or so a road trip up north to see my Dad, step mom and their dogs has taken shape.  Alison is heading up to Pennsylvania in a couple weeks for a few days so I was going to be on dog sitting duty anyway.  I thought it would be cool if I used that time to do another winter road trip since the dogs had so much fun last time in the snow.

So after clearing the idea with Ali I ran the dates by my dad. He was good with them and was excited by the prospect of my coming up.  I then  secured the time off from work to do it so it is officially in the pipeline.  The trip morphed further when dad emailed me asking what I thought about him doing the drive back with the dogs and I and then catching a plane back north a few days later.  I said that would be cool as long as he was ok with a couple long driving days.

So it’s shaping up that the middle of January will be a pretty busy week or two.  It will be fun to get back out on the road and hopefully play around in some of the white stuff.

Last night I had a typically busy evening that included some body weight work, preparing dinner, working on race stuff and doing some chores.  Before I knew it it was 10 pm.

As I was folding laundry I once again found myself thinking about how different my amount of free time has been since the split than I thought it would be.  I recall thinking I would have copious amounts of spare time since I am pretty efficient at getting things done. I envisioned lazy nights at home where I could game, read, and watch Netflix to my heart’s content.  Well reality has been quite different.

It feels like I am constantly behind the curve, that I am letting things slip.  Just sitting around and relaxing feels like an aberration, since there are so many things to do.  Even with a new release of WoW being out for a few months I have hardly touched it.  My pile of Wired magazines keeps growing larger and larger.  I have trimmed down my Tivo season pass list way down to avoid deleting stuff I don’t have time to watch.

In 2013 I need to try to find a better balance of it all.

Speaking of 2013, I will be off from work until the New Year rolls around.  Between now and then I will try to drop in my much anticipated yearly recap blog entry.  Obviously 2012 has been quite filled with change, easily the toughest year since I started jotting down my thoughts a decade ago.

Yesterday I walked around feeling generally shitty.  It half felt like oncoming illness and half end result of drinking heavily the night before.  Today I am feeling more human thanks to a pretty decent night of sleep.

I spent the majority of last night doing race data entry for the half marathon which is always as much fun as washing dishes.

I am not feeling very chatty at all today for whatever reason, sorry.

There is a Woot Off today however.

My four day holiday weekend started off with timing a race in Marco Island.  It was supposed to be very cold (it was) and it was also Ali’s birthday so I told her she could stay home in bed if she wanted to.  She opted to come out anyway.

I had on 4 layers of clothing on my upper body, my Eagles knit beanie and the thin gloves I use for outside work.  Even with all of this I still found myself pretty damn cold during various parts of the morning.  I had a few glitches during the race but for the most part the timing went ok.

Ali got a treat when at the awards ceremony the club president lead the crowd in singing her happy birthday.  Of course she was embarrassed but also appreciated the efforts.

As I was doing the race prep I shot footage for a video I posted on the GCR Facebook page outlining what is involved in race timing.

After getting home I tried to take care of as much stuff as I could around the house although I was feeling quite tired from the 3:45am wake up.  I went out Saturday night, first to a bar that is housed inside of the local Whole Foods store.

A running club buddy told me about this bar, I thought he was kidding at first.  It turned out to be very cool.  In the back corner of the busy organic grocery store is a very nice little bar.  You have the option to buy wine/beer off their shelves and enjoy it at the bar very affordably or order stuff by the bottle/glass in a conventional manner if you like.

The young guy that was behind the bar was incredibly nice and friendly, he was very interested in making sure that we enjoyed ourselves.  I gave him a huge tip, hell it is the holiday season and he deserved it.  What a great guy.

That was followed up with dinner at Seasons 52 where I had another really nice dining experience.  That place has quickly rocketed up my favorite restaurants list.

On Sunday we had a “party” planned at another running club board member’s place.  This party was actually a ruse for what was really some mind numbing labor that I needed help with.  I had 2500 race bibs that needed to have 2500 timing devices affixed to them.

I loaded up the truck with several boxes of the raw materials needed for this project and then picked up Ali on the way.  I didn’t have a clear game plan of exactly how we were going to do this and still keep things accurate and organized.

