Archives 2014

So I figured I would be best served to recap the first part of the trip this morning before heading out to Troy’s place.

After receiving two emails from US Airways that I could upgrade to first class for my flight to Philly for not a ton of money, I decided to splurge and do it.  My logic was the regular flight expense was already being picked up by RunSignUp so I didn’t feel too fiscally guilty.  Plus I can only recall flying first class once before as a kid while traveling with my grandmother.  I figured what the hell, why not…

I woke up on my own a full 30 minutes before my already terribly early alarm of 3:30 AM. I hoped to get up without waking Cindy but that is pretty much an impossible task.  I figured laying in bed awake for a half hour wouldn’t do me any good.  We were out the door on the way to the airport right around 4AM.

Cindy was sad when she dropped me off.  I never have been the type to get sad when leaving on a trip or dropping someone off for a trip since I know they/I are going to be coming back.  I knew before I knew it I would be back in southwest Florida.

I had packed all of my stuff in a small piece of luggage, thinking I could just throw it in the overhead bin.  All my tech stuff and trip paperwork was jammed into my laptop bag.  Since US Airways is one of those shitty airlines that charges bag fees I figured traveling light would be best.  I wound up checking the bag anyway because I had some toiletry items that may get flagged in carry on luggage and I was flying first class so bag fees didn’t apply anyway.

Having never flown first class as an adult it was a different experience.  Once boarding was announced I was one of the first people on the plane.  On my seat was a pillow and blanket, waiting for me and free of charge. (I think they normally charge for that too)  As soon as I got situated the stewardess immediately served me coffee even as the lowly coach customers were still filing in.

My seat number was 1A, literally the first official seat on the plane.  It actually was not a great seat when compared to the rest of first class because I was up against the bulkhead.  There was no seat in front of me that I could slide my laptop bag under so my bag had to go up in the overhead bins at least for takeoff and landing.  There was no flip down tray for food, instead I had to share a  wide armrest that was supposed to be a pseudo table with the guy next to me whom didn’t speak a word.  I was also surprised in this day and age that US Airways did not have any sort of in flight entertainment system in their planes, despite them charging an ancillary fee for everything.  Maybe I am just too spoiled by JetBlue.  On the positive side the seats were very comfortable and obviously I had a ton of legroom.

Originally I had thought maybe I would pull out my Galaxy Tab and do some Plant vs Zombies during the flight.  I didn’t for two reasons.  Since I was a 46 year old man sitting in first class, I felt like playing PvZ may possibly give away that I am not a typical first class passenger, many of which were reading the financial section or some serious literature, not that it really matters.  However more importantly, I was very tired.  I wound up reclining my seat and using my first class pillow to shut my eyes for at least an hour of the flight.  As soon as I was awake the stewardess was back in my face with the food tray which I was allowed to take whatever I wanted in as much quantity as I desired.  Perhaps my lifelong coach traveling training is why I only grabbed a single raspberry fig bar along with a bottle of water.

We arrived in Philly slightly ahead of schedule which was nice.  I figured I could get checked in to the hotel before heading over to the conference across the street which was scheduled to start at 11 AM.  At the Budget rental car office I commented on how rental car prices were dramatically higher than 5 weeks ago when I visited.  The girl said it was because of a shortage of cars related to the storms that delayed travel last week.  I saw plenty of cars sitting around but hey, ok.

Online I was pegged to get a Hyundai Elantra but I wound being given a black Nissan Sentra which seemed like a bit of a step up to me.  It felt like a smaller version of the Camry we rented last time.  According to the gps it should have only taken me 15 minutes to get to the hotel, the reality was much longer. Once I got into the heart of Philly traffic was shitty.  Since I last drove in the city they have changed some stuff around.  Many of the streets now have the right hand lane branded as BUS ONLY, which is also used by bikers.  That leaves one lane of traffic available to everyone else.  Of course since this is a large city, there were vehicles double parked everywhere, meaning you were trying to maneuver around bikes/buses to continue moving forward.  Plus if you wanted to make a right turn you again have to awkwardly cut into the bus only lane.  I appreciate the idea behind this setup to benefit mass transit and bikers but it’s actual implementation seems poorly conceived and dangerous.

So my GPS directed me to what it said was the address of the Westin however I didn’t actually see the hotel.  I wound up doing a series of left turns to come back around before I turned into the underground parking garage of Liberty Place. I knew the Westin was somewhere close by but I didnt see specific parking for it.  I parked 4 floors down and emerged up into the mall area of the building.  I found an exit to the street and finally saw the entrance to the Westin.  I figured I would get a better deal if I parked there.  Well I asked the valet what the parking situation was.  He said where I was parked was actually correct unless I wanted to have the car valet parked.  Shit.  I am not sure what the daily rate for parking is, all I glanced at was the $8 for a half hour number and originally thought I was only going to be there temporarily.  I can hardly wait to see the parking bill.

So I had to walk all the way back down to the car and grab my stuff before going to my room.  The check in staff were all super polite and professional as you would expect with a high end hotel like The Westin.  I unloaded my stuff in the quite luxurious room and then only had time to walk down to a Dunkin Donuts a couple blocks away before heading to the meeting.

