Archives June 2014

I had a busy, busy Saturday.  Outside my first waking hour spent playing some Hearthstone the rest of my day was spent with the foot on the gas pedal.  After weeding the property and filling the bird feeders I hopped in the truck.  I needed to pick up some stuff at Home Depot and Rural King.  One of the things I was hoping to get was some new chicken wire to redo the top of the run where the plastic coated chicken wire is starting to break.  I was surprised that all Rural King had was plain old galvanized chicken wire.  I wound up ordering some pvc chicken wire with Amazon on my phone as I walked out of the store.

When I got back I hopped on the mower to complete the now necessary weekly grass trimming.  I was very thankful for my mower canopy as it was around 1PM and broiling hot outside with stifling humidity.  There was not a cloud in the sky to provide even momentary relief otherwise.  I was then doing work on the west side of the house, the sunny side,re-securing the sprinkler control box that was pulling loose from the wall.  The sweat was rolling off me non-stop as the sun baked me twice, once on my back and then again on the face is it bounced off the wall.  It was miserable, I felt like a piece of a meat in the broiler.  I had to go in several times to gulp down water as it felt dangerous to not do so.

I then grabbed the container of Thompsons water seal I bought at Home Depot and got busy with my annual protection of the bar park and other wood objects in the landscape.  This time I didn’t get the plain water seal, I got stain/sealer, the color was listed as redwood.  The stain made everything look a different shade. I think it looked the best on the bar park support posts and the worst on the border around the dog deck.  I was out there till almost 6PM brushing the stuff on.  My lower back was pretty much locked up by the time I was done after painting the ramps for the two sheds.

Cindy and I had plans to go see the new Transformers movie Saturday night.  My non-stop work day made me doubtful of my ability to stay awake for a nearly 3 hour long movie, especially with us not being able to get there until the 8PM showing.  I took a shower and we headed out anyway.

I had expressed my thoughts on prior Transformer movies in the blog last week.  Those feelings were not lessened by several HORRIBLE reviews forwarded to me by my buddy Sean, who was unable to see the movie with us.  I told Cindy about the horrible reviews but she said she doesn’t like to pre-judge a movie by others opinions.  Granted, there have been movies I have enjoyed that some critics said were shitty so surely I am a supporter of forming your own opinion.  However since I had already formed an opinion on the previous Transformer films, seeing more bad press didn’t give me much hope.  I did hope that adding Mark Wahlberg to the cast and eliminating Shia LeBouf would make a significant difference, it didn’t.

After watching a ridiculous 24 minutes of previews, the movie starts up.  The first 30 minutes or so was fine but then things went right down the established Transformers path, horrible writing, ridiculous, awkward insertion of one liners, and explosions exploding on top of explosions.  In my conservative estimation, at least a 100,000 people would have died in the collateral damage from these robots gone wild.  Marky Mark takes on almost Superman-like aura as the film progresses.  By the end of it he is somehow able to go toe to toe with an evil robot that is 100 times his size.  At times I had to hide my face in embarrassment for the actors on screen, it was soooo stupid.

Cindy thought I was overly harsh in my criticism of the film.  SHe wrote off much of the stupidity with “It’s Transformers!”, meaning that the series is supposed to have a lot of stupidity in it. After the movie I commented that I felt like I lost IQ points watching it but to be honest, I think I felt the same leaving the theater after all Transformer movies.  Transformer movies make tons of money despite their plentiful idiotic aspects.  People like robots that turn into cool looking cars and explosions.  If it isn’t broke don’t fix it I guess.  Personally I give the film a C.  If you saw the other films, you saw this one.

Originally Cindy and I discussed getting up and going running Sunday morning however the late movie, “sleeping in” until 7:30, already warm/humid weather and both of us feeling sore and stiff discarded that plan.  Plus we had a lot of things we wanted to get done.  We did our coffee run followed by a trip to Target where we saw some good deals on clearance patio furniture.  We talked about coming back later to pick up a cool heavy metal picnic table and 9 foot umbrella to restore some functionality to the dog deck.

While we were out I got a call from a woman I spoke to earlier in the week regarding buying the original chicken coop I bought.  She actually is up in New Jersey right now but is moving down to Cape Coral in about a month.  She had chickens before and is looking to pick up 3 hens when she moves back down.  She really liked my coop, especially for the money.  She had made arrangements for her ex-husband to come pick up the coop for her by proxy and he was available to do so that moment.

I told the woman that was fine but I had wanted to use the animal safe wood sealant I bought on the coop.  Since her ex was coming from Cape Coral as well which is a pretty long haul, I figured I would have time to get it done before he arrived.  As soon as Cindy and I got home I cracked open the can of sealant and got busy.  I was in the full sun the entire time and despite it still being relatively early, I was drenched in sweat in no time at all.  Just as the guy backed his truck into the driveway I was finishing up.  The coop looked very nice when I was done, despite it’s lack of structural integrity.

The guy worked in farming all of his life and definitely looked the role.  In addition to the wood coop he was transporting I showed him my chicken tractor out back. He thought it was really cool and took down the web site address to show his ex-wife, perhaps she will be upgrading to a tractor down the road. We loaded the wood coop on the back of the truck and I collected my two $100 bills.  I felt a big sense of relief as the truck pulled out, meaning my initial purchase had at least not been a total loss and that the large section of garage floor space it was consuming was now available once again.

Speaking of the garage floor, Cindy made a rather disgusting discovery Sunday morning, maggots crawling around on that same floor.  I found the corpse of a dead frog nearby, I assume that is where they came from.  There were a ton of them up and down the side of the garage that leads to the house.  I used the shop vac to eliminate them, it was really gross. In general, the flies have been very oppressive the last couple weeks.  I was happy to eliminate at least a few dozen potential flies from reaching adulthood.

One of the things we wanted to get done on Sunday was cleaning out the smaller shed to utilize it more for chicken accessories.  I had not gone through that shed thoroughly in years.  As a result I wound up pulling out a ton of stuff that I no longer wanted/needed.  Most of it went out to the road to hopefully be adopted by a local pack rat, the rest went in the trash.

The chickens got their first taste of true freedom yesterday as wel let them loose while we were doing work on their housing.  As we expected they were scared at first but it didn’t take long for them to take advantage of their freedom.  They started scratching the ground repeatedly, something they can’t really do in their coop/run because of the safety wire that is on the bottom.  Before long all three of them had dug little holes in the ground and were comfortably sitting in them.  Cindy and I were concerned the chickens might be all over the yard and require close supervision. It seemed our concerns were overinflated.  The chickens pretty much stayed within a 30 feet square area behind the pool cage.  They enjoyed both the shade that area has and the mulch which they loved digging through.

While the chickens were having fun Cindy and I were making additions to the chicken run.  I added one of Tuki’s old bird toys with a bell, a pvc chicken swing and an old perch which I haphazardly screwed into the half bike frame.  Cindy made her own chicken swing using a different design.  Thus far I haven’t seen any of the chickens use either swing as they are intended to be used. I also set up a hanging feeder instead of the ground based feeder we had before.  The chickens seemed to be big fans of eating at a higher elevation and the feeder is protected from the elements this way.

Cindy’s daughter stopped out for a couple hours on Sunday to see the chickens.  She thought it was cool how inquisitive they were.  We bought two new treats for the chickens over the weekend, cracked corn and dried mealworms.  Surprisingly the mealworms didn’t seem to go over that big with the birds but they went nuts for the corn.  We limited how much of the corn we gave them, according to the instructions the corn consumption needs to regulated.

Getting the chickens back into their housing wasn’t as troublesome as we anticipated either.  We had visions of having to chase chickens all over the back yard.  Instead Cindy was able to calmly grab each chicken and pet them as she placed them back into the coop.  You could tell that the girls were not thrilled returning to captivity after getting a taste of freedom. Shortly after the chickens were put back in some VERY severe thunder storms rolled in, unleashing torrential rain and brutal lightning and thunder.  Cindy felt bad the chickens had to be out there in such conditions.

