Archives 2016

I ran into another roadblock in the potential sale of the SSR, albeit a small one.  Titles in Florida are exclusively the electronic variety when they are issued.  They only get converted to paper when necessary.  Well liens banks put on titles are also electronic.  When a loan is paid off the bank is supposed to notify the DMV so the lien check mark is removed.  Until that happens nothing can happen with the title.

Well evidently when I paid off the SSR loan a few months back my credit union neglected to take this step.  I had to call them yesterday to request to have it removed.  The representative said she cleared the flag but it takes 72 hours to take effect, for some dumb reason.  I went through a similar song and dance when I was trying to finalize the transaction Cindy and I had with the Prius.  So there is no point listing the vehicle as being for sale until you actually have everything in place to allow you to actually sell it.

Last night I watched some of the republican town hall on CNN.  We happened to flip the tv on during Trump’s segment.  The format was not favorable for Donald.  When he doesn’t have others on the stage to hurl insults at you quickly realize he has absolutely nothing substantial to say about anything.  He simply has no specifics about issues and is unable to intelligently expand on any question asked of him.  Instead he just relies on his relatively small collection of 4th grade vocabulary to describe things like, great, the biggest, the worst, the best, terrible, awful, great, great, and great.

Anderson Cooper was relentless in actually holding Donald accountable for what was coming out of his mouth.  The highlight was when Trump was asked about the ridiculous wife mud slinging exchange between Ted Cruz and himself.  Donald’s first statement was “He started it!” which Anderson immediately identified as something a 5 year old would say.  It was pretty epic.

Out of the three remaining republican candidates John Kasich is far and away the most experienced, likeable, and reasonable. This is exactly why he is the underdog.  Too many Americans are impressed by one liners that have nothing substantial behind them other than intentions to anger and divide.

Well if there was any doubt about my intentions to sell the SSR they were dissolved last night when I did some minor work that needed to be done before listing the vehicle for sale.  The trim piece for one of the cupholders and a door reflector needed to be glued back in place.  I also removed the custom decal that I had made for the truck several years ago, using a hair dryer and some fishing line. The decal which was bought when I had the mindset that I would own the truck for the long haul.  Peeling off the custom decal indicated that mindset has definitively changed.  Of course I felt some degree of regret as I de-personalized the truck but it was offset by the bigger picture where I utilize that money for a vehicle Cindy and I will get to enjoy daily.

I talked to my dad last night.  He had read about my thoughts of selling the SSR.  I was somewhat surprised that he thought it was a good idea.  The reason for my surprise is my dad’s 1964 Alfa Romeo that he has owned my entire life.  I am sure in a way, his dedication to his young man’s sports car influenced my views on vehicles as well.

My dad told me he actually has been considering selling his Alfa after several restoration projects on the vehicle that have literally consumed decades of time and countless thousands of dollars.  His ideas behind a potential sale are very much inline with mine, he hardly drives the car.  Although it only took me around 5 years to come to the same realization that has taken my dad 40 years or more, the end idea is the same.  At some point you just realize that it doesn’t make sense anymore, not that it made sense before.  You just finally come to realize it doesn’t.

Dad also told me he has been already trying to sell another mainstay of his adult transportation experience, his motorcycle.  Much like his Alfa, the bike sits unused the vast majority of the time.  Last year dad said he put a total of about 200 miles on it.  After hanging up with dad I felt even more assured that my decision to move on from the SSR is a good one in the big picture.

Before I list the truck on something like Craigslist I need to get the paper title in hand just in case an impulse buyer is ready to move quickly.  I also need to give it one more thorough bath to make sure it’s alluring beauty is clearly visible for any potential buyers.  It will be interesting to see how much I can sell the truck for.  I plan to start somewhere around 25k and work from there.  From a few scans of other privately for sale SSR’s in my region, most lacking the upgrades and customization mine has, that number seems in the ballpark.

Randall said he was going to be showing up around lunch time on Saturday so we had our normal pizza and dvr Friday night celebration. On Saturday morning Cindy and I ran out for errands with Sadie tagging along.  Not only did we discover she could go inside Rural King, dogs are also allowed inside the Bonita Springs Home Depot.  She had a bunch of fun exploring the aisles with us.

