Archives 2016

So with the bad forecast for the half marathon I came up with an idea on Friday to make timing in stormy weather more feasible, rent a box truck.  I secured a 16 foot truck for $35 a day and 99 cents per mile, far less than I expected.  With that size I would have plenty of room to set up two or three tables loaded up with the computer equipment used for race timing.  The only thing that would be left outside would be the timing boxes themselves which are able to be operated with their lids closed, making them pretty weather resistant.  I picked up the truck on Saturday after getting permission from the running club to do so.

When I rented the truck I had a funny interaction with the guy that ran the office.  When I walked in he had a gamer headset on and he appeared somewhat annoyed I interrupted him.  After I took a look at the monster PC he had on the desk which I immediately recognized as a gaming rig I asked him questions about it, letting him know my computer background.  Once he knew he was talking to a fellow computer geek the conversation flowed.  He told me about the specs of his big full tower box that he built himself which were impressive.

We exchanged stories of our gaming experience.  I found out he was an old WoW player and a quite high level one at that.  He played the game the first three years it was out.  I told him I have been plugging away for a solid 10 years.  In addition to completing the paperwork for the rental he took the time to show me some details of Fallout 4, which is what he was playing when I walked in the door.  It was a geeky interaction out of nowhere that I appreciated.

On Friday after work I went over to the running store where I stayed until packet pick up wound up at 7PM.  I worked on getting current with any entries that came in during the day. On Saturday afternoon I headed back down there to do the same.

Now of course the potential for bad weather was on everyone’s mind.  The weather forecast for Sunday was consistently bad but the time frame seemed to be shifting around.  Unfortunately it seemed like the worst weather was forecast to hit during the time everything would be set up.  The plan was to show up as normal and if the weather conditions were really bad we could slide the race start time back to accommodate it.  Cindy and I used the 16 foot truck to hold most of the stuff which was a good thing since I had the most equipment I ever used at a race with four timing systems and 24 one meter mats.  We went to bed early, hoping to compensate for the 3AM alarm I had set for Sunday morning. Unfortunately I wound up waking  up somewhere around 1AM and not really falling asleep afterward.  During my tossing and turning I heard several bursts of storm activity outside.

When we got up I immediately looked at the latest weather conditions.  I was not happy to see a tornado watch had been put in place that ran until 8AM.  I called the race director who was already in the process of setting up the course just to let him know about the watch and suggest we wait until that watch clears to start the race which was scheduled for a 7AM start. Cindy and I pulled out our race caravan with me leading in the box truck and Cindy following in the Tacoma.

On the way to the race I got a message that they were officially postponing the start until 8 to give the weather a chance to clear, a good move.  When we got there the roads were wet but it wasn’t raining and the wind was minimal.  However when I looked at the radar before leaving home I saw Naples looked to be on the tail end of a long line of storms that was moving northeast very rapidly.  It was not a matter of if the storm was going to hit but when.

Cindy and I started working on setting up stuff.  We dumped the timing gear at the start and finish lines.  I parked the big truck in position by the finish line and set up tables inside of it.  I looked at my temporary timing shelter with a weird sense of pride for coming up with a way to get the job done despite the very challenging weather conditions.  We started setting up the registration area over by the bank under a covered parking area that we hoped would provide shelter if the storm got really bad.  With the one hour delay we suddenly had a much longer window to get everything set up.

So Chris, who was there to help me do data entry had his iPad along.  On it he had the live radar view on loop which showed the line of red was almost on us.  The wind started to pick up along with the rain so the group of us around the registration area took cover.  As the wind and rain picked up it started blowing in so we quickly pulled all the tables and computer equipment that I already had set up back as far as we could to minimize it’s exposure to the elements.

The storm was bad but didn’t seem like anything beyond a typical Florida summer thunderstorm, until it wasn’t.  All of a sudden there was a few minutes where the wind ratcheted up to an entirely new level.  The huge flag that hangs over Cambier Park sounded like it was ready to be ripped from the pole.  I stood up and leaned on the huge, heavy wood tables in front of me for fear they could actually be blown around.  The sound of the wind, which was reported to be 80+ mph,  was dangerous.

So we all huddled underneath the overhang for around 15-20 minutes while the worst of the storm blew through.  I honestly felt a bit exposed there and had my eyes scanning for any flying debris that could come our way.  We took a look at the race banner hanging over the start line in the street.  We saw a mangled mess as one of the tether lines snapped from the force.  When things started to die down we did a brief survey of our immediate area and things seemed more or less intact with just some palm fronds down at various spots.

