A ripple, Done in Darkness, Sand, Serenity, Sad
I got the idea in my head to go run Thanksgiving morning since we were not participating in any race for the second year in a row. I had further ideas of trying to run 4 miles, like I did last year to match the distance of the Gobble Gobble race here in town. Last year it wasn’t that much of a stretch because I had been running consistent 3.5 miles leading up to Thanksgiving. In 2019 my running had been greatly curtailed. Last week was the first time I had run in somewhere around three months so it was going to be much more of a chore.
Cindy, who has done even less running decided to join me. We got out there early, hitting the track a little after 7AM. The air temp in the upper 50’s felt great. Despite a lack of running I just kept moving, at a decidedly slower pace than I used to keep. After nearly 45 minutes I finished up my 16th lap which made me feel some degree of accomplishment. Cindy ran around 3.5 miles which was amazing based on her lack of running this year.
We were doing Thanksgiving dinner at our place, a recent change as we supposedly were going to have it at Katie’s place up until a couple days prior. Katie came over early to watch the parade with Cindy as she prepared food. I spent most of the morning working on setting up the outside Christmas decorations. I did the entire operation solo and the end result was cool. The display is similar to last year with the addition of a few decorations that were used on the RV last year.
Our Thanksgiving meal was up to par with prior years from a food standpoint. Cindy made a ton of delicious chow. However the day didn’t really feel like Thanksgiving because we only had Cindy, myself, Katie, and the baby there. We didn’t even eat at the dining room table. In prior years we always had a number of Cindy’s family over on Thanksgiving which I found enjoyable. Some years we had eight or more people over so to have only us three plus the baby was sort of deflating for me. Cindy remarked repeatedly how it was nice for her to not have to do as much with less people which I understand, but it sort of defeats the purpose of hosting a Thanksgiving meal, at least in my mind. After eating we spent a good portion of the rest of the day decorating the INSIDE of the house. It was a lot to accomplish in one day’s time but it felt necessary. I have felt like I was behind schedule with decorating because Thanksgiving was so late this year.
On Black Friday I wanted to get out a little bit and hit some stores but not really to shop for others, more just to snag a few deals on things we could use. I hit Home Depot, Rural King, and Sam’s Club. I didn’t want to stay out very long because the solar installers were supposed to arrive on Friday to finish up the physical installation. I was sort of surprised when I rolled in the driveway a little before 10AM to find the installers had also just gotten there recently. They had a LOT to get done so I figured they would get started as early as possible.
They had to install all 48 panels, pull the wire from the array to the house, back fill the trench, and make the electrical connections. They worked all the way past sunset and ALMOST got completely done. The one remaining issue was making the electrical connection to the house. They used thick, heavy, low gauge wire which was not only difficult to pull in the conduit but also required larger electrical taps which they did not have on hand.
The 48 panels on the structure look very impressive. The electrician is supposed to be back on Wednesday to finish up followed by inspection on Thursday. If that all goes well then all that remains is scheduling the electric company to come out to do whatever needs to be done to allow the meter to go both ways and then throw the switch. I’m still hopeful this can happen before Christmas.
I did a video revealing the finished structure which includes drone footage which gives some cool perspective on the size and scope of it all.
On Saturday after doing chores Cindy and I went to the Fort Myers Sand Sculpting event. I went to this a long time ago when my dad and step mom were down visiting. I remember thinking was cool then and I thought Cindy would find it pretty cool now.
What I remember not being cool was the awful traffic getting into Fort Myers Beach and trying to find a place to park. It was dreadful. As we headed towards the beach I was surprised to see they had a huge parking/shuttle set up at the Lovers Key State Park area which was a few miles outside of FMB. This was awesome. You parked and paid the same $8 entry fee everyone else paid but it includes a free and convenient tour bus ride to and from the event. The buses were running constantly so you didn’t have to wait at all.