When we got home we buzzed around the house getting stuff done before Randall got there. Once he rolled in Cindy made us all a nice lunch after we finished the greeting hugs and Sadie affection.  We confirmed it had been quite awhile since Randall’s last visit.  He was last there for the 2015 Super Bowl party, meaning he never saw the new chicken coop or flooring improvements in the house in person, both of which he approved of.

After lunch we took Randall outside to meet the chickens.  Of course they came sprinting towards us, hoping that we had some sort of treat in hand.  Randall thought the chickens were cool and got to pet a couple of them.  We pulled some greens from the garden and had Randall help feed the chickens.  The birds really like when you hold the leaves instead of throwing them on the ground.  It makes it much easier for them to tear off small pieces.

During the afternoon I fired up the Xbox 360, something that rarely happens nowadays.  Most Randall visits involve some Xbox gaming time so I looked to see if there were any cool games I could download.  I stumbled across a title called “State of Decay”, a zombie themed action game.  I downloaded the demo version to see if it deserved the 5 star rating it had.  Randall and I took turns playing through the early stages of the game.  It took awhile to get the control scheme down since there are literally a dozen or more buttons on the 360 controller, all of which do something in game.  However once we got the basics down it was fun.  It was a much more interactive experience than the two official Walking Dead games which had a lot more narrative and less real time control.  Unfortunately once I decided to pay the 20 bucks for the full game on Sunday I discovered the demo does not keep your saved spot in game, we had to redo our progress a second time.

We ate dinner at home before heading out to see Batman vs Superman.  We arrived a few minutes late at Silverspot but it didn’t really matter since we had our assigned seats reserved for several days.  We settled in to the comfortable leather seating.  Of course I had heard some of the negative reviews of the movie going in but I was leaving my mind open to form my own opinion.  Knowing that Zack Snyder was the director meant there was surely going to be some holes in the film, after all he did make The Watchmen, one of the weirdest and dumbest movies I ever saw.

Two and a half hours later I was happy to say I enjoyed the movie.  Despite it’s length I was entertained the entire movie, even though some of that entertainment was laughing at the sillyness of some of the story line.  My familiarity with the Justice League is limited to my obsessive viewing of the cartoon that was a highlight of my Saturday morning cartoon ritual as a kid.  The movie is clearly based on the comic book version of the League which I don’t know much about.   Seeing the insight into the direction of future DC movies was cool, even if it was sort of just jammed into  B v S in a less than elegant way.  So anyway, don’t believe all the negative reviews unless you are a hardcore comic book snob.  It was no Deadpool but still earned a B+ rating in my book, better than I expected after seeing all the trash talk. Randall and Cindy liked the movie as well to degrees around my level from what I could tell.

On Sunday we set no alarm.  We wanted to do a bike ride but did not feel like hitting the road at the crack of dawn.  Cindy once again outdid my Easter offering of a nice card, giving me a card AND an Easter basket.  She prepared one for Randall as well which was nice.

The bike ride was to Ave Maria, it seemed appropriate to head out to Catholic Town since it was Easter.  I warned Randall that neither Cindy or I were in good biking shape.  Sunday’s ride would only be the second time this year we got out on the bikes.  The 30+ mile Ave Maria ride is tough even when I am doing weekly bike rides so I knew it was going to be unpleasant.  Randall is a regular cyclist.  He recently did a 100 mile charity ride so we knew we would be chasing him for most of the trip.

To get to Ave Maria we head south for a couple miles until turning east.  I found it quite aggravating that despite the direction change I was feeling some degree of headwind.  Randall lead the first five miles of the ride before he tapped and I pulled into the lead to help break the wind.  After a few miles I felt like death and asked Cindy if she wanted to lead for a bit which she did until we reached the turn off for Ave Maria.  I just could not get comfortable on the bike.  My jewels, ass, hands, and neck all hurt.  Knowing I still had another half of the ride to complete did not put a spring in my step.

As we approached the Ave Maria church which appeared to be in the middle of an Easter service we were amazed at the huge collection of golf carts parked in the front walkway.  I bet there were at least 20 of them.  Golf carts appear to be a mainstay of transportation in the self contained community.  It was easy to spot the most expensive cart which had seating for six along with alloy wheels.

After taking an obligatory Easter selfie in front of the church we saddled back up to make the ride back.  Despite my efforts to make some adjustments inside my bike shorts I still had a lot of discomfort as we pulled out.  Once we got out onto Oil Road road Randall quickly pulled ahead to a sizeable lead that Cindy and I didn’t even try to close.  Despite reversing direction the wind conditions still did not feel all that favorable.