We were trying to watch my latest Netflix rental, Pompeii, in the middle of the storm.  I say trying because the power went out four times during the movie.  Each momentary blackout required me to go through an annoying process to get back to where we left off.  It was REALLY annoying when literally 15 seconds after getting the film rolling again the power again flicked off. I thought the movie was good, sort of a hybrid between Gladiator and Armageddon (in an ancient Roman way).  Getting obliterated by a volcano is not for wimps. I’d give the movie a B+ and would take it over any Transformers movie to date. It was odd seeing Jack Bauer play the head bad guy in the film.

We did go back to Target later in the day to grab the picnic table and umbrella.  Cindy is supposed to assemble it today sometime during her day off.

So I got it in my head that I wanted to get the carpets cleaned in the house last night, a rather ambitious plan for a Thursday evening.  Cleaning the carpet is a task that just never gets done as much as it should be, especially with the dogs in the house.  I bet it has been 3-4 months since it was last done if not longer.

So after setting the Scooba loose in the kitchen, I pulled out my 4-5 year old Bissel, filled it with fluid and wheel it back to the bedroom to get started.  I immediately notice that I see no cleaning solution getting sucked into the machine.  A little more investigation revealed this was because there was no fluid getting shot out of the nozzles.  I also saw that the guts of the brush area was very dirty, stuffed with dog hair and other organic matter. Great, the last thing I felt like doing was fixing the steam cleaner.

So I start pulling it apart and clean it the best I could.  I cracked the case body apart and pulled the two spray nozzles.  When I pulled the solution trigger with no nozzles I was only getting fluid out of the right side.  Well that was all I really needed to flip the “fck it I will just get a new one” switch in my head.

I have never really liked my rug cleaner.  When I bought it I opted for the less expensive model.  It had a small cleaning head and a small solution tank that I wound up having to refill 5 times to clean the house.  The water heating feature it supposedly had required you to let the unit sit for a couple minutes before using it and even then, didn’t appear to heat the water at all.  Hence, the idea of putting it on the curb for a problem that I may have been able to fix myself was a no brainer. When Cindy got home I told her she didn’t have to worry about dinner prep, we could eat at Panera and then shoot over to Target to get a new rug cleaner.

This time I went for the bigger, better Bissel model.  We got it home and within 15 minutes I had it together and had started the rug cleansing.  The first thing I noticed was the new cleaner is like a heavy tank compared to what I used to have.  The big solution reservoir, especially when filled to the top with cleaning solution makes the rug cleaner very HEAVY.  I told Cindy that carpet cleaning from this point on should exclusively be man work because of the force required to push and pull a machine of this weight several hundred times.  Within the first 5 minutes my right shoulder started to burn.

Other than the weight, everything else about the new cleaner was all good.  The heating system is obviously much improved over previous models, the solution felt warm right from the get go and never varied.  The 10 rows of brushes in the wider cleaning head did a great job of refreshing the carpet.  I also was able to be more efficient cleaning since the wider head and much bigger tank let me clean more footage per swipe and go much longer in between tank fills.  It took me just over two tanks to clean the master bedroom, main living space, the dining room and office.  This model also comes with a head attachment to clean hard surfaces as well so if my Scooba bites the dust I am not relegated to scummy mop and bucket cleaning duty.

Of course trying to half heartedly fix the old cleaner and then running out to buy a new one pushed my cleaning late into the night.  I didn’t finish up until after 9:30.  The amount of dog hair that was pulled out of what appeared to be pretty well swept carpets was pretty crazy and made the effort seem worthwhile.

This weekend I have a number of things that could capture my attention.  I would like to replace the wire on the top of the auxiliary chicken run as it is getting brittle and has already broken at several places.  Cindy and I also have a Sunday Rural King run planned to further augment our chicken care supplies.  We also plan to let the chickens out to roam the yard some on Sunday, under our close supervision.

Saturday night Cindy and I will be going out to see Transformers with our buddy Sean.  I have had a love hate relationship with the movie series over the years.  Some aspects of the films are really cool but they are almost always balanced out with an equal amount of stupidity.  Having Marky Mark in this latest film should definitely be an upgrade over Shia LeBouf IMO.

Last night was the first time the chickens were out in a thunderstorm, a pretty severe one at that.  When it started I walked out in the rain to make sure they were ok.  They were all hanging out under the main coop and seemed to be fine, despite the lightning and thunder crashing down.  The one thing that was not fine was their food dispenser which is close to the edge of the run area.  It was filled with water, turning the feed into mush.  Once the rain let up I pulled the feeder out and replaced it with a smaller feeder we have which I could keep more under the coop where it was less likely to get rained on. It also seemed like the chickens actually liked the rain, all three of them looked wet, like they must have went out to the end of the run to get rained on intentionally.  I know Tuki likes to give himself a bath in his water bowl at times so perhaps chickens actually like taking “showers” now and then?

So in addition to Craigslist, I listed my original chicken coop the other day on a Collier County online yard sale group on Facebook.  I figured the more free spots I can advertise it, the better.   So I placed the ad and in it included a link to the coop online where somebody could verify how much the thing costs new.

Before very long I had some interest but the offer submitted via a Facebook private message was super low ball, $150.  I responded back to the guy, pointing out that he was asking for a 66% discount on a brand new item that I already assembled.  I told him I would be willing to let him have it for 200.

The guy responds back that he can buy the coop brand new for $266 from Amazon with free shipping.  I knew this was not the case but I asked him to send a link showing this to me.  The link he sends is of a totally different and much smaller coop, wtf, is he blind?  I then send him the link to the correct coop on Amazon, along with the $455 price tag.  That was the end of our PM exchange, I assumed he was just trying to throw the bullshit number out as a negotiation tool.I had an even more ridiculous number of $100 thrown at me which I ignored.

So later last night I see this same guy posted on the public thread for my ad AGAIN that my coop only cost $266 brand new, despite my clearly illustrating to him earlier that it was not.  Obviously this guy was now just being a troll.  I again corrected him, publicly this time.  I found the episode quite annoying.  I have a couple potential leads on the coop but as of now it still is taking up a parking space in the garage next to the SSR.

DISCLAIMER: Video game paragraph for those of you that have an allergic reaction to gaming talk. Last night I finished the single player portion of the Diablo expansion, Reaper of Souls, taking down Malfael after 5 or 6 attempts.  I used a very unrefined and random strategy to survive the fight which takes close to 10 minutes to complete.  Basically I ran around the room away from him (playing my monk) whenever he was doing stuff that looked painful (most of the time).  I would only engage him for a few seconds at a time and I tried to only do so when I was close to some health pots to keep me alive.  When he went down it was cool and opened up additional game modes that I can use to raise the level of my monk and all of my other characters quickly.

Cindy joined me for a short cooperative Diablo session later.  She likes playing but all of the mouse clicking the game requires is tough on her hands which are beat up from too many years working for the post office.  She is part of my two person Diablo clan, named Team Z.  Ok game talk over.

My buddy Lou sent me a video of him demolishing logs with a new 17 pound mega maul that I sent up to him.  Lou busted up his sledgehammer a couple weeks ago splitting firewood.  I told him he should get a maul, which is a combo of a sledgehammer and an axe.  He agreed but before he could buy one himself I had already ordered the biggest, heaviest and meanest one I could find on Amazon for him. The thing is all steel and looks like it could split almost anything.  I regularly tap Lou’s videos for inspiration, a mega maul was only a small token of my appreciation.  If you want to see him exploding some logs with it, click below.

So I had a lot to do when I got home last night, pretty much all of it had to do with taking care of the animals.  I headed out to the chickens first.  I pulled out their water and food dispensers so I could work on removing the lower level perch bar that was in the way.  The work environment was not very pleasant.  The area had a considerable amount of chicken shit on the ground which in turn attracted an even more considerable amount of flies.

