Archives 2015

My work week yesterday had a near disastrous start when one of our main servers had a severe hardware problem.  The server uses a hard drive array to provide protection against drive failure.  In was configured to use a scheme called RAID 5 which means a drive can fail without losing any data.  You are able to swap in a new drive on the fly without so much as a hiccup.

Well this server was showing that TWO drives had failed, the odds of which are very, very slim. In that scenario there is no easy recovery option with RAID 5.  My recovery plan would involve replacing both bad drives, reinstalling the operating system to a base level and the restoring the server via our backup appliance which would take hours and cause a big problem for users on the network that rely on the server heavily.

Well I wasn’t willing to give up on the “failed” drives just yet.  I did a combination of things that wound up allowing me to get one of the two drives that was failed working again.  Once I got that far I could swap in a replacement drive and rebuild it.  Once that rebuild completed I pulled the second drive that was marked bad and let it rebuild as well.  When all the rebuilding was done I added one additional drive in the remaining open slot and assigned it as a “hot spare”, meaning in the future if a drive failure occurs this drive will automatically be fired up to take it’s place.

I felt quite fortunate to be able to get the server back up without all of the hassle and time required for a full server restore.

This morning I dropped Sadie off after her four day stay.  Cindy really liked having her around during the day to keep her company since Sadie is a bit more interactive and expressive than Tuki or the chickens.  It’s always sad dropping her back off but she will back again before we know it.

My moms birthday was yesterday.  I didn’t make mention or note of it publicly.  At some point I feel like I just don’t want to keep giving myself reasons to grieve.

So of  course the world news is the terrorist attacks in France which I have some thoughts on but I wish to skip chronological order and expand on those last.

So this was declared as tree trimming weekend by myself.  The forecast low in the mid-60’s looked like the lowest temps I was going to see for awhile.  When I woke up Saturday morning I was annoyed to see the thermometer reading 71 degrees.  I wasted very little time and was outside gathering my tree trimming tools by 7:30.  I was solo since Cindy was attending a Blue Zones event in the morning.  It didn’t really matter since I was going to be doing nothing but hacking branches several hours which she couldn’t help me with anyway.

It didn’t take long for the heat to start ramping up as the early morning fog burned off.  I was sweating my ass off even though it was only 9AM.  Thank goodness as the day wore on cloud cover rolled in that kept the sun hidden for the majority of the day.

I found myself getting very frustrated due to losing things.  First I lost my machete that I normally use to hack off rotting cross thatch.  I knew I sat it down in the yard somewhere but could not find it after 10 minutes of circling.  It was found later buried under a pile of branches.   Then later I somehow lost the blade to my cordless SawzAll, it flew out in the process of buzzing off more cross thatch.  Thankfully I had a spare blade.  The lost blade was again found later, under another pile of branches.

For a couple years I have said I need to buy a taller extension ladder, the 20 footer I have just is not tall enough to safely reach a couple of the trees anymore.  Each year I don’t buy another ladder and each year I put myself into increasingly more perilous conditions to trim these monster trees.  Well this year set a new standard in danger.

To trim the tallest tree I had to stand a couple rungs from the top of the ladder and could not even use my new loppers which would require two hands.  Instead I had to trim all of the palm fronds with one hand via the SawzAll while using my off hand to hold onto the tree.  The gusting wind added tree sway into the equation. NEXT year, I am getting a new ladder.

I had an unexpected encounter when I was trimming the second tallest tree on the property.  I was knocking off loose cross thatch and all of a sudden saw a small banded snake that looked a lot like a pygmy rattler bury itself into the branches just above where I was working.  I discontinued work in that area and let the snake be.  I was very surprised to see a snake living that high up in the tree, a first for me.

Tree trimming is a physically grueling and dirty job.  Climbing up and down the ladder and working mostly over your head all day has a way of wearing you down. When I was chopping off rotting cross thatch I would periodically get organic matter facials depending on how I was positioned in relation to the gusting wind.  As I labored on I told myself several times, “you have done this many times, it always sucks, and you always get through it anyway”.

By the time Cindy got home I had four trees left to trim.  She thankfully brought me some much needed coffee which I enjoyed while sitting in a chair in front of the many piles of cut branches that littered the property.  The chickens and Sadie mulled about me in support.

