Archives April 2016

Yesterday the woman that we sold the fridge to took advantage of our offer to take the other appliances for free.  When I got home they were just getting ready to pull out with the dishwasher and microwave loaded up.  As soon as they left I pulled the Prius into the garage confirming both vehicles fit comfortably.  With the changes we made we actually have more walking around space in there with the Tacoma/Prius combo than we did when the SSR was in the garage. I took the Prius to work yesterday, allowing the new Tacoma a day off until it will be pressed into regular duty once I sell the 99.

A month or so ago I had a race reserve my finish line arch and race clock for a fun run they were putting on next weekend.  I had already collected my 50% deposit on the rental.  Last night I got notice that the race had been cancelled because of low numbers.  At this point they only had a handful of people signed up. Although in the contract I have people sign the deposit is listed as non-refundable, I of course told them I would refund their money.  I don’t think you make many friends or gain many referrals by keeping deposits of failed events.

On my way home from work I stopped at Costco for a couple things.  I wound up with an unexpected race timing related purchase.  They had a HUGE 13′ x 13′ pop up shelter for a super low $119.  My other tent is a much smaller 8 footer.  The extra shelter real estate could be quite handy in the future giving me more insulation from potential bad weather and sun glare.  An extra 25 square feet of coverage is nothing to sneeze at.

I don’t have any hard commitments this weekend which is nice.  I plan to put the time to good use, getting my workbench area cleaned up, organized, and expanded onto the additional pegboard space.  I also would like to install whatever accessories show up for the new Tacoma as well as work on making the exterior of the 99 Tacoma as presentable as possible for sale.  It will be busy but the type of work that I won’t mind all that much.

As expected the Eagles picked Wentz, the QB from North Dakota State in the first round of the NFL draft.  I don’t care what his ratings from the various experts are.  To take a kid that played at a tiny school against subpar talent compared to division 1 programs at number two is a reach.  When you factor in the fact that they gave up a shitload of picks to move up 6 spots to get him makes it a lot worse.  If Carson eventually steps up and becomes a stud at QB I will be happy to eat my words down the line.  Past history seems to indicate my words will remain unchewed.

As I described yesterday, I had my GoPro rolling during various driving sessions yesterday.  As I looked at the camera it seemed like a lot of vibration was being transmitted from the two extension arms I had connected together.  Luckily the GoPro has built in anti-shake tech that compensated for it to a large degree.  If you would like to see the vlog which was mostly regarding what lead up to my sale of the SSR, take a look.

Last night I created and posted my second video of the day, a walk around of the new Tacoma.  Although having a new truck will cut down on the amount of repair/maintenance videos in the pipeline I do have a number of small upgrades that I will be filming.  Yesterday I received one of them, a new set of Tacoma OEM mudflaps.  Yesterday I ordered a tonneau cover and nerf bars which should will have both practical and visual advantages.

The tonneau cover will help gas mileage by eliminating the tailgate brick wall that air slams into right now.  Of course it will also offer protection and security for whatever I may stow in there.  I opted for a different style of cover this time, a roll up model instead of the trifold model on the 99 Tacoma.  The release brackets on the tri-fold can be a real pain in the ass at times.  Plus a friend of mine has this roll up variety on his Tacoma and highly recommended it.

The nerf bars visually are a nice compliment to the high ground clearance the TRD Tacoma has.  I got the 5″ black variety.  Not only will they look good and give shorter people a step into the high cab, they will provide protection from asshole door slammers. They will extend out far enough that if a clueless parking lot visitor throws their door open it will smack into the nerf bar instead of my door.

Yesterday the woman that paid for our fridge picked it up.  Since she seemed like a very nice woman that could use a hand, we actually extended the offer to her that she could have the other stuff if she wanted it as we valued the space more than additional money.  She came back and picked up the range later in the evening and texted Cindy that she will pick up the other stuff today which is awesome.  With all of the old appliances out of the garage we can once again park the Prius in there. I can also work in earnest on reorganizing my workbench area, utilizing the additional pegboard real estate.

I was a dumb ass yesterday and totally neglected to mention that my half sister Meghan had her first child, a beautiful girl named Cadence late Monday night.  It marks the 4th time I have been indoctrinated into Uncletude.  Meg and her husband Paul are both really good people and I have no doubt they will be terrific parents.  Congratulations to them both.

I also had a robotic addition to the family yesterday, a Braava Wetjet 200. It joins my large fleet of home cleaning robots that include a Roomba, two Neatos, a Scooba and a Braava 380.

The wetjet caught my eye because of it’s small size and it’s ability to spray water before scrubbing with it’s vibrating cleaning pad.  I found it odd that this device cost less than the Braava 380 which has no spraying capability or vibrating cleaning head.  When I looked at the cleaning pad system the 200 uses I understood why.

Irobot is following the classic inkjet printer model.  Sell the hardware cheap and then make a killing on the back end with consumables.  The Wet Jet utilizes single use cleaning pads that are designed to be used and then tossed.  They have three types, one for dry sweeping, one for damp sweeping and one for wet mopping.  When I saw this I was about to write off the robot as too expensive to use on a regular basis.  Luckily I saw Irobot also sells washable cleaning pads that can be used upwards of 200 times or more, making the purchase decision once again feasible in my mind.

The WetJet is small in size and not designed to clean huge areas of floor real estate.  It does not utilize a navigation cube like the more expensive 380 and has a smaller battery which means less run time. The small robot is ideal for cleaning things like bathrooms where it’s small size allows it to get into areas most robots would not fit.  I gave the 200 a test run last night.  It uses the same cleaning pattern the bigger Braava does when mopping.  The difference is before it does, it backs up and squirts some water.  It was fun watching it work it’s way systematically around the kitchen.  I plan to let it loose in the bathrooms tonight.

