Archives December 2015

It worked out very well having Friday off. Cindy and I basically handled all of the stuff we would normally do on a Saturday morning and then used the rest of the day to pack, make lists, and do the prep for the race we were timing Saturday morning. Cindy’s daughter Katie who is helping us out with chicken care this time around stopped by for a little bit for some last minute training.

We made sure to get to bed early. I think I fell asleep before 9:30. Unfortunately lately on race nights I rarely sleep until the alarm, despite it being set stupidly early, 4:30 AM this time. I was awake at least an hour before that and simply tossed and turned, thinking about all that had to get done today.

The race was down in Marco Island so we had a drive of more than 45 minutes to get there. It was chilly by Florida standards with temps in the upper 50’s with a gusting wind that made it feel significantly colder. For some stupid reason I thought cargo shorts would work out well in these conditions. I paid for my stupidity with shivering for a good portion of the morning.

The race was small with a little over 200 people signed up. There were no major problems during the event other than a few missed reads on the main finish line timing box. Luckily I had a back up box in place which picked up the runners 10 feet later. Cindy and I wasted no time packing up and getting off site. We pulled out around 9:45, great considering the race didn’t start until 8AM and was 5 miles long instead of a 5k.

When we got home the up tempo pace continued. After getting all of the race equipment inside Cindy went out to attend to all of the chicken needs while I was inside working on post race stuff in fast forward mode. We wound up getting it all done and were pretty much ready to go when Katie pulled up about 15 minutes before we planned to leave.

When Katie came in she told us that her work called and asked her to come in an hour early at 3 instead of 4 so now we needed to get going asap so she could make that happen. We wrapped things up, threw the luggage in the Prius and did a quick double check making sure we didn’t forget anything.

Cindy and Katie jumped in the back seat and I drove. I backed down the driveway and looked over my left shoulder to make sure I had plenty of room to back into the turn around. Just before I was about to apply the brakes we hear the sickening sound of impact. I totally forgot Katie had parked her boyfriends car in the turn around and I banged into the middle of the passenger side door with the corner of the Prius.

I was of course instantly furious with myself that I was not paying attention. I pulled forward and we surveyed the damage. Katie was crying because she knew her boyfriend would be pissed. I told her she had nothing to be upset about, it was 100% my fault and I will make sure the damage is taken care of.

The 350Z had a damaged area maybe the size of two footballs along with some paint scratching, most of which would probably buff out with some Scratch X elbow grease. The Prius had paint damage on the corner of the bumper. The impact also popped a top seam of the bumper that I was able to “fix” easily with a few shots of my fist.

Of course I felt terrible that I hit the car and that Katie was so upset about it but we really had no time to dwell on it. During the ride to the airport Cindy called Katie’s boyfriend and told him. I talked to him as well and told him I was sorry and I would get it fixed. He was understanding on the phone but later seemed less so when he was texting with Katie. I do understand, I would be angry and upset as well in that situation but obviously I am not the type that is going to hang him out to dry and not handle it.

I was so spaced out, preoccupied, frustrated with the incident, the lack of sleep, and NYC stuff that I got off the wrong exit for the airport, having to get there via a slower back road. The fun continued when we got to the airport. We got a notice earlier in the day that our 3:16 flight was delayed around 15 minutes, no big deal. When we got to the airport that delay look like it vanished as the flight was once again showing as ON TIME.

Well the flight departure time came and went without so much as a peep from the flight desk which I thought was odd. When they did finally address the delay they said the flight might be delayed 20 minutes. We left terra firma at 4:18 more than hour after we were scheduled.

Hey I understand delays happen in air travel all the time. What I don’t understand is the airlines practice of overpromising and under delivering when it comes to communicating the delay to passengers. If a delay might take 30 minutes, tell people 40 minutes to be safe. If it takes 10 minutes longer than planned people are still happy. If it only takes 30 minutes they are very happy. When you know that the delay only will take 20 minutes if the planets align and absolutely everything goes perfectly don’t give people false expectations based on unlikely scenarios. It isn’t rocket science, geezus.

There was some good news. The flight was not booked solid so the seat in front of me is empty, meaning I don’t have to worry about some idiot smashing into my knees when they decide they need to fully recline, regardless of the height of the passenger behind them. Jet Blue has much nicer amenities than most airlines with FULL cans of soda and generous snacks.