When I received the timing devices I was also sent a file that mapped each bib to a unique sequential number.  The first device had a unique number ending in 7500, the next was 7501, then 7502, etc…  My plan at first was to make sure the bibs they were affixed to made sense, so 7501 would be bib 1, 7502, bib 2…

Well at it’s peak we probably had at least a dozen people there helping to affix the chip to the bib, which was a very tedious process.  The timing device just barely fit on the back of the bib and had to be carefully placed between the holes that are used for pins.  With two tables of people working away it almost felt like we were in a Chinese Iphone factory.

So early on in the process I decided that trying to keep the bibs associated with the timing device numbers was more trouble than it’s worth.  Instead I was having people just hand me their stacks of completed bibs and then I would run them one at a time over the USB scanner attached to a laptop.  This way people could work faster since they didn’t have to worry about matching specific tags to bibs and I got to double check that each timing device was functional.

This did definitely help speed things up for everyone else.  Unfortunately it made my job pretty immense.  Before long I had stacks upon stacks of bibs on the floor beside me, waiting to be scanned.  The army of bib assemblers far outpaced my ability to scan the bibs in.  I was probably scanning bibs close to an hour after the last one had been assembled.  My arm and back was aching by the end of it.  Out of the 2500 bibs I only had one that appeared to be dead.

Attending the bib party meant I didn’t catch any of the Eagles game which was no big deal as they once again lost, pretty much welding shut the door on Andy Reid’s tenure as the Eagles coach.

One thing I was interested in was how my fantasy football team was doing since I was in the championship game.  I wound up losing despite scoring a big 134 points.  It was a bit frustrating when I saw that if I would have started the San Diego defense instead of the Texans I could have pulled out a win.

So for the second time in my fantasy football career I came up one game short of winning it all.  Despite falling short, financially I made out well, more than doubling my $200 team entry fee in prize money.

Sunday night I had an unexpected and unpleasant visit from what felt like stomach flu/food poisoning.  All of a sudden I found myself feeling very cold, nauseous, and tired.  That was followed by a couple bathroom trips that were pretty horrific.  Thank goodness it came and went.

On Monday, Christmas Eve, I found myself with quite a long list of to do’s.  I had a number of last minute things to pick up as well as a bunch of things to get organized and wrapped at the house.

I was on the go for a good portion of the day but did find a few minutes to sneak in an attempt at the push up mode of this month’s BB challenge.

Obviously this holiday season has been very different from any other of my adult life with the relationship changes that have gone down in 2012.  One such difference was for the first time ever and I mean ever, I didn’t watch a single Christmas special, something in the past I always enjoyed and looked forward to.

This 2012 Christmas Eve followed the same unconventional feel.  It didn’t feel like Christmas Eve in the least unless I happened to turn the corner and saw the tree with presents surrounding it.

For years I have bitched and moaned how Christmas just never feels like I hoped it would anymore.  For some reason the fact that it doesn’t feel like it did when I was young still disappoints me, even though it is irrational to think it ever would feel the same.  It is what it is.

Another deviation from typical Christmas Eve protocol was the lack of my mom sleeping in the guest room.  Since moving to Florida mom has always come over the night before so she is around for the bright and early present opening ceremonies.  Mom had developed a pretty awful cold so we agreed I would just run out and pick her up Christmas morning.

I awoke Christmas morning later than expected.  When I talked to mom the day before I told her I would pick her up something like 7:00 to 7:30am.  When I said it I meant 7:30, mom took it as meaning as she needed to be ready to go at 7:00.  My eyes focused on the clock from my bed at 7:04am.

I got out of bed and called mom right away.  She was annoyed since she got herself up at 6 am since I told her I would be there by 7.  I reminded her I told her 7-7:30 but it didn’t make her feel any better.  I hopped in the SSR and hauled ass to her place, picking her up 15 minutes after my original 7:30 time window, oh well.

Ali was going to bring the dogs out around 9 so we decided that we would eat breakfast BEFORE opening any presents.  This was another “never before” thing.  Hell there were times the wrapping paper would start getting torn at 6AM.  Even with the blah adult Christmas experiences of recent years still, everything is already torn apart by 8AM.  This year a present wasn’t even touched till damn close to 10AM, wow.

The present stash understandably was different this year as Ali and I agreed to not buy anything for each other.  Despite this, I had quite a pile of gifts under the tree with a “S” on them.  Some of them were presents sent to me by my brother and dad which I wrapped.  However about half of them were the various self gifts I purchased myself.

Yea I guess it is weird but I still kind of enjoyed opening up my packages I wrapped myself with care.  Some of my self gift highlights were my Daisy air rifle and micro helicopter.