The conference was being held at an office building right across the street from the Westin which was super convenient.  It was in a space called The Hub on the 14th floor. It was a GREAT meeting space, modern, tech filled, beautiful with a great view.  RunSignUp really cut no corners with this event, despite it being a year one thing.

I got to meet a number of people that I only knew from primarily emails and the occasional phone call.  Bryan, who has been my main customer support contact with RunSignUp was the one I was most interested to meet.  He consistently responds to any question I have within minutes, almost regardless of the day or time of day. In fact the only reason I gave RunSignUp a try was because Bryan started working there after leaving our prior online race registrar.

I also got to meet Bob Bickel, the owner of the company.  It took all of 5 seconds to understand just how passionate and committed Bob is to the success of the company.  He evidently has a track record of building successful companies from scratch.

I met the rest of the RunSignUp crew which has been rapidly expanding in recent months due to their success.  Every single person was young, positive and energetic.  In a way it reminded me of how things were when I first got into the computer business with Entre Computers where we had a young staff of talented guys that helped grow the company by leaps and bounds in a very short period of time.

I also got to talk with other timers and race directors in the room.  Throughout the two days I picked up TONS of good ideas just by picking their brains.  So Friday was the the meeting for the Customer Advisory Board, which I was asked to be in.  These were a group of people that RSU identified as being key in helping form the direction of the company.  The meeting started with each person giving a background of themselves along with touching on some ideas that were asked of us ahead of time.

As I have always professed here, I am 100 times better at writing out my thoughts than delivering them verbally.  I had typed out a bunch of notes ahead of time to help me during my intro.  When it came time for me to do my part I only touched on part of what I had written down as I clumsily delivered my speech, oh well.

The RSU co-founder, a brilliant coder named Stephen was very interesting.  I could immediately tell he was like me in that he was uncomfortable speaking to the room yet had was going 100 mph in his brain as he was literally coding while others gave their intros. The guy that writes the software I use for timing races was also at the conference.  Being able to meet and interact with him in person was another great benefit.

Day one of the meeting went well and it was followed up by a social Friday evening at a nearby boathouse.  RSU arranged to have a van take us there.  The trip was rather, um, terrifying.  5:30 traffic in Philly is not good normally.  Things were made worse by an impromptu “Free Palestine” march that went down the middle of Market Street, causing a mess.

The van driver was extremely aggessive, cutting people off and then honking his horn at the person he just cut off, like they did something wrong.  At one point he pulled across and blocked a lane of oncoming traffic and then again beeped his horn, like they were the assholes.  I felt fortunate to step out of the van without requiring a neck brace.

The evening at the boathouse was really nice with a nice spread of food and free alcohol.  They only had one type of beer, some sort of IPA with 5.7% alcohol content. I downed enough of them to help ease my normal social anxiety that arises in these situations.  Ironically I found myself spending most of the night talking to the one timer and his wife whom were both well past retirement age.  Listening to their stories was very interesting.  I also got to chat more with Bryan, learning more about his background beyond life at RunSignUp.

Really the only negative of the night came when I went to use the single bathroom on the floor.  The seat was down, I am a courteous person normally so I reached down to put it up before I took a leak.  As I did the toilet seat promptly fell off the bowl and onto the floor.  What the fck??  It was not attached in any manner.  It looks like the plastic bolts/adhesive used to attach the seat had broken.  So I took a leak with the seat laying on the floor.  Afterwards I remained courteous, picking the seat back up and placing it back on the toilet.  After thoroughly washing my hands I warned a few people about the trick seat.

Thankfully the van ride back was much less white knuckled.  I collapsed in bed a little after 10, wiped out from the 19 hour day.

Saturday I once again tapped Dunkin Donuts for an XL coffee before heading to the meeting which was scheduled for 8AM.  The meeting room had been expanded to accommodate the additional, non-customer advisory people that were showing up.  A good portion of the day was a bit of repeat for me since some of it was covered on Friday for us.   I spent some of that time playing with some of the features that were talked about the day before and even playing a game of Hearthstone to pass some time.

During the day I was once again called upon to test my poor speaking skills.  The woman that organized the event pulled members of the CAB into a room to shoot some individual video of us answering questions.  Despite me talking into a camera all the time in my countless videos on my YouTube channel, this scenario again did not feel comfortable to me.  This time I had no notes to work off of and I had no idea what she was going to ask.

When I was talking I was distracted, not sure if I should be looking at her or the camera as I was answering the questions.  I haven’t seen the footage but my estimate was it was a lot of rambling with very little substance coming from it.

During the rest of the meeting my notepad which already was pretty full with ideas/suggestions continued to be utilized heavily.  I have a lot of things to look into once I get back in the swing of things at home.  The meeting let out around 4PM.  I hung around for awhile talking to some of the other attendees, again sharing ideas.  On my way out I saw both the owner Bob, and Johanna, who organized the conference.  I congratulated both of them for a job that was very well done.  The conference was a huge success in my mind.

Last night I didn’t make any definitive plans.  I went down to the Westin fitness room which was pretty decent with a full array of cardio machines, a few universal weight machines and a back room with two benches and a full set of dumbbells up to 50 pounds.  I did 3 circuits of chest press, should press and bent over rows and finished up with some dragon flags and reps on the vertical chest press machine.  The highlight was me pressing the full stack of weights (255lbs) one time, barely.