After eating lunch I finished up the remaining trees and then joined Cindy in the equally arduous task of picking up hundreds of palm fronds and the big chunks of rotted cross thatch that were everywhere.

We repeatedly loaded down the back of the Tacoma with huge mountains of debris and drove it back to the fill pit for dumping.   I have a technique to expedite the dumping process.  I try to grab a couple palm fronds at the bottom of the pile and pull them out, most of the time I am able to get the majority of the pile on top of them to slide out as well.  Well during one of those trips that plan backfired.

I had my hands on three or four low fronds and was pulling hard, leaning back so my bodyweight was helping.  All of a sudden instead of the pile coming out, just the fronds I had a a hold of came loose.  The force I was applying resulted in major momentum which catapulted one of the branch ends directly into my nose at high speed.  It felt like I was punched in the face.

I expected a stream of blood to start flowing out of my nostril.  I did start to bleed but it was from the outside, not the inside.  The branch left a nice little gash on the left side of my nose.  After using my shirt a few times as a bandage I asked Cindy instead to run inside and grab me a real one to stop the slow but steady stream of blood.

The clean up actually went faster than I expected it to.  In total we ran nine pickup loads of crap to the fill pit.  By the time we got everything cleaned up it was between three and four in the afternoon, a hard day of labor.

As I surveyed the property and saw the roughly 25 trees that I trimmed up I felt a mixture of pride, relief, and anxiety, knowing I yet again accomplished one of the shittiest home chores I have but will be repeating it once again a scarce 365 days from now.

Saturday night there was no way we had the energy to go out to the movies.  Instead we stayed home and enjoyed a delicious fish sticks dinner while renting Train Wreck On Demand.  The movie was the unrated version of the Amy Schumer comedy meaning it had some very adult scenes which I didn’t think really added much to the movie.  All in all I thought the movie was an average comedy with an average amount of laughs. Amy saying very outrageous and dirty things was funny at first but grew old eventually.  It seemed to rely too heavily on it, much like a lot of Melissa McCarthy’s films.   As a result it gets an average B rating from me.  I honestly expected it to be funnier.

Sunday morning I had no interest in endurance training as I had universal body aches and pains from the tree trimming.  We needed to get to Rural King early anyway since we had used up the rest of the chicken feed.  Although I probably earned a casual Sunday I did not feel comfortable taking one.  The weed whacking had not been done for three weeks, things were looking pretty ratty so I grabbed the whacker and got busy.  My work inspired Cindy to get the mowing done as well which she had planned on doing later this week.  Putting off the chore for a few weeks and whacking additional fence line to compliment the tree trimming meant the task took longer than normal.

When I finished up I had a quick test I wanted to do with the timing system.  Setting up the mats with the MyLaps system is by far the biggest negative since I switched from an Ipico timing system.  The 25 pound mat sections have to be connected together and then have an individual wire run from each mat back to the timing box.  With two people the process can take damn close to 15 minutes if you have the maximum amount of mats laid out, which is eight.

I had a theory that because in prior testing that these mats read chips 3-4 feet to either side that I might be able to only connect every other mat and still get chip reads along the entire mat width.  So I tested it.

My test did sort of prove my theory as I was able to get reads on sections of mat that had no wire attached to them.  It did also show that you are sacrificing field strength when doing so which could be problematic in a high density situation like a start line.  The follow up test to this would be setting up two lines during a real race where the first line wires in every mat and the second line does every other.  You could then easily see if you are losing reads skipping mats by comparing the numbers between the two timing boxes.  However since I will not be using MyLaps after my running club timing stops at the end of January I don’t feel all that motivated to look into it further.  If I would invest in more timing equipment for GMT it would not be with MyLaps.  I prefer something that is reliable AND easy to set up.  MyLaps does not meet that latter criteria.

So the Eagles played the Dolphins Sunday afternoon.  The game started off with the Eagles on fire with them putting in their best first quarter performance of the year, racking up 16 points.  It looked like they were setting the stage for a blowout.  Well the wheel fells off and the team managed a measly field goal for the rest of the game while allowing the Dolphins to stay in the game long enough for a one point, 20-19 win.