It has been a little like Christmas lately.  Hell it’s better than Xmas.  A new truck and kitchen appliances are far better than Santa has ever delivered.  In addition there has been a pretty steady stream of boxes at the front door in a very December-like manner.  Yesterday in addition to the Braava I received a new set of toners for my color laser printer, and two Qi compatible charging adapters for the iPhone.

The new Tacoma has a Qi inductive charging pad that allows you to charge compatible devices by simply laying them on the pad.  The iPhone does not natively support this unlike the Samsung Galaxy line.  However you can buy adapters to allow your i-device to take advantage of this technology.  I hooked up my iPhone 6 last night and tried it out.  Just like magic the phone showed it was receiving charge as it laid in the truck.

I also messed around with the built in GoPro mount in the Tacoma, hooking up my camera to it.  The mount is located on the passenger side of the rear view mirror so I utilized a few mounting brackets to get the camera down far enough so the mirror didn’t obstruct it.  When Toyota decided to adorn all Tacomas with a permanent GoPro mount it was probably with the assumption that off roaders would like to shoot footage out the windshield instead of flipping the camera around for vlogging purposes.  Regardless it seems like it will work out pretty well.  I shot some more footage on my way to work.  I have to see how it turned out with the background noise.

If my night wasn’t busy enough I also changed the oil in the Prius since the MAINTENANCE REQUIRED light had been on for a few days.  Cindy lent a hand, changing the air filter and refilling the crankcase with fresh oil while I dealt with the dirty end of things on the ground.

I got stuck working late at a branch yesterday, not leaving there until shortly after 6.  The good news was it is only 5 miles from our house.  The bad news was the heavy rain we had while I was there evidently resulted in accidents which made those 5 miles take over a half hour to traverse.

I was contacted by a woman who I was corresponding with on FB regarding buying our old fridge.  She asked if she could come over and pay for it now but not pick it up till Wednesday which was fine.  Cecilia turned out to be a cool woman who is a vegan and very much into healthy living .  She stuck around for probably a half hour just talking with us about different things.  Cindy and I are very anxious to get the appliances out of the garage.  Hell if Cecilia wanted the other stuff I would probably just give it to her.

I brought the new Tacoma to work yesterday.  It got parked in the campus parking garage which is inconvenient since it is a 5 minute or further walk to get to/from.  I just hate the idea of parking it in the main lot where it would be subjected to both inconsiderate asshole door bangers and the intense Florida sun.   Of course there is no way I can keep the Tacoma in an SSR-like bubble as it will be more or less a daily driver vehicle but I would like to keep it as nice as I can for as long as I can.  I guess that is part of the reason my ass is not on fire to sell my trusty 99 Tacoma.

Even though I have only been off for four days it feels like longer due to just how jammed pack those days have been.  On Wednesday night we did some prep for the arrival of the appliances that was scheduled for Thursday.  We got the microwave off the wall after a lot of hassle.  My brief internet research said the wall bracket for the microwave is basically just a lip the back end sits on.  Once the top two bolts are removed it should lift off easily.

Well after removing the bolts I was able to get the microwave to tip down but not pull free from the bracket.  Evidently Maytag for some reason has some additional thin side arms that slide into the microwave that were preventing me from pulling it free.  After a lot of grunting and awkwardly holding the unit by both Cindy and myself I finally got it off the wall. After that frustrating episode we deemed our appliance removal as good enough for the night.

The appliance installers had an install window between 9:30 and 1:30, a wide window.  We were hoping they would arrive early which would allow us to be able to still drive to the east coast in the evening to pick up the new Tacoma.  Cindy left early for her middle school track coaching gig so I got busy doing more appliance removal.  Our purchase at Home Depot supposedly included free installation of the stove and fridge.  The dishwasher and microwave had an extra charge.  I paid to have the dishwasher installed but not for the microwave.  Regardless the delivery/installer services should include pulling the old appliances out.  Well to expedite things I wanted to get the removal out of the way ahead of time.

I was able to get the old stove and dishwasher out to the garage with the help of my handtruck.  I removed the front handles on the fridge but waited for Cindy to get home to get it moved outside due to it’s heavy weight and tight clearance with the front door.  I had already put all of the freezer items in our coolers.  All of the fridge stuff was on the counter.  Once we got the fridge back in the garage we plugged it right back in and put the food back in there for safekeeping until the new Samsung refrigerator was in place.

Just as we were finishing up moving the food to the garage the installers showed, close to the start of their installation window which was awesome.  Both of the guys were very nice and surprised we did the prep work that normally falls on their shoulders.  They wasted no time getting busy.

The install went smoothly.  It was my time to be pleasantly surprised that they installed the new microwave as well, despite me not paying the extra money for the installation.  When we pulled the fridge out it revealed the plastic outlet cover was broken from overly aggressive fridge pushing over the years.  I ran out to the nearby hardware store and got a metal replacement.  By the time I got back home everything but the new fridge was in place.

The installers said in order to get the new fridge in it would be best to pop the hinges on the front door which was easier said than done.  The top two pins came out easily but the bottom pin was tough for them since you can’t get a good swing of a hammer on it.  Some determination and WD-40 eventually broke it loose.  I helped the one guy cart the new fridge although he did most of the grunt work.  My primary role was to make sure the doors stay closed.  Before long they had the fridge up and running.  Both of the guys were really friendly, helpful, and professional.  We gave them whatever cash we had as a tip.