Despite our edict to not buy each other anything I did sneak in a gift for Ali.  It was something very practical that she needed, a Neato.  She felt bad that I did an end around of our agreement but I told her it was not a big deal.

Mom had a ton of little things to open up, most of them were somehow money related, the gift that keeps on giving. The dogs were excited as always to open their presents which included various toys and treats.

I got to talk to Todd and Torrin before taking mom back home.  While mom was on the phone with Todd I got to play with some of my toys.  I popped a few holes in a Diet Coke can from about 40-50 feet away with my air rifle.  It seems that the gun shoots left and low of the sight.  I will need to see what sort of adjustments I can make.  I quickly discovered that pumping an air rifle can be extremely tough on the forearms.

On my way back I stopped at Ali’s to set up the Neato.  We did a quick test run.  It looks like the Neato will be a big help with staying on top of the non-stop flow of dog fur that tries to take over Ali’s place.

When I got home I did still have one thing that is a long standing Christmas tradition, depression.  When the gift giving festivities are over, even on a year like this where I basically just bought crap for myself, I feel bummed out.  It always happens and I always dislike the feeling.

For whatever reason I find the process of cleaning up and putting away things very sullen.  It’s hard to verbalize why it still would bother me since Christmas isn’t really Christmas to much of a degree anymore.  Maybe it is just all the build up to the day from the outside world.  Even if I am not excited about the day, a lot of people are, and to have the big moment come and go must still deflate me.  Of course when I noticed later in the night that it also happens to be a full moon right now it helped to explain the bad feelings further.

During the afternoon I tried to put some of that negative energy to use out on the pull up bar.  I hoped to beat my one set max of 30 reps I pulled off a couple weeks ago.  I had to stop my momentum early on in the set because of some back and forth swinging that probably sabotaged my number as I only could manage 28 reps, still more than respectable.

Saturday night I was invited to a Christmas party held at the huge, beautiful house of the running club president.  I was seriously considering just bagging it and not going because of my mood and sort of feeling ill.  However when I talked to my dad later in the afternoon, mentioning both my bad mood and the party invite he said I should just go.  I took his advice since pushing myself into things that I am either uncomfortable with or not wanting to do has been a motto since the split. I hopped in the SSR and headed out.

I was one of the first guests to arrive.  I got to meet Mitch and Erica’s new dog, Diesel, he was such a loveable dog.  I lost count of how many times I petted him throughout the night.  I volunteered to help with the ton of things that were getting prepared.  At first I was the vegetarian chili stirrer.  Later I got to bake a pan of potato skins.  When given the choice, I would much rather have the option to do something while socializing.  Just sitting there and doing nothing but mingling is not my forte, at all.

I brought my own fun juice, a six pack of Bud Light Platinums.  I drank them all, so you can imagine I was quite affected for awhile, I was.  The alcohol helped loosen up my mouth and inhibitions, when the party was in full swing I was bouncing around pretty well.

I stuck around almost to the very end, Ali and a few others helped with clean up.  My primary role in the process was taking full recyclable bags out to the garage.  I headed out somewhere around 11.  I put on a sweatshirt and dropped the top on the SSR.  I had a nice drive home that included a full power acceleration onto the highway that touched triple digits very briefly. I love driving that truck.

I woke up this morning feeling like hell.  Calling in sick of work sounded like a very good idea.  Instead I did the honorable thing and drug my ass out of bed, sucked down some coffee at work and will plod ahead, clear of yet another Christmas day.

Last night after work I did my first running since my right knee blew up after the Mudder. It’s been a little more than two weeks since the injury.  To be honest, when it first happened I thought I would be laid up for longer than a couple weeks.  I ran with Kim and Heather, both of whom are better runners than I am, I knew I was going to be working hard.

In total we did a little less than 5 miles at close to an 8:40 pace, a pace I can keep when I have been running regularly.  To keep that pace with the sporadic running I have been doing the last few months was tough.  I managed to hang till the end, barely.

Hopefully I get to run with them more often, it was fun and they’re both very nice and easy to talk to.  Running with people faster than yourself is the best way to raise your level.

For the third time this week I found myself awake in the middle of the night for extended periods of time.  This time I woke up at 1:45 am and probably didn’t get back to sleep until at least 3.  I was happy to see that at least so far, the end of days had not occurred.