Of course there were many directions fingers could be pointed so let’s start naming names.  Caleb Sturgis, why is he still on the roster?  Is there really no better kickers available out there?  This guy is pressed to make extra points, his accuracy is just atrocious.  It’s the second time this year that his miss of a short field goal turned out to be the difference between a win and a loss on the scoreboard.

Sam Bradford, statistically he had an ok day although again he displayed some of that inaccuracy I have been complaining about since early in the season.  He just misses a lot of throws, something commentator Rich Gannon pointed out as well.  He got crushed on that hit that knocked him out of the game and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is out for next week.  I am surprised he lasted this long.

Miles Austin, wtf happened to you?  I remember when you came onto the scene with the Cowboys you were tearing things up for a couple years.  As an Eagle your catch to fck up ratio is all out of whack. Not being able to drag your foot on that TD grab is pretty lame as is your route running, awareness, and ability to make a tough catch.

Byron Maxwell, you are disgustingly overpaid.  The fact that Chip Kelly thought your skillset was worthy of mega dollars in free agency is a further testament to how bad Chip is at assessing talent.  Maxwell sucks.  He gets burned repeatedly each and every game and excels at nothing but pass interference/holding calls and poor tackling.

Matt Sanchez, dude, way to waste no time reinforcing your reputation of choking when it counts, throwing yet another game killing interception in the end zone when the game was on the line.  Plus why in the world did handing off the ball to DeMarco Murray seem to be impossibly complicated for you?  They ran into/tripped one another at least half a dozen times, no joke.  Sanchez is just another non-answer to the QB position long term.

And of course Chip Kelly, your mad scientist like experiments with the Eagle roster in the off season has been a pretty disappointing failure.  I am fine calling the Chip Kelly era as officially played out by the end of year three.  Go back to college where lower talent levels makes your hurry up offense more effective.

It was a bad loss in a season of bad losses.  I expect more to follow.

Ok so let’s talk about the French terrorist attacks which of course were tragic,  As expected there was world wide support for France and social media wasted no time jumping in, making it easy for people to offer one click “support” by changing their profile picture to have an overlay of the French flag.  Also as expected, the terrorist act instantly whipped the Obama haters into a frenzy with them posting non-stop vitriol that accomplished nothing but more division, hate and prejudice.  Repeatedly I saw posts that seemed to indicate that different leadership, gun ownership and more military action in the middle east was the easy answer to these problems.  I just don’t get it.

After nearly a decade and a half of the US being mired in a “war” with terrorists it’s like the American public has learned absolutely nothing as a result.  When I read “we beat the Nazi’s, we can beat ISIS the same way” it just shows an incredible lack of understanding of the situation.  Terrorists are not a conventional army.  They wear no uniforms.  They don’t attack in battalions. They don’t fear death, in many cases they seek it out, seeing it as an opportunity to serve their God in a perverted way.  You can not bomb away this problem.  You are fighting an idea, not an army.

When I see the sweeping, Muslims are the problem generalizations roll in it again shows a lack of thinking, indicating that the radical extremists that perpetrate these atrocities are representative of  Islam as a whole.  It’s like saying the KKK is representative of Christianity.  It’s just silly.

France has reacted very strongly to the attacks, launching near immediate air strikes and locking down the country, trying to get a clear picture of all the connections the terrorists involved had.   These attacks I suppose are the start to the large cup of revenge they plan to indulge themselves in.

Listen, I understand the idea of revenge.  I know how I felt after the 9/11 attacks.  I wanted somebody to pay.  However the lessons of a decade and a half direct involvement/invasion by the US in the middle east quagmire has clearly established that our course of action was massive, incredulously expensive both in dollars and loss of life and mostly ineffective.  If anything our involvement in the region only cultivated more support for the radical Islamist movement.

If France goes in there swinging a bat wildly, killing many ISIS insurgents and innocent civilians that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time it will just pour additional gas on the fire.  The unfortunate result will be giving further credence to how the west deserves any attack upon them, no matter how senseless or brutal in the minds of ISIS and others driven by their similar, contorted religious beliefs.

Do I have the definitive answer to this dilemma? Nope, not even close.  All I know is more bombing, more military action, more of what has been tried for the last 15 years isn’t going to make a difference.  You can’t “defeat” an idea and you are dealing with an enemy that looks at death as a victory.

