Archives 2014

So Saturday it was cold, dreary and rainy pretty much all day.  I decided I was going to use the bad weather as a reason to get a lot of stuff done indoors.  I was a chore whirlwind, knocking out all cleaning, watering, laundry, dusting, vacuuming and any other indoor task that came to mind.  I finished up my marathon chore session late afternoon.  The Eagles didn’t play until 8 so I decided to run out to Target to get a couple things.

Once I was in Target I happened to walk by the remaining Xmas inventory that was marked down a ridiculous 90% to blow stuff out.  I couldn’t help myself but to take a look.  I wound up getting 4 rolls of Xmas wrapping paper for a crazy 25 cents per roll, score.

Well when I walked in the store I didn’t grab a cart since the items I was targeting were small.  Well the addition of 4 rolls of wrapping paper all of a sudden made going cart-less very difficult.  It was made more annoying by my inability to find calendars in the store.  Despite directions from different Target employees, telling me the calendars were in a certain area, I was unable to find them.  Looking for calendars while holding 4 rolls of wrapping paper, fish food, and a card really taxed my patience.  I was shifting my grip strategy every couple minutes.  I eventually gave up my calendar search and figured I could look in World Market a couple doors down.

So I walk in WM and see they do indeed have 2014 calendars AND they are 60% off! Sweet.  The selection wasn’t great but I snagged a Peanuts calendar for the kitchen and a french countryside photo calendar for the office.  So there were two lines open for checkout.  Both of them only had one customer in them but both of the cashiers seemed to be having some sort of complication while checking them out.  I picked the line with the young, mildly attractive girl.  Well, I chose poorly. I literally spent 15 minutes waiting.

The first problem was some stupid candy bar where she couldn’t read the bar code.  She scanned the thing 10 times without success.  She even had the customer try scanning it.  I was wondering why she couldn’t just manually punch in the numbers in the UPC code.  When she called a manager up front to help her, they did just that, punched in the numbers.

Ok great, I thought I was in the clear.  Well then the customer plops down some $10 off coupon.  Well again the coupon had the clerk baffled, she said it scanned ok but it was not applying the discount.  This delay went on forever.  This time the same manager chick came up and this time was unable to fix the issue.  Now if I was the customer I would have said 10 minutes ago, f the coupon, f the candy bar.  Evidently the sugar fix and $10 was really important to them.

Of course I was annoyed and I could have easily jumped into the other cashier line which had started moving.  For some reason I stayed put, thinking to myself it was a good test of patience.  In fact it almost became comical, just how insistent the customer was and how inept the clerk was.  Well the end result of all of this fcking around was the guy did not get his 10 bucks off, the coupon in fine print had an expiration date of 1/1/14.  Lol. When I finally got to check out I assured the girl I didn’t need any candy bars and had no expired coupons to present.

So before the Eagles game I got to take in about the last half of the Chiefs/Colts game.  I was amazed how badly the Chief were destroying the Colts, holding as much as a 38-10 lead in the early 3rd quarter.  I was them amazed as the Chiefs imploded allowing that lead to evaporate, giving the Colts the second largest comeback victory in the history of the NFL.

I had odd feelings as I watched Fat Andy walk off the field dejectedly.  I had seen this scenario play out so many times when he was wearing Midnight Green, big leads blown, shitty time management, team crumbling when the game is on the line, in a weird way I was glad to see it happen to another team instead of my beloved Eagles.  A small part of me felt badly but that part sat quietly in a corner.

So the Eagles game had a lot of hype focusing on the Saints poor performance on the road and their failure to ever win a road playoff game.  There was also talk of playing in the open air of Philly in January but that wasn’t a huge factor.  Temps in the mid-20’s with almost no wind didn’t really put a huge cramp in the Saints game plan.

