Category Fitness

When I walked out to the parking lot last night my annoyance meter instantly shot up when I saw a politician jammed a paddle into the side window crevice of my vehicle and every other vehicle in the lot.  I don’t get it.

The other day on Facebook I commented how one of the local candidates had successfully annoyed me out of casting a vote for him purely because of the ridiculous inundation of junk mail I have received from the guy.  Literally I have seen at least 15 mailings from him.  When paired up with his signage that is literally everywhere it long ago crossed the line from informative to suspicious.

I read this guy has spent upwards of $150,000 on his campaign to take one of the county commissioner seats.  When a guy spends more than double the amount of the salary for the job he is running for it gives me pause.  Obviously there are some big dollars wielding big amounts of influence behind this campaign.

Of course nothing touches Rick Scott spending 60 million plus of his own personal fortune to brainwash the sheeple in the Florida governor’s race in 2010.  Dollars rule the world.

Last night I decided to do an unconventional quick workout, a 500 foot death crawl.  If you are wondering what a death crawl is, click here.

I still receive my free Newsweek subscription that I never asked for.  The magazine has a definite liberal lean so I find a lot of the opinions more or less in step with my general ideas about the world, both good and bad.

This month there was an article talking about the true state of the middle class in America.  As you can imagine, the picture is not rosy in the least.  The article talks about many aspects of the problem including the tremendous and accelerating wealth disparity between the 1% and everyone else.  It even goes as far as breaking down the 1%r’s .

In 2010, the average 1 percenters had their earnings increase 11.6% however the top .01 percent of the one percenters had their earnings jump by nearly double that, 21.5%, in ONE year.  Please keep in mind these are 2010 numbers while the country was still in horrible financial shape (as opposed to just really bad now)

I find hard numbers like this pretty eye opening as they appeal to the logical side of me.  However this number was the most shocking of all, 70 percent, when used in this context.

“Families headed by people under 35 are almost 70 percent poorer today, adjusting for inflation, than they were in 1984.”  HOLY SHIT.

If you can read this line and shrug it off, then you shouldn’t be reading my blog.  That is a staggering stat.  The curve for the rich is the exact inverse of this trend, skyrocketing upward to the point today where the country’s billionaires have the most favorable conditions in history and if you haven’t noticed, they are keeping it all to themselves. Corporate profits are at all time highs, yet the economic conditions for the masses are still pretty awful.  There is no “trickle down”.  Someone fixed that leaky faucet long ago.

First take a look at the official spin on Ryan from the Obama camp.  Obviously it is slanted but not inaccurate.

This article rolls right into my thoughts on Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s new running mate.  Ryan is a Tea Party favorite and is a pretty obvious attempt by Mitt to appease the new extreme right of the Republican Party.  Ryan has some pretty radical ideas when it comes to how dollars should be allocated moving forward including gutting Medicare as we know now it.  He also was a big proponent of allowing people to funnel social security dollars into the hopelessly corrupt and rigged financial markets. Seen this yet?

I think picking Ryan as the VP just further cements Mitt as being one of the most spineless presidential candidates ever.  He hasn’t flip flopped, he has somersaulted back from his positions and policies on abortion, health care and economics to whatever his advisers have told him was the most convenient stance to take at the time.

The guy, to me, represents exactly what we don’t need in a presidential candidate, a rich puppet that is having his strings pulled by someone else.  Plus the guy lost to John McCain for cripes sake.  Nothing like throwing a retread out there.

There is a theory that despite appearances, the monarchs of this country would actually be quite content to see Romney lose.  After all, even under Obama, they have flourished thanks to many reasons, including Obama being unwilling to follow through on his campaign promise to kill the Bush tax breaks.  If Obama stays in office the rich will continue to do fantastic while being able to blame the continuing middle class quagmire on Obama, a win/win for them.

If you have a history of blog readership, you know I am not an Obama fanboy either, I am not pleased with a whole bunch of things that have gone down during his first four years in office. Most recently, I am furious that the government decided to not push criminal prosecution of Goldman Sach’s for their deliberate role in the financial implosion.

However in this situation I think there is a very clear lesser of two evils.  Unfortunately with the way our political system is, those are the only two viable choices available.

I had another weird dream last night.

I was in my garage and suddenly found myself confronting a couple that wanted to steal my Cadillac STS (I don’t actually own one).  There was a physical altercation before the couple hopped back in their vehicle, drove towards the back of my property, realized that was the wrong way and spun around.  They headed back towards the front fence line and smashed through it.

I got a partial plate number and was in the process of calling 911 when another car pulled up in the driveway.  In the car was a man, a woman and two teenage looking girls. I was annoyed because I was just dialing the call in to police.  I hung up, walked over to the car and asked what they wanted.

The woman said she heard I was selling my Cadillac.  I told her no I wasn’t and became instantly suspicious that she even knew I had a STS, she had to be connected with the people I just chased off.  I tell her to get the fck off my property.  She flipped the switch into bitch mode and started screaming at me.  I went full Hulk Smash mode on her and told her if she didn’t leave I would drag her out to the street.

The entire time this was going on, the man was just sitting there in the passenger seat.  He sort of looked like he had some sort of mental disability.  However as the screaming continued I noticed the two girls got out of the car and tried to go around me into the garage. I stop my scream fest with the woman to intercept the girls.

I ask them what they think they are doing.  They say they need to use my bathroom and start walking past me. I snag both of them by the arm and pull them back out to the car and tell them to get in.  I again turn my attention to the woman and tell her this was her last chance to leave on her own before I make her leave.

That is when I woke up, I felt like I was ready to fight.  It took quite awhile before I was able to calm down and fall back asleep.