If you have 5 minutes take a look at this, it explains my point in a much more comprehensive and well written manner.

Also if you want a better understanding of the rat nest of players in thr Syrian conflict, take another 5 minutes and watch this.

Last night on the way home I picked up Sadie for an extended stay as Ali is out of town for a few days.  It’s always fun to have her there and today she will get to hang with Cindy all day.

I had an impressive virtual achievement last night that will mean absolutely nothing to anyone that has not played World of Warcraft.  I finished up getting my last character to max level of 100, meaning I now have a monk, mage, priest, warrior, death knight, druid, hunter, rogue, warlock, shaman, and paladin at max.  I actually have 12 100’s since I also leveled Cindy’s druid to 100, even though she doesn’t play. 🙂

Now being at max level in reality is really only the start of where the game begins for most people where you begin doing high level stuff in the quest to equip your virtual self in gear that makes you stand above others in both power and visuals.  However with this many level 100s, the time required to do this with 12 characters would literally be impossible to find so instead I will pick a few that I want to focus on from this point forward.

I announced my accomplishment to Cindy last night.  She did a good job of expressing fake excitement for me.  I love that she encourages me to participate in mindless entertainment from time to time to help balance the non-entertaining portions of life.

I have targeted Saturday as tree trimming day.  A forecast low temp of 65 degrees was the lowest I saw in the 10 day forecast so I am going all in, hoping to get out there nice and early with my brand new loppers.  Cindy has an event she is going to first thing tomorrow so that will allow me to get a good head start on the trimming and then allow me to double back and help her with the equally grueling task of picking up all the cut fronds and other organic matter to dump it in the back of the property.

The grass is overdue for weed whacking and I have a number of other ancillary chores that could get done as well.  When you have a monster job on the menu like tree trimming it has a way of sucking the energy to do much else out of you.

So even though yesterday was a day off from work it didn’t feel much like one.  Maybe that’s because I started off the day going into the office.  I have been trying to get something implemented at work that require it to be done off normal working hours. Cindy tagged along since we had a few errands to run on the way home.  I spent a couple hours at work spinning my wheels trying to figure out an issue that has been in my way for awhile.  The end result was once again having to punt, making me feel like I just wasted my time.  I left feeling very frustrated.

Our first stop after the office was the nearby Goodwill.  Cindy was there the other day looking for cheap children bikes.  The reason was I needed to replace the wheels on the chicken tractor, which are repurposed from an old kids bike.  The bearings on those wheels were shot and hardly wanted to roll.  Cindy picked up a bike earlier in the week but the wheels were too small.

The store had another bike with wheels that were a good match.  The $20 price tag seemed a bit high considering the brakes were permanently bent in such a way that caused them to constantly rub on the wheel.  The chain on the bike was horribly rusted as well.  If I wasn’t dealing with a charitable organization I would have went into Craigslist mode and offered them half of the price tag since it wasn’t good for anything but parts.  However the two wheels I needed were in decent shape so I paid my $20 with a smile.

After a stop at Sam’s for some grocery items we were back home where I could continue to do more work.  The first project was to do the wheel swap.  This was a little more challenging than I expected.  The old wheels came off of a single speed kids bike.  The bike we bought was a geared model.  This meant the rear wheel was a bit wider because of the hub.  I had to take a pair of vise grips and bend the frame mount points on the tractor out slightly to make it fit. The wheels are a fraction of an inch bigger than the old set so the clearance with the frame is tight but by the time I was done the tractor was once again rolling freely.

You would think with our chicken coop palace we built that the chicken tractor would be obsolete.  It actually is heavily utilized by the chickens during the day as they free range.  We have water and food in there that they utilize all day long.  They like feeling safe while eating.  The hens sometimes use the tractor as a playground, going up and down the ramp and jumping out one of the side doors that we normally have open.

After I gave the tractor a new set of wheels I pulled out my roughly 25 year old mountain bike from the small shed.  I told Cindy that I want to buy us a set of inexpensive mountain bikes so we can ride the big loop at Rookery Swamp.  My old bike just is not up to the task with two dry rotted tires, horrible brakes and a seat that is leaking impact dampening gel.

I bought this bike as a young man.  I recall riding it up and down in the street in front of my first wife’s parents home after I bought it.  I remember being very proud of the purchase.