The chickens were curious what I was doing.  One of them came over to me a couple times assuming I had something for her to eat since that is what they associate me with.  I held up my screwdriver, allowing the chicken to peck it to verify it wasn’t edible, before going back to work.  Pulling out the perch allowed me to move the food container freely, relieving the congestion that existed previously.  My eventual plan is to mount the perch at the end of the auxiliary run where it will be easily accessible without being in the way.  I will coordinate that with replacing the chicken wire on the top of the run which is getting brittle and rusty in spots.

I then cleaned and refilled the chicken’s water and food.  The water coming out of the hose was warm because the water equipment bakes in the afternoon sun.  I went inside and grabbed a bunch of ice cubes to knock the temp down before putting it back inside the coop.  The food had some poop in it as well, reenforcing the need to use a smaller, hanging, covered food dispenser in the future.

I then tackled the not fun job of giving the dogs a bath solo.  Cindy offered to help but she was stuck at work late and I didn’t feel like waiting.  Nicki just sat calmly in the tub as I suds-ed her up, Sadie is much more of a pain in the ass to try to do solo.  She insists on creeping forward and pushing her head over the edge of the tub during bathing which results in both her and myself getting thoroughly soaked in the process.  After I was done washing them both my shirt and shorts were very wet and hairy.

Last night we fed the chickens more treats including leftover salad greens and spinach pasta.  They seemed to really like the pasta, perhaps as much as strawberries.  It’s funny seeing them take turns stealing food from each other.  They also had spurts of chasing each other around, we aren’t sure if it was outright aggression or just chicken play.  Hopefully this weekend we can let the chickens free range around the yard a bit although it won’t be without us in the same general vicinity standing guard.

So as new chicken owners, Cindy and I obviously have been doing a lot of observation during this first 48 hours.  We were happy to see that chickens are very happy eating kitchen scraps.  We gave them some cut up strawberries and apple yesterday.  Both foods were welcomed by our new feathered pets. We looked up the list of other things a chicken can safely eat, the list is quite long.

I also identified an issue with the way we have the food and water laid out, more or less side by side on the one end of the run.   Having both items so close mean the chickens are going to spend a lot of time in that spot which in turn means a ton of chicken shit will accumulate as well.  There was enough mess there that I actually picked up the coop and moved it already last night to get the birds on fresher grass.

The solution to this issue would be to stick the food on the opposite corner from the water.  The problem is we got a feeder that is suitable for a flock of 30 birds, not 3.  It’s too large to get past the roost bar that is located on the first level so there is really nowhere to go with the feeder.

I saw two solutions.  One of them is to get a smaller feeder that will fit over the roost bar.  The second is to relocate the roost bar.  I am more of a fan of option number two.  The lower level roost bar is not in a very practical spot, right next to the food and water dispensers.  The chickens have to awkwardly duck under it to get to their food and drink.  I am thinking about removing the bar completely and relocating it towards the end of the auxiliary run which would give us more options on the lower level of the main coop.

This morning Cindy came out to see the chickens dumped all over the ramp while sleeping at night.  They have two options when perching at night, one puts their ass over the wood shavings, the other is bombs away onto the ramp.  At least so far they seem to prefer the latter position.  I hooked up the long hose near the coop to clean water instead of the raw well water it usually spouts so it can be used for both watering and coop cleaning duties.

I’m sure there will be a lot of learning and slight adjustments that will occur in the next few weeks.  As far as Cindy and I can tell the chickens appear to be content.  We sat outside last night and ate black bean brownies near the coop just to hang out with them and the dogs.  It was peaceful.

I have not had any interest whatsoever on the brand new “old” Chinese fir coop, not a single email, text message or phone call.  We did however discover last night that Cindy and one of the dogs can fit inside the coop if need be.  The coop also has at least served a role as a garage air freshener for a few days with it’s pleasant cedar-like aroma.

So you may recall that I reported the sale of Cindy’s Miata a couple weeks ago to a couple 18 year old kids.  What I didn’t report was up until Friday, the vehicle was technically still owned by Cindy.  When the kids picked up the car I had Cindy sign off the title with the understanding the kid was going to be going to the DMV with his dad the next day to do the title work and registration.  Well evidently we had a misunderstanding.

The kid did not get the title transferred which I was checking on periodically through the Florida online title check website.  I alerted Cindy to this and the potential issue with someone else being in possession of a vehicle with an open title.  She contacted the kid several times, asking when it was going to be done.  There were several excuses and fuzzy promises of resolution.  Finally late last week she used stronger wording which evidently resulted in the kid finally getting his ass to the DMV with one or both of his parents.  Both Cindy and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the updated title change status online.  I was beginning to have nightmares of worst case scenarios where the car is involved in an accident where someone is injured or even the kid’s parents coming back at us saying they want the money back.

Our Friday night began conventionally with pizza, Mexican Coke and watching a show recorded on the X1 DVR.  However after the show was over there was still at least a solid hour of daylight left.  Since my weekend was looking so busy I had the bright idea to head outside and get a head start on to do’s.  Cindy was off on Friday and got a lot of stuff done but had more tractor mowing to do.  While she was on the tractor finishing up I did other yard maintenance including weeding, abbreviated weed whacking session, sidewalk blowing and even bush trimming in fast forward mode.  I got a ton done in a very short period of time, resulting in a totally soaked shirt, despite working in dusk conditions.  The sweat was worth getting a jump on the list.

Saturday morning we had to pick up the dogs from Ali’s place since she is out of town for a few days.  We went from there straight to Rural King, a store that we will be frequenting much more regularly in the future.  We needed to get supplied for the chickens we planned to pick up this weekend.  We grabbed a big 40lb bag of chicken feed, kiln dried wood shavings for the nest box/coop area, water/food dispenser and a few other items.  Despite doing a decent amount of reading about chicken care already we were still a bit nervous about making sure we had everything we needed.

When I got home the next to do was multiple oil changes.  The Tacoma, party van, and Craftsman tractor were all due for a petroleum transfusion.  The process went smoothly all the way around, the only annoyance was just how hot and humid it was, despite being relatively early in the day still.

So last week I documented the assembly of the chicken coop I had bought several weeks prior online.  I commented how the coop despite being good looking did not seem like it was going to be very durable at all.  The Chinese fir it is constructed out of is very thin and light.  I just did not see any way it was going to hold up outdoors for more than a few months.

So despite dropping what I would consider a rather large wad of cash on this coop, I was investigating alternatives.   A Craigslist search on “chicken coop” landed me on an odd looking coop (Jeremy actually showed me this type of coop a long time before).  On the side of it was stenciled “urbanchickentractors.com”  so I jumped to the web site to see what the deal was.

These mobile, self contained and decidedly unique coops are built by some guy in nearby Sarasota in his back yard.  He advertises that each coop is built with at least 30% recyclable materials.  I flipped through the site watching his video and checking out the different style/size chicken tractors he makes as well as the additional options.  It’s almost like buying a car as he custom builds each tractor to order.  The ability of the coop to be very easily moved courtesy of the wheel and handles on each model would be ideal.

I was so interested I actually called the guy, whose name is Ira and talked to him about the coops.  He seemed like a very friendly a good guy on the phone.  He said with his current workload. (he has a normal job as well), that it if I ordered a coop it would take about 5 weeks to be completed.  I thanked him for the information and told him I would get back to him if I wanted to go that route.

So now my head was churning through scenarios.  Since we planned to get the chickens this weekend I considered letting the birds hang out in the coop in a box structure until a new chicken tractor could be built for them.  There were some down sides to this idea.  The wood coop would obviously be in degraded condition after having chickens living in it for a month outdoors, making any hope of selling it to someone else nearly impossible.  Also, buying a brand new chicken tractor is not a cheap proposition, once I started adding in the various options the total price was getting perilously close to 4 digits.

So then I returned to the ad for the used chicken tractor on Craigslist.  It seemed to be priced high for a used item but after I identified it as the aluminum/vinyl siding model which is the most expensive tractor UCT sells, I softened a bit on the price although it still was way more than I would pay.  I emailed the seller looking for more info.  Late Saturday morning I got an email back describing a few aspects of the coop as well as offering a big discount off the listed ad price, a full third less.  Now you have my attention.