Just as we were getting ready to start drying stuff off and resume preparations we got word from the volunteer coordinator that the race was now cancelled.  Evidently there was much more extensive damage on the course with not just branches but entire trees down, severe flooding and even power lines down.  There was no way the event could take place with those sort of hazards on the course.  Later we were told that this storm had the characteristics of something called a “meteotsunami”, which very quickly and dramatically pushed a wall of water from the gulf on shore which caused the flooding.  The hurricane force winds were just the icing on the cake.

After we were told of the cancellation I just sat there for a few moments, shell shocked.  There has never been a race cancellation due to weather conditions, for it to happen with the biggest event the club puts on just seemed unbelievable.  I immediately felt very badly for the race participants, many of whom travel from out of the area to be here for the half marathon. I thought of all the preparation that went into the event by both myself and others.  To have all of that nullified by a 15 minute storm seemed crazy.

With a race of this scope there is no rescheduling possible so basically people are just SOL as “acts of God” do not qualify runners for refunds.  While I was on site I remote controlled to my home computer so I could quickly get information posted to the official race website.  Luckily the majority of racers had been following the updates and did not show up on site.

So the undoing of the race prep began with the crew of volunteers and ourselves picking up everything that had just been laid out.  Luckily for me I had not fully set up all my stuff at that point.  We packed up the stuff we set up at the registration area and I then took down the tables in the back of the box truck.  We drove the truck back to the start line to pick up the timing equipment we set there.  I was surprised to see some of the very heavy rubber mats had gotten blown off the stack. As we were throwing the wet mats into the back of the truck a reporter from the Naples Daily News snapped a picture of Cindy and I as we were standing under the mangled half marathon start line banner.  That picture wound up on the front page of the sports section of Monday’s paper which was unexpected.

On the drive home we saw all sorts of damage with tons of branches on the roadways along with a ton of uprooted trees.  When I saw substantial wind damage at the developments near our house I was quite worried about damage at our house, especially to the chicken coop.  We both breathed a sigh of relief that other than some smaller things scattered around the yard our property escaped basically unscathed.

I’m sure the chickens were scared to death. Having the shed/run pull through such extreme weather intact made Cindy and I feel good about the extra work we put in to make sure both structures were built to be as storm resistant as possible.  The one nuisance we did have to deal with from the storm was a power outage which lasted around half the day.

By the time we got home the weather seemed almost nice.  I pulled out the 24 wet mats and laid them out to dry, one side at a time.  We had some other stuff that needed to dry out as well.  All day I couldn’t help but feel weird about doing all of that prep and not actually getting to time the race.  After the huge timing disaster we had at last year’s half marathon I was really looking to make things run like clockwork this year, despite the conditions.  Since this was also the last half marathon I was timing for the club, not getting the chance to get that redemption was a little depressing.

The rest of our day Sunday felt incredibly long, a byproduct of starting your day at 3AM.  After getting all of the race equipment dried out and put away I turned my attention to the Tacoma.  While we were driving to the race Cindy told me the truck was acting weird and shaking.  When she first mentioned it to me I thought she meant just a tire vibration which I wrote off as no big deal.  I then got a clarification that it was an engine related problem.  The truck was missing and Cindy said she really couldn’t go any faster than 50 mph.  The check engine light had come on as well.

I hooked up my car computer scanner and got a P300, P304 and P304 error code which meant that cylinder three and four were misfiring.  I cleared the codes and took the truck out for a very brief test drive.  The misfiring was still there and the CEL came on again, great.  So I did some research about the issue on my phone as Cindy drove us home after we dropped off the box truck at the Penske lot.

The easy causes of the problem are stuff like bad wires, coil, or plugs.  Tacomas have a different coil arrangement.  Instead of having one coil there are actually three of them, each one drives two of the plugs.  The recommendation was to swap coil packs around to see if the problem follows the coil.  I swapped the coil pack on cylinder three assuming it also drove cylinder four.  After clearing the codes and doing another test drive the misfire was still present although I only got a P304 error this time.  After feeding these test results into Google it seemed like a more likely cause of the misfire could be a failed fuel injector, something very much in the realm of possibility for a vehicle with 186,000 miles on the odometer.  Unfortunately changing one involves pretty extensive tear down, similar to what I had to do to change the valve cover gaskets.  I called it good for the day with the intention to resume diagnostics on Monday.