Before relocating the bike to the roadway where it will surely be picked up by one of the many scavengers in my area I wanted to remove a couple accessories that could be useful when we get new bikes.  I carefully removed a rear cargo rack and two vertical handle bar grips that allowed me a more upright riding position for variety and comfort.  Sure it will be sad to get rid of something that has been part of my life for longer than it has not but it’s definitely well overdue.

My next task was continuing the work in transforming the shipping box my race clock arrived in into a crude carrying case.  I had started work last weekend by installing metal L brackets on each corner as well as a handle.  However in my testing with the clock inside the wood was bending dangerously, too thin to support the weight in that configuration.

During the week I went out and bought some more supplies to further reinforce the box. They included some 5/8 inch fencing boards.  My thought process was to put one board on the handle side and the bottom of the box since those were the two points supporting the majority of the weight.

I cut and attached the boards in both spots as well as attaching the front “door” section with hinges with Cindy’s help.  I thought I was going to have to go buy a latch to lock the box but Cindy made the good suggestion of taking one of the four I had installed on the chicken tractor.  I had to do some creative mounting to get the latch in place but it worked out.

I replaced the wood screws that were holding the handle in place with machine screws using nuts and washers which are much better suited to support the concentration of weight in that area.  I placed the heavy clock back in the box, closed the lid and lifted it up solely by the handle.  It felt much stronger with the additional boards able to support the weight without significant flex.  I was able to carry the clock the 200 feet from the back yard to the hobby room exclusively by the handle which was a good real world test.

I also added some secondary L brackets to some of the sides, doubling up the strength of those joints.  Cindy suggested that a set of roller wheels on one end might be a final helpful addition, allowing you to pull the box like a set of luggage if need be.  Now of course this box is not designed to be tossed around like luggage and surely would not hold up to severe abuse however I think it will manage to fulfill the basic needs I have.

Yesterday I stumbled across some old pictures on my local NAS at home of Nicki.  It inspired me to put together a memorial type video similar to what I did for mom.  Getting through the process was tough and impossible without having to reach for the tissues more than  once.

One of the perks of being a government employee is you get a lot of paid holidays off, including Veterans Day.  Veterans Day is one of those holidays that does not have a flexible date so it can be conveniently moved to a Monday each year.   As a result many years it falls right in the meat of a work week as is the case this year with it falling on a Wednesday. It makes for a different sort of week working two days, taking a one day breather and then finishing out with another quick two days.  It certainly is a schedule I could get comfortable with very quickly.

Of course tomorrow may mean a day off for me but it’s real importance is taking a moment to recognize the countless veterans that have served and continue to serve our country each and every day.  I am proud to have a veteran under my roof as well and appreciate how much she continues to give to myself and others on a daily basis.

I had yet another clean bill of health from the dentist.  I am thankful that my many horrific experiences in the dentist chair as a child and young adult transformed my dental hygiene habits for the better.  Despite it not being very PC nowadays, a little physical pain/punishment is still a very effective tool for behavior modification in my book.

One of the negatives about going to the local Retro Fitness gym is the drive back to the office.  The exit out of the parking lot does not have a traffic light.  Instead you have to try to time a left turn crossing three lanes of oncoming traffic. This is further complicated by mostly clueless drivers on Davis Blvd turning left into the lot that are not familiar with right of way rules and/or are too old to have reaction times necessary to deal with the often small gaps in traffic where they could cross but chose not to.

Quite often there will be a half dozen cars waiting to turn left out of the lot combined with another three or four waiting to turn left INTO the lot from Davis.  Up until recently I felt I had no choice but to enter into that quagmire and get progressively more angry as bad drivers compound the delay.

I recently decided to make another decision when I see a rats nest of vehicles at the exit waiting to turn left.  I now head out a rear exit of the complex and head roughly a half mile east, the opposite direction I need to go, where there is a traffic light, allowing me to make a stress free left turn.  Even though the majority of the time by the time I pass back by the noted trouble spot the parking lot traffic has cleared, I feel better choosing the simpler, less stressful route.

I have realized this is a template I have been applying across other aspects of my day to day existence. I just don’t need the hassle.