The Chick-Fil-A bullshit has grown into an even bigger mess.  You know once Sarah Palin starts commenting on a situation it is a certified three ring circus.  The images of people wrapping around the store to “support” Chick-Fil-A literally made me sick to my stomach.  I mean really, this is the way you are going to show you give a damn?  Sheeple are so disappointing.

I was chatting to Homey about this yesterday and he was pissed off at the calls from gay activists groups to picket Chick-Fil-A locations to harass customers.  I think that behavior is out of bounds as well.

I just don’t get it.  It is all posturing that at the end of the day accomplishes NOTHING. Well nothing except giving Chick-Fil-A a lot of Jesus dollars from gay marriage opposing religious individuals.

My position is extremism, regardless of the cause, is something I don’t support.

Last night I tried a balancing move I never pulled off before, the one hand handstand.  It is one of the BB challenges this month.  I actually held it against the wall for 25 seconds.  It was cool.

This weekend I plan to do oil/filter changes on all three of my vehicles, I’ll be running a regular Jiffy Lube out of my garage.  The Tacoma is due because of mileage, the SSR and party van are ready based on time since neither of them are driven all that much.

So when I got home Friday I was worried that Nicki once again shit in the house.  However I didn’t want to create more stress for her.  So I let the dogs out front and then took them into the back yard so I could search the house without them watching me.

My hopes were high, I started at the front of the house and worked my way back, no piles to be seen anywhere.  Then I look in the final room, the master bathroom, bingo, a small pile stared back at me. Great.

So I go about cleaning up the mess before letting the dogs back in the house.  I made sure to not indicate anything negative to Nicki as she came back in.  I could tell she expected me to scold her for her dirty deed.  Instead I acted like everything was wonderful and Nicki seemed to respond positively.  She ate her supper Friday night right away which was cool.

However she again shit in the house Saturday night while I was out.  Again I cleaned it up out of her view.  Obviously this behavior has to be stress related but I don’t quite understand why it is so bad all of a sudden.  I have had the girls out at the house for extended periods of time several times since the split and it was totally fine.

I saw the Olympic opening ceremonies Friday night.  To be honest, I thought they were stupid, a feeling I saw echoed among a number of my friends. Specifically the Queen tie in with James Bond and the Mr Bean/Chariots of Fire thing were just horrible.  I didn’t think the ceremonies were anywhere close to as good as what we saw in Beijing four years ago.  I did see a few people that more than likely have more evolved taste than I do say they liked the show.

Saturday morning I headed into the office early to do a server migration.  I thought it would be fun to bring the dogs with, it was.  Both of them were very excited to explore the office.  I opened up areas I didn’t even need to get into just so they could explore.  They seemed to love it. At one point they even decided to wrestle while in my office, it was cute.

I had to run into the bathroom and take a leak.  While I did I left the dogs out in the main hallway.  When I cam back out I looked at the far end where the automatic double doors are.  I assumed the doors were locked off business hours.

Well I see Sadie standing outside on the other side of them.  Evidently she triggered the doors and she walked out.  I hurried down there and called her back in.  She came in with a big dog smile, almost proud of what she managed to accomplish.

There was another funny moment when I was in the server room.  The door for the room remains locked but there is a motion sensor inside that will unlock the door when you approach.  When the door unlocks it makes a noise.  Well Sadie would trip the sensor and then be amazed by the noise.  Time and again she would walk through the sensor field and then be surprised by the noise.  It was cute.

Eventually they settled down and just hung out while I worked.  I was in the office until close to lunch time before I finished up.  Before I left I let the girls do one more exploration run.  It was so funny to see how excited they were.

On the drive home both of the dogs seemed pretty pooped.  However before Sadie laid down she assumed a position she never has before.  Her body was wedged all the way under the bed with her head popped out.  The expression on her face made me laugh out loud.

Once I got home I busted my ass getting the grass handled, both via the tractor and weed whacker.  It was a sweat fest.  The reason I hurried was because I was going out to see Dark Knight. I was seeing the movie with someone else and had to pick her up beforehand.

I thought the movie was really good albeit a bit drawn out at parts. I really liked the way they tied things together and the ending was really well done.  I’d give it an A and you might be able to talk me into an A+.  I think I still enjoyed Avengers more though. I was surprised when I looked at my watch to see the movie was well over two and a half hours long.

Sunday morning I got up super early to go do training bricks with Tom, he has a tri coming up this weekend and wanted to do speed intervals.  The plan was to do a 20 minute ride at near race pace and then immediately do a roughly 10 minute run, again at near race pace.  That doesn’t sound too bad, right?  Well Tom wanted to do this 6 times.

I was already not well prepped for the effort.  I didn’t carb up like I should have the night before and I got very little sleep.  I figured I could still hang, which I did, for awhile.

Tom does a ton more biking than I do. He has been riding over 100 miles a week, I ride 12.  He also has a tri bike.  But he is also 62 years old so I figured that evened things out.  I kept up with him for the first 4 riding segments, although it was hard work, and the running part of the bricks was no problem for me.  However during the 5 th ride my legs simply died.  Both my hamstrings and calves felt like they were on the verge of cramping.  I told Tom to go ahead and I cut the loop short.

I had to get out of there anyway because I had another thing to do late morning.  I was totally gassed and extremely tired.

I decided this weekend that the online dating world is now offline for me for the foreseeable future.  It seems like until either more time passes or my marital status changes officially I am going to be running into unwanted problems.  If something comes to be in a “conventional” manner great, but I am not going to be placing my face on an online billboard, it just hasn’t been worth it.

Just a quick aside to my front seat view to a bank robbery at the gym yesterday.  Like I mentioned, when I arrived at the gym the bank was surrounded by cops with guns drawn.  At one point I saw 6 or 7 deputies march in the front door locked and loaded.  As I bystander I assumed this was because the bank robber was still inside.