I wouldn’t call us in the clear quite yet.  Some of the science based Earth destruction scenarios could still go down before Saturday hits like a dark comet strike, massive solar flares or the massive underground volcano in Yellowstone blowing it’s top.

This is shaping up to be quite a busy weekend.  It starts off with timing a race Saturday morning in what promises to be pretty frigid temperatures by Florida standards.  The thermometer is predicted to be solidly in the 40’s about the time I will be outside setting up for the race.  I’ve already told Ali that she can skip coming to the race since she hates cold with a red hot passion.  Plus, it’s her birthday.

On Sunday I will be lugging several boxes to Mary’s place for a bib chip affixing “party” where we will be sticking timing chips on roughly 2000 race bibs for the half marathon.   It’s going to be quite the production.

In between those things I will be knocking out chores and finishing up last minute Christmas items.  The good news is I have 4 straight days off since we get Xmas eve as well as Christmas Day off.

I’ve had a couple boxes start showing up on the doorstep for me from family for my birthday and Christmas.  I have been just wrapping them in paper and throwing them under the tree.  At least it makes the tree look more official.

My mom, Ali and I have not come up with a rock solid game plan for how Christmas is going to go down.  It is going to feel strange and awkward for all of us in one way or another.  We’ll get through it. It is what it is.

It seems that since we are potentially perched upon the eve of destruction that I would have something eclectic or deep to express.  But I don’t.  See you on the other side, or Saturday, whichever comes first.

I stumbled across this in my FB feed last night.  Being both a huge Peanuts fan and someone with a sense of humor, I found this to be hilarious.

After dinner I finally got around to messing with the bibs and timing chips we will be using for this years half marathon.  This year we are going with a bib based timing device instead of the reusable sneaker based chip.

Because of the size of this race (2000+) runners, handing out and collecting timing devices at the end can be very labor intensive and problematic.  With a bib based timing device we allow runners to totally avoid standing in line the day of the race if they pick their packet up early.  We also avoid the hassle of pulling chips off of 2000 feet at the finish line as well as the arduous task of sorting the chips afterward.

We had hoped this year to buy bibs that already had the timing device incorporated into them but they were unavailable at this time.  Instead we bought 3000 of the timing devices that have to be attached to our existing race bibs. It’s a trade off where you trade back end labor for front end prep.

I did a handful of bibs last night just to see how hard/easy the prep would be.  I came away realizing we are going to need a lot of help to get the job done.  The bib tags barely fit on the back of the race bib.  In order to fit they need to be very carefully placed between the holes utilized for safety pins.

I also need to scan each bib tag to make sure it is functional to minimize race day timing holes, which will take more time.

Luckily one of our board members who is more geographically centered than I am offered to let us use her house as the location for a bib preparation “party” this weekend.  It is going to be quite the production.

Last night I found myself in bed quite early, tired from my late night Homeland/Dexter session the night before.  I hardly flipped through a few pages of Wired before I turned off the light a little after 9.  Unfortunately I negated the early bed time by waking up several times during the night for prolonged periods of time, the first of which was at 12:45.  Each time I woke up it took awhile to get my brain to shut back down as things were dancing around in there.

A dream I had woke me up one of those times.  It was too horrible to even type out here.

So last night I had another piece of my homemade chocolate cake.  This piece was more towards the center where the pan cracked.  This section of cake definitely had a burned/smokey element to it, not surprising since it was sitting on top of a hot burner.  It still was plenty edible.  I’m looking forward to making the cake again without the auxiliary heating.

I stayed up until midnight watching the season finale of both Homeland and Dexter, both delivered with improbable endings that leave viewers desperate to know what happens next.  I now go from having four must see shows each week (Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, Homeland, Walking Dead) to none.  At least I can get caught up on some reading now.

I do have the resumption of Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones to look forward to, if the world doesn’t end Friday.

So I won my second fantasy football playoff game.  I had some luck this week.  I scored 101 points which is a decent, but not huge number.  My opponent had just awful luck with his players, I beat him by 41 points.

This means for the second time I find myself in the league championship game.  The last time I made it to the big game I lost.  I am hoping to finally  do something my Eagles have never done, win it all.  If I manage to do so I would also win a nice little wad of dough which would be a sweet bonus.

Winning would also be ironic, as I am pretty sure that I have put the least effort into my team of anyone in the league.  I think I made the fewest transactions of anyone and put absolutely zero prep into my draft.  The only savy move I made all year was snagging Bryce Brown, whom has come up very small the last two games.