Saturday was our second race in as many weeks.  Cindy and I got to the race site a little after 5:15am.  We went right into setting up the start line.  We did things differently this time, laying the mats across the street instead of off to the side.  My thought was the mats are designed to be able to withstand a vehicle driving over them so why not set them up across the road right away to save time.  Well of course this plan turned out not to be ideal when one of the volunteers told me the mats were shifted/slightly buckled.  Evidently some idiot thought it would be cool to either accelerate or brake hard while they were going over the mats.  I should know better than to trust in people doing the right thing.  We were able to tug and push in the mats to straighten them out.

I had another equipment incident where one of the senior club members rode through the finish line before the race on his bike.  We had one set of mats set up and one other row of mats partially set up so the mat wires were partially exposed.  Well evidently he was not paying attention and somehow managed to snag one of the wires with his pedal.  This resulted in one of the timing boxes getting yanked off of the table and smashing into the ground.  He also managed to take out my GoPro which luckily is built to withstand abuse.  The timing box is another story, it is not designed to be thrown onto asphalt.

When I first tried the box it did not show a connection to the timing mats, great.  I shut down the box and redid all of the BNC connections which got the mats talking to the box but I am concerned that the impact could have done some unseen internal damage.  It was shaping up to be one of those days.

So the start of the race approached.  I headed to the start line much later than I normally would, thinking I would need much less time since the mats are already across the road.  The race started and I immediately realized I had a problem, two of them actually.  The MyLaps timing boxes are different than the Ipico boxes that I would always set the time on manually before a race.  The MyLaps boxes have an internal GPS which is used to automatically synch/set the time.  Well I realized that I got to the start line late enough that the box did not have time to do the gps synch yet which was slow due to the start line being next to a large building.  Problem two was I had given no thought to daylight savings time changing since the last race.  This is a manual setting that you have to change yourself.  The end result of these two issues was I had a file on the timing box full of incorrect start times for the runners.

So luckily I also started my stop watch at the start of the race.  I was able to use it combined with my watch which is synched to atomic time, like a GPS, to back figure what the correct start time was.  Once I had that I was able to determine that the start times were off by 1:01:56, now all I had to do was figure out how to apply an adjustment to those start times.

I thought I had seen a spot to do this in the timing software in the past all though I never had this situation come up personally before in 8 years of race timing.  I futzed around for awhile looking for a spot I could make the adjustment but came up empty.  I decided to just let it go and figure it out once I got home since we don’t utilize chip start times with official results which are based on gun time.

I had one of the running club board members shadowing me most of the race as she is goign to be part of the team that they are hoping can step in and fulfill my responsibilities.  She got a good taste of the pitfalls that can come up with any race and how fixing them is not about knowing all the answers, it’s about being a proficient troubleshooter.  I was able to get the solution to my start file issue later from the author of the timing software.  Despite doing race timing for a long time I still learn new things on a regular basis.

After getting race stuff done and eating lunch I wanted to get the dash of the SSR back together, something I tried to complete unsuccessfully Thursday night.  I pulled the truck out into the driveway earlier so the plastic/vinyl in the dash could get nice and warm, making it easier to get stuff back in place.

Despite being warm and despite me taking the dash off and putting it back on a number of times in the past it still was a struggle getting everything snapped back in place.  After a lot of grunting, sweating and frustration, a lot of which was captured on video, I was finally able to get the dash back together.

Saturday night Cindy and decided to do dinner and a movie, despite being up since 3:55 AM, which in retrospect was not a great idea.  We opted to have dinner at The Brass Tap which is only a few doors down from the theater.  They have a HUGE selection of craft beers and a nice selection of elevated bar food.  I stayed nice and boring with my beer choice, downing a couple Miller Lites.  I was not interested in toying with craft beers that could have unwanted effects on my well being the following day.

Our food was delicious but very fried.  The jalepeno corn fritters we ordered as an appetizer were filling enough to be a meal.  When combined with the fish and chips I ordered as my main dish I felt like a bloated pig.  Cindy felt even worse than I did, not because the food wasn’t good but because our bodies just aren’t accustomed to eating that sort of food in those amounts.  The two female bartenders had great personalities that really made the meal enjoyable.  Cindy and I will surely eat there again although we may skip the appetizer next time.