Well after reading the news story I found out this was not the case.  The robber was already out of the building by the time police arrived.  I have no idea why there was this big dramatic ordeal when someone from inside the bank could have simply told the cops the guy already got away. Weird.

So today, I am on the floor doing slow controlled push ups.  About 10 feet away from me is a woman I talk to on a regular basis doing work on the adjustable ab bench.  All of a sudden I heard the loud and unmistakable sound of a “woops” fart come from her direction.  Obviously the ab exercises she was doing caused the accident.

I made a snap decision to not pause, not look at her, not give any indication that I heard the flatulence, although I would have had to be nearly deaf to not hear it.  I figured it was the gentlemanly thing to do.  To draw attention to it would have embarrassed her I am sure.

I continued my push up set without flinching.  When I was finished I avoided what could have been embarrassing eye contact (for her) and walked to another section of the gym.  When I walked by her as I left I said goodbye,  making sure it was very quick and without a hint of a smirk on my lips.

I decided to skip the club run Saturday morning, instead deciding I would roll some running into my Sunday brick.  I wanted to get an early start on the house chores.

As I was out front weeding I heard the gate of Thina’s house open followed a few seconds later by seeing something moving towards me out of my peripheral vision.  I glance up and see Thina sprinting towards me, almost like it was a jailbreak, which unfortunately for her, it probably was.

She runs to my side and immediately flops down, wanting me to rub her belly which of course I do.  I hear her dumb ass owner calling for her which of course she ignores.  I petted her for a few moments and told her she was a good girl.  I then scooped her up and carried her over to Jose (or whatever his name is).  I felt awful handing her over. Evidently they were going somewhere and they actually took Thina with, putting her in the back of the SUV.

So after I got my first round of chores done I went to go pick up the girls since Ali was going to be working.

This past week Ali has obtained pet insurance for both of the dogs.  I agreed to help split the cost of the insurance with her, it isn’t cheap.  The thought process is with Nicki getting older and us wanting to do everything possible to make sure she is with us as long as possible, surprise vet bills could be more and more frequent. Anyone that has pets knows that animal health care can be nearly as expensive as their human counterparts.

This insurance will allow Ali to budget in a set amount for the dogs health care each and every month.  The policy is a zero deductible plan.  Originally Ali had obtained a 200 dollar deductible policy but I convinced her that the extra monthly cost for zero deductible would probably work out better in the long run.

One of our fears is with Nicki and joint problems.  I have noticed in the past month or so that she has seemed increasingly gimpy.  I said to Ali that I suspect the two flights of stairs at her place could be contributing to the issue.  Labs are very prone to joint/hip problems.

When Nicki walks lately it is a very slow pace and she will not engage in anything beyond a few steps of jogging, even when Sadie wants to play.  I said something to Ali about trying to carry Nicki up and down her steps but it would be too dangerous for Ali to do so.  The last thing I need is for both of them to take a fall down the stairs.

It actually seems like one of the more painful things for Nicki is simply getting up.  She didn’t even want to stand up in the front seat of the van when I put the window down, something she normally will never pass up.  When we got to the house I actually lifted her out of the passenger seat down to the ground to make it easier for her.

I am going to have the dogs for almost an entire week when Ali leaves for PA later this week.  I will be curious to see if a week without steps improves Nicki’s condition.

I still had to mow the grass.  It was the first time mowing with the new blades.  There was a definite difference, the cut was much more even and efficient.  When you put new blades on the tractor you want to keep them pristine as possible for as long as you can.  Well that time period was very short as I inadvertently chopped up a piece of loose cement that was by the driveway.

So I finished up just as it looked like it was going to start raining.  I go inside and smell the unmistakable stench of dog shit, oh no…..  I knew it was somewhere in the house, I just had to track it down.  My search ended in the doorway of the guest bedroom.  From observation and dog reaction, I am 90% sure it was Nicki’s doing.

It made no sense to me, why would she shit in the house?  They both went for Ali earlier in the day and I had them outside a couple times at the house before I started mowing.  Nicki may have been in the house for 90 minutes.  I scolded Nicki, well actually I just talked to her in my disappointed voice as she laid in her dog bed giving me sad eyes.  I don’t get what that was about.  Hopefully we aren’t starting a new trend for their stay at the house later this week.

By later in the afternoon Saturday I basically had everything done that was going to get done around the house.  I had the rest of the weekend to myself, a feeling I always like, not that I had any exciting plans for that time.

One of the things I did was finally finish normal mode of Diablo 3.  I had stopped playing the game, and any games for that matter, for a couple weeks but a few days ago I picked it back up.  The A/V experience in Diablo 3 is some of the best I have ever experienced in gaming.  Unfortunately despite that, it is hard to ignore the repetitiveness of the actual game experience.

When you “beat” the game, your reward is to do it all over again at a harder difficulty level.   I don’t think I’ll do that but I might try to get a couple other classes to the end of normal mode.

Sunday morning I was out the door early to do a full brick of riding, running and swimming.  I threw my bike and other gear in the back of the SSR and took off.  My hope was after the training I could just hang out at the water park for awhile and relax.

On the last leg of my ride I saw Christy and Ali outside Christy’s apartment complex so I stopped, I knew Christy was supposed to run part of Ali’s 14 mile training run with her.  I found out Christy was done with her part but Ali still had almost 7 miles to go yet.  Ali asked if I wanted to do the running segment of my brick with her.  I said that was fine, I had about 10 minutes to go on the ride, she could meet me at the park.

