Packed the Prius, Wake and wait, Vincent, Coop crazy

I don’t feel very chatty today, not a great thing with a weekend recap to do.

Saturday was not bad as I mixed in a modicum of outdoor chores with a lot of screw off time in the afternoon.  Later in the afternoon we headed down to the running store as I needed to pick up the race bibs for Sunday’s race.  We took the van for the drive along with my AC recharge kit.  My hope was for the compressor to kick on at some point during the drive which would allow me to add refrigerant to the low pressure side of the system.  Unfortunately the entire 45 mile drive the AC was dead so my attempts to remedy the problem were dead as well.  I am planning to take the van to this place I used years ago for AC work.  They were very reasonable.  If I can get the AC cranking in the party van without dropping a large wad of money I’ll make the investment.

The timing of this Sunday race sucked.  Sunday races in general suck in my book, I would always much rather get it out of the way on Saturday and have the last half of my weekend to myself. However this race date sucked more than normal since it coincided with the the clocks going forward, meaning my normal 4AM race day alarm was actually more like 3AM.  Somehow I actually woke up on my own about 15 minutes before the alarm went off Sunday morning.

On Saturday night we tried something that at first I thought had no shot of being successful, packing the Prius with the race gear.  I figured there was no way we could get 7 timing  mats, 3 timing boxes, 4 laptops, 8 lanterns and a bunch of other crap we lug to races in the back of the sub-compact gas sipping hybrid.  I was wrong.  Yes it took very careful placement and eliminating one large Rubbermaid bin in favor of a bag but we got it all in.

So we got on the race site about 5:20, a little ahead of the 5:30 time that most people show up for a 7:30 race.  I have stuff to do anyway right away like drop off equipment at the start line before unpacking the rest in the registration area.  I thought it was odd that after we had the Prius totally unpacked there was not a single other vehicle in the parking lot even though it was now 5:40.

When 5:45 came and nobody was there, most importantly the equipment truck, I was genuinely concerned.  This was a first year race, is it possible that nobody told Bill our equipment guy that there was a race that day?  Finally another vehicle pulled in, it was one of our core volunteers that had Bill’s phone number, something I did not have in my phone.  He called Bill to see what was up as he was surprised he wasn’t there yet.

It turned out Bill and others were told by the race director that there was no need to show up before 6AM since this was a small race. (we actually had over 400 pre-registered which is pretty big)  Of course I found this annoying.  We have had an unwritten rule in place for as long as I can remember of starting set up two hours before the posted race start time.  Second, if the time the truck was showing up was changed, it should have been mentioned to me since everyone in the club knows I am typically one of the first people on site.

So after nearly a half hour of standing around we got to start unloading the truck.  I immediately felt behind the curve, a feeling I don’t want on race day.  Yes typically that extra half hour of set up time translates into us being up and ready well before the first runner shows up, but there is a reason for that.  If something does go wrong we have some slack time to address it.  If I have learned anything in nearly a decade of race production, having everything set up early is a good problem to have. On the plus side, this race involved the Naples band so there were a ton of students recruited to be extra hands to move crap around.

Once set up began I found out that the course was changed on Saturday, again without my knowledge.  The start line equipment we dropped off was about 250 yards north of where the start line was moved to.  I was buzzing around trying to get all the tech online when I found out.  Thankfully Cindy was able to go throw the stuff in the Prius and move it to the new spot while I kept working.

So we got everything up and running and had a good group of volunteers handling registration so things flowed pretty well.  I headed down to the start line and got my equipment set up.  We then had another problem.  The police were under the impression the route was on the other side of the road that I was set up on.  They wanted us to move all my equipment and the nearly 400 runners over to the other side to start.  Instead we suggested that the police divert the runners into the other lane about 200 yards up the road at the first median crossover.  They agreed to the plan but said they needed one more officer to make it happen.  They said it should take a couple minutes.  It took almost 15.

So as the runners were restlessly waiting for the race to start the Naples band was belting out music full blast, starting at 7:15.  I wondered how many noise complaints were called in by the numerous near by condo inhabitants.  I have no doubt they were numerous.

Finally the other officer arrived and the race kicked off.  From that moment on my day got better.  I had zero timing issues, in fact as best I could tell I had 100% reads at the start and finish line with 385 runners clocked in at both timing points.  All of my tech worked great except for my back up timing box which ran out of battery power before the race finished which was unexpected.  Cindy and I had the Prius repacked and rolled off site by 9:30. When we got home I worked until around noon getting results posted, the web site updated and the finish line video processed and posted to YouTube.

I decided to rip the timing box that had a battery failure apart as obviously the problem had to be addressed.  Pulling it apart wasn’t very technically challenging.  After removing the guts from the case I found that the box actually has two batteries instead of one.  A quick search online resulted in a set of replacement batteries being ordered via Amazon that will cost $45 shipped to my door, cheap. I saw this as yet another opportunity to post a how to video to my YouTube empire. The rest of Sunday I spent a lot of time just screwing around in WoW, a good way to for me to take a brain vacation.

The chickens got to screw around outside as well, walking around the yard.  Cindy and I have decided that Lola, the smallest chicken by far is actually not a buff orpington chicken.  She may be a cross breed between a buff and something else but she is definitely not a pure breed.  Cindy thinks she could possibly be an americana.  If she is, that could mean she will eventually lay blue eggs.

We also had a lot of discussion about permanent coop options.  With a near total home floor replacement on the horizon, coop construction is not on the top of the to do list.  However we are both committed to building a permanent structure that allows for more capacity, safety, and room for the chickens to roam.

Last night we watched St Vincent, a movie my dad had recommended to me where Bill Murray plays a grumpy and generally disagreeable old man.  The movie has laughs and some unexpected tears.  It was a role Murray seemed very good at playing.    It checked in with a B+ rating in my book.