After they left Cindy and I spent a lot of time just admiring our new kitchen hardware.  We liked the contrast with the white cabinets as well as the way it complemented the granite which has a lot of black.  The fridge was especially cool.  Over the weekend Cindy did several reworks of the layout trying to figure out the best way to utilize the large amount of additional space it has.  I had a big pile of manuals on the counter to look through so I had a basic understanding of how all the bells and whistles work.

So I contacted the Delray Toyota dealer and let them know that I indeed would be able to pick up the new truck that evening.  We set a tentative time of 6PM, plenty of time for them to get it all prepped and ready to go.  However before we left Cindy had a dentist appointment in the afternoon.  The plan was for me to take her there so we could leave immediately afterward to save time.  While Cindy was in the chair I ran to the credit union to pull some cash and stopped at Walmart to grab some safety pins for the race I was timing Saturday.

When we left Naples I figured we had plenty of time to get to Delray which according to the GPS should take about 2 hours.  What I didn’t give any thought to was the time of day we were making the trip.  We got onto I-95 right in the heart of rush hour which was miserable.  We had no choice but to sit in stop and go traffic for long periods of time which made the drive 30-45 minutes longer than expected.

Our GPS got us right to the door of the dealership which was visually impressive and huge.  We walked inside the massive showroom and soon met up with Owen, the sales guy assigned to delivering the vehicle.  Up until that point I had dealt with a guy named Tony on the phone and via email as he is the guy assigned to all internet/Costco leads.  Owen was an older, relaxed man with a pleasant demeanor, certainly not the prototypical car salesman template.

After a much needed bathroom break I asked Owen if we could first take the truck for a test drive.  Despite the foregone conclusion I was buying a new Tacoma I had not actually sat behind the wheel of one, I just assumed I would like it.  Owen walked us out the side door where the truck was waiting for us.  It looked awesome in it’s Inferno Orange color scheme.  Cindy had to jump in the back of the access cab which isn’t too bad for someone of her dimensions while Owen rode shotgun.

As I slid into the driver seat for the first time I could not believe how big the truck felt.  It felt tons bigger than my 99 Tacoma, almost as big as a full size truck thanks to the large and in charge hood design.  It feels bigger because it actually is bigger in every dimension.  It’s longer, wider, and sits higher.

I immediately loved the interior complete with the high tech info center that was equipped.  It had all the bells and whistles.  This was a pretty big thing for me.  Yea I had bought a total of 4 new vehicles in my lifetime but the only other time I bought one 100% based on what I wanted was my Pontiac Sunfire GT after my first divorce.  It felt sort of surreal.

The big size of the truck felt a bit disorienting.  Plus I found myself distracted checking out all of the feedback the truck gives you through the two screens, one in the radio position and another integrated into the instrument cluster.  The test drive was a couple miles at most but it was enough to convince me I made a good choice.  Cindy shared my enthusiasm for the truck, she thought it was awesome in pretty much every way.

So when we got back it was time to run some numbers.  This deal was unconventional in several ways.  Not only did I have to drive to the other side of the state to find a Costco affiliated dealer, I had no idea exactly what the truck would cost me since they will not pull out the Costco pricing book until you are inside the dealership.  So Owen brings out the book and we begin the negotiation process which again happens in reverse to what is normal.

Normally you start at the marked up price a dealer has on a vehicle which usually includes their addendum sticker and work down from there.  In our case we started down way low at the Costco member price which according to the book was 1100 under INVOICE, not MSRP, INVOICE.  So I had all of my internet pricing info with me so I immediately knew the invoice pricing they were listing was a little inflated but not much.  However from that number there were additions for stuff like floor mats, nitro filling the tires, and title/tag work which of course were dramatically inflated in pricing.  In addition there was a $799 dealer fee that Owen said was added to every vehicle they sell.  When I asked him what exactly that was for he said prep but admitted that of course there was additional profit taking in there.

So even with this subtraction followed by addition, the out the door pricing was much, much better than any number any other Toyota dealer offered.  They started their pricing at MSRP plus since the Tacomas have been selling very well with the new redesign of the truck this model year.  When I started doing my research I assumed I would be lucky to just get the truck for MSRP.  Even with the overpriced add ons I was still well under MSRP and able to very easily swing into my financial wheelhouse.  Even so I asked Owen if he could do a little better for me.  When he came back with a price 250 bucks less that was good enough, we agreed to the deal and moved on to stage 2.

So I had all my financing in place so I hoped our visit to the F&I guys office would be brief.  Even with my own financing and turning down all the extended warranties and other profit padding options we were in there for a while.  There seems to be a lot more paperwork involved than when I sold cars.  I was signing and initialing for quite a long time.  After we were done it took awhile to track down Owen so we could head out.  He had already attached the license plate and gave me a brief run down of the vehicle although I probably knew as much as he did based on my extensive internet research ahead of time.

When we left the dealership we were both starving and hit a nearby Chipotle to fuel up.  By the time we left the east coast it was quite late.  At least the traffic situation was much better.  The disorientation with the new truck continued on the way home.  It’s bigger dimensions made me feel unsure of my position in a lane.  Once we got back out onto Alligator Alley things were fine.  We didn’t pull back in the driveway until after 11PM, much later than I was expecting.  The garage was in no shape to house the new Tacoma with the old appliances residing there.  Cindy and I planned on working on alternatives over the weekend.  As we were laying in bed we could hardly believe that we got new appliances and a new vehicle, on the east coast no less, the same day.