The game was closely contested where a few key plays could have made a large difference.  I have to question Chip Kelly’s apparent like of going on it on 4th and short when the offense has proven repeatedly they aren’t good at it.  McCoy may be the leagues best rusher this year but must have short yardage plays are not his thing.  Conversely, the Saints DESTROYED the Eagles in short yardage.  Drew Brees did a number of QB sneaks where the entire offensive line steamrolled the Eagles D, getting 3-4 yards when they needed one.

Despite their problems the Eagles actually grabbed the lead with a few minutes to go with a late touchdown.  The first thought that went through my head was there is too much time left.  The special teams then fell on their face, allowing a big return punctuated with a horse collar tackle penalty that gave the Saints a ridiculous starting position of the Eagles 48 yard line, 20 yards from field goal range. To win the game, the Eagles defense had to come up huge with no room to spare.  Well they didn’t, allowing the Saints to move the sticks easily before they kicked a playoff ending field goal as time expired. Damn.

I was disappointed but not crushed by the loss.  It was way better than the way Andy’s Chiefs went down, snatching defeat from the jaws of 99% assured victory.  The Eagles turn around from the halfway point this year had been dramatic, so much so that perhaps I had drank just a little too much Kool Aid, thinking the team actually had a shot to go deeper in the playoffs.

The good news is the team seems to be on the right track now, but make no mistake they still have holes to fill, especially on defense and special teams.  All things considered, year one of the Chip Kelly era is definitely a success.

I did so much on Saturday around the house that Sunday it felt like I tons of time to spare.  We didn’t do our psuedo-normal Sunday bike ride because of a late morning brunch that was scheduled for Cindy’s daughters birthday. (which was later cancelled)  I started off my Sunday slow, playing a bunch of Hearthstone.  I used to start my weekend mornings off with WoW play all the time however if I do it now I almost feel guilty.

The slow start to the day seemed to carry through, it felt like I got little done.

There were things that happened of course.  I installed the slackline that I bought for Cindy for Xmas.  I strung it between two palm trees roughly 50 feet apart.  Obviously a slackline needs to be very tight to support a human beings weight.  I had no idea how to judge if I was exceeding the 85 pounds of torque that is established as the red line in the instructions.

Both Cindy and my initial attempts on the line were very, very short.  The instability of the line felt impossible to overcome.  Cindy was practicing much, much more than I was and did much better.

If you have 12 minutes to spare you can see how day one of slackline training went.

I also got my Phantom up in the air for some more aerial video.  I bought some moon gel, a substance that is used primarily by musicians for vibration dampening.  Well I read it also works well for absorbing vibration associated with aerial video.  My clumsy camera mount looked funny but definitely worked better than my first attempt.  Even without using YouTube stabilization, the video was noticeably less shaky.  Eventually I need to snag myself a used/cheap GoPro to use for aerial footage.  You can see the videos I shot here and here.  On the second video I pointed the camera more forward instead of straight down.

I did manage to rip the dash of the SSR off again to crank down the stereo volume gain.  I think I have found a decent balance point now.

I then got wrapped up in a very frustrating battle with Cindy’s old iPhone and her laptop.  I still had not successfully gotten her music collection pulled off the iPhone.  Itunes would not see the phone and as a result I could not see her music.  Before I knew it it was close to 7PM and Sunday had almost expired.  It felt like I wasted the day, even though I was busy doing various things as depicted here.  I told Cindy my mood almost felt full moonish, even though we are two weeks away from the next cycle.

Tonight I get to do the cold weather scramble.  A huge blast of icy air is coming our way, necessitating the aggravating and often fruitless task of trying to protect the garden and fragile landscape plants.  Thank goodness Cindy is off so she can help me.

The transplanted fish seem to be doing ok in their new surroundings although the pond water is already looking murkier than I recall it being before they moved in.  I went down to get the remaining fish from the foreclosed houses pond but came up empty.  On Saturday a crew was in there cleaning the landscape up, mowing the grass, weed whacking and trimming up plants.