I am punching out this entry on my $150 notebook. Some of their planes offer free wi-fi as well. That is not the case on our Airbus 190 so I am working offline and will dump this to the cloud in NYC. By the time we take public transportation into the city, get to the hotel and eat something for dinner I have a feeling I will be running on fumes.

I need a decent night of rest tonight to prepare for my meet up with IronLoo tomorrow which is going to consist of atlas stones, farmer carries, deadlifting, tire flipping and whatever other crazy stuff he has in mind. It should be quite the day.

Yesterday I was showered with lots of virtual birthday wishes via Facebook as well as a few old school phone calls from my brother, sister and Dad.  After work I drove straight to Carrabbas to meet Cindy and Katie.  Getting there so early met we didn’t have to deal with big crowds. It also meant that we were 20-25 years younger than 90% of the patrons there at that time of day, in Katie’s case, double that.

I got there maybe 10-15 minutes ahead of Cindy and Katie.  I spent the time at the bar knocking back one happy hour Bud Light draft and had just started on my second.  We were immediately seated and enjoyed a very tasty dinner.  All three of us cleaned our plates.

During dinner I got to catch up on some of Katie’s world.  She has been making some positive changes recently which I am happy to see.  She is a very smart and personable kid with a lot of potential.  When you are her age it’s very easy to not care about a lot of things and not really know what you want to do with your life.  When I was her age my life direction was on a constant weather vane.  At that age most people really don’t know what the hell they want to do.  There is a lot of trial and error you have to go through.  It’s how you learn and grow as a person.

Cindy still was in the throes of her illness but put on her best game face as she always does.  I felt badly that she was feeling so shitty.  After dinner we drove both vehicles back to the house to enjoy desert.  I had not said anything about my traditional chocolate cake and I didn’t have time to make it myself.  I just sort of assumed we would skip it this year which was not a huge deal to me.  Well Cindy surprised me and actually made the cake yesterday afternoon.

The cake has been a source of conflict in our household over the last few years.  Cindy has been frustrated that it was the one item that I seemed to prepare better than she did.  Well yesterday she stuck to my gameplan where you do absolutely no ingredient substitutions and you make sure the butter that is used in the icing is not too hard and not too soft.  The end result was the best chocolate cake Cindy made to date.  I enjoyed every calorically dense bite. Cindy bought me a bunch of stuff that will be perfect to wear on our upcoming trip which was appreciated.

So despite my normal amounts of whining and complaining about getting old the bottom line is if I do have to get old at least I am in a pretty good spot to do so, surrounded by a loving environment as we go down that long and winding path together.

This will be my last conventional entry for a looong time as after today I am off until December 28th.  I am hoping to be able to peck out some interim entries during the NYC trip as I do during road trips.  It’s the only way I can get a thorough recollection of events.  On Saturday morning we time a small 5 mile race down in Marco and then have to haul ass home, get things in order and then head to the airport for a mid afternoon flight up to JFK.

Our schedule up in NYC is still being formed.  We have a list of things we want to see/do but have not designated when or what order they are going to all occur.  One thing that is solid is a trip on Sunday out of the city to  Stonepark, where my calisthenics buddy Lou trains regularly.

I have known Lou for years via our shared interest in calisthenics.  Originally Lou was almost exclusively about calisthenics but in recent years he has taken a big interest in powerlifiting and unconventional workouts using things like massive tires, atlas stones, and farmer carry handles to build huge amounts of functional strength.  Lou has put on over 50 pounds of body weight over that time and is literally twice as strong as me in most movements.

I have never met Lou in person or even talked to him on the phone but we have had pretty extensive communication through other electronic means over the years.  Meeting up at Stonepark where I will get to experience the brutal style of workouts Lou does everyday will be a very memorable and likely painful experience.  I have no doubt there will be a lot of video footage shot that day.

The rest of the trip is going to be filled with never ending sights and sounds that the endless energy of NYC provides.  Having that much humanity in a concentrated area is just such a foreign thing to people like us, it literally is like traveling to another world in some ways.  Being able to share all of these experiences with someone like Cindy multiplies my enjoyment 10x over.

Once again the calendar has flipped 365 days meaning I have now reached yet another birthday, my 48th on this planet.  I have established quite extensively in this blog my general feeling about birthdays and the aging thing in general.  I’m not a fan.

