In your face, Gravity, Dirty 30, best of the worst, 160k

My new LG tv showed up on Friday.  I didn’t waste much time before I unboxed it and had it set up in the bedroom.  The new bigger set was a much better fit for the wall it occupies than the 32 inch set it replaced.   The set was an “open box” Amazon warehouse deal so I was a bit nervous when I unboxed the set and saw all of the accessory bags free of the tape that once secured them.  I was afraid there could be some sort of flaw in the tv.  I felt better when I turned it on and the picture looked beautiful and bright.

I do have one issue, I can not get the tv to connect to my home wifi network.  It sees the network but fails when I try to authenticate to it.  Luckily since my house is hard wired with ethernet in every room I was able to jack the tv in that way and flip my Xbox over to a wireless connection.  I perused some of the massive amount of features and apps available on the tv but only enough to know I needed to spend some serious time familiarizing myself with just everything the tv can do. I also slapped on one of the 4 pair of 3D glasses to do a static test of 3D picture, low and behold the image had 3 dimensions, very cool.

Saturday was a busy day.  Because of my on again off again right knee pain a long Saturday morning run was off the menu.  Instead I worked on various things around the house.  Cindy was off on Saturday and was nice enough to help me get stuff done.  The messiest and largest time consumer of all of the chores was attending to the yard.  I have been putting off mowing/weed whacking the grass, hoping that the regular downpours that have drowned my property in standing water would  subside.  Unfortunately that has not been the case.

Well the yard HAD to be addressed at this point.  Cindy was happy to run the tractor.  I told her to avoid the high water areas, that I would weed whack them down.    I donned my mid shin water proof boots and embarked on a wet, muddy and slimy 90 minute plus weed whacking session.  I knocked down everything I could, including the trenches out front.  At some points the water was a couple inches below the top of my boots, threatening to flood my feet.  I am so tired of all of this water.

On Saturday night we went to go see Gravity, a movie I was looking forward to seeing.  The movie was suspenseful and visually amazing.  I have no idea how they did some of those shots, it looked so damn realistic.  It made space seem like a very, very beautiful but terrifying place.

The odd thing is overall, I don’t have a pristine rating for the movie, I’d give it a B+ . Maybe it was the routine lack of believability in the outcomes of dire situations, maybe it was the miniscule cast of characters involved.  I remember when the previews came out I was wondering how they were going to build an entire movie about the space shuttle getting blown apart.  After watching the movie I would have to say the answer is, they didn’t do it as well as I hoped.

Yea it is a movie that benefits from a movie theater 3D environment.  It may be worth seeing for the visuals alone.

We took the SSR to the movies.  When I was driving it I immediately noticed the clutch feel was different, the engagement felt sloppy.  I was concerned I had another automotive issue to worry about.  Well shortly before getting to the theater I looked down.  I noticed the rubber floor mat was pushed way forward.  It was piling up under the pedals, causing the weird feel.  Once I pulled the mat to it’s normal position the clutch went back to feeling more or less normal, whew.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I had decided to try a different bike ride, from the house out to Ave Maria, or as I like to call it, Catholic Town.  The ride would be a long one since the town center is 15 miles from my house.  I never have logged 30 miles on a road bike.

On the positive side, much of the ride was on the newly widened Oil Well Road.  The road, except for a small section is wide with tons of room and small amounts of traffic.  It is a great road to bike on.

On the way out there was a headwind that was just enough to be annoying.  Cindy and I took 5 mile long shifts of leading so the other could benefit from the draft.  By the time we got out to Catholic Town my man parts were killing me, despite wearing two pairs of bike pants/shorts and swapping my more comfortable seat onto the Dawes.  I have no idea how people do century rides (100 miles) without a stream of blood running down their thighs.

We parked at Publix and went inside for a chocolate milk recovery drink.  Walking on the hard store floors in bike shoes requires very small strides and a slow pace unless you want to wind up on your ass.  While we were finishing our drinks outside we saw a couple walk up with a big but young lab named Oscar.  He was funny, he was friendly but afraid to come right up to you.  Instead he would bound around, doing circles just out of reach.

Ave Maria had changed since I have been there last.  The gas station that was started but left uncompleted for years is finally open.  There also was a lot of construction going on and the most people milling around that I have ever seen.  We were there right around church time so that might have explained the additional activity.  Before we headed out we took a quick selfie behind the extravagant church at the center of town.

The ride back was tough.  We had better wind conditions but we also were maintaining a higher pace, mostly in the 19-20 mph range.  My crotch pain made things even less fun.  The total ride of 30 and a half miles was a milestone for me.  We covered the distance in a little less than 1:45 which worked out to an average pace of 17.7 mph.  I was quite spent by the end of it.

I picked up the dogs so they could spend the afternoon out at the house.   I got back just in time for the Eagles/Giants game.  The Giants so far this year have established themselves as awful, they were 0-4 and their defense actually appeared to be worse than the Eagles.  You can imagine my excitement when the Giants took their opening possession and marched right down the field and scored a touchdown.  I was quite ready for the Eagles to deliver yet another underwhelming performance.

Mike Vick, who literally did nothing with his arm in the game before going out with a hamstring pull, made his contribution on the ground, scrambling for a lot of yards.  When Nick Foles came in right before halftime I really didn’t care.  I figured the Eagles would find a way to lose the game no matter who is behind center.  The defense was once again poor but luckily the Giants shot themselves in the foot enough for the Eagles to prevail in the end.

It is pretty laughable that the Eagles are tied for first place in the the division with a 2-3 record.  This years NFC east might be the weakest NFL division in DECADES.  Any wins the Birds get this year are just gravy to me.  A team with this defense just has no shot of going anywhere.

Thank goodness for Tony Romo, his MASSIVE numbers in the Cowboys loss to the Broncos looks like it will single handily get me my first fantasy football win of the season.  Much like the Eagles, my fantasy team appears to be in for a long year.

Last night I watched Flight, a movie I wanted to see for awhile.  The movie was quite good and did a great job of making a person never want to fly or be an alcoholic.  A-

I also put the new TV to it’s first 3D movie test, watching some of Avatar in 3D.  The picture was fantastic and the 3D effects were every bit as good as anything I have seen in theaters.  I’m quite happy with my new piece of entertainment tech.

The Tacoma flipped 160,000 miles this morning.  I have never driven a vehicle as many miles as I have on this truck.  When I bought it back in 2000, it had right around 30,000 miles on the odometer.  It has been a very faithful and reliable companion for most of the journey.  I hope to be able to ride on to 200k and beyond.