I was constantly shifting positions on the bike, just trying to find a riding position that wasn’t painful in some manner.  It really didn’t matter if I was high, on the drops or on the aero bars, each position change only offered very brief relief.  Cindy was my partner in discomfort, going 30 miles on a bike just is not a great thing if your body is not accustomed to that much saddle time.  By the time we mercifully pulled back into the driveway my legs were completely dead and I felt like I completely exhausted any energy reserves I may have had.

After showering and eating lunch we headed back out, hoping a Dunkin Donuts coffee stop would help restore some energy.  We went to Rural King for the second time in as many days even though we didn’t really have to.  It was an excuse to bring Sadie with to let her walk around some more. When we got home all three of us felt out of gas.  We all agreed that nap time would be welcome.  I dozed off for almost a couple hours.  I just couldn’t believe how much that ride took out of me.

Cindy made a very tasty dinner that included spaghetti squash that we all enjoyed.  Randall left a little while after dinner for the drive across the state.  It was nice to see him after a long hiatus.  Hopefully the next go round will still be in this calendar year.

I had a very active dream cycle last night.  For whatever reason I haven’t been able to recall much detail about them the following day.  It’s probably just another symptom of old fartdom.

Even though I thought we had a mutual agreement that us going out to dinner last night would be our mutual anniversary “gift” to each other Cindy bought me some gifts as well, including a new back washer tool for the shower, a cool head massager device, and the Proto X mini-drone you see in the video above.  I had this drone on my Amazon wish list for Xmas.  Ironically the other week I looked at my list and saw it indicated somebody bought this for me.  I wondered if it was an Xmas gift that never showed up.  It turned out Cindy was the culprit.  The quadcopter is pretty amazing tech for something about the size of a quarter.  Although it is a bit twitchy, I didn’t have a lot of trouble controlling the mini-drone.  It was like Christmas in March.

In addition to the gifts she gave me, Cindy also gave the house a gift, installing a curved shower rod in the master bathroom as well as a tall shower curtain.  It made the space in the shower feel significantly less restrictive and visually was a nice improvement.  Cindy loves home improvements.

So since our dinner reservation was not until 8:15 we had some time to chill.  We spent a good chunk of it finishing up this season of House of Cards on Netflix.  We plowed through all 13 episodes in less than two weeks, it’s a damn good show that you really should be watching if you are a Netflix customer.

So as I described the scenario yesterday, we once again wound up taking the Prius instead of the SSR last night due to the potential for bad weather.  We got to the restaurant maybe 10 minutes early and there was absolutely nobody waiting.  Since the first reservation time they had available five days ago when I made it was 8:15, I figured the place would be quite busy.  Nope, we sat down immediately.  This made it pretty clear that the Season 52 reservation system is a crock of shit.  They either don’t allow you to reserve a table between 6 and 8PM or they only have a handful of tables allocated to be reserved, keeping the overwhelming majority of them for walk in customers.  I guess I can understand the logic but it still annoyed me that we could have probably walked in an hour earlier and been seated with little delay.

So the reason I opted to go through the hassle of reserving a seat at Seasons 52 was because I have had nice dining experiences in the handful of times I have been there.  The last time we were there was for Cindy’s birthday a couple years ago.  Shortly after we sat down we were greeted by our waitress who seemed very nice and friendly.  That was the first and last positive thing I could say about our server.

She took our drink order which was rather simple, water for Cindy and a Miller Lite for me.  For some reason it took around 10 minutes until we actually got them.  By that time we had determined and redetermined our meal choices a half dozen times over.  Her tardiness and lack of attention throughout the meal was a common theme.  Anything we asked for seemed to take forever and she just seemed to not have a handle on things.

Then there was the food.  We ordered a flat bread appetizer that we both enjoyed but the entrees were a different story. Cindy ordered a vegetarian sampler plate and I had a scallop dish over lemon risotto.  Now I am not a lemon fan but I figured it would only be a spritz of lemon that I would hardly notice.  Well I was wrong.