Yes I am logical enough to realize that it is absolutely pointless to complain about getting older and the side effects that come with it.  It’s as unavoidable as the sun setting every day yet I can’t help but feel frustrated that somehow I have not found a way to escape the result of the passage of time.

I also know that in the big picture compared to many, many people my age I am holding up relatively well and am fortunate to be in a good spot with my health, with my finances, and in my relationship with Cindy.  Her never ending IV of good energy that is injected into my life helps me battle the inner demons that keep my perspective on the darker side.

So the bottom line is I have no choice but to suck it up and keep plowing ahead.  Old age isn’t for sissies after all.

So yesterday I decided to roll the dice and bought a new drain pump for the dishwasher, gambling it will fix the problem for $50 instead of spending $400-$500 for a new unit.  Hopefully it pays off.

The other day I got a box in the mail from my dad that I opened up.  Inside was a birthday card and a book.  Getting a book from my dad is not unusual, he has bought me a few as gifts over the years.  Getting this particular book was unusual since I just happened to be the author of it.  It was titled “Inside Out 2002-2004”  The hardcover book was quite thick and substantial.

So what am I talking about?  Awhile back my dad asked me if there was some way for me to export my blog.  He talked loosely about the idea of having it converted to print.  I wound up sending an export file to my sister Meghan and forgot about it.  I was astonished when I exported it all it ended up being almost 5000 pages long.

The book dad sent was just covering the first two years, I couldn’t believe it equated to a manuscript of that size.  I didn’t get a chance to do much more besides flip through the pages at this point but I think I will take it along on the trip to NYC to get reacquainted with the version of myself from more than a decade past.  It should be interesting seeing the origins of the path I have taken start to develop.

I called Dad on my way home from work to thank him for the book.  He said I should be expecting some more editions to be forthcoming.  He told me during the conversation that he has taken some steps to try to get healthier which was good news.  He is doing something called the 3 day diet which is pretty simple.  For 3 of the 7 days in a week you eat a very regimented, portion controlled meal plan.  The other four days you do not.  However there is a beneficial side effect to the plan.  The 3 days you are “on” educates you as to what proper portion sizes should be so even when you are “off” you are likely to cut down on your consumption.  Dad has never been good at portioning.

In addition to cleaning up his eating he joined a gym which is no small feat when you live in Marienville.  To go to the gym requires something around a 50 mile round trip since there are no gyms close to where he lives.  The combination of his efforts has resulted in him losing about 15 pounds so far which is great.  With all the aches and pains dad has in his various joints, carrying around less weight on them would really help his quality of life.

I think back to my childhood and how both of my parents were athletically active for a period of time and how it influenced me.  Mom used to be a pretty regular runner into her early 30’s.  Once she stopped running she pretty much stopped all conventional exercise all together which surely did not help her later in life.  Dad also ran regularly, did sit ups, went to the gym, swam, and played rugby for a number of years.  He lasted well into his 40’s until a blown ACL while skiing shut down most of his exercise regimen.

I have now surpassed both of them in terms of still doing consistent exercise at this ridiculous age of 48 (tomorrow).  I credit some of that drive to continue to move, lift, and push to what I saw them doing as I grew up.  It also has been supplemented by my hatred of most aspects of aging and my lifelong fear of illness, disease, and death.

I felt bad for Cindy last night.  She was invited to a girls night out she had been looking forward to.  She started feeling miserable during the day yesterday.  As soon as I got home I could see on her face she wasn’t feeling well.  It takes a lot to drain her batteries and they were running close to empty.  I hope she can bounce back quickly as neither of us wants to feel ill for the trip.

My boss graciously is giving my Friday off as a thank you for my time spent in the office last weekend.  It will work out well, allowing me to handle NYC trip related items as well as possibly taking a swing at stuff like getting the dishwasher back in 100% working condition.

My Saturday left me feeling like an extra on Walking Dead.  It started out with my normal race day morning 4AM alarm.  Cindy and I got on site around 5:15 and immediately started on start line mat construction.  Unlike the last couple events where we just ran the mats across the road from the get go we set the mats off to the side with the intent of pulling them across the roadway just before the start.  This event has tour buses that are used to bring in participants and I did not feel comfortable with them driving across the mats.

This is one of the best events we do because the entire registration area is set up ahead of time by the Shootout team that runs the host golf event.  I think we had to set up a couple tables and a few chairs, that was it.  We don’t even have to set up the big finish line arch, the Shootout has their own small customized finish structure.