On Sunday night we watched True Story, our latest Netflix rental.  With no naps during the day I knew I risked nodding off during the movie, which I did several times.  The drowsiness was not because of the movie which was interesting, seeing Seth Rogen and James Franco play very serious roles in a true life story about a man that killed his family.  I had Cindy help fill in some of the blank spots while I nodded off laying on her lap.  It added up to a solid B+ film that is a quality rental title.

Having Monday off was quite welcome after the events of Sunday.  We headed out relatively early to go pick up some oil change supplies.  Both the Prius and Tacoma were overdue for oil changes.    We also dropped off the left over race bibs from the race at the running store where runners were able to pick up race shirts and medals since they would go to waste otherwise.

I dug into the oil changes early Monday afternoon, completing both oil changes in the span of 45 minutes.  I then resumed my diagnosis of the Tacoma.  One of the things I did not do on Sunday was pull the plug in cylinder four to take a look at it.  When I pulled the spark plug wire something didn’t feel right.  When I looked at the boot of the wire something didn’t look right, the attachment terminal was missing.  A look into the spark plug hole revealed it was still attached to the spark plug.

This scenario was good and bad news.  The good news was that possibly the misfiring could have simply been caused by a defective spark plug wire.  The bad news was I now had to figure out some way to get the broken terminal off the spark plug so I could remove the spark plug itself.   This turned out to be a VERY challenging task that tested the limits of my patience.

At first I tried using a simple needle nose pliers to grasp the broken terminal.  Because of the lack of space it was impossible to get a grasp on it.  I then began a long and arduous session with a long flat head screw driver.  I stuck it into the plug hole and tried to work the terminal back and forth so it would loosen up.  I then tried to pin it against the side of the hole so I could pry it upwards.  After a couple dozen attempts over the course of 45 minutes I got it to pop off the top of the spark plug.  I was able to fish the terminal out of the hole with my retractable magnet.

I then confidently stuck my spark plug socket in the hole, ready to finally remove the plug after all that futzing around.  Despite removing the terminal it still felt like my socket was just spinning around on nothing.  WTF?  I brought out my stick light so I could get a better view down the hole.  What I saw was a circle of rubber on top of the spark plug.  Not only did the terminal of the spark plug wire break off, the rubber boot that normally surrounds it was down there as well, awesome.

This discovery lead to another incredibly aggravating session of trying to get the rubber removed.  I was able to spin it around with my screwdriver but not remove it.  I alerted Cindy to my issue and said I needed a small wire hook to snag the rubber.  She found an old wire plant hanger in the shed.  I was able to snip off one  of the wires and then bend the end into a very small hook.  As I stuck the wire into the hole my eyes were watering as I tried to focus, it was very hard to see.  Finally, finally I snagged the rubber boot and managed to lift it out of the plug hole.  Instinctively I said “f you” out loud to the remains of the spark plug boot as I removed it.  It was the end result of close to two hours of digging around in a little hole with no clearance and the wrong tools for the job.  I finally was able to get a socket on the plug and remove it.  The plug itself looked ok but I ordered a complete new set of plugs and wires on Amazon.  My hope is the misfire was all wire related and I can avoid ripping off the entire intake of the truck to do injectors.

After the Tacoma work I suggested to Cindy we take out the mountain bikes out for their first test ride of Bird Rookery swamp, something we had wanted to do for a little while.  The cool air in the low to mid-60’s left us both feeling quite chilled on the 3 mile ride to the trail head.  Once we got off road both of our bikes felt good on the mostly grass trail.  In total we went around 2.25 miles into the swamp before turning around.

Doing the trail on a mountain bike is different than doing the same by foot.  You obviously cover territory at a much faster clip.  I think you also get to see less since you need to concentrate more on the ground under you to avoid obstacles while riding.  We stopped several times so Cindy could take some pictures of especially scenic locations.

By the time we started the return ride out we were both feeling some aches and soreness.  Mountain bikes are double the weight or more of the road bikes we are used to riding,  Riding them over uneven terrain introduces a new sort of effort level which also carries a discomfort penalty for your rear end, back, and hands.  By the time we rode the 3 miles back to the house we were BEAT.    Our eventual goal is to do the entire 12 mile circuit in the swamp which when added to the ride to and from the house will be around 18 miles.  The way we felt doing the roughly 10 miles yesterday makes me only imagine how we will feel when we take on the whole deal. The rest of our Monday, the little that was left of it was more low key with us enjoying a nice dinner and dvr’d tv content to wind up the 3 day weekend.