We took off for what was about 5 miles for me.  The run was just not fun, by this time of day it felt oppressively warm and humid, even at 9 am.  My skin was pouring sweat by the gallon.  The run was an out and back.  On the way back right before a water stop Ali tripped and fell.  Luckily I think her slippery, sweaty skin helped her avoid major road/sidewalk rash although she did have marks on her left knee, hand and shoulder.

By this point she was exhausted and said she had to rest for a few minutes.  She told me I should just go.  At first I hung around for a bit but after Ali assured me she was fine I headed off solo for the last mile and a half.  I was glad to be done, it was so damn warm.

I then hopped in the pool for 1200 yards of swimming.  I hurt my left shoulder late last week at the gym.  The injury made swimming a bit difficult but I managed to get the laps in, albeit slower than I normally would.

My idea of just hanging out at the water park afterward was short lived.  I only hung around for maybe an hour before the skies looked like they were ready to open up.  It wasn’t all that fun to just sit there by myself anyway.  I think the water park is one of those things best experienced with somebody else, unless you are just swimming laps.

On the drive home the rain started and continued for the majority of the afternoon.  It felt like the weather absolutely sucked any motivation out of me.  Beyond putting chlorine in the pool, I did absolutely no chores on Sunday.  Instead I went into total lazy mode, buzzing through some shows on my Tivo as well as getting caught up with Falling Skies and working towards the end of season four of 24.  Despite completing my informal triathlon that morning, the afternoon and evening of laziness made me feel like I accomplished little for the day overall.

For obvious reasons I don’t detail any of my post split dating experiences here.  I certainly would like to at times.  Not because it is filled with any sort of tremendous success, just the opposite really.  It would make for some interesting/funny reading for sure.  At this point I just throw it all into the rather large and growing “learning experience” barrel.

Last night after I got done making a hard mode attempt at the BB challenge I stepped into the garden to harvest kale for the first time ever.  Kale is something that they don’t sell down here in the local home improvement store vegetable displays.  My kale was started from some seeds I bought out of a catalog.

My kale appears to be doing pretty well although I did notice that it was starting to get munched on by the f’ing bugs that make growing stuff in the summer so miserable.  I need to start spraying the garden again with some insecticidal soap to see if I can keep the bugs from destroying my crop. Kale is a great food, one of the healthiest greens you can consume.

I clipped off 6 or 7 pieces of it and brought it inside for supper.  I threw most of it into the juicer and then used the last two pieces in my spinach wrap. I didn’t eat a piece by itself so I couldn’t really tell you if it tastes good or bad.  I just know it does a body good.

Why the f is George Zimmerman doing tv interviews prior to his trial?  Did he not see see the Jerry Sandusky/Bob Costas interview?  I can not believe his attorney would endorse a tv appearance by his client. Regardless of my viewpoint on the case, which is, Zimmerman acted inappropriately and initiated the conflict, going on tv at this point was a moronic move. “All part of God’s plan?” Yea, that was a brilliant statement…

So the news this morning is exploding with the news of the shooting at a Dark Knight premiere in Colorado.  The description of the events sounds almost surreal, literally like the 24 year old gunman was trying to reenact the role of Bain, the villain of the movie, throwing tear gas into the theater and then using the fleeing patrons as a real life shooting gallery.

The last numbers I heard were so far 15 people have died and another 50 were injured during the attack.  Of course the first focus is the incredible tragedy with the loss of life, as it should be.  Eventually the focus of the story will spin off into various angles including what the hell makes a person totally go off the hook and decide to randomly fire into a crowd of strangers in a theater?

At least in “going postal” cases, there is a clear motive behind a shooting rampage.  Someone got fed up with something, snaps and decides to inflict the ultimate revenge upon specific targets.

In something like this, the pure randomness and scope of the shooting is beyond what most sane people can comprehend.

Friday night I was busy getting done whatever was left to be done in anticipation of Randall and Tracy’s visit.  They were supposed to leave the east coast early Saturday morning and show up at my place around 9.  Of course based on my past experiences over the years with Randall and ETA’s, I certainly put the odds of him arriving later than 9 pretty high.

Saturday morning I woke up early and quickly finished up what needed to be done outside.  I told Ali I would pick up the dogs as well so they could see Uncle Randall, their favorite uncle.  As I was on my way to pick up the dogs I got a text from Randall saying he had to stop at the bank which didn’t open until 9, new ETA is 11 ish.  There was absolutely no surprise on my part in the news he would not make his original arrival time.  Honestly it worked out pretty well for me anyway.

I used the extra time to do some laundry and replace the mower blades on the Craftsman tractor for the first time.  For a few months the cut has been getting gradually worse.  I looked at the old blades and saw they were pretty beat up.  I had never done the blades on the Craftsman so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  I looked at the manual, assuming I had to pull the deck off to do it (which looked like a pain in the ass to do).  I was surprised to see the official recommendation was the deck could remain on the mower for the change.  You basically were supposed to be able to throw a socket on and pop the blades off.

To make things easier for me I pulled out my floor jack and jacked the front of the mower to give me more room underneath to work.  It also gave me more room to do another much needed maintenance item, scraping the grass off the inside of the deck, which there was a ton of.

I used my wonder bar as the grass removal tool.  I quickly discovered that having your nose in close proximity to dried, rotting grass on a mower deck is not a great experience, the stuff stinks pretty bad.  I had a pile of grass scuzz 8 inches deep under the deck when I was done.

Changing the blades was actually quite easy which I was happy to see.  The blades I put on were a heavier duty version of the stock blades, hopefully they will hold up a little better.  Unfortunately the sandy soil and thick summertime grass really hammers mower blades quite quickly.

So Randall and Tracy pulled up a little after 11.  The dogs were quite excited to see Uncle Randall.  Sadie of course was thrilled to meet Tracy too.  Nicki was cautious for a couple minutes but warmed up to Tracy very quickly as well.