As you would expect having all this done for me makes my life easier.  The event timing went very smoothly with only a couple minor hiccups.  After I finished up I actually dropped off Cindy at a nearby parking lot.  We had brought two vehicles because I had to go straight from the race to the office.  Cindy took the truck home with all of the equipment.

Our main office was having some additional state services installed on Saturday.  My initial hope was to have it all wrapped up by around noon.  Well that plan definitely did not work out.  I wound up being stuck in there until after 5PM due to one of the state installers having several problems that he was not very efficient in solving.  There was no official lunch break in there, instead we got by on half stale pita chips and some water.  By the time I got out of there I was totally running on fumes. Even though I was drop tired Saturday night I had a hard time falling asleep.

Sunday I had no desire or time to get any endurance training in.  We had a “party” to attend at 11AM where a bunch of people were helping us attach timing chips to the 2750 race bibs for the upcoming half marathon.  Before we left I wanted to get my bills paid and then I turned my attention to the dishwasher.  Cindy opened it up and saw there was a bunch of dirty water still in the bottom of it.  I did some preliminary investigation/ground work on it before we left for the party by sucking out the dirty water with my ShopVac and looking around for an obvious blockage.  I didn’t have time to go very far into the trouble shooting process before we had to get going.

The party was held at Mary’s house, she has hosted/helped us out before.  She managed to get double digit volunteers to help out which made the work go very fast.  We knocked out almost 3000 bibs in 90 minutes or less.  If Cindy or I tried to tackle this job ourselves it would have taken all day.  We were both very appreciative of the willingness of the volunteers to help us out.

When we got home I immediately flipped on the Eagles/Bills game which was into the 2nd quarter by that time.  I found myself multitasking during it, working on the dishwasher and hanging new Christmas lights on the chicken coop.

The original set of white coop lights we hung developed a dead spot that I could not rectify easily.  I had found some large format, color bulbs at Sam’s Club during the week that I wanted to replace them with.  The new bulbs are higher quality and will continue to work even if you physically remove a bulb, something that was very attractive to me.  Cindy and I both really liked the color upgrade.

The dishwasher work was frustrating.  Thanks to some internet research I was able to remove pretty much everything on the bottom of the unit including the washer arm, filter screen and the sump.  My hope was to find some debris that was blocking the drain.  I did not.  During my testing I verified that the pump does expel some water as I could feel it in the drain line that is connected to the sink, it just does not pump it all out at the end.  To verify I was not dealing with a blockage I stretched my air compressor hose into the kitchen and attached it to the drain hose at the sink end.  When I applied air pressure I was able to push air back into the dishwasher without issue.

From what my tests did and did not reveal it appears the next logical step would be to replace the drain pump.  It’s a $50 part that I should be able to do myself.  I just will be annoyed if I would do so and still not fix the problem since replacing the dishwasher has been on the longer term to do list for awhile anyway.    The DIYer in me almost mandates that I give the pump a try first.

So the Eagles actually managed to beat the Bills which I thought was highly unlikely.  With a 6-7 record the team is still tied for first place in the pathetic NFC East division.  For the second week in a row the team played just well enough to win.  Once again Sam Bradford almost single handedly fcked the team  when he stupidly took a 15 yard sack towards the end of the game instead of throwing the ball away.  Lucky for him the Eagles D came up big when it had to, snagging an interception to kill Buffalo’s last drive.

We have Sadie until tomorrow.  She is always fun to have around although it wasn’t fun when we came home from the bib party to discover Sadie sitting outside the door to the pool cage.  She decided she saw something in the back yard that required her to immediately address, doing so by ripping a hole in the pool screen and jumping through it.  Her access to the pool area when we aren’t home is going to be restricted from now on.

Oh this week is busy, so very busy.

No time to be verbose.  It’s just another pre-holiday weekend with ANOTHER race to time followed by another long list of things I want to get done.

I did get to watch 2/3 of Christmas Vacation in bed last night which was a nice little shot in the arm of laughter.

So today I had my health screening that is a requirement for our health insurance.  Although most people typically look at local government as an example of how to NOT handle things I have to say I like the way they handle health insurance in our situation. It puts some degree of responsibility on the employee being insured.  There are three levels of coverage offered for county employees.  The lowest level has high co-pays and high deductibles.  The best level has the smallest co-pays and deductibles and there is one in between level.