Early Saturday afternoon I called the woman and talked some more.  She described the coop as being 2-3 years old and in great condition.  She lived off the same exit as Siesta Key beach is, a good 90 minutes away.  I told her that if she would agree to an even lower price I would shoot up there and get it immediately.  She held firm to her 33% discount, I told her I would come anyway and take a look.  Cindy was game for an unplanned 200+ mile round trip.  I emptied out the back of the truck, only bringing along ratcheting straps and assorted bungee cords if needed.

Thanks to the GPS and a 75 mph average speed we found the house with no issue, making the trip in around 90 minutes.  We pulled into the driveway and were immediately impressed.  The big house was situated on a large, beautifully landscaped estate.  We walked up to the house as we looked around at the awesome estate and rang the doorbell.  After 30 seconds with no response I rang it again, this time with more pressure, thinking perhaps I didn’t activate the chime.  I definitely heard it the second time.  Still, nobody answered the door.  This began  a close to 15 minute ordeal, trying to get someone’s attention.  We knocked, rang and walked around the side of the house looking for any signs of life.  It made no sense, there were cars in the driveway, we could hear tv playing inside and even dogs barking but still the front door remained unopened.

Finally we heard a voice inside and the woman I spoke to on the phone answered.  She apologized although I am not sure quite how long she heard the ringing/knocking.  Her elderly husband evidently was sleeping but there were also two perfectly able grandchildren in the house that apparently don’t open doors. The only theory I could come up with was the woman was in the middle of a long and arduous BM when we arrived.

She instructed us to walk to the back where she would meet us.  The back of the property was as beautiful as the front.  We walked by an impressive and large vertical hydroponic garden.  Everywhere you looked I saw tons of dollars and sweat equity invested.  The chicken tractor obviously had sat unused for awhile.  It looked older in person than it did in pictures, the front of it had black mildew, some parts had some rust and the grass it was perched upon was pretty overgrown. My first impression was the woman had exagerrated her 2-3 years old claim on the phone.

When the woman opened the large side panel we were introduced to the current coop residents, wasps.  There were two active wasp nests attached to the interior roofline.  The inside of the coop was clean enough, the vinyl siding that was used inside and out holds up very well.  The detachable long run was great and one of the things I liked about the tractors.  I wanted our chickens to have lots of room to move about.  This  coop also had full wire on the underside of both the main tractor and the extended run, protecting the chickens from certain predators that would go so far as trying to dig underneath.  Both Cindy and I really liked that.

The woman gave us quite the sales pitch on the coop, claiming it will last for years and years which it very well may.  I just questioned why she wouldn’t have cleaned it up more to sell it.  The woman’s husband did some modifications to the coop, including the large side door.  He evidently used a brass hinge originally which is not suitable for outdoor conditions.  As a result both sides of the coop had pretty gross looking rust stains blemishing them.

Now I knew that more than likely after some pressure washing and elbow grease I could get the coop looking much better.  I could tell Cindy was more off put by the current visual.  I probably could have/should have repeated my lower offer for the coop based on the way it looked but I didn’t.  Despite the warts the coop was worth the number she threw at me based on my knowledge of what a new one costs.  I told her we would take it.

Phase two, getting the coop and the run into the back of the Tacoma was going to be a challenge made more miserable by the broiling heat and humidity at nearly 3 PM in the afternoon. Thanks to the aluminum frame and vinyl siding, neither piece was that heavy, they were however quite big.  Getting them in the back of Tacoma required them both being placed at an angle which resulted in the  coop hanging far over the right side and the chicken run hanging several feet off the back.

Once they were jammed in the back I utilized my two ratcheting straps, bungee cords and a piece of rope to make sure the chicken housing stayed put on the drive home.  We thanked the woman and began the journey southward.  Cindy and I were nervous about the drive initially.  The top of the coop was exposed to full wind, creating a massively unaerodynamic wall.  We were concerned the wind pressure could either cause damage to the coop or somehow dislodge it from it’s various tethers.   Luckily neither thing happened. The 90 mile drive down I-75 was very long.  I put my 4 way flashers on and set the cruise at 60 mph, not wanting to risk excessive wind pressure. As a result the drive back took 2 hours plus (and a lot of gas), scuttling our plans to catch a movie Saturday night.

I instead got busy with my pressure washer wanting to at least get the black mildew off.  As expected the washer made short work of the mildew, restoring the siding to like new condition, unfortunately it is powerless to remove rust stains which would take another approach.  I also knocked down no less than another half dozen old wasp nests. After I was done I showed Cindy the end result, she felt better about the purchase afterwards.

On Sunday morning Cindy dove right into more coop cleaning early.  She utilized SOS pads on the rust stains and had fantastic results.  She was able to totally remove the rust stains on the siding and did a good job of cleaning up the rust covered child bike wheel rims which were very messy as well.  My main contribution in the morning was filling the holes where the one rusty bracket was located with plastic headed pool cage screws dipped in caulk.  I also tightened a number of the bolts and nuts that had worked their way loose over time.

By the time we were done the chicken tractor and run looked 100% better than it did sitting in the woman’s back yard. It’s amazing what a difference some elbow grease can make.  Getting the chicken tractor made us reevaluate some of the choices we made for food and water containers.  We made our second trip to Rural King in as many days to return a couple items and get a much larger 3 gallon watering station and an equally large food dispenser.  We arrived home only needing to get the chickens themselves.  I called the woman that I was planning to get the chickens from on both her home and cell phone but got no answer.  I left a message which was not returned until early afternoon.

She apologized for not getting back to me sooner, she said she had a very busy morning, selling a bunch of birds via her Craigslist ad.  The sales were good for her but she said she had some bad news for me.  She said the 3 month old chickens she had pegged for me were accidentally sold by her husband.  I was immediately dejected by this news but not for long.  She said she did have 3 more older buff orpington hens.  When she said older I was afraid she was going to say they were a year or two old.  When she said they were 5 months old it was good news, that was even better in my book, they were very close to the age where they can start laying eggs, perfect.  I made arrangements to meet the woman in a half hour at a nearby gas station.

Cindy and I shot out into the back yard to quickly prep the coop, setting it up in front of the bird houses.  Cindy scooped handfuls of the wood shavings into the nest boxes and mixed it in with fresh spearmint from the garden, something she saw was recommended for freshness. We figured we would wait to fill the food and water containers until after we had the birds inside.

I had warned Cindy that this woman’s husband, whom I had seen before looked like he was off the set of Deliverance.  He didn’t disappoint as he stepped out of the van bare foot with the woman.  We came around to the back of the minivan where the 3 hens were in a small cage.  I brought my two cat carriers with to transport them back to the house.  The chickens were a decent size and seemed nervous but nice enough.  When we started the transfer process the woman scolded her husband as he reached in the cage and yanked the first hen out roughly by the legs, letting it hang upside down.  The woman immediately grabbed the chicken and held it to calm it down while she petted it.  She then gently helped us get the hen in the carrier and kept her husband out of the transfer process for the other two.  I gave her the $10 per chicken asking price and thanked her as we headed back towards the van with me carrying the carrier with two birds and Cindy lugging the other.

I had to laugh when I saw the barefooted husband step back into the driver seat and start to pull out while the side door on the van was fully open.  Cindy asked if we should tell them.. I told her that he would figure it out which he eventually did.  Wow I can only imagine what goes on around their household.

On the short ride back the house the chickens were pretty quiet which surprised me.  Besides some low chicken mumbling I hardly heard a peep, even as we carried them into the back yard.  The woman had told us that the more shade the better for these chickens as they dont love the heat.  Despite the coop structure providing built in shade for the run under the second level, we thought moving the tractor to a more shady area would make even more sense.  We carted everything over towards the dog deck and set up under the group of palm trees nearby which provided a nice partially shaded area.