Of course I saw the news that the Eagles hired a new head coach, Doug Pederson, who was the offensive coordinator for the KC Chiefs.  I wish I could say I liked this hire.  Eagles fans remember the name Doug Pederson.  He was the starting QB VERY briefly right before the Donovan McNabb era began.  I remember feeling very unexcited back then when we were told that Pederson, despite not having much actual NFL play time, had been a back up in good programs which somehow meant he should be decent by osmosis.  Well the reality was he was extremely unimpressive  in his Eagles stint.  His starting record as  a qb was something like 3-14.

Well Andy Reid always liked Doug and eventually brought him on staff as a coach.  First as an “offensive consultant” and later as a QB coach for the Eagles.  When Andy was fired from the Eagles he took Doug with him to KC and named his as offensive coordinator.  During his three years there the Chiefs offense was ok, but certainly nothing dynamic.  Plus since Andy Reid is very much involved in the offensive play calling, being an OC on an Andy Reid team means you aren’t really calling the shots.

The overwhelming consensus is the Pederson hiring is underwhelming.  I read an ESPN article that said out of the 6 coaches hired this off season, Doug is the least impressive of them. I assume that Jeff Lurie is hoping that somehow Doug will be Andy Reid-esque since he has been in his company for a long time.  We saw how that “greatness by association with greatness” theory worked out in Pederson’s QB career.  I have a bad feeling his head coaching career could follow a similar story line.  Hopefully I am wrong.

It’s very rare for me to talk much about tv shows on here but since I did it twice already this week I may as well hit it one more time.  I was a big fan of the original Heroes when it first came out years ago, or more specifically, the first season or two of the show.  The writers on that show went crazy and ran the show right into a wall with absolutely horrible writing that resulted in a plot that was impossible to follow or care about.

When I heard they were rebooting the show I held out hope that some new people were involved that could somehow capture what made the show good at first.  Well my hopes were not realized.  If anything they somehow managed to make the show more confusing, more stupid, and fill it with even more bad actors than the original.  There are no less than 20 characters that you are supposed to follow through a rat nest of story lines that include constant jumps forward and backward through time.  Despite seeing every episode, if you had a knife to my throat and the only way I could save myself was to clearly explain the Heroes story I would unfortunately wind up dead on the floor.  I am forcing myself to watch the remaining two episodes although I might have to do it solo, Cindy already raised the white flag on the show.

I didn’t watch the Republican debate again last night, it just serves no useful purpose in my life unless you consider feeling really negative about the state of politics in ‘Merica” as a good thing.  I bet Carly Fiorina was FURIOUS she got sent down to the minor leagues, with the likes of Mike “I want a pill to cure diabetes” Huckabee.

So this is half marathon weekend, the last I will be participating in.  The weather forecast for Sunday is not looking promising at all with a forecast of rain and high winds which of course can make timing the event very challenging.  I’ll just keep my nose down and get through it.

Last night we watched the second episode of Biggest Loser.  I found myself more annoyed then I was after the first show where I saw the carnage after they retooled the cast and format.

The subtitle for the show this year is “Temptation Nation”, this episode outlined exactly what that means.  Basically many of the challenges this year involve temptation.  This is not a new concept.  In the past they would do challenges where contestants were thrown in a room full of shitty food and they had to resist the temptation to eat it, which the majority of them did.

Well this year they are basically forcing people to eat shitty food as a punishment if they lose a challenge which I think is absolutely idiotic.  Every single person on the show is a food addict to some degree.  Forcing them to consume the foods that got them into their morbidly obese state serves no positive purpose whatsoever.  Could you imagine if a person in rehab was forced to take drugs or drink alcohol?  I simply could not believe the show producers thought this was a good idea and further reinforces my feeling that there is a new person/people running the production of the show. Whomever it is, sucks.

So Cindy and I joined the Powerball craze.  We didn’t go crazy like buying 74,000+ tickets as some group of people did, we bought two tickets.  Cindy picked the numbers on one ticket and quick picked the other.  When I checked the numbers this morning I was excited to see we hit exactly zero numbers on either ticket.

You may have read how the Powerball people are basically mind fcking the general public.  A little while ago they made a change to the game, increasing the amount of “white numbers” you can choose from 59 to 69.  This addition of 10 numbers made the odds of anyone winning the top prize soar astronomically, to 1 in 292 million.  Of course Powerball officials will feed you a line of shit saying this change allows more winners overall of the smaller amounts of cash.  It does not take someone with a degree in psychology to see the game they are really playing.

