Archives June 2016

So Cindy and I left the house around 6 for a very unusual Thursday night arena football game.  I suspected that the odd scheduling would result in even worse than normal attendance.  My suspicion was correct, it was the lightest attended game I recall ever in my 6 or 7 years of minor league arena football attendance.  There were multiple completely empty sections in the arena.  It was sort of sad.

Shortly after we got our food and sat down we noticed it was very quiet.  Normally pre-game they are playing loud music to get the energy level cranked.  As we got within 5 minutes of kickoff there was still no sound on the PA system.  Cindy and I wondered what the f was going on.  I didn’t know if the weeknight scheduling meant they didn’t have a PA announcer.

There was no player intro announcements, no cheerleaders, no pregame prayer or national anthem.  Instead the ref tee’d up the ball and the game just sort of started, it was bizarre.  Watching the game with no PA was quite odd as you can imagine.  We tried our best to keep track of the action.

Very early on a ball thrown by the Tarpons QB came sailing my way.  It was high, high enough I needed to jump to get a hand on it.  I knocked it down and was able to jump the rail to the stairway to grab it.  Considering there was no other fans within 75 feet of us there was no one else there to contest the ball.  It was an all white ball.  The other two balls we have at home are the red, white, and blue models.  I actually tracked down a second ball later in the game which I tossed to a female veteran in a wheel chair on the floor level.  She later told us she actually gave the ball to a young kid in a wheelchair as she already had a ball at home anyway which was cool.

So perhaps the lack of sound threw the Tarpons off early.  They were actually behind 8-0 early on.  I can’t say I had even the slightest concern that the Tarpons wouldn’t come back.  I knew the Savannah Steam just were not very good.  The Steam has a lot of ultra-fat players on the roster.  When I would isolate my attention on them during a play it was incredible just how little effort they exerted most of the time.  The ball would snap and they would stand up, put their hands on the opposing player, take a step or two and that was it.  They had a few good players but not enough to make up for the dead weight, pun intended.

Later in the first half we saw two of the 7 or 8 regular Tarpon cheerleaders were there albeit in street clothes.  With no PA system there was no goofy fan games during the first half. The halftime entertainment consisted of some guys on the field playing catch with the few fans in the seats.  By that time we had heard there was some sort of technical problem with the sound system that they had been working on for a few hours. Then just as the 3rd quarter began they got it working as music started blaring.  Better late than never.

The game quickly became the blow out I had expected from the start.  The final score was 71-20.  I felt embarrassed for the team management to have a playoff game so poorly attended combined with the lack of sound for half the game.  I am not sure if there will be any more home playoff games this season, I guess it depends on how the other teams in this half baked league work out in their playoff games.  I have said it again and again but I just don’t see how the Tarpons can continue to exist next season.

I have sung the praises of the new Tacoma repeatedly but I found a simple button press that makes my driving experience even better, ECT power.   If you throw the Tacoma in DRIVE with the default settings it is very conservative with it’s shifting.  The setting is meant to maximize MPG.  The downside is it makes the truck feel sort of unresponsive.  I noticed that in the default mode, the 6 speed automatic transmission sometimes actually starts in FOURTH gear from a dead stop. No wonder it feels sluggish.

With the ECT button pressed the truck once again uses all of the gears and feels dramatically more powerful.  I assume there is a degree of MPG penalty I will pay but it is a trade off I am more than willing to make.

This weekend we have an open and flexible schedule that we can hopefully balance between must, should, and want to do’s.  Getting the Rachio online during the week knocked one to do off my list.  It is very easy to come up with a replacement task to take it’s place.

I have had no blogging the last couple days due to working at the tax certificate sale.  The sale process for us tech guys is rather boring as we are there in the off chance that something goes wrong which it rarely does.  The good thing is it meant our days ended a little earlier than normal.  I took advantage of that extra time yesterday by getting my new Rachio intelligent sprinkler controller installed.

I had to first remove the Orbit sprinkler box which I got last year to replace my original controller which died.  I felt a little bad that there was a tree frog that had claimed the inside of the box as it’s daytime shelter.  He is the star of the video I shot of the install.

Installation of the new hi-tech controller went pretty well.  I had turned it on and connected it to the app the day before inside.  Once I got it mounted on the wall and wired up it connected to the house wi-fi immediately which is cool.  I then went through the set up of each of my 6 zones.  In the app you describe each area including the amount of sun it gets, soil type, vegetation, slope, and type of sprinklers used.  It then uses this information if you decide to use the smart scheduler.  The Rachio will use the information you enter combined with the local weather information it pulls from the internet to water your property as needed.  Last night the system was scheduled to run but it cancelled the watering because it knew our area got substantial rain during the night.

The biggest reason I went with the Rachio is it can interact with our Amazon Echo.  Last night I turned the sprinklers on and off via voice control which is very cool.  Cindy likes that she can now easily turn on the sprinklers around the house easily to dissuade the chickens from digging excessively in the landscaped areas.  I can also use the app to turn sprinklers on and off from anywhere in the world where I have internet connectivity.

I like the Rachio a lot.  My only concern is it’s ability to survive outdoors.  I bought the outdoor box for the Rachio which should protect it from the elements but it still has to deal with the extreme humidity and heat Florida brings daily.  I may try to put a small “roof” over the box in a similar manner as I did with the Ring that is on the chicken coop to offer a little bit of additional protection.

Today I had my 6 month dermatologist check up.  I have had a spot on the trap area of of my shoulder that has been a problem for awhile.  It would cycle between just being red to actually bleeding from time to time.  I pointed the spot out to the doctor.  When he looked at my chart he saw he had done work in a nearby area several years ago.  He scraped the suspect area and sent it out to be biopsied.  If it again comes back as skin cancer I will likely be once again going under the knife to have the spot cut out.  When a scalpel is involved it is never much fun.

I have been playing some Overwatch since it came out officially last week.  The game is incredibly polished and well done, what I expect from any Blizzard title.  Even though I last played a first person shooter seriously probably a decade ago I have been having fun in Overwatch.  I have fun even though I really don’t know the maps or characters in the game well at all.

I also have fun even though I am not good at the game at all.  I have messed with a number of the possible heroes and found the only ones that I do half decent with are the type where I can lay back strategically and attack from afar.  Any hero that requires in your face fast twitch reaction or precise mouse control I fail pretty miserably with.  So yea, dying a lot does absorb some of the fun factor for me but I still have a good time.  I don’t see Overwatch taking over the number one or two spot in my gaming hierarchy which is occupied by WoW and Hearthstone but it is a fun change of pace for sure. Cindy thinks it’s funny watching my mannerisms while playing the game.  My facial contortions and weird breathing is uncontrollable and odd looking for sure.

Tonight we have an oddly timed Tarpons football game.  It is the first round of the playoffs and I guess it was the only date that worked for all parties involved.  I expect the attendance to be worse than normal because of it being the middle of the week which means I may be able to count the bodies in the seats in a couple minutes.  The other negative is the Tarpons are playing the team from Savannah who we just saw during the final regular season game which was a ridiculous 70-6 blow out.  I expect tonight to be another yawner but at least we will be one of the few there to support the team.