Weird vibe, 4, burning up, Spies, Party, swamped, slept through it

Saturday morning Cindy and I decided to change venues for our run, skipping the track and instead heading down to the waterpark.  We wanted to run the loop around the perimeter of the park which is almost exactly 2 miles, my goal going in was two complete loops.  The park was quite busy as there appeared to be large soccer and baseball events going on simultaneously.

It didn’t take very long into the first lap for me to start reconsidering my 4 mile target distance.  I didn’t have any specific reason other than just an overall lack of comfort running.  I just have not gotten to the point that any distance of running actually feels “good”.  After the first lap we reversed direction and I told my inner voice that was encouraging me to stop early to shut up.  I chugged along and managed to complete the four miles, disliking every step of it.

Even though I have not really felt comfortable during any of my my running sessions since starting up again, I have been not having any significant post run aches and pains which is a good thing.  I just wish I could shake the old and slow feeling I have while doing it.

After the run we stopped and picked up Sadie for her visit.  When we got back home it did not take long for me to feel weird as I looked around the house.  It felt strange to have Sadie there without Nicki.  I stopped and stared at Nicki’s food stand, the South Dakota license plate we bought her on the road trip, her dog beds in the office/bedroom and even the spot by the end of the bed where she would often sleep with her head hidden under the dust ruffle.  Looking at these things and realizing they will never be as they once were was painful and felt tragically final. Although Sadie was mostly her happy self there were moments were it felt like she too was confused and sad that her long time companion was nowhere to be found.

Cindy and I kept busy Saturday afternoon working on various things.  The flag we had mounted on the chicken coop had been torn to shreds by the brutal Florida summer.  We replaced it with a higher quality flag that has mounts that should let it deal with the wind better.  We also relocated the main bird feeder pole.  Since the new chickens have been around they have been rather bullyish when it comes to the feeders.  Whenever regular birds would come in the chickens were very quick to chase them away.  It’s gotten to the point that the feeders were not even being used by the regular birds.

We moved them about 100 feet further back in the yard, hoping it would discourage the chickens and allow the smaller birds to eat in peace.  I think we also need to spend the extra money to get higher quality seed.  The stuff would have been using is very heavily made of cracked corn which the chickens love but not so much for smaller birds.

After moving the feeders we had some unexpected birds that appeared to appreciate the relocation, the huge sandhill cranes.  A family of three birds have been hanging around the house all week, much closer than they used to.  One of them got close enough to poke a hole in a window screen.  Well they hung by the feeders forever, tapping the feeders and poking at the ground endlessly.  Cindy and I love when they hang out on the property.

On Saturday night Cindy and I wanted to go see Bridge of Spies.  It was a nice night out so we decided to take the SSR.  When we were on Immokalee Road about 5 miles from the house I glanced at the gauges and saw something very disturbing, coolant temperature gauge was pinned to the right at 260 degrees (normal is 210).  Oh shit.

I had no idea what was wrong and the truck was running normally but a pegged temperature gauge is nothing to f with.  I did a U-turn as I flipped on the heat to full blast to help cool off the motor.  I babied the truck on the drive back and despite running the heat, the gauge never moved from the right.  I ran scenarios through my head as to what was going on.  The three that came to mind was a bad thermostat that was preventing coolant from entering the radiator, a bad temperature sending unit that was sending a bad reading or a failure of the electric cooling fan. When I pulled back into the garage I could hear the fan running so that ruled it out as a potential problem source.

Cindy assumed I was going to just say f it, lets stay home since we now wasted 15-20 minutes, meaning there was no way we would make it to the theater by the posted 7:45PM start time.  I told her I still wanted to go, counting on the 15-20 minutes of previews that normally lead up to each showing.  We hauled ass in the Prius and pulled into the parking lot a couple minutes after 8.  Even after grabbing a bottle of water and quickly hitting the bathroom we sat down literally just as the opening scene was starting, what luck.