I had never met Tracy before, her and Randall have been seeing each other for coming up on 6 months.  It took me all of 15 seconds to realize I liked her.  With certain rare people I can somehow gain an almost immediate comfort level with, Tracy is one of those people.

We sat down and hung out for a little while to catch up.  This is the first time I have had any guests in the house since Ali and I split. I think the last time Randall was over was around the holidays.  I showed them the slightly different layout of the house as well as the newly repainted/decorated master bathroom.  Both of them agreed I did some solid work in there.

I suggested that maybe it would be fun to take the dogs to the dog beach.  Both Randall and Tracy said that sounded like fun.  We all loaded up into the party van and headed out.

I had not looked at all at the tide charts before heading out.  Depending on the time of day, the dog beach can sometimes be almost completely submerged.  Well we did not hit that time, we hit the exact opposite.  In fact I never have seen the tide out so far in any of my visits to Lover’s Key, I was really surprised.

We let the girls off leash.  Sadie wasted no time going out and making new friends.  She would dart around sticking her nose in the leg of anybody she could, it was funny.  Both of the dogs surprised me when they actually went in the water ahead of me.  Typically I need to wade in first before they will venture in.

We walked around the beach and enjoyed watching Sadie and Nicki interact with the many other dogs.  Of course Sadie was much more of the social butterfly.

I felt bad as I could tell Nicki must be having some aches and pains in her legs/hips.  She wouldn’t manage more than a slight jog before she would go back to walking speed.  I keep forgetting she will be 10 on her next birthday.  It is tough for me to see her get older.  I can tell she would love to run around as much as Sadie does.

As always the other dogs at the beach were very entertaining.  There was one lab that was running around inside of a hula hoop looking toy.  He then went one degree further, picking up a second hoop and running around with both. We talked to a few of the other dog owners as all the canines were playing.

One disadvantage of the tide being so far out was a LOT of shells were exposed.  As I was walking in the shallow water I inadvertently stepped in an area that was filled with some that were very sharp.  I came out the other end with several painful slices on the bottom of my feet.

So we hung out at the dog beach for around an hour, we all had a very nice time.  Of course the dogs loved it but they were also exhausted.

They added a new thing to the dog beach, a dog washing station.  It seems that every time I take the dogs to the beach they come out of it with some sort of ailment.  I thought the dog wash would help, I could quickly give them a rinse to wash off the troublesome sea water.

There was only one problem, the knob that controls the water is one of those spring loaded varieties that requires you to hold it on at all times.  If you are by yourself I have no idea how you could wash your dog since you need one hand to keep the knob on, one to hold the hose and a missing third hand to hold the dog still.   Luckily Randall served as my third hand, keeping the faucet turned on while I quickly hosed down the dogs.

On the way back we took the dog’s back to Ali’s place, I thought it would be cool if Ali got to see Randall and meet Tracy.  Both Randall and Tracy thought Ali’s new place was really nice.  We hung out for a little bit before heading back to the house to take showers for dinner.

One thing I like about Randall is he doesn’t mind my obsession for going to Carrabas, he in fact appears to look forward to going there as well.  We just always have a good time going there.  Of course since it was a Saturday night we had to wait, probably somewhere around a half hour. We passed the time drinking.

Our meal was good as usual and we had a good time.  When the check came the waiter handed it directly to Randall, I was like “Wtf??”  Evidently Randall said something ahead of time.  Well I told him that wasn’t cool.

We decided to decide who would pick up the check the only way that made sense, via an arm wrestling match, right there at the table, winner pays. After holding Randall’s arm upright for a period of time to gauge his strength, which was pretty good, I cranked my wrist and was able to break him down, winning me the privilege of paying.

When we got back to my house we hung out on the lanai for awhile just shooting the shit.  By the time we called it a night I was running on fumes and immediately fell asleep.

Sunday morning of course I was up first, although a bit late for me, not rolling out of bed until maybe 6:45 am.  Randall and Tracy slept in for a bit which was fine with me.  The report back I got on sleeping on the queen inflatable was not glowing, at least from Randall.  He has been spoiled by years of king size comfort at my place.  I will need to add a king size bed onto the fridge to do list.

So we decided to get some exercise in on Sunday morning at the water park.  I loaded three bikes into the back of the truck carefully, mine, Randall’s and one of Ali’s that she let us borrow for Tracy.  The plan was Randall and I would do a ride while Tracy ran and then her and Randall would ride while I did some lap swimming.

I gave Tracy the spare key to the truck so she could come back and grab water as needed while we were out.  She took off running as Randall and I headed out on bike.  Shortly after we turned out onto Livingston Road Randall yelled for me to hold up.  I doubled back to him.  He said both of his tries were very low on air, he forgot to check them before we took off.

Ok no problem, I brought my air pump with, so we head back to the truck.  Well we then realize we do have a problem.  The pump is in the cab of the truck and Tracy has the  key.  I told Randall to stay put, I would go track Tracy down on my bike and grab the key.  Well I did two laps around the park and didn’t see her.  Evidently she turned in before she got to the outside trail since she wasn’t familiar with the park layout.  By the time I got back from my second loop she had come back to the truck and Randall was pumping up his tires.  Oh well at least I got a nice 4 mile warm up ride.

SO Randall and I finally get back out on the road and take off.  Heading north we had a favorable wind and were really pacing pretty quickly, for me at least.  My GPS was showing 21 or 22 mph for a good portion of the northern part of the ride.

Randall was leading during this part of the ride.  I made it a point to not follow him closely to avoid drafting.  Drafting makes the back rider’s ride significantly easier but to me it defeats the purpose of training on a bike.  In a triathlon you aren’t allowed to draft so I don’t like to draft in training either.