I decided to just eat at the hotel bar later.  There was a huge wedding party there when I was done working out.  I came back down after taking a shower and it had cleared out.  To my left there was a woman finishing up her drink.  She looked 40ish with glasses and  short hairstyle that looked severe.  She started up conversation with me that I politely rolled with.  She asked what I was in town for, I told her.  She said she was there for some birthday party for a guy that she used to produce music for.  She said the party was at some dance club right down the sidewalk.

It didn’t take long for me to see where she was leading.  She asked me what I was doing tonight.  I told her nothing really, just hanging out before I headed out this morning.  She then asked if I was married, despite no ring on my finger.  I told her no but I have a girlfriend.  “Oh ok, of course you do.” which I guess was a compliment.  Knowing she was barking up the wrong tree she headed out a minute or two later.

I ordered a scallop dish from the bar.  I was a bit shocked visually when my $20 entre came out in an appetizer sized dish with exactly 3 scallops in it.  Yea it tasted good but damn….  For desert I had a couple more Budlights before paying my $38 tab and heading back up to the room.  I was a bit affected by the beers, enough to record three silly Vines before falling asleep.

I will shortly be pulling out for Lancaster to meet up with Troy.  So far the trip has been a lot of fun, I expect that trend to continue.  All my pics so far are located here.

An odd thing has been slowly shifting over the last year or so, my SSR has become less and less of a focal point in my existence.  It is not abnormal at all nowadays for it to sit untouched in the garage for 2-3 weeks not making even the slightest rumble.

When I first got the truck I was taking it to work at least once a week, typically on a Friday.  In addition I was taking every opportunity to take the SSR out on the road.  Driving the truck made me feel proud, successful and alive.

It doesn’t take a PhD to identify buying a vehicle like this in your mid-40’s is classic mid-life crisis behavior.  There is no question that at the time of it’s purchase I was indeed dealing with several things in my life that were tough for me to handle.  The monster truck was a great way to divert my attention elsewhere.

Once I got separated the SSR really became my crutch as I took it out repeatedly on mostly unsuccessful first dates, perhaps thinking it’s mere presence alone would help make up for my instinctive awkwardness when meeting most people for the first time.  The truck was truly my companion in sorrow during that time.  No matter how down I felt, a quick spin with the top down was better than any anti-depressants on the market.

Since I started dating Cindy (whom is the only other person I have allowed to drive the SSR more than 100 feet), the SSR has steadily been pushed into the background.  I no longer bring it to work regularly, rarely participate in the SSR Fanatics forum, and generally speaking pay little attention to it.  It’s an odd thing.  Hell there have been moments when I considered the financials of selling it versus keeping it, something that would have been beyond taboo two years ago.

My amateur analysis of this shift seems to point towards whatever potholes I was feeling in my life have now become more filled, evening out my mental highway.  Don’t worry, the truck isn’t going anywhere.  I still love driving it, Cindy loves driving it, so it will remain my on demand, expensive joy ride for the foreseeable future.

After work last night I dropped the dogs back off at Ali’s place.  She was not home from work yet.  I always feel guilty when I drop them off at an empty house.  Perhaps the sadness I feel coming from them is self manufactured but it doesn’t make it any easier to feel.

Cindy and I already knew the chickens LOVE cracked corn.  We now know they love corn on the cob nearly as much.  Cindy bought a couple cobs which I chopped in half with my machete.  We have been giving them one half cob a day in the morning.  By the time we get home at night the cob is completely picked clean.

The house has been giving off symptoms of the septic tank needing to be pumped out including some smell coming from open drains and the guest bathroom toilet (closest to house drain) not flushing well.  I contacted the company that pumped it before to have it sucked out this afternoon.  I am not sure how long it has been since I had it pumped but I know in the 13 years I have been in the house it has only been done twice so I am surely overdue.

Getting out of work early will work out well since I need to pack and get ready for my trip to PA which starts very early tomorrow morning due to a 6:10AM departure.  The flight is with US Air whom I dislike.  I am trying to come up with a way to get everything I will need for the 5 day trip into my small suitcase that fits in an overhead bin.  I have a very adverse reaction to paying additional fees for checking luggage.

I think the trip will be fun with the first half spent at a conference for event planners/race timers and the second half hanging with my buddy Troy whom I have shared some of my most memorable experiences of my life with.  We always have lots of laughs.

Last night we had our monthly running club meeting.  There was an issue that came up over the weekend that really annoyed me.  If the board meeting would have happened that same day I think I would have been really demonstrative in expressing my disagreement.  After having two or three days pass it allowed me to wrap up the sharp corners of my vitriol in some bubble wrap.  I was able to calmly express my feelings on the matter and make my point without needing to go into Hulk Smash mode.   As is often the case, when you are hot under the collar, things are best addressed after you cool off a few degrees. (and the full moon has passed)

I am in the middle of a complex challenge at work that Charlie may once again be able to help me out with.  It requires a prolonged amount of concentration, thought and logical troubleshooting.  Once the coffee kicks in I will tackle it head on.