I was having a very bad time with drowsiness, so much so that I walked back out to the concession stand and grabbed a small Coke and a box of Reeses Pieces, hoping the caffeine/sugar would help pry open my eyelids.  It did help but I still was fighting off drowsiness at various times.  My drowsiness was not a reflection of the movie which was A- quality.  The true life story regarding the tension at the height of the Cold War era was interesting and disturbing.  Existing during a time where mutual nuclear obliteration felt like a very real threat just seems impossible but it was very, very real.

On Sunday morning I did some more investigation into my apparent SSR overheating problem.  I turned the ignition to the detente right before starting the truck which initializes the gauges.  I saw that the coolant gauge was stuck in the middle at 210 degrees, even with the truck being stone cold.  It quickly became apparent that none of my initial ideas about the problem were correct.  This is a stepper motor issue, one of the many problems that are common in the SSR’s. (and other GM products of this era).  Basically the little motors that control the gauge needles in the instrument cluster are shitty and prone to failure.  A search of the SSR Fanatics forum revealed tons of instances of people getting these motors replaced.

That same search on the forum revealed there is a kind guy that is happy to perform the repair for owners for a very minimal fee if they pay for the parts and shipping.  If push came to shove I could probably do the entire repair myself but it involves soldering new motors in place, something I am not very skilled at.  I would rather have it done by somebody that is adept at it, especially if he is willing to do it at a heavily discounted rate.  My part of the process will still be a bit tedious as I will have to pull apart the dash and the instrument cluster to send it out to the guy for repair.

While this is being done I am going to have some further customization completed. I am having the factory black cluster face replaced with a silver face, matching the rest of the truck.  It will just one of the many tweaks I have done since taking ownership of the truck in 2011.

Late Sunday morning we hosted a bib making party  where we had a total of eight people (including us) peeling timing chips and affixing them to the back of the bibs for the the upcoming Thanksgiving race which utilizes custom bibs.  Cindy prepared a nice spread of food for everyone and the project was completed in around two hours, faster than we expected since there were roughly 3000 bibs to prepare. Our guests seemed to have a good time and the chickens were quite happy to meet them.  Cindy and I were both very grateful for the extra sets of hands.

Late in the afternoon I had the random urge to take Sadie for a walk over at Bird Rookery Swamp which is literally a couple miles from our front door.  When I suggested the idea to Cindy she was enthusiastic as well.

I used to take Nicki and Sadie there pretty regularly but had not done so in well over a year.  Nicki’s aging legs made each trip into the swamp slower and shorter.  The last time we went she was in obvious pain afterward so we stopped going. I thought Sadie would really like to go back.

The first thing I noticed when we pulled into the lot was they have been making improvements to the area.  They built a nice observation deck that extends over lake by the parking lot.  The second thing I noticed was how high the water level was after a very long and intense rainy season.  It was the most amount of water I could ever recall in the place.

As we headed in we talked to a couple that said there was a large gator near the start of the path and that a biker had told them he saw a number of gators as well.  We hoped to see a lot of these for ourselves.  Unfortunately we only had two baby gator sightings, neither of which exceeded four feet in length.

We did have a very cool wildlife sighting right before the turnaround point.  There were two young male deer hanging out in the shallow water nibbling away.  The one that was closest to us seemed remarkably calm in our presence, giving us a few casual glances in between mouthfulls.  In all my trips to the swamp I had never seen any deer up close and personal.

We only walked 1.25 miles into the trail before turning around.  Even with the weather conditions being pretty comfortable we could tell Sadie was tired, not used to extensive walking, something we hope to address more often.  On the way out she was the trailblazer, leading us most of the time by 10 feet or more.  On the walk back she gradually fell back, walking even or slightly behind us at times.  Even with being tired you could tell she had a fun time.

The Eagles played late for the second week in a row.  I was so tired I did not even make an effort to stay awake, drifting off for good in the 2nd quarter.  I awoke to find the conclusion I expected, the team lost to the Panthers with the offense underperforming once again.  This is a pattern I expect during the rest of the year, the team may pull off some wins against the lesser quality teams but won’t be able to hang with the playoff quality teams because the Eagles are not a playoff quality team.