I’m crossing my fingers.  If I win, the beer is on me.

I’m not going to add my two cents regarding the awful shootings on Friday.  It’s a horrible, unthinkable act that unfortunately seems to be happening more and more frequently.  I prefer to keep Monday light.

On Friday night I thought I would swing into Costco to grab a few things. Woah, it was mobbed.  Luckily the store is so big that it can accommodate a large chunk of humanity.  I found myself back at the Green Machine aisle.

I noticed that the riding toy was actually rated all the way up to 180 pounds which I found encouraging since I tip the scales under that number.  Still, I didn’t pull the trigger.  I did feel a bit of concern that the number of Green Machines they had left were significantly smaller than just a week ago.

Friday I also received a box in the mail.  The Office Depot return address indicated it probably came from Randall.

I had to laugh when I saw the joke box,  which indicated I was the proud owner of an iArm.  However inside was a cool “Body by Duff” t-shirt.  It is a reference to the Simpsons and Duff beer but it serves a cool second meaning in my case. 🙂  He also included a Duff beer zip up bottle case.  Both gifts put a smile on my face.

On Saturday I wanted to do the best I could to clear my plate for Sunday so my birthday could be devoid of chores.  After knocking them out and giving the SSR a much needed bath I was ready to begin my first attempt ever at baking my favorite chocolate cake.

I thought the cake was so good that putting the process on video tape was a worthwhile effort so I could share the goodness with others in the cyber kingdom.   The early stages of the cake creation process were pretty straight forward.  I threw all the ingredients in the rarely used Kitchen Aid mixer and flipped it on.

When I went to pour the mix into the cake pan I realized why Ali always used a simple hand mixer instead.  The bottom of the bowl had a bunch of goopy solids.  That is the one issue with the Kitchen Aid, the beaters do not reach the bottom of the bowl.

So I wound up pouring the mixture clumsily from the stoneware pan back into the bowl and then hit it for a minute or two with the hand mixer.  I poured it back into the pan, hoping it was good enough.

So while the cake was in the oven I started on making the icing.  The icing is the star of the show with this cake and it requires some odd prep.  The first thing I had to do was blend milk and flour in a double boiler.

Now I don’t have an actual double boiler but I do have a set of nested pots.  I dumped some water in a larger pot and then placed a smaller pot inside it.  It just floated there.  From what I heard, using a double boiler is a way to prevent from burning something, it delivers an even heat.

So I flipped the front burner to the highest setting and waited a minute or two before I started stirring.  Well before long the water in the pot was at a full boil.   I assume I added too much water because as I stirred, scalding hot water started to erupt from the sides, covering the stove top in water and burning my fingers several times.  Less water and a lower temperature setting on the burner probably would have been advised.

Despite the mess, I wound up with what I think was proper icing base.  It had to cool before I could move forward with it’s prep.

So at this point I was just waiting for the cake to finish baking.  My mom had warned me that it typically takes longer than the 25-30 minute listed baking time.  She was right.  I pulled it out a couple times and it was still wet in the middle.

So I pulled the cake out a third time, by now it had probably been in the oven for at least 35 minutes.   The middle of it finally looked pretty solid.  I reached for a fork to test the middle and this happened.

I was startled and shocked.  Why in the world would the Pampered Chef stoneware cake pan all of a sudden crack in half??  My first theory was because the pan was warm and sitting on a burner that it wasn’t supported that well and broke.  Maybe stoneware is weaker when hot?

As my broken cake sat there I smelled and saw small wisps of smoke coming up.  Then it hit me.  I glanced at the front burner control and saw it was still turned on at setting 5, cool enough that the burner was not red but hot enough to crack a piece of stoneware.  I felt like an idiot. I could only laugh out loud at myself.

I quickly squeezed the pan together and sat it on the pizza stone.  At first I thought I would have to transfer the cake to something else.  Later I decided a simple duct tape job would suffice for now.  Obviously I wasn’t going to glue the pan back together.

Alison was not thrilled to hear I broke one of her prized Pampered Chef products.  Later that night I hopped on Ebay and bought her a replacement.

So ss the busted cake cooled I turned my attention back to the icing.  The goop had a cup of sugar and two full sticks of real butter added to it and blended together.  NOW you see why it tastes so good.  After mixing I did a quick taste test.  The icing was as I remembered which was exciting.