If you choose to not give a flying fck about your health you are not required to do a single thing to qualify for the lowest coverage level.  If you want any coverage above that you are required to at least undergo a health screening which consists of basic body measurements, weigh in and a full blood work panel.  If that screening shows you are within defined guidelines for your age you are good to go and covered at the highest level.    If the screening identifies an issue you have to take additional measures to address the problem.  At the very least you have to undergo “awareness” training so people can’t use the excuse “they had no idea they were so unhealthy”.  If you choose to not do the awareness training you are thrown into the middle tier of coverage.

This is the part of the program I wish was stricter.  For example if you are 50 pounds overweight you should HAVE to lose a certain percentage of weight to qualify for the higher coverage level.   Hell if you are a smoker you can continue to be one and still be covered under the best plan as long as you attend a smoking cessation class which just seems dumb to me.  I understand that legally the county probably can’t force people to do these things but I wish they could.

So anyway my screening went fine.  I officially measured in at 6’3.25″ which is a 1’4 inch shorter than I was measured as a young man.  I guess the shrinkage has begun.  My other numbers were good with a 32″ waist, 185 pounds fully dressed minus shoes, and a BP of 124/80.

As usual I had my uncontrollable poor reaction to the blood draw.  I didn’t watch any aspect of it but just the mere anticipation made my extremities go cold.  As he pulled 5 vials out of me I was playing mental games trying to battle whatever it is that makes me feel so woozy when it happens.  I have a similar reaction to pretty much anything medical.

Even though I am doing a good job of staying ahead of the Christmas curve I have had a persistent feeling that I am not.  I suppose with Thanksgiving being just about as late as it possibly can be this year it has made the Christmas approach feel even shorter. Tonight is the running club annual Christmas party which I will not be attending for the first time in damn close to 10 years.  They upscaled the event this year with a $50 a head price tag which pushed it out of the reasonable range for me, especially considering our upcoming NYC trip.  Both Cindy and I would rather spend the money there at this point.  All things come to an end, eventually.

I really don’t feel like discussing current news items like circular gun control arguments, Trump proposing a stance on Muslims Hitler would be proud of, or Demarco Murray whining that he sucks this year and it’s Chip’s fault.

I also don’t feel like expanding on my conflicted feelings about the Christmas season as I get older. It seems each year carries with it more sadness because of the unavoidable loss of loved ones that accompanies the march through time.

Instead let me describe something that made me laugh, for a very stupid and immature reason.  The other night I was in a WoW raid which is a group of 25 players working together to take down very dangerous and difficult bosses in the game.  Typically before you begin one of these fights the players are mulling about, typing things into group chat about strategy or other random topics.

Just seconds before we engaged the 50 foot tall demon I participated in the discussion with a very simple “I have to poop”.  Watching the reaction of 24 random strangers around the world to that statement made me bust out laughing.  Sometimes it’s the simplest, stupidest things that bring a smile to my face.  And no, I actually did not have any pressing bathroom needs at the moment.

I have things to do and people to see so enjoy this festive message instead.

So for the huge Thanksgiving race I left my normal job early two days to be able to help at the running store that was hosting early packet pick up.  This week the race was large with over 1000 runners but I didn’t anticipate being involved in packet pick up since it was not a chip timed event.  Well I got reports during the day from the store owner that he was being overrun with people and he had  no volunteers assigned to help out in the task.  Evidently this need was never considered for some unexplainable reason.  Anyway I again made arrangements to leave work early to go help for a couple hours.  I felt bad for Carl, he actually was having to ignore actual customers to address the huge lines of people waiting to get their race stuff.  This theme of poor planning resounded consistently throughout the entire event.

Our race morning responsibilities were reduced from their normal level since the event was not chip timed.  Somehow the morning still had a high level of stress again from a lack of planning.  When we showed up on site we looked around at each other wondering where we were supposed to set up, another detail that should be well established and known well in advance.  Once the location was established I asked where the closest power connection was located, another detail that is supposed to be scouted ahead of time.  The school liaison said she wasn’t aware we needed power for registration.  Luckily our equipment manager had brought our portable generators.  I fired one of those up to provide power for the registration laptops.