Getting the chickens out of the cat carriers and into the the coop area was harder than expected.  They just did not want to leave I assume what felt like safe confines of the carriers.   We had to use a combination of a high angle of the carrier and Cindy’s hands to get them out.  Once they were in there they were quite nervous as expected.  We got their food and water containers filled up and ready to go.  That seemed to help break the ice a bit as they all drank and ate some.

We then let the dogs out to see the new additions to the family.  Of course there was tons of curiosity on the dogs part and fear on the chickens part however as the day went on there seemed to be more calm interactions going on.  The chickens realized they were safe in their new home and the dogs realized the chickens were on the “do not touch list” although I can’t imagine a scenario where I would have both the chickens and the dogs free ranging in the yard at the same time.

Cindy and I hung out with the chickens for awhile before leaving them to relax for awhile.  It felt weird actually  having farm animals in my backyard but it’s good to push your comfort zone.  I did some messing around later, trying to construct some sort of temporary auxiliary cover for the extended run.  My first attempt was utilizing some left over composite lumber that I screwed together.  It was too heavy and too flimsy.  I later wound up knocking it apart and just using two spare long section of 2″x 8″ boards to provide extra shade and rain protection.

Last night after the movie we checked in on the hens.  We were worried that they wouldn’t go up the ramp to the roost bar and nest boxes to sleep on their own.  Cindy and I were happy to see that the chickens instincts kicked in and they headed upstairs.  Cindy named the hens Wilma, Betty, and Pebbles.  Wilma and Betty despite being tied together via Flintstones fame also happen to be the names of Cindy and my grandmother, both of whom passed away.  Pebbles has no family connection but just fit the theme.  Right now I have a hard time telling which one is which.

The first coop I bought/built is now currently on Craigslist in the remote hope someone will buy it to help offset my losses.  I don’t hold out much hope for anyone doing so and envision the coop eventually being set by the end of the driveway to be scooped up by some roadside treasure hunter.

All of the chicken/chicken coop related pics I have can be seen here.

So our Saturday night movie trip got rescheduled to last night although I almost felt like we should cancel again to make sure the chickens first night at the homestead went smoothly.  We decided they would be fine and we went out to Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise’s latest film.  I heard the movie was underperforming at the box office but I also heard more than one person that saw it say it was very good, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Much like Brad Pitt, I find I enjoy pretty much any movie Tom Cruise is a star in.  Well he kept that streak alive.

I didn’t think the movie was good, I thought it was very good.  I thought the plot was interesting, different and kept you on your toes.  The aliens in this film are terrifyingly different than anything I ever saw before and of course the action and special effects were all top notch.  I really don’t understand why the film is not doing better number-wise, I give it a very solid A rating.

On our way into the theater I had a very odd sighting.  I was on my way into the mens room for my obligatory pre-movie bladder emptying.  An older man was in front of me, something that is not odd.  What was extremely odd was he was holding his sandals in his left hand, allowing him to walk into the crowded public bathroom barefooted, where he made a left turn into one of the toilet stalls.  I had no idea why somebody would chose to do this.  I almost felt compelled to ask him why.

Oh yea I forgot, we saw Monuments Men at home Saturday night.  I thought it was rather boring, gets a B.

Yesterday I did some streamlining of my IM chat client landscape, motivated by my Skype client consuming an annoying amount of system resources.  I have a bunch of different messaging accounts, up until yesterday I was using a total of three programs to address the 5 different chat systems I am on. (AOL, Skype, Google, Openfire, Facebook).  I now have shrunk that number of chat clients down to one, Pidgin. Pidgin is an open source,a free chat client that doesn’t have tons of bells and whistles but gets the job done.   It’s nice having all of my virtual conversations under one roof.  The only drawback is great care needs to be taken that a reply in a conversation I would be having with someone like Jeremy or Randall doesn’t accidentally get posted into a convo I would have with a more professional contact.

So last night I finished up the construction of the chicken coop.  There is no doubt it is a good looking structure but I really have concerns about how it’s going to hold up down here where pressure treated 4×4’s disintegrate in a couple years.   The wood the coop is made out of is some sort of Chinese fir which is supposed to be similar in durability to cedar. However the wood is just very thin and  does not look like it is ready to battle the elements.

Cindy and I plan to treat the outside of the coop with animal safe wood sealant but even so I can’t see the coop making it through 365 days intact as is.  I didn’t feel any better about things when a Google search for ways to enhance the coop landed me on a message board of other people that bought the same thing, ranting about it, and not in a good way.  Complaints of poor construction, parts breaking/falling off and leakage in rain all dampened my enthusiasm for the coop I put together the last two evenings. After all, a hot looking woman with an 85 IQ and body odor is a losing proposition overall.

So once we get chickens in there I will be obviously monitoring things closely.  I’ll either be repairing, reenforcing the structure as needed or use it as a template to build something from scratch myself in the future if need be.  The last thing Cindy and I would want is for the birds to be living in substandard housing.

I have a very full weekend ahead of me.  On top of the full yard maintenance that needs to be done I need to change the oil on the Tacoma (just crossed 170k miles), the party van and the tractor.  We need to get out to Rural King to get chicken supplies and possibly go pick up the chickens themselves.  We plan to go to the movies Saturday night, maybe do some endurance training Sunday morning and oh yea, we also have the girls all weekend as well as Monday and Tuesday.  Busy, busy, busy….

So even though I have had the chicken coop I ordered for several weeks sitting in the shed I hadn’t gotten around to putting it together.  There was no real rush because I knew we weren’t going to be getting any chickens until the PA trip was out of the way.  Well the trip is now officially out of the way so I needed to get to work.

It was off and on raining last evening so I decided the garage would be the best place to put the coop together.  I opened the two boxes and leaned the parts against the wall.  The first impressions I got were “cool, most of the hard work is already done” and “geez this wood looks rather thin and light duty, I wonder how long it will last”.

The coop parts were all predrilled with guide pins to help you mate the larger sections together.  The parts smelled and looked like cedar wood but I am pretty sure they are made out of some sort of fir wood that just smells like cedar. The instructions were rather spartan and included no words at all, only low resolution pictures that showed how stuff went together but not the order it should go together which caused a few problems.

Everything fit together well. My only concern was the potential long term durability of the structure in the harsh Florida climate.  The wood that is used is thin and light, light enough that I am planning to sink some sort of auxiliary anchors in the ground to make sure the coop doesn’t get uprooted in the gusting winds that accompany summer thunderstorms.  I plan to pick up some animal friendly wood protectant on my way home to apply to the coop to hopefully extend the longevity of the structure.

I got everything put together last night except the nesting box which I hope to get finished tonight.  After that we need to get chicken accessories like feeding/watering stations, wood chips, straw and finally the chickens themselves.  If things come together there is a chance we could have the chickens in the backyard this weekend.

I have had an issue with Facebook for a couple months when checking it on a pc, it’s slow as shit.  As I start scrolling down a newsfeed there are these lengthy, annoying pauses as more content is loaded.  It’s annoying enough that it will make me bail on the site.  I see the behavior on multiple machines using multiple browsers, IE, Firefox or Chrome.  Jeremy suggested I load up a couple Firefox plug ins like NoScript and AdBlocker to cut out the countless background scripts processes that launch when you load a complex site like Facebook.  Unfortunately I found these add ons also turn web browsing into an annoying experience as page after page won’t load until I interact with the plug in and tell it to let content load.  Even with using these tools, the Facebook newsfeed still runs like shit.

At this point I am not quite sure what is causing the lag infested Facebook browsing, perhaps it is the change they made awhile back where all of the videos embedded in your newsfeed preload and start playing as soon as they enter your browser view in a Vine-like manner.  Perhaps it is the mountains of unwanted ads that are now shoved into the typical newsfeed.  Maybe I just have too many FB friends whom I never actually met in real life, bloating the content in my feed.  Whatever the cause, I am really sick of it and frustrated that I am yet to find the root cause of the problem or definitive solution.

