Crawl before you walk, cars and cathedrals, DP, torture 20, LWH

I woke up on Saturday feeling marginally better than I had been feeling for most of last week.  I felt like I would push the envelope a little and head outside to get some stuff done in the yard.  At Home Depot we bought some sod and five bags of large white egg rock.  Both of these things were to address chicken collateral damage.

The chickens over the last couple weeks had once again dug out a number of large holes in the yard.  After back filling them I covered the holes as best I could with the sod pieces.  The egg rock was used to fill the small beds in front of the chicken run.  They used to have mulch and plants in them but the chickens quickly destroyed them.  After removing a good amount of the remaining dirt we laid down new weed block and filled the area with the stones.  The size and weight of the stones should make them less able to be kicked around, unlike the mulch and smaller rock the birds have scattered around property.  Cleaning up after the chickens is a full time job.

Cindy had seen there was a car show out at Ave Maria as part of some other event that was being hosted there.  She suggested we go check it out.  To be honest the idea didn’t thrill me, doing the outside labor had already tapped the majority of my depleted energy reserves.  Cindy however was very excited by the idea so we hopped in the SSR and cruised out there.  It was indeed a beautiful day for a drive.

I hadn’t been out to Ave Maria in a little while.  After being a monumental flop upon it’s launch in 2007, “Catholic Town” has seen a nice resurgence in growth along with the rest of the real estate market in our area.  There was a nice crowd of people at the event that featured a number of stands as well as a stage with live music.

There was a good variety of vehicles at the car show featuring the very old to the very new.  There was no doubt that my SSR would have been a worthy addition to the line up.  Cindy and I took our time checking out every vehicle.  Seeing the time, money, and effort put into these vehicles was worthy of admiration.

The cars were lined up on either side of the center of town.  In between checking out the sides we went inside the centerpiece of the town, the Ave Maria cathedral.  Of course I have seen the outside of the beautiful church many, many times but I never had an opportunity to step inside, something Cindy was very interested in doing as well.

The inside of the structure is indeed beautiful with the seemingly seamless lattice of support girders criss-crossing overhead.  It’s modern styling was quite the contrast to St. John of the Divine which we visited in NYC but still quite impressive in it’s own way.  Cindy said it took her breath away at first.  We took our time exploring the church, it was quiet and peaceful.

After seeing the rest of the vehicles we each grabbed a small ice cream and enjoyed it outside in one of the many available seating areas.  When we left I was glad that Cindy gave me the kick in the rear end to come out to Catholic Town, it was a nice way to spend an hour or two.

On Saturday night we finally got out to see Deadpool, a movie I have been wanting to see for quite awhile.  A combination of timing and illness had thwarted our previous plans to see it.  We decided to give Paragon theater another chance despite the unpleasant experience we had last time with the woman behind us that was a distraction pretty much the entire time.  Despite the luxury power reclining seats at Paragon there is a distinct disadvantage, the theaters are small.  The small size means that if you are unfortunate enough to have an inconsiderate asshole in the theater it is not very easy to minimize their impact by moving elsewhere since the amount of real estate is limited.  Luckily this time around we managed to avoid another rude incident.

The movie was great, the first R rated super hero movie I ever recall seeing.  It is action packed and hilarious pretty much from start to finish.  I don’t know if they could possibly find anybody more perfect for the role than Ryan Reynolds.  Now of course the R rating means you shouldn’t be hauling your 12 year old into the theater with you but as an adult super hero flick, Deadpool is just about perfect in my book, A+.

On Sunday morning I had a not so bright idea that Cindy and I should try to do a Dunkin Donuts ride on our bikes.  I did so with the disclaimer that we would do it with absolutely no concern for speed, just a desire to complete the 20 miles of distance.  I knew very early on it was going to be a struggle.  Despite having a good wind at our back early on, I was already feeling pooped after 3 miles only pedaling at 15-16 mph pace.  When we got to Dunkin Donuts  I was in absolutely no rush to get started again, milking my small coffee for as long as possible.

The ride back was in a word, brutal.  Even if I was 100% healthy it would have been hard with a near constant stiff headwind pushing back against every crank on the pedal.  With us both still feeling the side effects of illness it was just miserable.  I kept dropping gears as necessary and kept my head down, trying to not focus on just how far yet we had to go.  When we finally turned back onto our street there was no customary acceleration for the last 1/4 mile of road to the driveway, just the same labored cadence as we finally pulled into home.  When we got to the garage door even stepping off the bike seemed like too much work at first.   I just stood there with my elbows resting heavily on the handlebars while my head dropped.  Man that took a lot out of me.

The bike ride derailed most of my rough ideas for additional projects during the day.  Cindy and I spent an unusual amount of time just chilling out, both of us were just beat. I shaved my head once again, an attempt to symbolically cut the illness from my body.  Sunday night we watched my latest Netflix dvd, The Last Witch Hunter.  It was a very average film that was ok to kill a couple hours.  I’d give it a very middle of the road B.

I was quite surprised like most of the world to see that Nate Diaz submitted Connor McGregor in the second round of the UFC event Saturday night.  I have come to be a big fan of Connor’s despite his trash talking, a trait that normally turns me off very quickly.  There is something different about the way Connor delivers his trash.  Many times it is pretty obvious that the talk is all about creating discord within whomever his next opponent is.  His insults are normally creative and quite funny.  They also are delivered in a way that shows Connor’s intelligence.  Despite his often brash and abrasive exterior there is another part of him that is truly worthy of admiration and praise.

After the normal amount of trash talk leading up to the Diaz fight, Connor gave credit to Nate after the loss showing more class and respect than many people would expect.  It will be interesting to see how things go from here.  Up until Saturday night Connor had a Mike Tyson in his prime aura of invulnerability.  Now that he has his first UFC loss around his neck we will see if he is able to to keep his confidence and resume his track record of kicking ass and taking names.