I left Cindy alone to handle data entry while I went with the equipment manager and a couple others to set up the finish line.  Since this was a first year race the course was new.  It was designated as finishing on the track inside the football stadium.  Apparently whomever laid out the course did not measure it accurately, the advertised 5K race (3.12 miles) was actually more like 3 miles in reality.

While we were unloading the finish line equipment a school security guard/track police came rolling up in his golf cart.  He was extremely irate and started chastising the equipment manager and anyone else in the area for daring to drive the truck on the track.  He said it was STRICTLY forbidden and the truck had to be removed immediately.  The equipment was off the truck at that point so the equipment manager took the truck out of the track area.  The track look unaffected by the truck’s presence.

Even after the truck was off the forbidden zone the track police followed our equipment manager after he parked the truck and continued to scold him for driving on the track.  Bill finally had enough and told the guy there was nothing he could do about it now and he should just shut the f up abut it.  The track cop was not very happy with the response.  I’m glad it didn’t escalate into a “Don’t taze me bro!” situation.  The incident somehow seemed appropriate going along with the very messy planning for the event.

So even though the event was not chip timed it was supposed to have very basic awards.  They were supposed to recognize the overall first place winner for adult male and female as well as the top boy and girl in elementary, middle, and high school.  The way the kids were supposed to be identified was by looking at the bib of kids as they crossed.  The bib was supposed to have an A, H, M, or E on them to identify the classification of the finisher.  In theory this plan should have worked but it was again missing a key component, volunteers to execute it.

There was nobody actually tasked with collection this information so last second I threw Cindy out there to try to collect what she could.  We got some of what we needed but not all of it.  We were lucky that the event organizer from the school district has a very can do, go with the flow personality.  She ad-libbed the awards in such a way that did not put a spotlight that all of the advertised awards were not being presented.  The race was a very frustrating reminder of why I no longer enjoy being part of this process.

Not long after getting home I was outside working in the yard working on getting weeding and some other basic stuff done.  After eating lunch Cindy and I headed out for a Rural King/Home Depot trip.  Shortly after leaving home we were on Immokalee Road.  I spotted an object moving across the road , close to the bike lane on the right.  I swung left and saw the turtle creeping along, I was amazed it got that far.

I immediately identified the turtle was in danger.  Cindy said she thought the turtle would be fine, I told her there was no way it could get over the curb it was approaching.  I made a command decision and cut over to the left turning lane that was maybe a 100 yards down the road and threw the Prius in park.  I crossed back across the road and started running towards the turtle in my flip flops.  My pace accelerated as I saw what I feared was coming true, the turtle got to the curb and turned around, now heading back out into the lanes of traffic.

As I ran I started pointing to the right and yelling at oncoming traffic to get over, hoping to get the attention of the drivers, even the ones that stupidly had their face in their smartphone.  As I closed the distance there were a couple close calls where the car did not get over until the last second.  I imagined how terrible and furious I would feel if some idiot would hit the animal just as I was moments away from saving it.  As I got there, there was a small break in traffic allowing me to scoop up the soft shell turtle and put him on the bank of the canal he was trying to reach.  I felt fortunate to have reached the turtle before an idiots tire reached it instead.

We grabbed our stuff from the two stores and returned home.  At Home Depot we grabbed some mulch to replenish the areas that the chickens keep emptying.  They find scratching in mulch, even the fake rubber variety to be a lot of fun for whatever reason.  If you are the type of person that places a lot of value on perfectly maintained mulched areas do not adopt free range chickens. Saturday night we were quite tired from the race alarm clock.  We decided to just stay home and catch up on DVR content which was fine with me.

Sunday morning we headed out to do a run.  We only ran a little over 3 miles but doing it at a 9:20 pace was enough to make me work at a level higher than I should have to.  My running endurance just sucks anymore.  The only positive I can say about it is my regular IT band stretching seems to at least have made the day after soreness and pain on my right side much less severe than it was.

Since the Eagles didn’t play the Patriots until 4:30 I had some time to get stuff done.  I hopped on the tractor and mowed the property which was looking pretty shaggy from the unusually high amounts of November rain.  While I did this Cindy took it upon herself to wash all three of the vehicles.  The skies were overcast which made for some very comfortable temps for mowing, I actually didn’t sweat.