Well one of the things they trimmed was bush that hung over the pond.  They trimmed it hard, leaving the pond wide open.  The water, sitting on top of the shit bottom was actually still and clear and devoid of any fish.  My guess is once it was opened up a hungry bird came in and helped themselves.  I felt like I failed the left over fish a bit, no fish left behind….

It looks like today is a Friday Rant day.

So after work I needed to pick up a large package of chicken to use in the meals for the dogs.  I figured I may as well do so at Costco.  Well as soon as I entered the parking lot I knew I was going to be in for an annoying Costco experience, something which is the case more often or not.

I joined Costco last year, looking to a support a warehouse chain with a better business model than Sam’s Club.  Costco pays their employees better, treats them better and are generally viewed as the anti-Wal-mart, the godfathers of Sam’s Club.

I want to enjoy shopping at Costco.  I want to support the good things they stand for.  But regardless of my intent, time and again my shopping experience at our local store is anything but enjoyable.  The place is always packed and yesterday was even worse than normal.

There is nowhere you can look  that does not include human beings scurrying about.  Once you enter the store you merge into a current of shopping carts.  If you pause without making sure you exit the current you risk being rear ended.  If you forgot something and need to turn around against the river of humanity you are taking your life into your own hands.

Maybe they are just too successful, all I know is I can not STAND shopping at a place where I am bumping elbows with people repeatedly.  I literally feel like an ant in a colony, it sucks.

To make matters worse, for some reason they had absolutely NO CHICKEN.  I dipped myself into this humanity soup unnecessarily, great.  I grabbed a few other items but not the main reason I went there.

As I made my way to Sam’s to score the chicken, I tried to ascertain why Costco was SO horrible on a Thursday evening. I came up with a common cause of misery during this time of year, snowbirds.  A ton of them have probably just flocked back into town now that the holidays are over, necessitating stocking up their seasonal cupboards at Costco.

Ironically Sam’s was a calm and pleasant scene, 180 degrees from the Costco chaos I had just left.  The wide aisles left my personal space intact, I didn’t feel my blood pressure rising as I made my way to the poultry section where they had boneless breasts on sale for a very cheap $1.70 a pound.  I walked up to the self checkout line (Costco doesn’t have them) and exited the store without a fuss.

I wish I could get the shopping environment of Sam’s within the walls of Costco.

When I got home I had something else waiting to annoy me.  It was a bill from the state of Florida for their TOLL-BY-PLATE system.  It was from when Cindy borrowed the party van to go to Key West and I knew the bill was coming.  However I still found myself being very annoyed by the premise behind the system.

So basically in certain areas of the state they decided that paying toll takers was an unnecessary expense so they removed them.  Their removal meant you are no longer able to simply pay for a toll with actual cash.  You have to have one of the prepaid Sunpass transponders.  If you don’t have one, they have a system in place that takes a picture of your license plate and then uses the plate registration info to mail you a paper bill.  This aggravates the shit out of me on several levels.

I can understand wanting to save costs but I think having at least one booth available to take cash for tolls is not a lot to ask.  Maybe I would like to just throw a buck for the toll instead of having to get a bill in the mail that I have to write a check for 3 weeks later. To add injury to insult, the state charges you an additional $2.50 “administrative fee” for the privilege of not being able to simply pay for a toll on the spot.

I am sure the thinking behind this process was hoping the admin fee plus the inconvenience of having to deal with a physical bill will push more people into buying a pre-paid Sunpass, where the state gets to hold our money in advance before it is actually spent.

Perhaps I am just being old fashioned but when push comes to shove I still think physical currency should be accepted in these situations.

This weekend I have things to do of course.  I think I will be removing my interior Xmas decorations but once again will leave my outside lights up for an extended period of time.  I just like having them out there.  I’d like to once again rip apart the SSR dash to turn down the gain on the stereo to silence the maddening electronic whine.