Cindy who actually likes lemon, came up with the best description of my dish after I asked her to taste it.  She said it tasted like she was eating a plate of lemon Pledge.  The flavor was overwhelming.  I concentrated on eating the scallops and asparagus that was part of my meal and left a lot of the risotto untouched. Cindy’s meal wasn’t great either.  Especially the cold quinoa salad that tasted like you were eating perfume.  The bad taste in our mouth lingered, we were eager to get the mini-deserts to clear our palette.  At least the deserts were good. As we left Cindy and I said that if this was the first time we ever ate there we might not come back, it was that disappointing.  Luckily we have those previous positive experiences to counterbalance this bad visit.

This weekend Sir Randall is coming over to visit.  The highlight of the visit is our taking in Batman vs Superman.  I already bought/reserved top middle seats at Silverspot for us on Saturday night to check it out.  In addition he is bringing his bike so we can do a group ride on Sunday if things work out.  If he wants we may even revisit the fair, an event Randall has never patronized.  I am picking up Sadie tonight on my way home so she can see her favorite uncle as well.

It has been awhile since the last Randall visit.  I am not 100% sure but it may actually have been over a year, meaning he wouldn’t have seen the new flooring or new chickens in person yet.  Randall is just coming out of his “no social media for lent” hibernation so I haven’t been very current with his latest adventures.

Three years ago on this day Cindy took me up on my FB invite for someone to use the second ticket to a Tarpons game.  Although I knew Cindy a little bit from running club social functions the game wasn’t really intended to be a date from either of our perspectives.  I had been through almost a solid year of dating unsuccessfully at that point and was pretty turned off by the whole scene by then.  Cindy wasn’t doing much dating either and had focused much of the previous year on triathlon training as she had completed her first half Ironman a couple months prior.

Since Cindy is outgoing and a talker it immediately made things more relaxed for me.  I am a conversational counter puncher, someone who will interject thoughts here and there but never one to be able to carry a conversation single handedly very well.  We seemed to have similar viewpoints on a lot of things. Without even really looking we both found ourselves in a relationship.

It’s hard to believe that three years have already passed.  When I think about all that we have done and seen in that time it is pretty amazing.  Cindy’s energy level and consistently positive attitude has been a good counter to the less than stellar mood valleys I find myself in on a regular basis.  She literally brightens each and every day I am on this Earth.  I have never had anybody be so selfless in their support of me and to be honest to this day I still am not all that good at accepting all of it.   It still feels weird to have somebody love you that much and be so open with their expression of that love. It’s a good problem to have.

Tonight we have reservations at Seasons 52 for a celebratory dinner.  Unfortunately the earliest time slot I could get was 8:15 so it will be a late meal.  I plan to combat the potential drowsiness with a 5 hour energy.  I have been very lucky to have Cindy in my life the last three years and I love her for the person that she is.

So yesterday after writing my blog entry about a new Tacoma ideas were floating through my head.  One of them was something 4 years ago would have been nothing short of blasphemous, selling the SSR.

When I bought the truck going on five years ago there is absolutely no denying it was a classic mid-life crisis purchase scenario.   I wasn’t very happy with aspects of my life and the truck was a way to redirect my focus elsewhere.  I directed a lot of resources to the truck early on.  I easily spent 4-5K on various upgrades, none of which were really needed.

Once I got separated the SSR really became something I leaned on.  It was a key part of my flawed dating strategy as any woman that was more impressed by the vehicle you drive than the person that you are is not somebody I would be interested in anyway.  I had a lot of solo drives in the truck after another lousy first date with Linkin Park blasting as I thought about how single life was not all that I imagined it would be.  Cindy, who is a big fan of cool vehicles loved the SSR.  She eventually became the only other person that I have allowed to drive it.  We would normally take it on most dates, enjoying open air driving on a regular basis.

Over time an odd thing started to happen, the truck would sit in the garage for weeks at a time.  Once we bought the Prius, sensible, gas efficient transportation trumped the loud, rumbling ride of the SSR the majority of the time.  When I have thought about why this is the simplest answer is that I am more content in other areas of my life nowadays so the truck is no longer needed to fill that void.  Which lead me to the thoughts yesterday.

If I would sell the recently paid off SSR and my beloved 99 Tacoma I would be able to easily slide into a new Tacoma without feeling any budget impact.  I would be able to do so for the same or less than what my SSR payments were.  There would be some ancillary savings as well as far as maintenance and insurance only being on two vehicles instead of three. Subtracting a 17 year old vehicle from the fleet removes a lot of potential repair expense.  I was somewhat surprised that when I mentioned this potential plan to Cindy she was enthusiastically supportive.  Although she loves the SSR as well, getting a new Tacoma that I would get to enjoy daily instead of the bi-weekly or longer SSR joyride would be a win overall in her opinion.