On Friday I kept busy around the house for a good portion of the day.  Cindy had a fitness class to teach.  I told her to take the new Tacoma since she hadn’t had a chance to drive it yet.  She gave the truck a glowing report card as well.  One of the things I did was list the old appliances on Craigslist, hoping to quickly sell them to reclaim garage space.  I had exactly zero responses from the ad.  Used appliances on CL are a dime a dozen.  I followed up later on in the weekend posting on a local FB yard sale group and at least got some possible interest but as of now all of the appliances are out there.  Although I would like to get a little bit of money to offset the expense if we don’t move them within the next week I have no problem donating them as well.

I also needed to do prep for the race I was timing Saturday.  During the day I met up with John to pick up one of his generators.  The race finish line location had no nearby power available.  I also picked up Sadie for an extended visit while Ali and her boyfriend are up in PA.  I chose to do both of these things in the old Tacoma.  I figured I may as well try to keep the 2016 Tacoma as pristine as possible while I can.

On Saturday morning Cindy and I awoke to the 4:30 alarm clock.  Cindy actually had a track meet she had to attend but she agreed to follow me to the race to help me get as much equipment set up as she could.  The inflatable arch is particularly difficult to get set up solo.  I punched in the address for the race that was on the entry form which took us into the Immokalee Airport access road.  We saw noone around so I called the race director.  He said he was 5 minutes behind me and would be there soon.  We sat for another 10 minutes without seeing him so I called again.  He said he was now there but did not see us.  He described a park where the race was held which was nowhere in sight.  We came back out of the park and used his verbal guidance to get to the right spot.

So the location confusion cost us valuable time since Cindy had to leave asap.  We hustled and got the arch up and running off the generator and most of the other finish line equipment in place before Cindy had to head out.  The morning had a hectic start and it only escalated from there.  The location of the finish line was not good.  It was staged on the main road used for vehicles to park.  I had cars coming back and forth the entire time before the race.

At one point while I was setting more equipment up I heard the generator start to sputter.  Just as I thought to myself, “it better not die”, it of course did, sending the arch quickly to the ground as yet another vehicle was approaching.  I ran over to the generator and realized I did not have the vent on the gas cap turned to the ON position which caused it to shut down.  After opening the vent the generator fired back up on the first pull and was fine the rest of the event. The registration area was at least a couple hundred yards from the finish line which was problematic as well.  I had to go back and forth several times to do data entry while trying to finish the equipment set up at the same time.   I definitely wished I had Cindy there to help me.

So with the vehicle traffic constantly going through the finish line before the race I wasn’t going to put the timing mats in place for a chip start.  The field of runners was small so using just gun time wasn’t a big deal.  As the race was getting ready to start the race director came up and made some announcements on my bullhorn.  He then asked me if I had a starters gun we could use to start the race.  I told him no but the bullhorn had a siren we could use.  I showed him how to start it, assuming he would start the event.  Instead he asked me if I could start the race since he was going to run the race as well. Um ok.  Of course he didn’t realize that I already had a clipboard, my atomic watch, and a stopwatch I utilize when starting a race.  Trying to awkwardly work the siren was not going to be a good thing.  I managed to get the race started in a rather clumsy manner.

So once the runners cleared I had to quickly get the timing mats in place but I had to get the race clock set first.  I had some issues getting it set just right but eventually got it working. I then jumped on the laptop where I have to do stuff like set the time on the timing box.  I was getting no response.  A quick diagnosis revealed that the USB ethernet adapter seemed to not be working.  My only option was to power off the laptop and bring it back up.  By the time I got it back up I getting close to crunch time time-wise.  I quickly set the time on the Ipico box and got everything up and running literally seconds before the first young kid crossed.

So as I started looking at my finish line time reports I noticed something was wrong.  The times on the report were almost a minute more than they should be??  WTF…   So I started to try to figure out the problem.  This was my first timing with the Ipico equipment in roughly a year so I wondered if I missed a step.  Part of the process is setting the time on the laptop to match the time on my atomic synched watch.  The laptop time is then used to set the time on the timing box.  I had set the time on the laptop to match my watch before the race.  Well somehow my shutting off the laptop had caused the time to fall out of synch by almost a minute so I set the time on the box with the incorrect time, causing the problem.  I was luckily able to apply an offset to the finish times to correct the problem.  I was glad I had my new security dvr there to allow me review the time the race winner crossed the line so I could determine exactly how much offset I needed.

The security dvr system also came in handy for environmental conditions.  The way I was facing the rising sun was directly in my face.  The large 27 inch monitor I have attached to the DVR served as a sunvisor.  I spent much of the race ducked down behind it so I could see.

So in the end all of the race results worked out without anyone realizing just how much scrambling I was doing behind the scenes to make it happen.  It also revealed some weak links in my GMT race equipment.  My $149 Asus laptop is going to need to be swapped with something more substantial and I need to get more adept at setting the race clock.  Clean up from the event took FOREVER with me doing it solo.  I bet I spent damn close to an hour just tearing down and putting everything back in the truck.  I pulled off site mentally and physically tired.  Just as a final exclamation point on the morning, I had a hell of a time getting back on Immokalee Road due to a farmers parade going down Main Street.  I probably spent 15 minutes finding a route around it.

By the time Cindy got home I had already finished unloading all of the equipment and had started on post race work like posting results and ripping finish line video.  After we ate lunch turned our attention to the garage.  At first I had given up hope on keeping the new Tacoma housed in the garage.  It’s bigger dimensions would not allow it to fit where the SSR resided.  Initially Cindy’s suggestion of changing the layout of the shelves in there, which meant removing them, was not appealing to me since I hate losing storage options.  However the more I thought about it the more open I was to it.