I’d also like to to string the slack line I bought for Cindy for Xmas.  It will be interesting to see how well we can balance on a 2-3 inch wide strip of fabric.  I also am looking to do another quadracopter aerial video session.  I bought some stuff called Moon Gel that is supposed to do a good job of reducing the amount of camera shake.

Saturday night will be consumed cheering on the Eagles to hopefully a first round playoff win.

On New Years eve we went to see Anchorman 2 at Silverspot, the upscale theater located in Mercato.  Cindy and I were both sleepy so we thought we would be proactive and get two espressos to take into the theater with us.  We should have just gotten regular coffees.  The espresso filled like 25% of the small cup and tasted no different and had the same if not less than effect of a cup of joe. (and cost more)

I went into the movie feeling unsure, a Will Ferrel comedy is something I normally would be fine relegating to Netflix rental status.  Many of his movies have a bad habit of not being all that funny beyond the few clips you see in previews.  The only reason we were seeing Anchorman 2 was it was the only movie I could get non-front row seating for.

Well the movie was really funny, surprisingly so, until the last 20 minutes.  All of a sudden the viewer is presented with what may be the stupidest ending of any movie in the history of film making.  I was open mouthed several times, wondering what the hell happened.  All of a sudden what could have been an A- comedy was drug down to B status because of the idiotic finish.  Oh well.

Originally  the plan was to grab a drink after the movie somewhere to watch the ball drop.  However as we stepped out of the theater Cindy said she would have no issue just going home to watch the ball drop as we drank a beer.  She was very sleepy.  She didn’t have to ask me twice, when given a choice, I am always happy to avoid a big crowd, especially a big drunk, dumb, New Years Eve crowd.  Also our intention to get up early to participate in the New Years Day 5K race and Polar Plunge affected our decision.

We rung in the New Year  with the dogs, watching the Dick Clark-less, Dick Clark’s Rocking New Years Eve, which was sort of weird/sad.   It’s the first time I ever had a New Year’s Eve where I had not heard Dick’s voice counting down the final few seconds of the old year.  Despite my complaining about Dick pressing on post-stroke with doing the countdown, I still felt a definite void without him.  RIP Dick.

Despite my tame New Years Eve celebration, pulling myself out of bed on Wednesday morning still did not feel pleasant.  Bed felt like a magnet.  I managed to get myself upright and we pulled out of the driveway around 6:15 for the 7:30 race.

I NEVER race 5K’s anymore, I time a lot of them but never make an effort to run them.  The last time I did one was 365 days ago when I ran the same event last year.  Since it’s not chip timed it allows me the luxury of running it.  Last year at this race I somehow managed to smash all of my prior 5K bests as I averaged a 7:24 per mile pace.  This year there was no repeat performance.

My nagging knee problems have kept my running at a bare minimum the last several months.  The right knee was hurting with every stride for the first mile or so of the race as well which was not surprising.  Still, I tried to maintain a decent pace which I can normally judge by the amount of auxiliary talking Cindy does.  If she is able to talk a lot, I am not going all that hard.  Well she was quiet pretty much the entire 5K.

I was much slower than last year but I was happy to click in with a pace that started with a 7, barely.  My average pace of 7:59 was nothing to write home about but with my circumstances leading up to the race I really can’t complain.  Cindy was stride for stride with me and I’m sure she could have finished a few strides ahead of me if she wanted to.

Next up was the Polar Plunge, an event that is sort of funny considering we live in one of the most southern areas of the United States.  The “cold” water checked in at 72 degrees.   Submerging myself was an eye opening but not overly frigid experience.  The water actually was a few degrees warmer than the same event last year.  I was one of the last people out of the water.  After the brief acclimation process it wasn’t that bad at all. We didn’t stick around all that long afterward since the girls had not had breakfast yet.

I decided during the day I wanted to fix the screen section that Sadie was nice enough to rip for me.  I got all the tools out, removed the old screening and unrolled my super screen.  I was quite annoyed when I realized I had only a small amount of the 100 foot roll I bought a couple years ago, not enough to cover the panel I had to replace. Damn it.