So on Sunday I needed to make reservations for a rental car to use while I am in Philly for a race timers conference.  We had just rented a car last month for Meghan’s wedding so I assumed I would wind up paying about what I did before, around $30 a day.  Wow what a difference a month makes.

Even using Cindy’s USAA discount code the best rate I was finding for even a sub-compact was more than double that, wtf??  I checked all 5 major rental car places at the airport.  I really wanted to go with Enterprise again since their customer service was so good.  Unfortunately for this weekend their rate was the highest of them all.  I ended up renting with Budget and will be dumping over $350 into a 4 day rental. I can only assume the over 100% inflation of rates in 30 days is due to some sort of event going on in the city this weekend. Bummer.

After work last night I was out in the bar park doing some pull up reps.  On rep 49 of a planned 50 I was struggling to get my chin up to the bar.  As I was pulling hard to get there I felt a shooting pain in my upper back to the left of my spine, sharp enough to make me drop off the bar.  The area that pulled had mild pain but evidently whatever shifted is pressing on something that is causing considerable pain in the lower right portion of my back.  Turning my head to the left doesn’t work so well now either.  Of course with my active lifestyle I have had off and on back issues my entire adult life but I think this may be the first time I aggravated it doing pull ups.

Cindy took some beautiful pictures around sunset last night of the property.  My favorite one is above.  I love how the rainbow frames the ballpark.

Saturday morning I wanted to get going early with outside to do’s, primarily to beat what has been pretty oppressive heat.  I was already up because Cindy had left early to help volunteer at the kid’s triathlon before she had to head into work.

While I was weeding I thought it would be cool to let the chickens out to roam around.  As they normally do when left out on their own they stayed relatively close to the coop, under trees, and in a mulched area.  Once in awhile I would see one or two of them doing a quick dash back and forth, chickens seem to be good short distance sprinters.

I was a bit concerned about how difficult it would be for me to get them to go back into the coop by myself.  So far corralling the chicks has been something Cindy and I have always had to tackle as a team.  Luckily it proved to be much simpler.  I opened the side door of the coop and then went to go get the tractor.  When I drove it over to the small shed to gas up all three of the chickens immediately retreated to the safety of their coop instinctively.  I closed the door behind them and gave them some cracked corn as a reward.

Last week we had a number of afternoon downpours, enough that we had standing water around the property.  On Saturday morning all of the water beside the front drainage ditch had evaporated, I figured I should take advantage of it by getting the grass mowed.  It turned out to be a very good decision, Saturday afternoon the skies opened and submerged much of the property once again.

On Saturday night Cindy and I went to see the new Planet of the Apes movie.  For the most part I thought it was really good.  It’s too bad that it fell into a Claude Van Damme type ending, with apes.  It pulled what would have been an A- rating down to a B+ in my book.  It’s still well worth seeing.  We saw the 3D version that offered absolutely nothing extra to the experience.  To be honest, for 95% of movies, 3D is just an afterthought that is all about being able to charge patrons a premium and has little to do with enhancing the movie enjoyment.

On Sunday morning I originally had ideas to run the 10K loop outside the water park and follow that up with swimming.  When I woke up I wasn’t feeling so great so running 6+ miles in what was already very warm and humid conditions sounded like a bad idea.  Instead we did a swimming only session where I tallied a total of 1600 yards in the pool. It was a good effort considering the last time I did any swimming was at the Fitness Challenge in early June.

Cindy once again had run ins while swimming laps, something that seems to happen to her more often than not. First a kid jumped in unannounced and bumped into her, later another hispanic family was jumping in her lane until I told them they could go into the one I just vacated.  I have never had someone try to jump in my lane while I was swimming.  It has happened to Cindy tons.  Perhaps the “Lap Swim Only” sign needs to be updated to include “vuelta de natación sólo”  She also had to ask a hispanic woman that was smoking like a chimney right outside the pool fence line to please move somewhere else.  Cindy’s rather fluent spanish makes these situations easier to navigate.

After swimming we picked up the dogs to assume dog sitting duty until Wednesday evening.

Sunday afternoon was once again wet.  Cindy and I spent it attending to various things. I did get outside briefly to fly my Phantom.  I had installed a set of larger carbon fiber props I bought online quite awhile ago.  The quad flew like shit with them.  It did not want to hold a stable hover and even when it was sort of still it was still wobbling back and forth.  I took it inside and threw on my new set of genuine DJI plastic props and it flew 100% better.

Last night we watched American Hustle, a movie staged in the late 70’s, featuring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, and Jennifer Lawrence.  There were also two guys from Boardwalk Empire in the film as well as a short but meaningful appearance by Robert DeNiro. The film was long but well done.  Unfortunately drowsiness caused me to sort of miss out on a key moment but Cindy explained it to me after the fact.  It gets a strong B+ from me.

Last night after work I came home to a property that was thoroughly drenched with standing bodies of water all over the place.  It must have poured out at the house during the day and it was still raining lightly when I arrived.  Of course my first concern was for the chickens.  I was pretty sure I had them in a spot that normally does not submerge in conditions below hurricane level but I wasn’t positive.  When I glanced in the backyard the coop and run were out of the flood zone.