We first had to get the old appliances moved to the opposite wall as they were sitting where the Tacoma would go.   We then started pulling stuff out of the garage.  Of course this was also an opportunity to purge some shit.  I had a bunch of maintenance items like transmission fluid, air/oil filters, oil and other stuff that were needed for the maintenance of the old Tacoma and the SSR.  Obviously I had no need for these anymore so we deposited them by the curb for someone else to use.  Like I said almost everything was unopened.  We moved some shelves around and completely removed others.  The non-Tacoma side of the garage looked like a mess.

After we got done we did a test park with me backing into the space.  I fit fine but it was tedious backing in there.  We discovered that I could pull in forward and still have enough room to get out of the door once I raised an adjustable shelf on the wall, awesome.  Cindy came up with the good idea to utilize the wall space where the shelf use to reside for extra pegboard space, something I have been in dire need of for many years.  We stopped at that point since we were going to a sweet 16 birthday party for Cindy’s niece.

Even though I knew sweet 16 parties existed I never attended one and I never knew anybody that had one.  I was surprised at the size and scope of it all.  It almost seemed like a mini-wedding reception.  It was held at a cool little marina that I never knew existed.  Of course we cruised there in the new Tacoma.  By Saturday I was finally feeling adjusted to the different driving dimensions and was comfortable on the road.

The party was very cute.  Cindy’s niece is a terrific young lady with a bight future in front of her for sure.  Cindy’s daughter and mom were there as well so we got to hang with them to varying degrees.  We also got to meet Cindy’s brother’s girlfriend who was very nice as well.  I chilled out with four beers to take the edge off.  After the prior three days of go go go it felt good to just sit and chill for a bit.

Despite our high activity level up to that point, Sunday morning Cindy and I decided to get out and run, something that just has not happened on a consistent level for a long time.  We put in a little over 3 miles at the track.  With my lack of running of course I never felt comfortable the entire time but at least I got it done.

When we got home we loaded up Sadie for a ride.  I needed to stop at Home Depot to get stuff to expand the pegboard and a few other things.  Going there when we have Sadie is so much more fun now that we found out she is allowed to shop with us.  The 4×8 piece of pegboard hung out over the edge of the old Tacoma but was held in place by the weight of three bags of mulch pretty securely. We took the old Tacoma, trying to spare the 2016 from unnecessary dirt and labor until necessary.

Most of the remaining daylight hours of Sunday were spent out in the garage getting the new pegboard up.  I had some challenges along the way due to inconsistent stud placement on that wall but I worked around it.  In addition we built a small shelf/table to get back some of the storage capability we lost.  We also hung a tennis ball on a string parking aid we found at HD to make pulling the new Tacoma in far enough a no brainer.  We were both quite pooped when our day’s labor came to an end.  We now are quite anxious to get the old appliances out of there so we can again welcome the Prius back into the garage as well.

Like I mentioned earlier, we had a bunch of stuff by the road to give away.  Late in the day Cindy noticed like it looked like it was scattered.  We walked down there and saw a big freaking mess.  Some idiot ran off the side of the road and into the various bottles of automotive products.  In particular it looked like he squarely ran over one of the full bottles of tranny fluid, causing it to spray all over the other items, ruining them.  The only good news I could see was the spray pattern included a good portion of the road as well so I hope the asshole has transmission fluid dissolving his paint as we speak.

Of course I would be remiss to not mention the celebrity deaths over the weekend.  Chyna, one of the first big name female WWE stars died at the young age of 45.  Her death was quickly overshadowed by the shocking death of Prince who was 57, far outside of normal dying range.  It sounds like there are some odd circumstances in the week or two leading up to his death which I am sure will be beaten to death in the media.  Regardless of how it happened he was an extremely talented performer and musician that in my book gave Michael Jackson a run for his money.  I hate being old enough that famous people I grew up with that aren’t that much than older me are dying off. RIP Prince (and Chyna).

I also have forgot to mention my thoughts about the Eagles big move, trading what many (including myself) think was too much to move from the number 8 position to number two in the upcoming NFL draft.  The team is presumably going to pick one of the top two projected QB ‘s in the draft and at this point it seems it will be the kid from North Dakota, Carson Wentz.  This move concerns me on several levels.

If the Eagles were already holding the number 2 pick and wanted to draft the kid I guess I would be ok with it.  To be successful every team needs a franchise QB eventually and the Eagles don’t think they have one currently on their roster.  I agree with them.  However to trade 5 picks to move down 6 spots to get this kid seems really, really stupid.  How often do early pick QB’s fall on their face?  The answer is all the time.  More of them fail than succeed.  To compound that, they are giving this up for a QB that played at a small school that faces a competition level far less than bigger programs go up against.  Expecting him to jump from that scenario to play in the NFL where the talent level is magnified many times over seems like a stretch to me.  When you factor in giving up all those picks it all just makes little sense to me.

Last year when Chip Kelly made all of those questionable moves, I said I thought they were bad decisions (which they obviously were), but I hoped he would prove me wrong.  Once again I am hoping Howie Roseman turns out to be some sort of super genius and Carson Wentz proves to be the Eagles franchise QB for the next decade or more but I have a bad feeling it’s not going to be the case and cost us dearly in future draft talent to boot.

I mixed in a couple brief partial front lever static holds into my bicep and tricep routine today.  I was inspired to do so by a video I saw the other day with Marcus Bondi, a very famous Australian calisthenics guy.  He is incredibly strong and owns a Guiness world record for climbing rope with no leg assist.  The most amazing thing is the guy is 50 years old.

Anyway he is in NYC for a few days and was giving a few tips in the video for certain moves, one of them being a front lever.