So a trip to Home Depot was in order to grab some generic screen.  I have not been all that happy with the super screen investment I made anyway.  I have had sections I replaced rip along the spline just like regular screening.

By the time I got home the weather had soured.  I wound up finishing up the repair in a steady rain.  I thanked Sadie as I was on my knees, soaked, kneeling in mulch, trying to press in spline.

I also became the owner of a dozen or more goldfish yesterday. The house two doors down from me was foreclosed on.  The former owner moved out a week or two ago.  Before she did, she posted something on the neighborhood email list about a pond full of goldfish she had.  She was looking for someone to take them since she could not bring them to wherever she was going next.

I had asked about the fish at that time but when she described their numbers and the size of their existing pond I told her it sounded like too many for the pond set up I have.  I had goldfish in my pond for awhile after I built it but they disappeared one day, presumably to hungry birds.  I told the woman the fish would be better off somewhere else and I left it at that.

Well when they moved out, they left their recycling trash bin by the end of the driveway.  It was evidently hit or blown over, leaving various things strewn in the grass.  It looked like shit.

Well after seeing it that way for over a week I decided to do something about it.  I picked up the large items, threw them back in the can and drug it up to the garage of the now abandoned house.  While I was up there I saw the pond that was discussed in email, I was curious if she re-homed the fish or not.

As I got close the smell hit me, it wasn’t pleasant. In the stagnant, dirty water were a bunch of fish, left to fend for themselves.  Well my animal compassion immediately set in.  Despite my limited pond space, at least they would have a chance to survive, something they would not have once the unkempt small pond disappeared from evaporation.

I grabbed a bucket and my large fish net from my place and went on a rescue mission.  My first swipe into the pond revealed what the stench was from.  I netted no fish but pulled up a wet, disgusting, substance which evidently was mostly fish waste.  The bottom of the pond had to have at least a half a foot of it settled on the bottom.  I did nothing but mouth breathing through the rest of the rescue effort.

After filling the bucket with water from the scum pond I slowly netted the fish.  Most times I snagged fish I also snagged more fish shit.  I had to jostle the net in my hand to identify the fish from the shit so I could dump it into the bucket.  As I would scoop out the shit I would dump it onto the ground which several times would splatter, with much of it landing on my feet and legs.  I did my best to not think about just how incredibly disgusting this process was and concentrated on the fish.

The other problem was every time I tried to snag a fish I would be stirring up the bottom, making it hard to even see the remaining goldfish.  I would grab a fish and then have to wait for the sediment to settle a bit while I stared into the water looking for more movement.  I was dipping into the fish shit pond for a loong time.  I bet I spent close to a half hour down there.

I got almost all of them.  I know there is at least one remaining but the water was so murky that I couldn’t get a bead on it.  I’ll have to go back for it this weekend.  Cindy was just walking down to check on me as I began walking back up to the house with a bucket full of fish.  Before putting the fish in my pond I filled it to the max and then dumped the fish in there.

Some of them were looking pretty sickly and not moving much, others were swimming around happily.  I am hoping the lethargy was the result of being transferred.  When I checked on them later it seemed like all fish were moving and I didn’t see any floaters.

I have no idea if my actions will extend the fishes life or accelerate their demise.  The pond area is small in comparison to what they were in so that may be problematic.  On the good side, the areca palms that surround the pond area are really overgrown, providing some shelter for the fish from sky predators.  I hope they make it.

I received some extremely sad news that Alison’s sister-in-law passed away early New Years morning.  It was a very hard thing for my mind to process.  It just didn’t seem possible that she actually was gone.  She was too young to be gone, too much of a fighter to be gone, too loved by her children to be gone, yet, she was gone.  Alison was very close to her as well.  I can only hope for a 2014 filled with healing for her entire family.