When we hit the turn around point I went out in front and stayed there until we got back to Immokalee Road.  I did a good job of keeping a strong pace against the wind, especially early on, keeping our pace at damn close to 20.  Eventually the wind started to erode my endurance and the pace dropped two or three mph during the last couple miles I was in front.

When we got to the light we caught up to an older guy that was biking.  I asked him how far he was riding today.  I was impressed when he said it was a 60 mile day, damn.

So Randall lead for the last few miles of the 12.25 mile ride, keeping a strong pace.  When we made the final U-turn and headed north again he picked the pace up, at one point we were holding 24 for a period of time.  I was quite spent when we got back into the park.  My GPS showed an average pace of 19.2 which might be the best average pace I have pulled for that ride.

So I went up to the ticket window for the water park to score wristbands for myself and the rest of my “family”.  I gave them to Randall and Tracy.  I told them just to slap them on their wrists and walk in without looking suspicious when they were done riding bike.

So I went over to the lap pool and got ready to swim.  I was much later than normal to swim laps, it was probably almost noon when I started.  As a result there were more people in the diving board/lap swim area although there was no one actually swimming laps.  The line for the diving boards probably was 20 people deep however.

Although no one was swimming laps, there were kids f’ing around in the lap lanes.  The dividers for the lanes are evidently very interesting to children. They seem to have a hard time not mounting them and riding them like a horse.  I had a feeling this was going to be an aggravating swim, I was right.

It didn’t take long until I had to swim around children screwing around in the lanes.  At first I just gave them stink eye through my swim goggles but when I almost swam into a fat kid f’ing around by the wall of my lane I had enough.  I stopped and said “hey buddy, stay out of the swim lanes”.  At the same time that I told the kid to move, the young girl life guard noticed and told him to move as well.  She was a bit overwhelmed since she was assigned to watch the very busy diving board area as well as the lap pool with it’s clearly marked LAP SWIM ONLY signs.

At the same time she said something to the hispanic kids that were riding the lane divider as well as taking turns pulling each other into the lap pool.  The kids seemed to totally ignore the girl.

As I finished my second 400 I stopped to adjust my goggles and ear plugs and saw these hispanic kids going wild at the far end.  I look at the girl lifeguard and raise my hands in a “WTF?” motion, wondering why she is unable to get the kids to stop.  She gave me a frustrated look and tried again.

Of course I was very annoyed with the kids but I did realize ultimately it wasn’t their fault, it was the stupid parents that are too ignorant to understand why this is a problem.  Of course they were nowhere to be seen. Thankfully there was a shift change and a young guy rolled into that spot, he was finally able to convey to the kids that the lap pool was not a spot to play around in, there are 4 other pools where they can do that.

Randall and Tracy came in from biking just about the same time as I finished up my 1200, it worked out well.  We found a couple chairs and then decided to head up to the food stand.  I knew since it was later in the day we were going to be dealing with a long wait.  It really amazed me that after 5 years they have not come up with a better system of making their processes more efficient.  I actually sent them this little tip via their website.

Hi there. I just wanted to make a quick suggestion regarding how the food stand at Sun n Fun is run. I have been coming to the water park for several years and have always noticed that the service at the food stand there is very inefficient. The wait in line can be crazy long at times because it moves so slow.

 I think a big part of this is the way people are serviced. When you walk up to the window they take your order, you pay for it and then you wait for your food. Well certain food items, depending on what you order, may be in the process of being made or might take extra time to prepare.

 Instead of telling the customer their food will be out in a couple minutes and then bringing it out to them, they have people just stand at the window and wait, without taking the next order.

 There is a good chance that the person behind them might have an order with food that is all ready to go, why wouldn’t you take advantage of that opportunity to move the line ahead?

 It seems like a pretty simple logistical change that could make things move along a bit faster for everyone involved.

So anyway after something like a 20-30 minute  wait we sat down and ate lunch.  Although the service was slow, the food was good.

After eating we headed for the lazy river.  Tracy did one loop, Randall and I hung for two.  Originally I figured there would be some water slide riding but I came up with a different idea since the skies were looking very ominous.

I asked Randall if he wanted to head to the outlets, specifically to hit the Under Armour outlet I know he likes. (Randall is a HUGE UA guy).  Then after that I said we could go to Trader Joe’s since I knew Tracy was excited to check out our local location since there are none around her.  She loves Trader Joe’s.  The plan got two thumbs up from Randall and Tracy so off we went to go back home, change and head right back out.

Both Randall and Tracy had a real good time at the outlets, scoring a number of deals.   I grabbed a couple 10 dollar shirts and called my shopping good to go.  I spent the rest of the time watching Randall scurry about like a kid in a candy store, it was funny.  We were at the outlets right up until their 6pm closing time.

On the way to Trader Joe’s Randall said he was hungry for Mexican food so we went to Tijuana Flats where we had good meals.  I tried to stay pescatarian with a fish taco made of grouper.  I also grabbed the three hottest sauces they had and dared Randall to try them.

The last time we were at Tijuana Flats I offered a similar challenge and Randall foolishly complied, sticking his tongue into the burning hot “Ghost” hot sauce.  His reaction afterward was hilarious. Well Randall had no interest in a repeat performance so I instead dipped my tortilla chips into the sauces.  They were hot for sure but nothing some quick gulps of soda couldn’t control.

So then it was on to Trader Joe’s.  I forgot to warn Tracy about how cold it was in there, it literally feels like an ice box when you first enter the store.  Tracy braved the cold temps, her excitement for being back in Trader Joe’s helped keep her warm.

Randall and her had fun walking the aisles while loading up their cart with good food at good prices.  I was just a spectator this time around since my freezer was still well stocked with Trader Joe’s food.  By the time we got out of there it was after 8.