So I have seen all of the Daniel Craig Bond movies.  Casino Royale was GREAT, every subsequent installment of the movie seemed to be sliding downhill.  I hoped Spectre could reverse that trend.  Now as a disclaimer, the early alarm combined with alcohol and heavy dinner made me very drowsy.  During the first half of the movie my eyes were closed a lot, enough that I was fuzzy on some plot points when I woke up more during the tail end of the movie.  On the plus side, the movie had some great fight, chase, and action scenes which pretty much all Bond movies rely upon to some degree.

On the downside I just felt like the movie was dumb overall based on the parts I was conscious for.  It felt hokey and contrived.  When I was trying to evaluate the movie overall I thought about previous Bond movies, like the classic Roger Moore installments.  Looking back they certainly had things about them which would seem equally hokey and silly so maybe I am being overly critical.  Even after that extra consideration and sleepiness disclaimer I can only give a B rating to it overall, meaning it’s fine to wait until it releases on Netflix.  Based on the way things turn out it appears this is the last Daniel Craig based Bond film we will see.  I’m ok with that.

Sunday morning we awoke to more annoyingly warm and humid conditions.  The weather recently has been pissing me off.  We are over a week into November and still experiencing temps dancing around 90 degrees with high humidity.  It just is out of hand.  Despite the soupy weather I was determined to get a bike ride in to help burn off the caloric penalty from the rich dinner the night before.   Despite having a tail wind most of the way to Dunkin Donuts we were both absolutely drenched with sweat when we stepped into the heavenly AC at our halfway point.  The ride back I lead into an unrelenting headwind which doubled down on the misery.  When I got home I could hardly wait to jump into the 80 degree pool which felt quite cold since my body temperature was so elevated.

After cooling off we did a Home Depot run, where I bought an improved loppers for the impending tree trimming project and some hardware to modify the box the timing clock was shipped in.  I worked on the box modification early in the afternoon.

My goal was to transform the box the clock traveled from China in into a carrying case to transport it to and from events.  The box was constructed of a thin hardwood that reminds me of the wood that some of our low end chicken coops were constructed out of.  The sides were attached with a number of small nails which would not hold up to a lot of wear and tear.

I bought a bunch of 2 inch metal L brackets to reinforce each corner.  I screwed through the thin box  into a supplementary pieces of wood that was left over from the coop build.  The corners felt significantly stronger .  I attached a handle to the top and again screwed into a piece of backer wood for additional strength.  The hinges I bought to attach the “door” were too small so I had to stop there.  I did however put the clock in the box  to see how it felt picking it up by the handle.  I didn’t even have to get the box completely in the air to recognize the thin box wood was not going to be able to support the weight of the clock concentrated into the small handle area.  The wood flexed badly.  I am going to have to try to do some further strengthening of the handle side of the box if I want any chance of this working.  Otherwise I would have to carry the box around like a small coffin which I can do if push comes to shove but would prefer not to.

During last week Cindy took the initiative to make a sign for Nicki to mount on the memorial planter she created for my mom which I thought was very sweet.  On Sunday afternoon we mounted it out there, under mom’s name.  The picture that Cindy snapped of Sadie in front of the memorial where it looks like she is looking at the names made me cry as I posted it to social media.  It still seems hard to believe that they are both gone.  I sometimes find myself wondering what Sadie thinks happened, if she realizes she will never see Nicki again or if she thinks she is just on vacation and will just walk through the door one day.

During dinner last night we watched my latest Netflix rental, Citizen Four.  I knew it was regarding Edward Snowden, I did not know it was actually a documentary with Edward Snowden events going down in real time.  I had never heard that journalists had documented this and certainly didn’t know Snowden was on film describing what he knew, how he knew it and why he felt it was important to make it public.

What he revealed for someone like me, who already has a very dark opinion of just how far the federal government will go to manipulate the public, was not all that shocking.  In a nutshell, the NSA has been recording/tracking almost any sort of communication the American public has been participating in for a number of years, all under the umbrella of the Patriot Act and the catch all “preventing terrorism” justification.    It’s disappointing that under Obama, who railed against abuse of government powers under the Patriot Act, the abuse if anything has only accelerated.  I suggest you watch the documentary to educate yourselves.  Basically know that if you type, text or talk into a device that is connected to any voice/data network more than likely someone associated with the federal government has the ability to review it at any point they deem fit. I’d give the film an A.