Making the top prize so difficult to hit makes for lots of rollovers and lots of huge jackpots.  The big jackpots build big public hysteria as everyone wants to take a shot at the dream, resulting in massive ticket buying.  Whomever is in charge of the mind manipulation department at Powerball Inc. should get a big raise this year.

Tonight after work I drop off the stuff for the two days of race packet pick up.  It marks the start of the grind that will wind up late morning on Sunday.  It can’t come fast enough.

Last night I did not watch one second of the State of the Union address.  I instead passed the time doing data work for the half marathon and then fell asleep watching a home improvement show on HGTV.   I just had no interest in Obama’s final SOTU speech which is always filled with skewed numbers, partisan clapping, and fluff.  Unless Bernie Sanders somehow manages to beat the odds and take down the Hilary juggernaut for the democratic presidential nomination I really am sort of burned out on divisive, toxic, corrupt American politics that excel at little else than manipulating the majority of the general population while quietly stuffing the pockets of those that own the politicians.

Cindy and I still watch some reality tv shows, one of which is The Biggest Loser.  For some reason some genius decided the show needed to be completely rebranded this season.  They redid the house, the gym and the logo for the show which I guess is fine, although I think the new logo is really unimaginative and dumb.  What wasn’t fine was the loss of Alison Sweeney as the host of the show.  It all seems foreign without her there.  She was such a good source of positive energy, it is really disappointing to see that removed. I have to admit I also found it intriguing seeing how they changed Ali’s outfit, hairstyle and make up for each segment of the show.  I enjoyed discussing what I liked and disliked about her look in each scene with Cindy.

The show has undergone many changes throughout the seasons that mostly involved different trainers and changes to some of the rules.  Some of them were good some were not.  This latest change feels like the biggest yet and my initial feedback is I don’t like it.  Watching obese people both succeed and fail towards their goal of weight loss is interesting tv for sure but certain cast members help define the show.  Ali was one of them.

Cindy has a rare trait, she actually loves to clean and organize.  Yesterday she got went on one of her kicks where she targets various areas for clean up.  She reorganized the kitchen pantry and our walk in closet.  The closet work was extensive since it involved pulling in one of the chest of drawers from the spare bedroom and relocating it to the closet where it will house a lot of Cindy’s clothes that to this point were residing inside of some wash baskets.  She put a lot of time and energy into the work just like everything else she does.  I’m lucky to be the ultimate benefactor from her efforts.

I could hardly believe my replacement Ring showed up already yesterday considering I ordered it Saturday afternoon.  I guess having an Amazon warehouse in Florida does have some advantages although I don’t like having to pay sales tax on most of their stuff now.  You can see what my video feed from the Ring looks like since it took a shot from my falling ladder.

My plan is to put the new Ring at the front door.  I will try to first take apart the damaged device to see if I can somehow get the picture back in focus.  Even if I can’t I will redeploy it at a different location for shits and giggles.

Tonight I will start working on getting the half marathon numbers organized.  This race has more demands when it comes to bib number assignment than most.  The first 200 bib numbers are “special” and are assigned to elite runners.  Then there are random numbers that are permanently assigned to  “lifetime” race members, something they offered years and years ago.  Finally you have the meat and potatoes of the race field which get assigned to numbers 201 and above which then are sorted alphabetically and assigned in numeric order.   This will be just the start to a very data entry intensive few days.

Just like the last several years, I once again did not watch one second of the college football championship.  I just can not make myself interested in college football for reasons unknown to me.  Maybe it’s because I only attended college for three months.  However to keep my man card I did feel required to at least know who won the game and a few highlights of how it happened.  Go Bama…

Saturday morning Cindy helped me get started on the somber job of putting away the exterior Christmas decorations, an annual depressing project.  Cindy helped me get most off the lights off the trees out front before she had to go inside to get ready to leave for a seminar.  I moved to the entryway to the house where I had my “smart” app controlled icicles hanging.

I had my smaller ladder out so I could reach the lights that were maybe 10-11 feet high.  I had the ladder haphazardly placed unevenly.  One leg was on the concrete landing  and the other on the stone covered landscape strip.  The ladder was against the high wall of the house with only one leg touching as a result.  I figured I could just use my cat-like balance to quickly unclip the lights from the gutter.