So I sort of assumed that once again my Sunday Ticket would be wasted this week.  I was pretty sure the local Fox affiliate would be broadcasting the game which would mean it would be blacked out on satellite.  I was surprised when I saw FOx was actually showing the Panthers/Saints game.  Ok, well I guess I will flip over to the Sunday Ticket.

So I fire up the satellite receiver and find the Eagles game in the guide.  When I select it I get a message that the game is blacked out locally, WTF? Surely it has to be a mistake so I call up DirecTV.   I explain to “Omar” that the game is being mistakenly blacked out  on my receiver since it is not being broadcast locally. ( I checked cable and OTA antenna)  He said he did see the game being marked as blacked out but did not know why.  He also claimed there was absolutely nothing he could do about it as this is controlled by the NFL.

I found this statement illogical.  I told him I receive my feed from Directv.  If Directv agrees a game is being blacked out incorrectly, why can they not remedy the situation?  Omar had no resolution available except to apologize repeatedly.  I found this situation extremely annoying since I have already had 5 or 6 Eagles games this year that I have not used the Sunday Ticket for since they were broadcast elsewhere, significantly lowering the bang for the buck the 250 bucks I fork out for the service delivers.  I told him I would expect Directv to compensate me in some way for not providing content I pay for and should be entitled to.  He said he would transfer me to a “customer loyalty representative” who would arrange for appropriate compensation.

I am transferred to another rep named “Eva”.  I explain the situation for a second time to Eva.  Unlike Omar, she says she doesn’t see the game as being listed as blacked out.  However I asked her if she showed the Panthers/Saints being being blacked out (it was as well) in my area.  She said no so I think she just was not looking at relevant or correct information.  She again apologized and said she would speak to her supervisor to see what compensation they could offer me.  While I was on hold I figured a $20-$25 credit would be reasonable.

When Eva returned she said her supervisor authorized her to offer me a $5 credit.  I laughed out loud and asked her if she was serious.  I then asked how they arrived at that tiny number.  She said her supervisor said there are a total of 512 games available on the service over the course of the season so through some fuzzy math that equated to 5 dollars for not being able to see one game.  I explained to her I don’t watch 500 games, at most his year I will be able to see 10 games of the Eagles.  For that privilege I am paying roughly 250 bucks, hence my $25 idea.  When I expressed my dissatisfaction with 5 bucks she placed me on hold and came back a few minutes later saying the most the supervisor would authorize was $10.  All of a sudden I felt like I was in a car negotiation except Directv was haggling me over much smaller amounts of money.  When I threw out my 25 dollar figure Eva challenged my math, wanting to divide my 250 bucks by 16 instead of 10, regardless of how many Eagles games I get to actually see on the service.  She said it works out to more like $15 a game.

I found myself flabbergasted that I was actually getting haggled over $10-15 in a situation where Directv is clearly in the wrong and not providing service that I paid for.  I said to Eva, “so just to be clear, you are telling me that Directv is that concerned with $10-$15 that it is willing to haggle a 15 year customer of theirs over it?”  Eva was silent for a few moments and then started to just repeat the same crap.  I cut her off and told her to just forget the $10, instead letting her know this interaction will be communicated to Directv support and will be considered when it comes time to renew the service. Without waiting for any further response I said goodbye and hung up.  Idiots.

To be honest I expected the Eagles to get smashed anyway so being forced to just listening to the game wasn’t a huge penalty, or so I thought.  It turns out that thanks to Directv I did not get to see the most exciting game of the season.  It seemed to be a very odd game where the majority of the 35 points the Eagles put on the board were scored by members of the team not playing offense.  The Eagles scored every non-conventional way you can imagine, a blocked punt, interception return, and a punt return were the way 21 of the 35 points got on the board.

The Eagles were up 35-14 with the time running out.  The Eagles almost managed to completely collapse allowing two quick Patriot touchdowns which included a successful onside kick in between.  Then after an apparent near game clinching defensive stop Sam Bradford gave the Patriots one last shot with an inexcusable fumble.  The Eagles barely escaped with their lives as the Patriots ran out of gas driving for a game tying touchdown as time expired.  I am pretty sure this will be looked back on as the highlight of the 2016 Eagles season and I didn’t get to see any of it thanks to Directv, thanks guys.

These next two weeks are going to be quite busy with normal work, timer work, holiday prep, and the the NYC trip all occurring simultaneously.  I will try to pick off action items as efficiently as possible as procrastination is something I just don’t do.