Last night I totally expected to fall asleep during the Eagles/Cowboys game, which I did at various points.  Luckily I woke up to see the last third of the game which was filled with suspense.  As far as Eagles/Cowboys game go, I went into the contest caring very little about the outcome, perhaps the least I have cared in the last 10 years.  Both teams just are not very good.  For the Cowboys their problems are mostly rooted in being hammered by injuries.  The Eagles just have not been able to get this mismatched pool of individual talents to play well as a team consistently.

When the Eagles kicked a late field goal to go ahead I was excited but worried that there was far too much time on the clock.  Having the Eagles D shut down a team when they have to at the end of the contest is as rare as a Blood Moon.  Once again they failed to get the job done, mostly thanks to Byron Maxwell and his two pass interference penalties on the drive, further reinforcing his status  as one of the worst free agent signings of 2015.  He has shown me NOTHING except a tendency to get beat when it matters, take stupid penalties, and tackle poorly while he tries to rip the ball out instead of getting the player to the ground first and foremost.  When the Cowboy kicker bounced the game tying field goal through the uprights with a second or two to go I assumed the Birds were now set up for yet another crushing defeat.

I was actually fuzzy about the modified NFL overtime rules so when the Eagles went down and scored a quick touchdown I thought the Cowboys still were allowed a chance to possess the ball.  When I saw the FINAL status flash up on the scoreboard I realized that only applies if the team kicks a field goal on their first possession.  If a touchdown is scored it’s game over.  I was so tired that my celebration was silent and was little more than an internal grin.  It was nice to get revenge over the Cowboys for the horrible beat down they put on the Eagles in week two.  In the game of , who is the worst team” tag in the NFC East, it seems like for now the Cowboys have taken the lead. How bout them Cowboys?

Yesterday Kristen, one of our two aracuana chickens laid her first egg.  Her breed is also called “Easter eggers” because they lay greenish/blue eggs.  Cindy was very excited to see Kristen started laying.  In total we got 9 eggs yesterday.

Cindy also recorded a bunch of quick hitting exercise videos for her YouTube channel yesterday. The 2-3 minute long videos are a good fit for today’s ADD riddled society that is only able to consume content in small segments until something else grabs their attention.

This weekend I have another race to time.  After I get past that I will only have 6 events left although the next one is the Thanksgiving race which is typically the largest event of the year which is always a large pain in the ass.  My attitude now however has shifted as I can simply tell myself that the end is near.

This weekend I need to get some stuff done like putting the SSR back together and working on converting the shipping box the timing clock came in into a carrying case.  I also have the need for the awful tree trimming project to take place before Thanksgiving.  Of course with the refusal of the record setting hot and humid weather to cooperate, that chore sounds even more miserable than normal.

I am hoping if I am not running on fumes to do a dinner/movie date with Cindy on Saturday night.  Sadie will be coming over as well to help keep things lively.

My SSR instrument cluster showed up yesterday.  The guy I sent it to was extremely fast in turning it around. The new silver face plate for the instruments looks cool.  Despite the lack of daylight courtesy of the time change, I thought I would take a shot at putting the truck back together last night.

I got the cluster back in but gave up trying to reinstall the dash cover.  The lack of light and cramped working conditions resulted in me getting nowhere for 15 minutes or so.  This job is actually best done in warm temps and with direct sun to help soften up the plastic/vinyl that has to be manipulated.

Despite there being no sunlight, by the time I was done I was sweating through my shirt, a tribute to the stupidly warm temperatures we are still continuing to experience despite now being into November.  The temperatures have been at or above record setting levels.  I believe the high yesterday was 91 degrees.  Usually by this time of year we have had one or two real cool fronts blow through.  There has not been one yet this year.  It may seem odd to hear a Florida resident bitching about it being too warm but after the 6 month long summers I really do look forward to temperatures and humidity levels that don’t invoke instant sweat responses when stepping outside.

I neglected to mention yesterday that Monday night I did a dual broadcast of my latest head shaving session, recording it for YouTube as well as broadcasting the event on Periscope simultaneously.  It was an attempt to add variety to my growing collection of head shave videos.  I’m not sure how successful it was.