After doing my normal evening coop relocation, food/water refresh and chicken treat distribution I wanted to see if I could manage to squeeze out 20 pull ups on my very wet pull up bar.  Spoiler alert, I didn’t quite make it.

On Wednesday to satisfy Jeremy I taped and posted some of my squats and deadlifts at the gym. As I always do, I turned on monetization of the video so it can contribute to my Google AdSense empire.  Later in the day I received an email from YouTube saying monetization was disabled on the video because of a music copyright claim.  Evidently during some of the footage, “Birthday” by Katy Perry was playing in the background.  YT has automated bots that “listen” to uploaded videos for commercial music to preemptively save them from being hassled by music companies I guess.

Personally I think it’s rather stupid that a few seconds of a song being played in a video is grounds for a copyright claim but that is the YouTube world we live in.  I’m in the process of applying a different royalty free music track to the clip so the pennies can once again start accumulating when it’s viewed.  After all a video with a skinny guy awkwardly squatting and deadlifting is sure to go viral.

So for a long time I was somewhat proud that I had good vision.  When I was younger it was noteworthy because both my dad and my mom have been lifelong glasses wearers with poor vision.  My sister Torrin inherited their poor vision.  Somehow Todd and myself got a couple sets of decent eyeballs inserted into our heads. Once I rolled past 40 years of age and still had no vision issues I again felt like I was beating the odds. I heard so many people say their once good eyes took a dramatic turn for the worse after four decades on the planet.  Well  for around the last 3-4 years my luck has been running out.

I guess in a way I am still somewhat lucky as it is my distance vision that is failing instead of the near field which I use every day at work for 8+ hours a day staring at two LCD screens.  If I try to read numbers or letters that are not in my immediate vicinity it is really a struggle.  If those numbers or letters happen to be glowing LED’s it’s nearly impossible.  Last night I was looking at the LED clock on the stove from about 15 feet away, it was a green mess.  I slowly walked towards it.  Once  I got about 6 feet away and fog cleared and I was able to read the numbers clearly.

You may recall I bought some Gunnar glasses awhile back, hoping their claims of helping to reduce distance viewing issues for full time IT workers were legit.  I wore them for roughly a month and had a bad experience, my eyes were constantly being red, watering and physically aching after extended Gunnar usage.  It was bad enough that I just gave them away to Jeremy. I have no plans to really do anything about it as the problem is not affecting my functionality other than raising my “I’m old” frustration level while I am trying to read a sign down the aisle.

This weekend is my last before another trip to PA for a race timer conference.  The multiple ponds around the property right now could throw a wrench in any grass maintenance plans.  I am back on dog sitting duty starting on Sunday as well.

I had a very odd dream last night.  I was in my bathroom sitting on the porcelain throne taking care of business.  All of a sudden Dustin Hoffman walks in, naked and turns on the shower.  After being stunned for a few moments I ask him what the hell he was doing??  He had the shower on full blast and had the shower curtain 3/4 of the way open so water was shooting all over the floor.  He then asks me if I mind if he poops in the shower.  My shock mutates into disgust.  Keep in mind I am sitting on the toilet during this whole exchange.  “No! No you can not poop in my shower! What the fck is wrong with you?”  Dustin says the only way he can move his bowels is if he is standing in the shower.  Thankfully the dream ended there.

No flow today.

So on Monday I continued to find things to keep me busy.  In the morning I headed out in the yard to redo the roof on the chicken run.  The pvc coated wire that was in place was starting to rust and tear.  I bought a roll of thick plastic chicken “wire” to replace it, figuring it will be immune to rust.  I did the roof swap in a steady light rain.  Thanks to the good design by the chicken tractor guy it wasn’t too hard of a job. I used a technique similar to installing pool cage screens to make sure the new roof section was taut and straight, attaching the new stuff at a corner and then pulling and securing small sections as I went.  The chickens were quite curious what I was doing as they watched from the main coop.

While I was out there I attached a small treat ball of seed that Cindy and I got at Rural King.  I attached it to the inside of the coop with a wire.  I was disgusted, amazed and annoyed when later that day I was back out there and saw that in the span of a few hours fire ants had discovered the treat and engulfed it, climbing up and down the chicken fence with ease.  Lesson learned, don’t hang treats from the sides of the pen.

During my 5 days off I found myself doing several organizational/cleaning tasks.  I cleaned up the workbench in the garage and my desk in the hobby room.  Well on Monday afternoon I took on another unexpected task, going through the massive collection of pictures in the great room cabinet.  This has been something I have thought about doing for fleeting moments since Ali and I separated but it was back burnered due to the scope of the job and the obvious pain something like that brings with it.

There were numerous albums and boxes of photos to go through.  At first I thought about just turning them all over to Ali and tell her to keep whatever she wants.  However I knew this would be equally painful for her so I figured I would try to do the majority of the dirty work, eliminating all the “us” pictures, keeping stuff that I wanted, and then giving Ali what remains which would primarily be pictures of her, her friends and family members.