So I have a long and dangerous history of ladder stunts.  During my adult life I have put myself in precarious positions on them repeatedly, often a couple stories up in the air.  Every single time I was able to survive the situation unscathed, since I was only a few feet off the ground I used even less caution than I normally do.

Well there was no warning this time. As I reached to unclip the farthest point the ladder was under me one moment and falling down the next.  I instinctively reached for something to break my fall, which happened to be the gutter.  In a quick symphony of banging, crashing and creaking I was back down on the ground with a nice contusion/gash across my left shin which of course immediately started to seep blood.  The one plant out front was a little smushed from the ladder and some stones were thrown out in the yard.  The gutter I grabbed was bent as well, luckily I was able to push it more or less back into shape.

I ignored my injury and kept working.  I couldn’t believe Cindy didn’t hear it.  When she came out and was ready to leave she was horrified to see my bloody shin.  She quickly cleaned and bandaged my gash.  She felt guilty, feeling like if she wasn’t inside I wouldn’t have hurt myself.  I assured her this was 100% due to my stupidity. I wished her a safe trip to Bradenton where the seminar was being held.

I later discovered there was an additional, much more concerning casualty to my ladder stupidity, my Ring smart doorbell.  Cindy had sent me a text saying I needed to wipe the camera lens off, she said it looked like it had condensation on it.  I poked my head out the door and saw the damage.  It looks like somehow one of the legs of the ladder smashed right into the doorbell, breaking a plastic casing above the camera and bending the metal casing around the button.  Although I did not see any visible damage to the camera itself obviously the impact somehow fcked it up as well.  I fruitlessly tried futzing with the Ring a bit, hoping a couple Fonzie like smacks would undo whatever damage was done.  I was so frustrated with myself that my leg injury wasn’t enough of a lesson to practice better ladder safety, I now had to pay a financial penalty as well as a new Ring was ordered that afternoon.

As I said, removing all of the holiday lights outside was depressing, but the set I hated removing the most was the big bulbed, colorful led lights we bought for the chicken coop.  I gave serious consideration to just leaving the those lights up but I decided I wouldn’t be the weird neighbor that leaves Xmas lights for months on end.  The chickens huddled around me as I removed the lights.  I don’t think they were happy about it either.

So like I said, Cindy was gone for most of the day, leaving me a rare weekend day left to my own devices.  It seemed like I immediately flipped into my old routine when I was living solo.  Of course I buzzed around the house tending to a number of items but I also found the time to do a random physical challenge on video and even pose for a stupid selfie wearing the George Washinguns tank top Patrick sent me for Christmas.  For whatever reason this sort of behavior happens most frequently when I am alone.

Late in the afternoon I had another first, loading Sadie into the SSR for her first ever ride in the vehicle, despite me owning the truck for over four years.  I had an edict that no dogs were allowed in the SSR due to my wanting to keep it as pristine as possible.  For whatever reason, that edict expired and after putting a seat cover and towel over the passenger seat, I had Sadie jump in for her first convertible experience.

It took awhile for Sadie to find her optimal position but once she did she seemed to enjoy having a total open air driving experience.  The SSR had not been driven by me for a bet closing in on two months.  The clutch still felt like it had some air in it, releasing closer to the floor than I was used to.  It still felt good to hear the exhaust note rumbling behind us as we did a coffee run to help me kill my appetite so I could wait until Cindy got home later to eat dinner.

Cindy’s drive home was treacherous, taking her through a severe storm that actually resulted in a tornado touching down in the Cape Coral area.  It was the sort of storm you get in the middle of summer, not January.  When she got home we ate dinner while watching our latest Netflix rental, Air, that starred Darryl from The Walking Dead.  The premise for the movie seemed interesting, the Earth’s atmosphere is toxic, forcing mankind to retreat underground, but both Cindy and I found the movie very hard to follow.  Darryl’s co-star was a black guy with an accent that I have seen in other films.  For some reason the director didn’t think it was important for the audience to be able to understand much of the dialogue.  Despite my having the volume up quite loud,  we found ourselves looking at each other saying “what did he say” repeatedly.  It was very annoying and detracted from what was already an average at best flick. I’d give it a B.

On Sunday morning we originally hoped to get out on our new mountain bikes but the rainy weather made us redirect those plans.  Instead we got shit done around the house and did our normal weekend run to Rural King and Home Depot.  The rainy, cool weather made the entire day feel sort of blah.