A front lever is when you hold your body parallel to the ground while holding onto a bar.  As you can imagine it is very, very difficult and puts tremendous strain on your shoulders and core.  I have done front lever raises like pictures to the right but I have never been able to hold the position.

Anyway, Marcus described how you should be trying to “bend the bar” when holding a lever, meaning when you grasp it you apply tension as if you were trying to bend it.  What this does is help you lock your shoulders, scalpula and arms in a more stable position.

So anyway I tried it today but with my legs only half extended.  Without the benefit of a video camera or mirror to check position it’s hard to tell how parallel my body was although it felt decent.  Even with bending the bar I only could hold the position for a few seconds before I started getting spots in my field of vision, a good clue to stop.  I’d like to get back to working both my front and back levers more often.  Doing so without tearing something is the tricky part.

I forgot to mention the embarrassment Flyers fans once again brought to the city of Philadelphia the other night while getting their asses kicked by the Capitals.  The night was a tribute to Ed Snider, a long time owner of the team who passed away recently.  As part of the tribute they handed out these light up bracelets to the fans.

The fans weren’t happy with the way the team was playing which is fine.  Noone expects Philly fans to tolerate shitty play or poor effort without hearing about it in the form of boos or heckling.  However some genius thought it would be extra cool to take his honorary bracelet and hurl it at a Capitals player in the penalty box, hitting him in the head.

In a few brief moments full blown lemming mentality kicked in and hundreds if not thousands of bracelets were thrown onto the ice despite the pleas from the announcer and players to knock it off.  It eventually lead to the Flyers fans earning a penalty themselves, not that it changed the outcome of the game at that point.

To be clear I have not followed the Flyers to any degree since the days Eric Lindros and John LeClair were on the team.  However I will always be a Philly sports fan and find myself disgusted by the behavior.  It’s disrespectful on so many levels.  It is a testament to how at their core, so many people are mindless followers, with a full blown “asshole” switch that can be flipped with very minimal effort.

The next several days are going to have a lot of “newness” in them.  It appears that April is the month where big shit happens.  Last year in April we built the chicken coop and run and redid all of the flooring in the house.  This year April is going to contain a new set of kitchen appliances and potentially a new Tacoma.

I received a surprise call yesterday from the Toyota dealer in Delray, saying the truck I have a deposit on showed up a full week early.  He asked me when I wanted to pick it up.  I told him tentatively I may be able to pick it up on Thursday since I was already going to be off for appliance delivery.

Of course that all depends on what time of day the appliances show up, if they show up at all.  Although my online order status still shows a delivery date of April 21st, it also shows it as “Being processed” which it has shown since the order was placed Sunday.  The lack of change in that status has me concerned.  They are supposed to call the day before to give a four hour delivery window so if I don’t hear anything by mid-day I will call in and speak to a human about it.  The idea of scoring new appliances AND a new truck on the same day is pretty crazy.

On the old truck front I got my 99 Tacoma back yesterday, picking it up on the way home last night. When I got in the truck I saw an empty Diet Coke can in the cupholder which I gave to the manager with a look of stink eye.  I also had the pleasant smell of cigarette smoke lingering in the cab.  The truck drove fine on the way home with the temperature needle staying dead middle as it should.

When I got home I looked under the hood at their handy work.  It looks like they topped off my fluids which I guess is nice.  They must have overfilled the power steering fluid a bit as the top of the casing was wet.  I also thought the $1500 I paid for the work would have included removal of the stickers on the new top and lower radiator hoses.  I guess that is an extra charge.  Despite these minor annoyances I was glad the Tacoma was back in action and ready for a thorough cleaning to prepare it for sale.

I am hoping having the pump and timing belt freshly done will be a strong selling point for the truck as it was the only major obstacle from the truck logging it’s next 100,000 miles.  When I priced 99 Tacomas on Craigslist I was surprised just how much money they are pulling.  I saw multiple trucks with more miles and less equipment listed at 5K or more.  I originally thought I would be happy with getting 4k for it.  Now it looks like that should be the bottom of the range I should expect.

Since I had all this new stuff potentially going on I went ahead and took Friday off as well, giving me schedule flexibility if I need it.  Even if I get it all done Thursday, then I have Friday to play with my new toys.  It will be like Christmas in spring.

Last night I did some more prep work related to the race I am supposed to be timing on Saturday.  I also received a new 23″ monitor I ordered to use on the security dvr for races.  After I unpacked it a thought popped into my head.  Cindy has dual monitors on her computer, an older 27 inch monitor and a 23 inch Acer that looked nearly identical to what I just bought.  Having the two mis-matched monitors on her desk was a bit clumsy.  The 27 incher is a few years old and as a result was physically much bigger than the slim bezel models today.

I asked Cindy what she would think of matching 23 inch monitors instead. She liked the idea.  Not only will matching monitors be more visually appealing, it also would allow her to regain a substantial amount of desk space.  After I finished swapping out the monitors Cindy went on a desk organization mission.  The end result is definitely an improvement.

Tomorrow I will have a bunch of prep to do to clear out the kitchen for the new appliances.  Getting the old fridge out is going to be a large challenge.  If I remember correctly to get it into the house we had to pull the front door off 11-12 years ago.

So my buddy John asked if I could time a small race of his this Saturday.  Although I have done a couple equipment rentals under the Green Machine Timing umbrella, I have not done a stand alone timed event to date.  I told John I would help him out so I needed to start doing some work last night to make sure all went well.

The first thing I did was pull out my big race clock and hook it up to my new stand alone power supply.  I wanted to get an idea of what sort of run time I could expect.  I hooked up the clock to the inverter side of the power supply, started the timer and let it run.  At the three hour mark it was still running fine.  I checked the power supply and I still had 75% of my battery run time so I should be in good shape.