Just opening up some of the boxes brought some sadness, without looking at a single picture.  Years ago Ali had taken the time to sort and categorize a number of the pictures so that they potentially could be used for some sort of future photo albums or scrap booking project.  Seeing that effort on what now can be categorized as wasted was depressing.

Of course those feelings did not improve as I flipped through hundreds of pictures of Ali and I together.  It was like a stroll down 15+ years of history.  Despite many of the pictures depicting happy times, for the most part I couldn’t shake the overall cloud of failure that hovered over the picture purging process.

Of course there were other old pictures that were from my glory days of volleyball that were fun to see again as some of the older pictures of my family.  Some of the pictures that stood out I shot with my phone and posted to an “Old Pictures” album on Facebook.  In total I spent more than two hours going through picture after picture.  It was very memory invoking, reflective, and a recap of the long and winding road I have traveled to this point and time.  Having the recycling box filled with pictures of my past is an image that will stick in my mind for awhile. After I was done I had probably cut down on the amount of pictures to give to Ali by two thirds or more.  I dropped the pictures and a box of Ali’s Peanuts collectibles off.   Ali was still working so while I was there I said a quick “Hi” to the girls and let them out to pee.

On Tuesday Cindy was off from work.  We decided to start our morning off early with a bike run bike brick.  I suggested we ride our road bikes to the nearby track which is about 3 miles away, run 3 miles and then ride back.  Cindy was into it.  We got out the door early to try to beat some of the heat, we were on our bikes by 7AM.  Unfortunately no matter what time of day it is, during a Florida summer there is no beating the humidity.

Despite only riding three miles to the track, when we started running I felt the same awkward sensation I do during a triathlon after riding 12-13 miles and then running.  My legs just did not feel comfortable.  The rising sun paired with the thick wet air quickly turned my body into a sweat factory, I was drenched.  After fighting through the initial 2-3 lap discomfort Cindy and I completed our 12 laps at a decent pace somewhere around 8:45, the fastest 3 mile pace I have held in awhile. After a brief cool down we were back on the bikes heading east to the house.  At least the 18-19 mph wind felt good when combined with the sweat pouring off our bodies.  We were back at the house and jumping in the pool by 8AM, a short but challenging work out.

After cleaning up we made arrangements to meet Cindy’s daughter at a local tire place.  Her 2010 Mustang had some badly worn tires on the front and the other two weren’t great either.  With Florida downpours, worn tires are a recipe for hydroplaning.  We met Katie there, dropped off the Mustang and then headed to the movies, an incredibly early 10:05 showing of Mailificent.  I had heard many people say the movie, which I originally had no interest in seeing from the previews was really, really good.  I was willing to give it a try.  We saw the movie at the local Naples megaplex, a place I had not stepped foot in for several years since Cindy and I watch all of our movies either at Coconut Pointe or Silverspot.

I thought the movie was GREAT.  It had everything you could really want, a great story, well acted, fantastic visuals and an emotional ending.  My opinion was shared by Katie and Cindy whom were both looking for tissues towards the end.  It’s a solid A flick.

After the movie we stopped at Autozone.  Katie said her wipers were bad and her AC wasn’t blowing very cold so I figured we could take care of those issues at the same time as the tires.  While I was under the hood recharging the AC I saw how corroded and nasty the battery was looking.  Surely it was going to die sometime soon.  I told Cindy we should just replace it while we were there.

It was hades hot outside at this point, I quickly sweated through my t-shirt as I futzed around trying to get the new battery in place which was slightly larger than the factory unit it replaced.  Eventually I got everything done.  Katie was very thankful for the work I did.  She reported the car was driving better than it ever has later in the day which was good to hear.

On Tuesday afternoon Cindy and I let the chickens out to roam for a little while.  As usual they had a lot of fun checking out the yard.  Cindy was able to lead them pied piper style over to the orchard area by shaking a container of meal worms.  We figured the large mulched square of the orchard would make for a good play area.

We have been trying to get the chickens to be less fearful of us.  Cindy has been feeding them out of her hand randomly since we got them and has been petting them as they will let her.  Normally they are more open to this when you provide them with treats to pick at.  Yesterday I picked one of the chickens up twice to hold them.  Other than a little fussing when I first grabbed them, they were ok once I had them secure and close to my body.  I was able to pet them and even got Wilma to take a few meal worms from my flat palm while I was holding her.  We are hoping that the more we do this sort of stuff, the more tame the chickens will become around us.

Last night Cindy and I wrapped up the weekend catching up on some X1 recordings.  All in all my 5 day mini-vacation was a little heavy on to do’s than I would have liked.  Normally I like to work like a nut up front to afford me the luxury of being a bum on the back end.  I never seemed to get to that point this time but maybe it is just as good.  Typically when I have a day of total slack I wind up feeling lazy and malcontent anyway.

I would prefer to empty my brain of the last 3 days instead of trying to do a 5 day recall on Wednesday.

As promised my 4th of July started stupidly early with a 3:30 alarm followed my a 4 am departure time which got us on the race site before 4:40 AM.  I wanted to be have everything up and ready to go well in advance of the nearly 1000 participants that were in this years race.  Because the race is held in July it starts at 7AM, making the earlier arrival time necessary.