So last night was the monthly running club meeting.  I had told Cindy I would wait to eat dinner with her after the meeting so I was hoping the meeting would not run very long.  After all we are now in summer season which is the slow season for running events, there shouldn’t be much to talk about.  Yea, right.  The meeting ran two plus hours, not winding up until after 8PM.  As usual I emerged from the meeting with 6 or 7 things tossed onto my back to address/implement.  In recent months I have found my tolerance for addressing the seemingly endless requests to manage, invent, implement, promote, coordinate and solve wearing very thin.  I need something to recharge my motivational batteries.  When I look at the race calendar all I see is more and more work, so much that the light at the end of the tunnel is totally obliterated.  The reward to effort formula is totally out of whack.

So the news has been filled with coverage of the ISIS forces taking back major cities in Iraq.  There have been stories acting like the idea of Iraq falling back into the hands of militant extremists was a surprising, unforeseen event. Cut me a fcking break.  Anyone with minimal intelligence predicted eons ago that once we militarily withdrew from Iraq the country was going to fall back into disarray.  Chaos is the natural state of things in that part of the world, our involvement in Iraq had nothing to do with changing it, it was all about making money for military contractors and little else.  For the media to portray Iraq falling apart as some big unexpected tragedy is ridiculous.  We all knew this was the eventual outcome. Let it burn.

Doing recollections of trips like this at one sitting seems more and more daunting the older I become.  I’ll do the best I can muster, hopefully I don’t leave out anything too interesting.

Our flight out on Friday morning was an early one, scheduled to hit the sky before 7AM, meaning a 4:30AM alarm clock, yay.  We decided to just drive up there and park in long term parking, the last time I knew it was something like $8 a day.  Well it turns out it was $11 a day but there wasn’t much we could do about it.

We were flying Jet Blue which is probably the second best airline to fly behind Southwest.  They have no first class, electing to use the additional room to provide the best coach seating room around which of course I am a huge fan of with my long legs.  They also don’t charge you for your first piece of checked baggage, are generous with the free drinks/snacks, have a great on board entertainment system and have a very friendly staff.   This was the 3rd or 4th time I have used JetBlue, they are great. What wasn’t great is that JetBlue doesn’t have any direct Fort Myers to Philadelphia routes.  To get to PHL required us to go all the way up to Boston and then come back down via  short 45 minute flight. Oh well, it would be my first time in Boston at least, albeit confined to the walls of the Logan Airport.

The flight up to Boston went smoothly.  I passed the time reading a magazine and then playing Battle Heart on my phone. Mobile gaming is a great way to make long flights go by quickly.  We landed in pretty dreary weather.  The Logan Airport struck me as being pretty old looking but fine otherwise.  We got some bad news when looking at the outgoing flight board, the flight to Philadelphia was pushed back an additional hour or so, meaning our already 90 minute layover just got a lot longer. Cindy and I grabbed some DD coffee to help pass the time.  I also downloaded the original Plants vs Zombies onto my Galaxy Tab for more on plane time wasting. The delay in Boston made my original plan to stop and see Todd’s new house prior to the rehearsal dinner Friday night impossible, there just would not be any time to do it. The flight finally took off, it was so short that once we hit cruising altitude it felt like we almost immediately started our initial descent.  I only got a few levels of PvZ done.

We hopped off the plane, grabbed our luggage and then jumped on a shuttle bus to Enterprise whom we were renting a car from.  As we approached the office the bus driver called ahead to let the staff know how many customers were coming in.  When we got off the van their staff was out front waiting to personally greet each and every one of us and escort us to the front desk.  I was amazed.  Our clerk was a young girl that exuded friendliness and eagerness to serve.  After handling the paper work she walked us outside and gave us a choice of three vehicles. We chose a Camry, thinking it might get the best gas mileage.  Since I had a Camry Hybrid for a few years I already knew they were nice cars. Our clerk hopped in and started the car up for us, turned on the AC and then did a quick walk around.  She sent us on our way with a smile and a wave, concluding what was the best rental car customer service experience of my life.

The Camry was a very nice vehicle, a more refined version of what I already thought was a great car in 2007.  I brought along the recently purchased TomTom gps to route us to the hotel we were staying at.  Todd warned me that we could wind up driving through a massive storm that rolled through Reading, but somehow we managed to miss it,  only driving through some steady but manageable rain.  Our driving plan was not the most efficient gas or time wise.  We were going to the hotel in Lancaster which was west and south of Reading and then having to haul ass back in the opposite direction.  It was sort of like flying to Boston to get to Philadelphia.

The hotel we were staying at was old but quaint, looking like not a whole lot had been updated since it opened in the 60’s.  We didn’t have time to check much out as we quickly cleaned up, changed and got back in the car to get to the rehearsal dinner which started at 6.  I knew we were not going to get there on time.  I was surprised that we managed to get there by 6:15, beating my brother Todd and his girlfriend by a minute whom pulled in to the Canal Street parking lot after us.  Cindy had met my dad, step mom and brother Patrick before but that was it, everyone else was a new face to her.  Luckily Cindy is an outgoing personality and has no issue meeting and greeting new people, unlike me.

Canal Street Pub is an old Reading factory building.  I don’t recall ever visiting the place before when I lived in the greater Reading area although I heard of it many times.  The area it is located it rather scary looking as the building on the other side of the parking lot pictured shows.  As is the case with much of Reading, it’s a very old and dilapidated place.

We found the group inside, as expected we were the last to arrive.  I had never met any of Meghan’s husband to be Paul’s family.  His parents, especially his mom, was very outgoing and friendly.  We hung out, drank and ate appetizers for awhile.  I talked to a number of people but found myself hanging with Patrick the most.  I had been reading about his latest adventures on Facebook including spinning out his VW going 60mph on the PA Turnpike and his very bizarre extended stay in Turkey for his job.  Getting a firsthand account of his very interesting life was even better.

I used the the Coors Light on hand to help take the edge off the anxiety I normally feel in these large social situations.  We sat down for a great tasting dinner which was filled with lots of laughs and smiles.  Paul and Meg have always seemed like a truly in love couple and that perception was only strengthened at the dinner.  It was cool.

At the meal I talked to Todd about a plan to see his house.  He also had mentioned that his 6 or 7 year old computer was running like shit so that came up as a possible to do item while I was there.  I told him we could stop by during the day on Saturday since the wedding wasn’t until 4:30.  The plan was set in action.  By the time we went to bed Friday night we were approaching our 18th hour of being awake, sleep was welcomed.  Unfortunately that sleep wasn’t of high quality.  The bed itself felt comfortable enough, I didn’t wake up with an aching back or anything like that.  I did however have a very restless night of sleep, a theme that carried through the entire trip.  Each night it felt like I was waking up a lot, into the double digit amount of times.

After grabbing breakfast and some coffee at the thankfully near by Dunkin Donuts we headed towards the Reading area.  I wanted to show Cindy a few things on the way to my brother’s house.  The first stop was the Knauers area where my elementary school and the business my mom worked at for many years are located.  Cindy, who has been in Florida all of her life was really impressed by the rolling hills, mature trees, rural setting and non-development style old construction of my old stomping grounds.  It was about as different from Florida as you can get.

Our next stop was Gouglersville, one of the two centers of my existence as a child.  Colonial Hills bowling alley which was torn down years ago was the second.  We parked in the middle of the town, right in front of what used to be Brightbill’s General Store.  Cindy could hardly believe what looked to be a generic house was once the main retail establishment of the town.  Almost my entire baseball card collection as a kid came from the packs of cards I would buy from Brightbill’s.

Looking around the center of Gouglersville some things had changed but the view towards the north had not, the two churches that have sat on opposite sides of the street remain the same as they did from my earliest childhood recollections.  What was not anything like my childhood was my old house which was the next stop.

I grew up up in an OLD farm house.  If I am not mistaken, it was constructed back in the early 1900’s.  When my parents were still married they did some renovations to the place.  The kitchen was updated and the attic was finished and turned into a shared bedroom that Todd and I occupied.  When my dad and Teresa moved into the place in the late 80’s they did a very large renovation which touched nearly every room in the house AND included a large two story addition.  The end result was my childhood home being transformed into something far different than I experienced.