When we got home Randall and Tracy immediately got to work on getting packed up to go.  Originally they didn’t plan to be on the west coast so late.  I helped them load up and they were on their way.

The weekend surely didn’t quite go as I predicted.  The video camera didn’t come out once, the Xbox remained turned off the entire time (the tv wasn’t even turned on), and only a few beers were consumed.  Even so it was quite nice spending time with Randall and Tracy.  Tracy seems like a genuine great match for Randall, seeing them both happy was a good thing.

Hopefully sometime in the near future I can trek over there on a weekend to hang at Tracy’s place with them, I hear it is pretty sweet.

For a couple weeks I had been corresponding via email with my credit union regarding getting an extended warranty on my SSR.  With my new financial situation where large, unexpected bills are potentially much more troublesome I am concerned about something major (really expensive) failing on the truck.  As much as I love my SSR, there is no denying that reliability is not a strong suit of the vehicle.

I had a rather annoying experience going back and forth via email trying to get this done so finally I just called in and got it hammered out.  I was able to get a 6 year-60,000 mile, nearly bumper to bumper, zero deductible extended warranty for the truck and roll it into my existing loan.  The new payment is still under what I have budgeted each month for the truck so it is a win/win.  I get one less thing to worry about without my budget bottom line taking a major hit.

Last night I headed outside to prepare the grounds of Hotel Duffey for a visit by Randall and his girlfriend.  I did a speed mow followed by an equally speedy weed whacking session.   Tonight I need to get a few other things ready for their arrival.  I am looking forward to meeting Tracy, it seems like Randall and she have been having a great time together.

This will be the first visitor in the house since I have been separated.  The accommodations for guests is a currently a little more sparse than it used to be.  The old king size guest bed has now become my bed and has been replaced by a queen size inflatable, although I have been told by two people it is actually pretty comfortable.  The “end table” is now a breakfast tray  and no guests have gotten to experience my $200 Craigslist reclining sofa set yet.

We don’t have set in stone plans yet for the weekend but I am pretty sure some biking, beer drinking, dining out, video game playing, muscle ups and use of a video camera will be involved.

After work I headed over to the running store to meet up for the Dash n Dine.  The Dash n Dine is something the running club does during the summer once a month.  Basically a bunch of people show up, go for a short run and then return for food and drinks.  I actually had never attended one before, I guess because of always having to go home to let the dogs out in the past. I actually wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to go last night either based on the weather.  On the way to the store I was driving towards pitch black clouds with lightning flashing down on a regular basis.

When I got to the store I was handed a signed  Eagles retro mini-helmet.  The helmet was from Tommy, a guy I met via the running club.  The helmet by itself was cool but it also was signed by Ron Jaworski!

Tommy has hooked me up before, giving me an old Eagles program he had from the 70’s.  You ask how he has these connections?  Tommy used to be a trainer for the Redskins for a long time during their glory years.  He even has a Super Bowl ring.

Tommy also happened to show up for the event.  I thanked him for the helmet. It’s really a generous thing for him to hook me up with Birds gear.

So we had a good crowd gathering, we headed out into the still foreboding looking weather.  The run was back into an area called Freedom Park, somewhere I have passed many, many times but never checked out.  It’s a cool place with a boardwalk that winds through a scenic natural background.

I wound up running with Todd and Jake, two guys that are much better runners than I am but I wanted to see if I could at least keep pace over a shorter distance.  Of course it started to rain shortly into the run.  It was light at first, it turned into a deluge later.

One of the guys had brought his dog along.  Once we got on the boardwalk part of the run he let the dog off leash, I am not quite sure why.  The dog had a great time running ahead of us on the boardwalk.  He would wait for us to somewhat catch up and then dash ahead.  He even was nice enough to leave a brown smelly speed bump in the middle of the boardwalk at one point.

Eventually a young 13 year old kid that was running close by corralled the dog and held it for the owner to releash.

So I was doing a decent job of keeping up with Todd and Jake but I definitely was working harder than I anticipated for what was supposed to be a fun run.  My right knee started to bother me more and more as we kept going.  To keep pace I needed to extend my stride more than I normally would.  This was also the third time I had run in the last four days, much more than my normal one day a week running schedule.

Finally the pain reached the threshold that I didn’t want to ignore, I told them to go ahead without me with probably less than 10 minutes to go.  I limp walked for a minute or so, annoyed that I stopped.  I then started back up running with a conservative stride which was easier on the knee.  The knee pain could have also been from running in my gym sneakers instead of my normal NB 1080’s. We ran farther than probably anyone else in the group so I was the last one back.

It was still raining hard at that point.  Everyone was huddled under the overhang of the shopping center.  By the time I got there a lot of the primary food of pizza and burritos had been consumed.  I managed to snag one slice of pizza before it was gone.  I then rounded that off with some nacho chips and a few bites of Ali’s burrito she snagged earlier.

Although there was free beer being served which I would have loved to take more advantage of, I instead slammed down two glasses of water before drinking one Miller Lite.  I didn’t want any return of the bizarre gout like symptoms I experienced the last time I rehydrated after a run exclusively with beer. Even with my precautions, when I took a leak when I got home my urine was really dark, a sign of dehydration.

I was totally soaked from running in the rain.  I looked like I just jumped in the gulf.  Luckily I ran shirtless so I had something to put back on.  I just happened to “win” a singlet as a door prize as well that I actually wound up wearing home.

I had a good time at the Dash n Dine and hope to get to attend them on a regular basis.

My knee today aches enough that doing my normal squat routine at the gym may be in question.