The next two hours are an exercise in controlled chaos as the humanity piles into the area.  This race historically has a lot of walk up participants (people that sign up on race day) so that puts extra demand on Ali who does most of the data entry and myself.  On the good side, using race bib based timing devices meant that many runners didn’t have to stand in any lines on race morning.  If they signed up early and picked up their race packet ahead of time they could head right to the start line.

All things considered the race went smoothly, as smooth as something this big can go.  I had only one timing device not work and I was posting results real time to the internet 5 minutes after the first finisher crossed.  Cindy ran the race and did well although she really struggled with the conditions.  Despite starting at 7AM, the air was still very warm and muggy, making breathing difficult.  Even so, she finished the race averaging right around a 8 minute mile pace which is very good.

I had a lot of anxiety leading up to the race, just hoping everything worked as planned.  As the last few runners crossed the finish line I felt like I had a weight lifted off my shoulders.  We got cleaned up and pulled out before 9:30. It was a job well done for all involved.

Once getting home, unloading the truck and attending to post race data management needs I told Cindy I wanted to go outside to get a few things done, despite the early start to the day.  After weeding the property I turned my attention to the gutters.  I had noticed during a recent downpour that the super gutter along the pool deck was obviously clogged as water spilled on to the deck.  I wanted to get up there and clear it out.

It was VERY hot by this point.  Once I got up on the roof I felt like I stepped onto the surface of the sun.  Despite having my nitrile gloves on, the heat from the roof immediately burned my hand when I touched it.  I used the hose I drug up there with me to spray down the sections I was working on.  So I head over to the area where I noticed the problem and did indeed see a big mess of leaves accumulated over the downspout which I expected. I also saw some things I didn’t expect.

One of those things was a huge collection of asphalt that has been coming off the roof shingles.  I guess after 13 years the tiles are starting to break down more although they look pretty solid to me.  The other thing in the gutters I wasn’t happy to see were lots of pieces of metal and pool cage screws.  Evidently the father/son team that replaced my pool screen took it upon themselves to remove these pieces and not reinstall them.  I’m not sure if the motive was laziness or convenience but I was annoyed.  There were at least 6 different spots where they pulled these parts off and threw them in the gutter.  I am not sure how much they lend to the structural integrity of the cage but it pisses me off that they would take shortcuts like that.  I gathered up the screws and aluminum and tossed them down into a bucket from the roof.

Cleaning out the gutters was not fun.  Removing the leaves and mud wasn’t a big deal but once I decided I wanted to blast most of that asphalt residue out of the gutter my job got much, much longer.  The asphalt particles are heavy so even with the hose at it’s highest pressure setting it could only push the gunk a few inches at a time.  I spent close to an hour in total hunched over pushing the junk down to the drain.  I hit every gutter on the house including a couple sections that had totally clogged downspouts.  I used a wire snake to plunge the organic mess.  When it finally broke free it was like a massive dump was just flushed out the downspout below. By the time I got off the roof I felt like I had been broiled but I was glad to have cleared the gutters, something I have not done for at least 4 years.

We also had the chickens outside roaming free for awhile.  Once again they found a landscape bed to dig up and lay in.  They really love being able to roam around, maybe a little too much.  When it came time to get them back in the coop Cindy needed my assistance to guide them into it. I had more tasks in my head but Cindy told me that enough was enough, we should just chill.  I took her advice.  After a dip in the pool we wound up passing out for a much needed nap for a couple hours.

We didn’t make any plans to go see official fireworks displays but we had plenty of them around the house to entertain us as many of the neighbors were setting them off.  Somewhere around 10PM I had the bright idea to grab my Phantom and send it upward for a birds eye view of the horizon.

I attached the strip of blue leds to the copter as well to give it a more patriotic blue glow.  The 8 minute video I captured, including a botched take off, is entertaining enough and gives you a good idea of just how many fireworks hit the air on the 4th of July.

On Saturday Cindy worked and I had lots of to do’s filling my head.  I picked up the girls from Ali’s place early and had them tag along while I made stops at Home Depot, Costco and Publix.  The back of the van was rather full since I had jammed in the 8 foot fold up table I was letting Ali borrow and a 12 foot section of white pvc roofing for the chicken run.

Once I got back home it was late in the morning and not an ideal time to just be starting your outdoor work for the day, of course it didn’t matter.  I was happy to see the section of roofing I bought fit the chicken run perfectly. It’s much lighter, more waterproof and more practical than the two sections of 2×6 I was using previously.  As normal, the chickens were scared at first when I replaced their roof but relaxed once they realized it was not threatening.  The white pvc not only will give them a nice rain barrier, the white color will help bounce heat.

I then did the modification to the floor of the run, flipping it on it’s side so I could cut out the center section of fence that lined the bottom.  We decided we wanted to have some bare grass available to the chickens so they can dig and scratch as they please.  I left an 8″-10″ border intact and cut the rest with a wire snips.

It didn’t take long to determine a problem based on my bloody forearm which had brushed up against a couple of the cut wires.  A cut wire is sharp obviously, I didn’t want to have the wire ends cut the feet of the chickens.  So I grabbed a pliers and bent each wire down so they would be into the ground, keeping the sharp end away from sensitive chicken feet.