Well when my dad sold the place prior to moving out to New Mexico, the new owner went to an entirely new level.  The new owner has made incredible upgrades to the place, far too many to list.  The most visible from the road was the large stand alone two car garage.  The property looked absolutely beautiful.  It’s very hard to believe it’s the same place I spent 16 or 17 years calling home.

Across the street from my old house was another farm that was a staple growing up.  I used to enjoy interacting with the sheep and donkey that lived there.  I even took care of the neighbor’s farm animals a couple times when they were out of town.  Well the front gate to the property is now wide open and the property appears overgrown and abandoned.  The old owner died years ago and I am not sure what happened to his two children.  The place is up for an estate sale auction in August.  Seeing the property in this condition pulled a bit at my inner sadness strings.

The owners of my my old house evidently have two large unrestrained dogs.  They announced our presence with barking.  Cindy was afraid of them advancing on us with unfriendly intentions.  I was more concerned about the dogs having the ability to walk onto the road where they could be hit, something that happened to one of my dad’s dogs in the past.  Regardless we used that as our cue to head out.  I did a U-turn in Dick’s old field and pulled away.  The next stop was Todd’s place although almost everywhere we went I was giving Cindy a Cliff Notes version of how that area tied into my past life as a Pennsylvanian.

Todd moved into this new place with his girlfriend several months ago.  His old place was really nice and large.  This new place upped the bar in both areas.   The place is located in a relatively new development very close to Green Valley Country Club, the pool we used to frequent most days in the summer growing up.  The house is huge and beautiful, with way more than enough room for the two of them them and their respective kids. (Todd and his girlfriend both have a daughter)  The inside of the place looked spotless (except for Todd’s office), like it was being set up for an open house.  I would not want to be the one responsible for cleaning it.

The landscaping and backyard were beautiful as well, complete with a nice sized pool and tons and tons of river rock which filled a huge area.  We hung outside for awhile and talked.  Despite just meeting the day before, Cindy and Todd’s girlfriend Mindy were talking a lot.

Attention was then turned to Todd’s computer issues.  His old laptop was a mess, obviously crippled by malware.  Trying to do anything on it took eons, the hard drive activity light was on non-stop, even when sitting at an empty desktop.  I told Todd because of the age of the computer it was hardly worth the time to try to eliminate all of the spyware.  I suggested he would be better served getting a new laptop and having me pull the important data across.  He agreed with my plan and we decided to do a quick run to Best Buy to grab some new hardware.  It was already closing in on noon so I knew that time was going to be an issue. While we were shopping for laptops Cindy and Mindy went out on their own, doing some shopping and picking us up lunch to eat at the house.

Picking out a laptop was not as quick of a process as I hoped.  After a lot of searching we finally landed on a 17 inch Sony system.  Of course we picked the model that they currently did not have in stock.  We opted for the smaller 15 inch Sony that was next to it.  It was one of those models that has a screen that flips 180 degrees to allow you to use the system as a Windows 8 tablet.  Todd was talking about using a laptop in the field for his work to increase his efficiency.  Something like this would help him do that.

So we grab the laptop, a copy of Office 2013 and a small thumb drive to help me move files.  We got back to the house and I got busy.  I had the new laptop up and connected to the internet quickly.  What I couldn’t do quickly was transfer files quickly between the old laptop and the new one.  The file transfer to the thumb drive was excruciatingly slow.  I wound up working on the system until almost 2:30 and still was only part of the way done.  We had to to get out of there to fly back to the hotel, shower, change and then get to the wedding slated to start at 4:30.

It was not much fun for Cindy getting ready under such a time crunch.  The wedding site was further away then I thought it was.  We pulled into the parking lot of the outdoor wedding location at 4:29.  Todd once again pulled in right after us.  I heard how he was literally driving 100 mph most of the way to get there from Mindy.  Thankfully the ceremony started a few minutes late so we didn’t miss anything.  The outdoor setting for the vows was beautiful and the weather, which had been pretty much terrible the prior 4-5 days was absolutely perfect with temps in the 70’s with low humidity.

The vow exchange ceremony was nice and quick.  In less than 15 minutes it was done and the celebration could start.  There were some of my dad’s old friends at the wedding, some of which I had not seen in literally 25-30 years.  It was quite strange to see somebody that just emerged from a 30 year time machine trip.  They sound the same but obviously look much different then what was in my minds eye, an awkward thing for me to digest.

The reception was held under a a large tent.  Meg and Paul were unconventional but in my opinion more sensible with their wedding planning.  They tried to keep costs under control while keeping things fun.  My step mom made the beautiful flower arrangements, the table decorations were hand made and the open bar was stocked with stuff that was bought off the shelf instead of paying an outrageous mark up for alcohol.   Dinner was a taco station with desert options of S’mores and/or root beer floats.  I found it to be pretty awesome to shun the drop your pants and bend over money trap most married couples find themselves entering when doing by the book wedding planning.

The abundant access to alcohol lead to lots of fun as you can imagine.  Dancing, laughing and smiles were non-stop as you looked around the reception.  Cindy and I stepped away briefly to take a look at a huge pack of horses located in a field down the hill. At first they were scared of Cindy and I.  After a few minutes they warmed up, a few even let Cindy pet them.  There were several baby horses mixed in that were especially cute.

I was on a pretty steady flow of Miller Lite.  Drinking that much beer meant a lot of need to hit a bathroom.  They had an odd arrangement where there was only one toilet flagged as being for men with two available to women.  This resulted in a decent size line for the mens room most of the evening.  I stood in the line a couple times but the rest of the time I either used a tree or ducked into one of the empty ladies rooms while Cindy stood guard. It was funny. My alcohol consumption reached sufficient levels that I allowed myself to be dragged onto the dance floor. I was out there dancing awkwardly for quite awhile.  Luckily everyone was as drunk or more so than I was so nobody noticed or cared. It was fun.

There were a lot of cool moments during the night with my dad supplying one of them.  He was pegged to give a speech.  He thought it would be funny if he deliberately placed a piece of toilet paper in his shoe and drug it behind him.  As he hobbled to the center of the dance floor some guy that was not in on the joke ran out to let dad know about the TP on his shoe. Later dad let him know it was on purpose.  Dad followed up with an off the cuff, deep, meaningful, speech that tied in one of Meghan’s favorite childhood books into a framework to navigate life by.  It was very well delivered and received tremendous applause from the entire crowd.  I was proud of him in that moment. Despite dad’s cantankerous, sarcastic and frustrating parts of his personality he also is insightful, emotional and intellectual.  It was nice to see all three of those positive traits on display in his speech.

Overall the reception was just one huge positive experience for all involved.  To me and surely everyone else at the ceremony, it is clear that Paul and Meg are one of those rare examples of just getting it right.  You can tell how connected they are to each other and for all the right reasons.  Hopefully this was the start of a long and happy life for the two of them as husband and wife.

Cindy of course drove us home due to my large consumption of Miller Lites.  We had some loose ideas about driving to Rehoboth Beach for the day on Sunday but dad invited us to breakfast in the hotel lobby on Sunday morning.  Since it was Father’s Day I certainly needed to accept the invitation.  The change of plans also meant I could throw out the possibility to Todd of my stopping by for the second time in as many days to conclude my computer migration work.

Cindy and I walked up the Dunkin Donuts that was 1/4 mile away before meeting up with my dad in the attached hotel restaurant.  The size of our breakfast group steadily grew.  Initially it was just myself, Cindy, my dad and my step mom.  Patrick and his girlfriend joined us next, followed by the newlyweds, the maid of honor and finally Paul’s parents.  We heard stories of how the partying continued at the hotel bar past 2AM, sheesh.

I had a feeling my dad, whom always winds up paying for most everything when it comes to family get togethers, would try to pay for everyone’s breakfast buffet. I managed to pay the check for everyone at the table  (besides Pauls parents who came later) on the down low on the way back from the bathroom.  If there is a meal you want to pick up a check for a large table, it’s breakfast.  The bill was reasonable even with putting food in nine mouths.