I found myself watching the final half of the Vikings/Seahawks playoff game.  It is a rare thing for me to watch NFL playoff football if the Eagles are not involved in it.  The one exception is if the game is played in bad weather, I LOVE bad weather games.  In this particular case the weather was clear but it was freeze your ass off cold.  At the start of the game the temperature was -6 degrees.  The artic cold made for an odd visual as the players lined up for each play.  You would see their breath freezing as it exited, making it look like there were 22 angry bulls on the field.    As you would expect the cold weather kept the score low.  The Vikings were in position to win the game with 30 seconds left when they drove down to chip shot field goal distance.  The Viking kicker, who already made three much longer field goals, choked hard, pulling the 27 yard field goal left, handing the Vikings a crushing defeat.  Wow I can only begin to imagine how low he feels today.

Cindy and I tended to various things throughout the day.  I began getting my ducks lined up for the half marathon that goes down this upcoming Sunday.  I have a pretty solid mental game plan of how it will all go down but two of the last three years I have run into some huge unexpected issues on race day.  I am taking more precautions this year to ensure my last year of timing this event goes as smoothly as possible.

Yesterday I got word that the finish line arch I had bought used last year had completed it’s refurbishment process.  You may recall the arch had a section where the paint was flaking off and it needed to be rebranded for GMT.  I found a place down in Texas that was willing to do the work so I shipped it off to them a couple months ago.

The top 2/3 of the arch has been completely replaced.  The painted 45 degree area has been replaced with a dark green, non-painted material.  The yellowed white top section was removed and replaced with black which will hold up better, showing less dirt/wear.   The areas where the logos go now are branded with GMT however the signage is velcro attached, meaning if there was a situation where an event wanted their own branding on the arch it could be accommodated. I should have the arch back sometime next week.  I look forward to seeing it in action sometime later in 2016.

During the week Cindy has been working on getting the indoor Xmas decorations put away.  Last night when I got home we completed the task by disassembling and bagging up the two artificial trees, returning them to their 11 month sentence in the small shed.  As always, removing the holiday cheer from the house brings a degree of sadness to my heart. This weekend we will complete the dirty deed by taking down the outside decorations as well.  This years decorations were the best ever in my opinion.

This weekend in addition to pulling down lights I have to do a major server upgrade at the office.  Luckily I should be able to work at the office from home thanks to the wonders of robust remote control.  We also would like to get out to the movies.  The last movie was saw was Star Wars in NYC, the last movie we went out to see down here was probably 6-7 weeks ago, an eternity for us.

Yesterday the Stern Show announced Riley Martin, a long time participant on the Stern channels had died.  Riley claimed he had been abducted by aliens many times and told his story in his very unique manner. If you want to read the story go here.  Riley was also a raging alcoholic and did a lot of his shows shit faced drunk which added to the entertainment factor.  I found it odd that he actually died before Christmas but the show was asked to not make it public until yesterday for some reason.

Riley always complained about not having money.  One of the ways he made money was to hand draw “symbols” for people willing to pay for them.  According to Riley the symbols would be the only way earthlings would be able to get on the mothership that is parked out around Jupiter when the end of days comes to our planet.  I almost bought one yesterday as Riley had some stock leftover but when I saw the price had risen to almost 50 bucks I thought better of it.

I will definitely miss hearing Riley’s unmistakable voice on the Stern show.  I can only hope that he somehow wound up in the big spaceship in the sky.  Rest well, friend Martin, rest well.

Yesterday I also heard a segment on the show where Howard had a doctor of his in.  One of the things they talked about was how Howard was having a number of odd symptoms that he had undergone a battery of testing for without any definitive diagnosis.  This doctor told Howard to get his mercury levels tested.  He suggested this after hearing how Howard had started on basically a pescatarian diet (fish only).  Well Howards levels were indeed high and once he changed his diet his symptoms improved.

Cindy and I have a VERY seafood heavy diet.  I would estimate 5-6 meals a week have fish as the main protein.  When I looked up some details of the symptoms of high mercury levels it raised a lot of red flags.  Memory, concentration, vision, and numbness issues are just a few of the possible symptoms that jumped out at me.  I shared this with Cindy.  She was very surprised as well.  The end result of this will be our diet getting more balance with us using more plant based protein sources instead of leaning so heavily on seafood.  It will be interesting to see if the some of the symptoms that we instinctively write off to old age start to improve.

Last night I drove home, changed clothes and then headed right back out with Cindy to meet Katie and her boyfriend for dinner.  I was worried that since it was now officially the worst of snowbird season we would be treated to a horrible wait at Carrabbas.  Luckily we only had to wait around 15 minutes to get a table.