I will give more thought to the option. It does seem like a more mature and logistically feasible way to go in the big picture. I do hate being accused of being mature though….

Last night was an unusual one from our normal routine.  It started out normally enough with us enjoying dinner that Cindy made while catching up on this week’s Walking Dead.   However after we finished up the episode we jumped in the truck and headed over to Cindy’s brothers place which is about 10 minutes away.  It isn’t going to be his place for long as he recently sold it and will be moving somewhere closer to town.  He secured one of those moving pods which Cindy has been helping him pack.

The pod so far was packed with mostly smaller items.  Our role was to try to get some of the bigger, heavier furniture items in there. Cindy’s brother was supposed to help us last night but he hurt his back and cancelled.  I told Cindy to tell him we would still try to get the big stuff moved as last night was really the only night I had free this week to help.

We spent about 90 minutes getting the heaviest and biggest items into the pod.  I felt badly asking Cindy to lift stuff that in some cases were quite heavy and cumbersome.  We worked well into darkness and did a good job of maximizing the available space in the pod using tetris like packing skills.  However even with our efforts there is way too much stuff that is designated to be moved to fit in the space that remains.  Either some sort of ancillary storage is going to have to be obtained or more stuff is going to have to be donated or tossed. We got home around nine and wasted little time before we showered and hit the sack.

Cindy has really been getting some diverse experience with her new career in the fitness industry.  In addition to teaching a senior walking class for Healthways for a few months she has done some personal training,  started teaching classes at a local nursing home and also is supposed to start teaching at a female only gym in Bonita within a few weeks.  In addition she also has been an assistant track coach for one of the local middle schools which allows her to work with the entirely opposite age spectrum.  Her caring, outgoing personality makes her an ideal fit for any role that involves helping others.  It makes me happy to see her doing work she actually enjoys.

Meet my new truck that will replace my 99 Tacoma.  No I haven’t bought anything nor do I plan to in the immediate future.  However if things go as I hope somewhere around 12 months from now I hope to swing an Inferno color 2016 Tacoma.  They are super sharp inside and out.  A new Tacoma would probably outlast me.

As soon as I got home from work we wasted no time getting changed and heading out to the fair.  This was an awesome night to go, they waive the normal $10 admission fee since Monday is normally a very slow night.  We actually arrived a couple minutes before the gates opened at 6PM.  We were treated to the national anthem as we waited in line.

I thought that I dressed warm enough for temps in the low 60’s but it quickly became apparent that the hooded sweatshirt and jeans were not going to cut it.  I felt chilly pretty quickly.  Cindy was cold as well.

They rearranged the layout of some of the fair this year.  Gone was the long tent near the entrance where they had a lot of small displays mostly done by school kids.  Instead they plopped a relatively large roller coaster and a second ferris wheel in that area.  This was a big year for the fair as it marked the 40th year of it’s existence.

Our first stop was the small animal area that housed the turkeys, geese, peacocks, rabbits, and chickens.  Of course we spent the most time checking out the chickens. It was cool seeing many of the breeds that we already have in our flock.  The roosters they had there were huge and beautiful.  It’s too bad they are so loud, aggressive, and create more mouths than we want to feed.

I was hungry so we decided to grab what has become our favorite fair food, arepas. Arepas are sweet corn patties with cheese in the middle.  They are surely a nutritional bomb but they sure taste good.  They were so good that we actually went back and got seconds.  Cindy and I both discovered that the ideal amount of arepas to consume is somewhere more than one but less than two.  After finishing our second we both felt kind of gross.

We caught the last half of a tiger show that was put on by a decidedly German sounding couple.  They had around 10 tigers in a circular pen, including two beautiful white tigers.  It was cool seeing the awesome animals up close but I couldn’t help but feel badly for them as well.  A life in captivity just doesn’t seem how these type of animals would want to exist.

We met up with Cindy’s daughter and boyfriend for a short while as we were watching the pig show.  They accompanied us into the petting zoo area that Cindy loved so much last year.  All four of us took turns feeding the goats, sheeps, camels, and other animals slices of carrots that they sell there.  There were a couple baby goats in the corrals that had been recently born, one of them just at 4PM.  It was very cute seeing the mothers attend to their newborns.