After a nice meal we all said our goodbyes.  My dad was driving Patrick and his girlfriend back to Pittsburgh.  Pat had to get right back into his globe hopping job, flying out for Japan on Monday.  We saw them as we walked out to the rental car. Dad, Patrick and I posed for one last picture.

So our Sunday plan was now to do some more local sight seeing before heading back to Todd’s place.  I thought it would be cool to take Cindy up to see one of Berks County’s oddest but most famous tourist attractions, the Pagoda.  For some reason right around the turn of the 20th century somebody decided it would be cool to put an authentic looking Asian pagoda at the top of Mount Penn.  It was to be part of a resort area which no longer exists today.

I have of course visited the Pagoda many times over my life and had it’s glowing red outline be a staple of many nighttime views of the Reading area.  However I never did as extensive or as informative of a visit as I did this time around.  The drive to the Pagoda was interesting for Cindy.  She found the old architecture in Reading to be very beautiful and the twisting drive up Duryea Drive to be equally so.  When we got up there it was about 11:45 , 15 minutes before the inside of the Pagoda opens up.

We decided to waste some time walking a nearby trail that leads down the mountain.  We only wandered less than a half mile away but it was far enough that it allowed us to get a totally different perspective while taking in the sights and sounds of a Pennsylvania forest.  When we returned the doors were open for business.

Now I have been inside the Pagoda before but I don’t recall ever being in anything besides the gift shop on the main floor.  I think the times I was inside the upper floors were closed for one reason or another, probably construction related.  Speaking of construction, there has been a lot of it required to keep the Pagoda in good condition well past it’s 100th birthday.  The building has undergone major renovations several times during it’s lifetime.

The upper floors were open for visitors so Cindy and I were certainly going to take advantage of it.  The smell of sauerkraut for the hot dogs filled the inside of the building all the way into the upper floors.  One each floor as you ascended there were a number of framed post cards that outlined the history of the Pagoda which I found very interesting.  I was most intrigued by the fact that around World War 2 the Pagoda was shut down and it’s lights shut off to prevent it from being an easy ground marking point for potential enemy air raids.  There was also an outcry from the local community to tear the Japanese inspired structure down since Japan at the time was our mortal enemy. I’m glad calmer heads prevailed.

Cindy and I climbed to the 6th floor which has an Asian bell hung from the middle of it.  It was cool getting an even higher perspective of the greater Reading area.  Back down at the gift shop which was staffed by a very sweet old lady lady, Cindy perused the large amount of Pagoda themed merchandise.  We walked away with a Pagoda jigsaw puzzle for our neighbor who was tending Tuki, some postcards and a pagoda shaped cookie cutter which Cindy will put to good use.

On our way down from the pagoda I went a different direction, letting Cindy see more of the very old Reading architecture.  On the way to Todd’s place we stopped for lunch at another longtime Berks country tradition, V&S sandwiches. Cindy and I both enjoyed a slice of their square Sicilian pizza, something I had not had in forever.  We enjoyed it while looking out the front window of the totally renovated building which is nothing like the original tiny sandwich shop that once stood there.

While we were eating Todd texted, asking me if I wanted to stop and get two things he was going to need for the new laptop, an external dvd drive since it didn’t have one and a new external HDD for back up since his old one appeared to be dead.  It made sense for me to get them since I knew what to grab.  So after swinging by Best Buy, Cindy and I arrived back at Todd’s place.  I felt bad that Cindy had to hang out while I did the work but she was ok splitting her time between my niece Caroline, their dog Katie, Mindy and just hanging out in general.

I set up Todd’s new PC with Start Menu 8 from IOBit so he could still utilize the Windows 8 environment in a Windows 7 manner primarily.  I also reinstalled the main software he uses and then performed the painfully slow copying of data files and pictures from the old, slower than shit laptop, to the new one.  When I was copying files off the old system I was getting miserable transfer rates of 2mb-5mb a second.  When I dumped the files to the new laptop via the fast USB 3.0 port I was getting 50mb plus for most of the time.

I also set up Todd’s printers, configured a Dropbox account for him and set up his new back up drive.  In total I think I spent another 3 hours or so completing the work.  Sure it wasn’t the way I thought a good chunk of the weekend would be consumed but at the same time I was happy to be able to help Todd out of his technical conundrum.  We headed out somewhere around 5pm for our hotel in Lancaster.

On our way back I was on a quest to find a a slice of Wixon’s wet bottom shoo fly pie for Cindy.  We stopped at a Giant, and two convenience stores searching for them and struck out.  A kind man in Giant said he remembers seeing shoo fly at Weis Markets.  After getting sent on a bit of a wild goose chase by the GPS we did indeed find shoo fly pie although it wasn’t Wixons, rather something made by the bakery at Weis.  Oh well it’s better than nothing.

We decided to walk to our dinner destination, Friendly’s, which was in the same shopping center as Dunkin Donuts.  Friendly’s is another place that I have not frequented since moving to Florida so I thought it would be fun.  Cindy had never set foot inside of a Friendly’s in her lifetime.  I think almost all Friendly’s are identical inside, this location looked exactly the same as every other one I ever been in with wall to wall booths and old fashioned/tacky decorations.  It is safe to say the powers that be at the Friendly’s corporate offices have never felt the need to do a refresh of their brand image in the last 30 years. Cindy and I had decent meals but skipped the normally customary famous Friendly’s ice cream for desert since we had two small shoo fly pies waiting for us in the hotel room.

Cindy was not all that impressed by the Weis pie.  It was much thicker, dry and crumbier than what you get from Wixons.  I thought it was not bad but felt bad I couldn’t find the real deal to share with Cindy.  I probably should have looked in the Reading area.  I know I used to be able to always get Wixons pie at Redners.

Monday morning we had a 4:30 alarm set for our trip back to Fort Myers.  Our flight was scheduled to depart at 8:40 but with the wildcard of morning traffic we wanted to be out the door by 5AM or so.  We hit our goal more or less and after hitting the nearby Dunkin Donuts one last time, hit the road.  The drive to the airport went smoothly, only hitting minimal traffic.  On the way there I texted my buddy Scott who happens to be a DJ on Y-102, the most popular radio station in the Reading area.  I told him I was on my way to the airport and had Y-102 on the radio.  Scott told me when he went on the air a little after six  he would give me a shout out.  As promised, he did deliver a nice mention of me which Cindy thought was cool.

When we dropped off the Camry I was a little nervous.  The car had the sport package which includes additional ground effects body panels including a low front spoiler.  The driveway to Todd’s house contains a very steep angle which caused the front spoiler to drag a bit upon pulling into and out of their driveway. I noticed afterwards some scrape marks on the underside of the spoiler.  I hoped the Enterprise guy checking in would not notice them.  If he did I already had a speech in my head where I would declare my innocence and that those scrapes had to be there already.  Luckily I didn’t need the song and dance.

Our trip back to Fort Myers was pretty uneventful.  There were no major delays this time and I spent most of my time in air working on completing adventure mode in PvZ.  I got the 15% low battery warning in the middle of the final boss fight so I had to shut down.  (I completed it later last night at home after charging the tablet a bit.)  On the way home we had to stop at Target to pick up a couple items, it was quite nice to finally walk back into the house.

Last night there were a number of things to do but we still found time to watch the Game of Thrones finale amidst a raging thunderstorm that was glitching power for quite awhile.  It looks like rainy season has arrived in our area with a bang.  I could tell by looking at the yard that it rained hard enough to cause some major standing water for a period of time.

The trip was the first time Cindy and I flew anywhere together.  As expected we made for fine travel partners.  If you can drive across country in a van for 2 weeks, a plane ride is nothing.  Cindy had a smile and hug for pretty much everyone she met and had no problem fitting right in.   We seem to do well in each other’s space.

Here is a link to all of the pictures from the trip.