So yesterday I followed up my complaint to animal services via the web site with a call, verifying they got the complaint.  I was glad I called because for whatever reason the complaint was not in the system.  I gave the guy on the phone the details of the situation.  He sounded genuinely angry at the owners treatment of the dog.  I asked what would happen next.

The guy said an animal control officer would be going to the house to inspect the dog’s living conditions and if they are found to be in violation they will be warned.  He said if I still see the dog getting out I should let them know. Ok fine.

I later talked to a friend of mine from the running club who is deeply involved in animal rights in the county.  He told me that county animal services basically does a dreadful job of enforcing code when it comes to animals.  They will issue warnings but then do not follow up to see if the warning is heeded.

Evidently in a case like Thina’s not only would they find her living conditions suck, they also should be forcing the owners to license the dog, make sure she has her shots, and if they don’t want to pay $60 a year, get her spade as well.

My buddy said he is quite familiar with how this goes.  It’s bad enough that Thina has to endure living in a home where she is little more than a lawn ornament.  If she continues to run free around the neighborhood and runs into a loose male dog now all of a sudden one mistreated animal multiplies into 7 or 8 when the puppies come.  It’s a vicious cycle that is fueled by irresponsible and ignorant pet owners.

When I drove home last night I looked at Thina’s property.  The front gate was wide open but the dog was not visible.  What was visible was the garage door was cracked about 6 inches.  I have a bad feeling the answer these idiots have to keeping Thina contained is to throw her in the hot as an oven garage.  During the heat of the day a garage in SWFL is not much different than a sauna. The reason I suspect this is because that is where they put her during one of my trips to their front door with the dog.

I have been in contact with my neighbor across the street about this bullshit as well, she is an animal lover as I am.  She is disgusted with what is going on as well although she is accustomed to dogs being treated poorly in our area.  She plans to reenforce my call to animal services with a call of her own.

I plan to call them back today as well.  First I want to get a case number so I am able to track what is going on.  Second I want to let them know that I suspect the owners have now locked the dog in the hot garage.

Before I headed out to the Ultimate Bowl last night I went home to change and feed the dogs dinner.  Outside my front door was a BIG box.

I knew I had a box arriving from New York, I didn’t know it would be that big.  Inside was a set of heavy duty, homemade parallelettes.  They came from my long distance calisthenics buddy Lou, one of the many great people I have come to know through my involvement with the Bar-barian forums.

Lou makes me look like a total beginner when it comes to exercise.  He eats, breathes and sleeps exercise, 24/7.  His intensity is something I use for inspiration on a regular basis.

Anyway these parallelettes were actually something he made.  He put together some metal parts from an old job he had at a lumber company with some 4×4’s to make a super sturdy set of bars.  He used these for a long time but eventually bought himself a professional set, so he sent me these, for free, no less.

I hope to keep these things forever and perhaps extract some of that magic Lou energy along the way.

So I headed out to the Ultimate Bowl, arriving at the arena around 6:45.  The parking lot didn’t seem to be any more or less full than it was for last weeks game.

I decided to get my first non-$7 ticket for the Tarpons, laying out the big bucks for a seat in one of the corners down low.  I figured since it was the last game of what I assumed would be a perfect 12-0 season I might as well go crazy.

After grabbing a slice of pizza and a beer I found my seat.  Damn it was nice being that close.  I also enjoyed upgraded seating amenities including a padded bottom and a cupholder, sweet.

I took turns watching the pre-game action on the field and walking the concourse.  I downed a couple beers pretty quickly and felt a bit fuzzy.  I walked by the merchandise stand repeatedly, weighing if I should buy anything or not.  Actually the thing I was considering buying the most was a pink Tarpons t-shirt for Ali.  However logic won out as I visualized both my and Ali’s existing t-shirt collection.  Neither of us need another one.  Still, if they would have taken credit cards at the stand, impulse may have won out.

Being that close to the field has other advantages besides the nice close vantage point, you also get to interact with the players.  Before the opening kick off the Tarpon players slapped hands with the fans, including mine, it’s all part of the feel good effort the team puts out for the fans.

The Tarpons opponent for the championship were the Cincinnati Commandos who won the Northern Conference.  The Commandos had three losses this season, unlike the Tarpons sparkling 11-0 record.  I think pretty much everyone in the arena just assumed the Tarpons would steamroll their way to the championship, just as they have the entire season.

Well that assumption took a quick punch in the mouth.  The Tarpons kicked off and on the Commandos first play they immediately scored on a long TD pass.  The pressure continued to be applied and before the first quarter ended the Tarpons were down 21-8.

Well the Tarpons were also down briefly in last weeks playoff game.  They shrugged it off and went on a torrid scoring streak.  The fans were simply waiting for them to step on the gas.  Well the Commandos played really well, they picked a few balls off, put a lot of pressure on the Tarpons QB and had a pretty potent offense of their own.

At one point later in the game it looked like the Tarpons were ready to finally make their move, they were down by less than a score and driving for a TD.  Instead they turned the ball over and it was the beginning of the end.  The crowd was mostly quiet for the last 5 minutes of the game once the outcome became obvious, there would be no perfect season. The Tarpons lost the game by a final score of 62-44.

Despite the outcome I still had a good time at the game.  One of my personal highlights was at half time.  One of the cool things the Tarpon QB does is come out early from the locker room during halftime and play catch with the fans in the stands.  He basically goes around the field and throws a ball to people in the stands and they throw it back to him.

Well my beer induced buzz was still in effect at halftime so I had no issue standing up and waving my flag pole length arms for number 7 to throw to.  He spotted me and sent a pass my way which I snagged cleanly and then threw back to him in rhythm.  It was cool.

Despite the disappointing end to the season I really am glad that I rediscovered local arena football this year.  For whatever reason I found it significantly more fun then when I was a Firecats season ticket holder.