When I reattached the modified chicken run to the coop I smiled when I saw two of them immediately start scratching the ground once they realized there was no longer a wire mesh there preventing it.  The chickens seemed happy.

I then turned my attention to the grass which needed a full weed whack and mowing session.  In total I spent around 2.5 hours getting it all done, part of it in the rain.  I was glad once again to have the canopy on the yard tractor to allow me to keep mowing in a steady rain without getting soaked.

On Saturday night Cindy and I had our last Tarpons game of the season.  We had a good time assisted by the four Budweisers I consumed.  It was actually a very competitive game which came down to a missed two point conversion at the end.  The highlight of the night however was me snagging my first ever arena football souvenir.  It was very funny they way it went down.  I was already pretty drunk and talking some nonsense to Cindy, not really paying attention to the game.  All of a sudden I turn to my right and a ball is bouncing towards me end over end.  I instinctively reach down over the railing and pluck the ball out of the air cleanly.  It was surreal.  I handed the ball to Cindy for safe keeping.  One of the perks of arena football is they let the fans keep any ball that goes into the stands during official play.

I have been trying to snag a football at arena games for along time, dating back to when I was a Florida Firecats season ticket holder 5-6 years ago.  It was cool to finally have that quest come to an end.  Oh the Tarpons lost by the way but no one really cared, it was a good game and a fun time.

On Sunday Cindy and I took the girls along for another trip to Rural King.  We didn’t really have to go there but we enjoy it so the fact that we had a couple caribiners to return was reason enough to go, plus we hit DD on the way.

Sunday unfortunately contained more labor, the most grueling of which was my weedwhacking the entire fence line and the ditch in the back.  It is a miserable, miserable task, especially when done during a July afternoon.  It was sweltering hot and made more uncomfortable by the jeans  I was wearing to protect my legs.  Since I whack both sides of the fence I estimate I hit at least 1000 feet of fence and 300 feet of ditch (down one side and up the other).  I went though 2 spools of trimmer cord and sweated obscene amounts of fluid.  There is a reason this particular chore only gets done once or twice a year, it blows.

The dogs spent a decent amount of time outside despite the heat.  Of course they were seeking shade and found some at the revamped dog deck.  The table and 9 foot umbrella gave the girls a good hang out spot.

After doing all that outside work it started to pour.  I had wanted to get a bar park workout in since we didn’t do any endurance training this weekend.  Cindy and I instead both worked out inside.  I did a circuit on the triple gym consisting of pull ups, dips, and push ups but felt lousy, surely from being dehydrated outside.  I felt weak, tired and had a headache.

Cindy’s daughter stopped by briefly as well Sunday afternoon.  Cindy was giving her her old Iphone to Katie since she killed her Iphone 5 by inadvertently getting it wet. Katie is the terminator of smart phones, I am not sure exactly how many she has broken in the last 5 years but I am estimating it is closing in on double digits.

I also took a quick look at the back window of her Mustang.  It no longer goes down and makes a nasty crunching sound when you try.  I could see a wire that looked like it was out of place but unfortunately the only way to get to anything would require a lot of disassembly that I wouldn’t feel great about since it shares space with the convertible top hardware.  I have a feeling the dealer labor charge on it will be on the high side.

Sunday night we watched Grudge Match with Stallone and DeNiro.  Both Cindy and I found the movie funny and entertaining.  I enjoyed it more than I expected, earning it a very solid B+ rating.

So this weekend I have some more modifications planned for the chicken housing arrangements.  Having the chickens out of their coop last weekend made it clear how much they like being able to freely scratch the ground.  Both their main coop and extended run area have 2×4 welded wire on the bottom of them for protection from potential predators that have the ability to dig.  Unfortunately the wire also makes it impossible for the chickens to do any real scratching.

Originally I suggested to Cindy that I totally remove the wire floor from the extended run and instead we could put pieces of fencing around the outside of run to accomplish the same goal.  Cindy pointed out that could be a bit of a pain in the ass, moving the pieces of fencing every time I moved the coop, although doable.  She suggested that instead I could cut out just a section of the floor inside the run, giving the chickens a 12-18 inch strip of bare ground to scratch away on.  The perimeter barrier of fencing should be enough to still discourage any excavating animals.   Plus since the entire back yard is already surrounded by 4 feet high small opening fencing, the odds of anything even getting close to the coop is further lessened.  I think the chickens will be quite happy with the change.

Tomorrow my 4th of July weekend starts somewhere around 3:30 AM so I can get to the race site bright and early.  The early 7AM start time, large number of race day sign ups, large distance between the start/finish lines and a participant field of close to 1000 runners makes this race challenging on several levels.  This is the first year we are using timing devices integrated with the race bib for this event which should help expedite logistics both before and after the race.

Once the race is out of the way I have a glorious four and a half days of time off ahead of me.  Other than normal chores, a Tarpons game Saturday night and a trip to the movie theater the rest of the weekend will be about doing whatever I damn feel like doing.

I had an odd dream last night that I only remember bits and pieces of.  I know at one point Cindy was calling lazy for some reason and at another point a 60 foot maple tree was delivered to my door.  I had forgotten I ordered it at Christmas.