I also hooked up my timing box in the garage with the two timing mats and just let it run, again to test battery life.  After 75 minutes it was still running strong with well over half battery left.  This race is only a 5K which normally requires the box to be on for roughly 45 minutes. I also spent some time preparing bibs, scanning them into the timing system to capture their unique identifier which gets matched with each participant. Cindy has a track meet on Saturday so our hope is she can go with me early to the race site and help me get the arch set up, after that I should be able to handle the rest of the work myself.

Yesterday I noticed my YouTube channel was continuing it’s slow climb toward 1000 subscribers.  As of this moment I am only 18 clicks away from the milestone.  In addition to 1000 subscribers I am making steady progress towards 1,000,000 total views.  I currently have been averaging about 30,000 views a month.  Considering my video production the last 18 months is way down from prior levels (living alone meant more videos), to still be approaching these numbers is cool.

I’m entering another day without my Tacoma.  Originally Tuffy said it would be done yesterday.  Then around lunch time they called and said they could not get a needed part until late in the day so the truck won’t be done until today.  If the eta slides one more time my patience will have come to it’s end.

Last night on Science channel we were watching a show that had a story about how faces appear in the landscape when viewed from satellite imagery.  For some reason this kicked off my memories of seeing faces as well, on the old vinyl flooring in the bathroom of the farmhouse I grew up in Pennsylvania.  The only bathroom in the house had ancient vinyl flooring in it, somewhat similar to this.  I recall spending most of my sitting time in there staring at the random patterns in the flooring and having them morph into recognizable faces or objects.  In the era where bathroom time was devoid of flat screens for entertainment, floor staring was a solid substitute.

This was an arduous weekend as expected.  It started immediately on Friday evening with me working at one of our branches to almost 9PM.  It was frustrating because the majority of the time was spent standing around while state installers tried to figure out issues beyond our scope of work.  When I got home Cindy and I did a late pizza dinner.

Saturday morning I had to head out relatively early for the track meet.  I threw a few items in the back of the Tacoma and headed out.  There was a slight chill in the air so I turned the heat on low.  Usually the truck warms up pretty quickly so when I was a couple miles from the house and still felt no heat I glanced at the temperature gauge.  My panic level went from 0 to 100 when I see the needle pegged into the red area, wtf??

I pulled off at the next intersection and turned the truck off.  I popped the hood and looked for anything obvious.  No hoses or belts were broken but I did see what looked like coolant on the bottom of the motor, great.  I immediately wondered if it was somehow related to my thorough degreasing of the engine compartment although further mental analysis deemed that unlikely. So I turned the truck back on and babied it back home with the gauge buried the entire time.  Luckily despite the high temps the engine seemed to be running ok. I had the heat on full blast.  For brief intervals hot air would come out of the vents but it would then go back to cold.

When I got home I quickly took another look under the hood.  There was a pretty steady stream of watery brown liquid dripping from the engine.  At that point I was pretty sure my water pump had failed.  Of course I had no time to do anything further.  Cindy helped me throw my stuff into the Prius and I was back on the road.  When I got on site I asked Cindy to see if she could use her USAA membership to get the truck towed to the Tuffy where I have had work done before.  Luckily she was able to make the arrangements for a tow.

I called to Tuffy ahead of time to let them know the truck was on it’s way.  I was familiar with what is required to change the water pump on this motor,  it isn’t pretty and very labor intensive, way beyond what I am comfortable doing.  I knew this was going to be a big repair bill which of course is terrible timing since I planned to sell the truck within the next 30 days if things go as planned.  When the garage called me later in the day the estimate was even higher than I expected, $1500.  He said when you tear it down to replace the water pump you should replace the rubber timing belt as well, which I already knew.  I had it done once already at about the 100k mark.  Since the Tacoma was now at almost 190k miles it should be done anyway.  I told them to go ahead with the work.  I couldn’t believe the bad timing of the pump failure as I hung up the phone. Although in a weird way, if I sold the truck and the pump failed shortly thereafter I would feel badly for the buyer so at least it will be addressed now and perhaps I can use the repair as a basis for a couple hundred bucks more in the sale price.

So even with having to switch vehicles I got on site at the track meet on time, right around 8:30.  It turns out I probably could have showed up an hour or so later since the first action wasn’t until close to 11.  Before the main preliminary heats started I went to the snack stand to grab some food.  I went with something simple, a toasted plain bagel with peanut butter.  Instead fo applying the pb yourself they do it for you.  I thought that was nice, until I got it.

The bagel was wrapped in tin foil.  When I opened it up it was a brown runny mess.  It looks like the woman was overly generous with the creamy Jif and encasing the warm bagel inside the tin foil encouraged further melting.  My hands and face were disgusting after eating the bagel.  I went into the bathroom and tried to wash up the best I could.

This was a district track meet which is a big deal.  It also means it takes up big blocks of time.  I knew the meet was going to be long, I didn’t realize it was going to that long.  By the time we got off site it was 7PM.  By the time I got home it was almost exactly a 12 hour day.  My free time is way more valuable than the relatively small amount of pay track timers receive.  As a result I don’t expect to be doing it in the future.  Backing up the long day at the track with the late night at the office the night before made my weekend feel very consumed.

On Sunday morning we went out to Home Depot and brought Sadie along as she was visiting for the weekend.  We didn’t have anything specific to buy, I wanted to go to take a closer look at appliances, comparing models and getting ballpark pricing.  With the rows and rows of appliances it was somewhat difficult to keep straight all of the options.  One thing that was clear that it was a decent time to buy as it was Home Depot’s spring Black Friday sale where they take 10% off all appliances over 400 bucks, even if they are on sale already.  We walked out of the store not buying a single thing.  I am not sure if that has ever happened.