Katie and Daniel headed off to do their own thing.  We stayed in the petting area for awhile.  Cindy spent the most time with a bizarre looking male goat that had four horns who was the father of the newly born babies.  He took a few carrots from Cindy but was just as content to have Cindy pet him.  He just stood there letting Cindy rub him wherever she wanted without a fuss.

We decided to head out between 8:30 and 9:00.  If it was a bit warmer we probably would have stuck around longer but I also had some work to get done at the office and we had to get the chickens secured so we headed out.  We didn’t get to see as many shows as I would have liked and we also weren’t able to walk around the large animal area where the pigs and cows hang out since it was closed during the show which was a bummer.  If we want we can always go again since the fair runs until Sunday. The warm shower at home felt quite welcome.

I read a little bit about the latest suicide attack in Brussels.  It’s another sad and stinging reminder of the state of the world we live in.  There is no “defeat” possible of an enemy that looks at strapping explosives to themselves and detonating it in large clusters of people as a badge of honor and a fast pass to a glorious afterlife.  It is a testament to the power, the twisted, reality altering, logic defying, atrocity creating, power of religion.

My alarm clock went off at the normal time for a weekday on Saturday and it wasn’t by accident.  I needed to get up and into the office for an after hours server migration.  The server I was working on is the document imaging server for our office so it is both crucial and huge.  I did the upgrade in tandem with a tech from the software vendor who was on the phone and connected via remote control.  Like is always the case with this sort  of work there were a number of obstacles that had to be overcome during the migration.  By the time I got everything working it was a few minutes before noon.

I hurried home because Cindy and I were going to try to go see another car show I saw listed in the paper.  It was being held at Mercato from 10-3.  So after driving home to pick up Cindy we headed right back out in the SSR.  We managed to get to Mercato about 1:45, leaving us plenty of time to still see the cars.  Well there was one problem, there were no cars there.  When we couldn’t obviously see any car show Cindy looked it up on her phone.  On there was a cancellation notice, the forecast of rain was enough to postpone the show to another date, damn it. Well that’s a bummer.

We figured since we were there we would at least walk around a little bit.  We ran into a ex-neighbors of Cindy and their two dogs, one of which was a 9 week old poodle/golden retriever mix that was absolutely adorable.  While Cindy caught up with them I spent most of the time just petting the dogs which was fine with me.

I was tired when we got home an didn’t have any interest in going back out Saturday night if we didn’t have to.  Luckily we had another Netflix rental on hand, Minions.  Everybody loves the minions, it is nearly impossible not to.  It was a cute and funny way to spend 90 minutes and a solid B+ rental.

Sunday morning I wanted to get out and do a run.  Well I didn’t really want to but I felt I needed to. I had not run since before my illness more than three weeks prior, I needed to prove to myself I could still do it.  We decided to go park at Dunkin Donuts and run the nice path along the canal.  We wound up running right around 3.5 miles at a very mundane pace of a little under 10 minute miles.  As expected I didn’t physically feel great during the run.  Early on my left knee, which is my “good” one was hurting me.  After maybe 10 minutes of running the pain faded.  After the run I immediately felt some irritation in my right IT band as well which is annoying since I have been doing daily stretching to prevent that scenario.  When I run I have been feeling more frustration than relief.  The frustration comes from being able to run significantly less and slower than I could a few years ago.  Of course it’s easy to just add running to the old age write off list but I am still holding onto hope that I can regain some of my endurance level if I can stay relatively injury free, somehow.

After fueling up with coffee we headed to Home Depot for items for a number of different projects.  One of them was a gate kit that I hope to use to rebuild the door to the chicken run.  The 2×4″ and hardware cloth door I built originally is warping badly, causing it to not seal the run well and also make locking the door difficult.  The gate kit I bought uses a steel frame as it’s backbone which you attach the wood to which should keep the door straight regardless of the environment.

I also bought a new rubber seal for the garage door.  I replaced the seal twice before and it was definitely overdue.  Over time the rubber flattens and shrinks, creating gaps on either side of the door for insects and other undesirables to gain access.  I was able to pull the old seal out and get the new one 80% of the way installed into the track before I called Cindy out to help me pull it the rest of the way.  It was nice to not see daylight peeking in through either edge of the door when it was closed after I was done.