While we were waiting I grabbed myself a beer and a sangria for Katie to celebrate her 22nd birthday.  After we sat down at our table we actually had a manager come over and card Katie, worried they had served alcohol to a minor.  I assured the woman she wasn’t a minor and I was the one who purchased the drink on her behalf anyway, relieving any blame from our waitress for not carding Katie.  Katie does look young so it wasn’t surprising.

I went very simple with my meal, getting a bowl of whole wheat spaghetti.  It was something I hadn’t had at Carrabbas for a long time but it hit the spot.  Everyone else seemed to enjoy their meals as well.  We had a good time.  Cindy drove me home despite the marginal effect three Bud Light drafts had on me.

So yesterday Obama once again flexed his executive order muscle, single handily implementing universal background checks for gun ownership, eliminating the silly loophole that lets anybody with a pulse buy a gun if they do it at a gun show as well as some other restrictions.   There is a very odd situation that seems to arise when it comes to the issue of background checks for gun ownership.

Every poll you see indicates a strong majority of Americans are fine with more stringent background checks being implemented.  Despite this support, any attempt to implement this through congress has been derailed, backed by strong NRA lobbyist influence.  Personally I would rather the president not use executive orders to implement this sort of policy.  History shows however this is a common thing with 2nd term presidents as they have nothing to lose.  When you are the president that is cursed with an obstructionist congress, these orders seem to be the only way to push any change through whatsoever.

I also find it hypocritical that many of the gunners are probably the same people that stood up and applauded that the FAA now requires all drone owners to register their toy aircraft with the federal government.  You have to disclose all of your personal information and are then assigned an ID number that has to be affixed to the drone.  If gun owners were asked to do the same thing they would have a shit fit.  It’s all so silly.

Some gun supporters will try to prop up an argument that background checks would have done nothing to red flag most of the mass shootings that have occurred over the last decade which is probably true.  However this again is not seeing the forest through the trees.  In the big picture, putting consistent, basic screening procedures in place for everyone interested in gun ownership is a greater good principle that overall will help prevent at least some degree of unwarranted gun ownership.   I mean think about it, why do we require people to get a drivers license if accidents still happen?  The answer is so there is at least some base standard for competency to be able to operate a vehicle.

Finally, take a look at this clip from 1999 when an executive vice president of the NRA testified before congress that universal background checks are a good thing and should be implemented.  If it was a good thing in 1999 why is it a bad thing in 2016?  Again, the logic has flown out the window.

Background checks will not stop gun violence in the United States and ironically, actions like Obama implemented yesterday actually causes a huge surge of gun buying as some people believe the government is going to take their guns away somehow.  Regardless, most people realize that background checks should be consistent and not situational.  If you don’t have a criminal record or a history of mental illness buy as much deadly force as you feel is necessary, just do it in an above board way. If you are going to walk around with something that is able to extinguish a life in an instant, I don’t think jumping through a small hoop to do so is too much to ask.

Yesterday the mountain bike we ordered for Cindy showed up.  I would have gladly put it together for her but Cindy is quite handy and was eager to do it herself.  The full suspension bike was fully assembled by the time I got home and looked sharp.  We are both looking forward to giving our bikes a real world test at the swamp sometime this weekend.

Last night when I got home I drug one of the rubber timing mats into the dining room and attached it to a timing box.  The upcoming half marathon is the most complicated event I time each year.  The extra distance and high profile adds extra pieces to the puzzle.  One of those pieces is an announcer mat.

As the runners approach the finish line I have a dedicated timing box and line of mats set up.  They are connected to a laptop that is placed in front of the finish line announcer.  As runners cross over the mats it pops their name on the laptop so their names can be announced before they cross the finish line, a nice perk for participants.

Since this is the first year I have timed the half marathon with anything besides Ipico timing equipment I needed to test out what I needed to do to duplicate this scenario with MyLaps gear.  I got the announcer mat working.  It requires a few additional steps compared to what I used to do with Ipico but it should work fine.

Today is Cindy’s daughter Katie’s birthday today.  She is 22.  In some ways Katie’s situation reminds me of myself at her age, in the midst of trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do with my life.  She is a very talented, smart girl with a funny personality so I think she has a bright future ahead of her, whatever direction she chooses.  To celebrate we are all going out to dinner tonight.  Whenever Cindy and Katie get together both of them turn up the energy level in each other. I’m sure there will be lots of smiles and laughter to go around.