This addition removed so much hassle from what I recall when I attended over a decade ago. I was very happy they decided to go this route. When we walked into the sculpture area we were smacked with non-stop examples of incredible artistry, finesse, and patience. Some of the sculptures were totally done and some still had the artists working on them which I found fascinating to watch. We ate lunch at Pincher’s which was right outside the sand sculpture area. The outdoor seating was packed but we were lucky to grab a table albeit right in front of the speakers of the live duo that was performing, so we spent most of the meal yelling to hear each other. The service was slow but that was to be expected. We both enjoyed our meals as we people watched.
After we finished eating we went back in to look around a little more. As we did we decided to buy a couple wide brim hats. We felt like we were broiling in the sun, the hats made an instant difference. I plan to utilize the hat regularly when doing work at home requiring extended periods outside in the brutal heat. The shuttle ride back to the lot was equally easy. Really the only negative was the sand fleas that infested part of the parking area. They attacked my feet ferociously, despite them being nearly invisible.
Saturday night we watched Serenity, a movie with Matthew McConaghey. It seemed like an interesting plot from what I recalled about the previews. However as the movie unfolded I asked Cindy if this was a M. Night Shaymalan project. If you see or have seen the movie you will understand why I asked that. It was unique with a twist that I don’t know was needed. I think I would have liked it better if the plot was straight up, I’d give it a B.
So Sunday, the last of my four day weekend arrived. It felt like the time had blown by, mostly because I had kept myself so busy. That did not change on Sunday either. I changed the oil on Cindy’s car, paid my bills, and came up with an odd replacement strategy for my conventional outdoor antenna that was damaged during Hurricane Irma. I had bought one of those indoor HDTV antennas to hook up to the tv in our guest room. It worked so, so but did not have a long enough cable to be mounted ideally in the window of the room. The end result was not getting as many channels as I used to get when the outdoor antenna was working.
I came up with the idea of taking that indoor antenna and connecting it to the outdoor antenna coax which runs into the house. I disconnected the cable from the antenna which is mounted to the small shed. I then routed that cable inside the shed, connected it to my $29 indoor antenna and went back inside to see the result. I was happy to see we now got all of the channels we used to and did so without having to junk up the room with a wire running over to the outside wall. We now get 31 channels over the air.
I also decided to take a quick trip around the yard in the Mustang Skid Steer that was left on the property. I quickly found out that hard skid steering rips up a sugar sand yard very quickly.
I had limited time since the Eagles played at 1PM against the lowly Dolphins, a game the team was heavily favored to win. The Dolphins were 2-9 going into the game. At the start of the game it looked like it was going to be a non-contest. The Eagles defense and offense were both performing early on. In the third quarter the Eagles had a comfortable 28-14 lead. Well it was like someone put things on cruise control and forgot to grab the wheel. The Eagles allowed the Dolphins to score 23 unanswered points. The defense all of a sudden had no answers for the Dolphins offense which was one of the lowest ranked units in the league.
The Dolphins QB lit up the Eagles secondary, especially Jalen Mills, who I think is one of the most overrated cornerbacks in the league. He got burned repeatedly as well as committing stupid penalties. He was targeted time and time again. The end result of this awful play was the Eagles finding themselves down two scores with little time remaining. They managed a late field goal but a failed onside kick attempt sealed their fate. Once again Carson Wentz who overall had a good day statistically, could not deliver when it mattered the most, a recurring theme in the young QB’s career. The loss was downright embarrassing. This team is going nowhere this year.
After the disappointing loss I went for a quick ride over at the school on my Mten3. A good portion of the video was me venting about the poor Eagles performance. I also surprised myself when I realized that this was the first time I got to do any PEV riding during the long four day weekend. It’s kind of nuts.
The Thanksgiving weekend absolutely flew by. We wound it up by watching The Report on Amazon Prime. It’s a movie regarding the use of torture by the US after 9/11 and the effort to ignore and cover it up. It is just another of the numerous examples of the federal government lying to the populace in a disturbing manner. Federal government deception has been going on for a long time and has expanded further under the biggest of all big league presidents of all time.