Finally when the cake cooled I applied the icing and this was the final product.  If you ignore the duct tape, it looks pretty legit.  Unfortunately I was not going to do a taste test of the final product until my actual birthday, anything else would be sacrilegious.

If you want to see the entire cake creation process, go here.

So Sunday arrived, bringing with it my 45th birthday.  I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel weird with my new living circumstances.

Ali needed me to watch the dogs on Sunday so we worked out an arrangement.  She agreed to bring them out to the house early and serve as my tractor driver for the death crawl.  I will cover the attempt more on Dufisthenics but briefly, it is a physical challenge I came up with where I would tow the tractor to the back fence line and back while in a bear (death) crawl.  I did this challenge once before with no load and it was tough enough.

The attempt had one glitch when the tractor popped out of neutral as I approached the fence.  I had to break form for a minute to put it back in.  However I did manage to pull the 500+ total pounds of weight the entire distance.  It got really uncomfortable towards the end.

If you would like to see the video of the attempt, which featured a unique two camera view, go here.

Later in the day I decided I had not beat myself enough and put in 100 pull up reps, trying to do it in the least amount of time possible.

Other than those two physical challenges, my birthday was pretty tame/boring.  Although I did receive a couple birthday presents in the mail, it was the first time in my life that I didn’t open a present on my birthday.  Yes it was weird thing to wrap my head around.

When Ali picked the dogs up we had some of the chocolate cake.  I was a bit apprehensive what I was going to be putting into my mouth after the cake breaking incident.  I was surprised that it was quite good.  It was probably a little dry because of the supplemental super heating that took place but when mixed with the icing and a cold glass of milk the taste experience was definitely positive.  Ali agreed that I did a good job.

Ali told me she started giving Nicki the the thyroid medicine again.  I could tell before she even told me.  As soon as I touched Nicki I felt her fur again had dried out.  She also did four or five number 2’s while she was at the house and was hitting the water bowl a ton.  It’s pretty incredible how quickly and drastically half of a little blue pill can take effect.

Ali knows I don’t approve but she is worried that not having the pill is hurting Nicki’s energy level.  After being on the pill for something like 5 or 6 weeks we can have Nicki’s numbers tested to see where she is at with her thyroid levels.  I have a feeling that number will come in sky high but we will just have to wait and see.

Earlier in the week I cracked open my lunch box like I do everyday.  I poured some of my almond milk out of the same pint container into the same plastic cup that I use everyday.  I took a sip of the milk and immediately noticed a very odd, chemical smell.  It almost smelled like glue.

My senses were short circuited, the milk tasted ok but when I put my nose up to the cup and container they had the awful smell.  I figured I must have gotten a bad carton of almond milk.  I just hoped it didn’t make me sick so I poured the rest out.

When I got home I opened up the carton of almond milk and sniffed it.  Hmmmm, smells absolutely normal, wtf??  I threw the smelly cup and container in the dishwasher and ran it.  They emerged smell free.

I wasn’t quite sure where the toxic smell came from but it was gone now.

So the next day when I pull out lunch AGAIN the stink is back.  Ok, so I know it isn’t my cup, it isn’t my container and it isn’t the almond milk.  I realize it is the damn ice pack bag.  Evidently one of them sprung a small leak and was leeching fumes from whatever substance is inside them.  The fumes apparently will make plastic items stink like they came out of a tube of super glue, mystery solved.

I made about 100 cookies for the office Xmas party that is being held today.  To call it a “party” is sort of misleading.  To me, a Christmas party that is held during office hours and does not involve alcohol isn’t really a party at all.  This event is just basically a bunch of people stuffing their face and little else.  The only social interaction is when you are standing in line with your plate.  Oh well.

This Sunday is my 45th birthday.  To even type that out seems unbelievable.  How in the world can I be 45?  Every year I say the same thing about getting older, how each year feels like it goes faster than the last, getting old sucks, etc….

This year I will try to be a bit more positive in my reflection of the last year.  My 44th year has certainly been very eventful on a personal level with my separation going down.  It has been a learning experience on many levels.  From a physical perspective, despite my age, I set a ton of physical bests/firsts in the past year, a trend I hope to continue until I am brought to my knees by the relentless march of time . And of course from a mental perspective, I will always be the kid trapped inside an adult’s body.

Although I certainly can’t stop time, I can at least hang on the hands of the clock to slow it down a bit.  I might do a few pull ups while I am there.