We also bought a few castle stones to do a test on the border around the pool which is currently lined with one layer of the same stones.  We are considering adding a second layer around the entire border as a way to prevent chicken mess.  The chickens for some reason love scratching in the mulch around the pool, despite it being recycled rubber. The end result is they kick the mulch out onto the grass which looks like shit.  My hope is adding another layer of castle stone will make a substantial wall which will catch most of the mulch, no matter how much they kick.  Adding a second layer is going to take a lot of work.  The existing stones need to be pressure washed and leveled better before another layer is put on top.  I could easily see it taking a half a day.

I also got around to installing the new mower blades and changing the oil in the tractor. The contrast in appearance and size between the old beat up blades and the brand new ones is dramatic.  While I had the blades out I took the time to blast the underside of the mower deck with the pressure washer.  There was a cement like accumulation of dried organic matter that needed to get cleaned off.  The oil looked very, very black so changing it felt much needed. I wound up working on these projects until late into Sunday afternoon.  Cindy attended a surprise birthday party during the afternoon so I got to work solo which was fine.

Tonight we are planning to hit the county fair with Cindy’s daughter.  It should be fun and entertaining as always.

Last night when I got home Cindy and I were in the back yard.  She said she spotted a huge bird that landed just beyond the back fence line.  When we saw the white head my first guess was the bird was an osprey.  We walked slowly towards the fence trying to get a better look.  The closer we got the huge size of the bird was more apparent, bigger than any osprey.  The body of it seemed to be almost solid brown.  We only got within 50 yards before the bird took off, putting it’s massive wingspan on display.  Cindy and I are pretty sure we had our first bald eagle visit to the property.   It was very cool but of course I have concerns the bird was scouting out our chickens as potential prey.  We will be keeping our own eagle eyes peeled to make sure the beautiful but deadly bird keeps a safe distance away.

Our St Patricks Day was quiet as it normally is.  No alcohol was consumed, no funny green hats were worn, and I was totally fine with it.

This weekend I have to drag myself into the office Saturday morning to perform a server migration of our document imaging system which is a very critical part of our office.  It has somewhere around 10 million documents in the system so the migration could potentially be lengthy and filled with potential pitfalls.  The only good thing is if the migration fails I can always flip back to the old server if necessary.

The rest of the weekend I still have winter project list items to cross off and I would like to get some endurance training in either on my two legs or two wheels.

I am a big fan of the spring time change which allows me to get stuff done after work outside during the week instead of having to stuff it all into the weekend.  Last night I took advantage of the extra time and headed outside to weed whack the property, something that hasn’t been done in well over a month.  Cindy had just mowed the property during the afternoon so capping it off with proper weed whacking left the yard looking nicely manicured and added to my “get stuff done” quota for the day.

Yesterday I managed to complete the migration of my old emails, some dating all the way back to 2000 to my Office 365 email account.  Basically the way I made it work was to configure my local mail client, in my case Outlook 2013 to connect to both my old and new accounts and then move emails/folders between the two accounts.  This should also be able to be accomplished by backing up your old emails to a PST file and then importing it into your new account but for some odd reason the PST export would fail on my old stuff.  Regardless, duf.net email is up and running on Office 365 and all is well.

So you may recall that I have not one but TWO Ring smart doorbells in my household, one at the front door and another on the chicken coop.  Well now down the road I can see the potential for adding a 3rd.  Ring just introduced a new model, the Ring Pro which is smaller, has higher resolution video (1080P vs 720p), 5G wireless band support for faster network connection, and custom motion zones where you can literally draw what areas you want monitored instead of the more vague zones it utilizes now.  The only negative is the device does not have an internal battery so it must be hard wired to power, unlike the current model of Ring.

In addition to the new model, they are introducing a new feature for all Rings where you can click into a live video feed whenever you want, instead of just when someone presses the button or when motion is detected.  It will be a cool way to check in whenever I feel like it. I am a big Ring fan.

Today is St Patricks Day and thanks to the effort of Cindy I actually wore green to work.  Ironically most years I make no effort to wear green on the holiday despite my very Irish name.  It’s actually hard for me to not wear green as it is the color that dominates my shirt collection.  I will however continue my tradition of not drinking any alcohol on a holiday that is all about inebriation.   It’s just the contrarian in me teaming up with my inner hermit.