So while we were there we did identify what we liked and disliked.  When we got home I did further looking on the Home Depot web site.  I found the fridge we liked, a Samsung model with tons of bells and whistles.  I added it to my online cart just for fun.  When I did I saw the site popped up a window showing the matching Samsung appliances for the other kitchen pieces, like the dishwasher, stove and microwave.  Being able to easily browse them was great and a convenience we couldn’t do nearly as easily inside the brick and mortar store.

With Cindy’s help we went through each one and again added them to the cart, wanting to see the numbers.  Of course the same discounts applied online.  The grand total with tax and delivery (free) was a number well within the ballpark of what I was expecting to spend so I made the decision to convert from browsing to buying.  If things go as indicated online the new appliances should be in the house on Thursday.

We decided to go with all black appliances, the polar opposite of the all white appliances that have adorned the kitchen since the house was built some 16 years ago.  We think they will contrast nicely with the white cabinets and pick up very nicely on the black in the granite counter tops.  When I told Jeremy about the purchase he immediately said I should go with stainless steel instead as it is viewed by many as the gold standard.  I tried explaining to him I wasn’t looking to flip the house and if I prefer black, I am going to go with black.  I am confident it will look very slick.  I have never been one that is much interested in whole heartedly embracing the mainstream anyway.

So despite a large deficit in relaxation time in the weekend I filled my Sunday with more work.  I weed whacked the property to match the mowing Cindy had done on Saturday.  Mid-afternoon I decided to take a shot at getting the security dvr cables up the wall and into the attic.  My only access to the attic on the office side of the house is via a small door in the hobby room closet.  To get access to it required getting a shelf and everything on it out of the way.

Once I gained access and dropped the hatch my first visual was rolled up insulation that was covering the opening.  I was able to push it out of the way enough to get a look around.  Most of the area I needed to work in was covered with a foot or two of the blow in insulation.  Before venturing up in the attic I made sure I had on long pants and a long sleeve t-shirt to protect from the incessant irritation home insulation can cause.  In addition I had a paper air mask to keep me from inhaling tons of dirt and whatever else resides up there.  Of course it was quite warm in the attic since the afternoon temps hit the mid-80’s.

So I was very paranoid about inadvertently putting my foot through the ceiling.  I drug my body across some of the angled roof trusses to keep myself suspended the entire time.  Of course this resulted in my chest having almost brush burn like redness after I was done.  So I located the wood stud on top of the wall.  I started tapping on it so Cindy could verify I was in the right spot.  I then used a 1 1/2″ wood boring bit to punch a hole in the wood that seemed to be at least 4 inches thick.  I used my wire snake to fish down behind the drywall.  Cindy again verified she could hear the wire come down in the right spot.

I emerged from the hot attic covered in insulation.  I used the same drill bit to pop a hole in the drywall at about the same height as the other outlets.  I returned to the attic and moved the snake wire around until Cindy could grab it.  Once she did I came back down, taped the DVR wires to the snake and then returned one final time to the hot crawl space and pulled the wires successfully into the attic.  Due to time and patience restraints that was all the further the project progressed for now.  The next step will be more miserable crawling in the attic to the corners of the roof line to punch a hole where the wiring can connect up with the externally mounted cameras.  I can hardly wait.

Last night we had our second Tarpons game to attend in as many weeks.  The attendance was even less than the first week.  The game at least was more competitive, the Tarpons only won by around 20 points.

Today Cindy dropped me off at work since we only have one vehicle in the household currently.  If it was a year or so ago I would have had two spare vehicles to chose from in this situation.

After work yesterday I made a couple stops on the way home, Autozone and Costco.  At Autozone I grabbed some fine grit sandpaper that is designed for wet sanding. I hope to use it to clean up the nasty clear coat at least somewhat on the Tacoma.

At Costco I grabbed an 8 channel 1080P DVR system that included 4 indoor/outdoor cameras.  It’s official use will be as race equipment, providing reviewable finish line video that can be a safety net.  I also am hoping to put it into use at the house as well, putting areas of the property under surveillance.  The challenge will be figuring out where we want to put the cameras and how to get the wires run there in a clean manner.

Last night I did the basic set up on the dvr, including mounting the two cameras that will be used for races on small blocks of composite lumber so they are easily moveable.  The higher resolution of the cameras will come in handy when it comes to clearly reading bib numbers on video.  The user interface on the Night Owl dvr actually seems a little more user friendly than what I am accustomed to with the Samsung DVR we have in the chicken coop.  Just for the heck of it I threw one of the spare Samsung 960 cameras I had in a box onto one of the channels.  I was pleased to see it fired right up, just running at it’s lower resolution.

The second toy I had arrived from Amazon, a portable power station.  This all in one device can jump start your car, blow up a tire, light up a room and power your USB, 12 volt DC, and 110 AC  devices.  It will surely be a great hurricane supply but once again it’s primary intention is race related, to serve as the power supply for my race clock, eliminating the need for on site power to run it. There was much less set up needed for the power station compared to the dvr.  I just plugged it in as instructed to make sure it has a full charge.

The next couple days will be long/busy ones.  Tonight instead of partaking in our normal pizza and dvr ritual I have to go to one of our branches to assist in upgrading some state drivers license equipment.  Then tomorrow morning I need to be at the Naples track early to assist in timing the large district track meet which will consume pretty much the entire day.  It will leave the remainder of the weekend at a large free time deficit.