Category Fitness

Last night had a nice combo of activities that I find enjoyable.  I wanted to do the bar dip version of this month’s BB challenge but I wanted to do it from a different perspective, overhead.   To do so I mounted my new GoPro on the Phantom.

To mount the camera I actually used the waterproof mount that came with the camera, the mount that comes with the Phantom is actually a little big for the Hero 3+ which is smaller than the Hero 3.

I also utilized my moon gel.  I put one piece under the foot that attached to the bottom of the quadracopter and then another under the camera inside the waterproof mount.  The combo seemed to work very well, there was very minimal distortion in the video.  I still need to balance the props, the audio from the flight make the props sound quite “buzzy”.

So anyway, I figured with the very wide field of view the GoPro has and the ability of the Phantom to more or less hover in place without pilot input, I should be able to film my attempt from above.  Mounting the GoPro in the waterproof case actually resulted in the cam being upside down.  Luckily the GoPro has the ability to flip video on the fly just by telling it that UP is the other direction.

So I got the copter in the air and positioned it so it looked like the GoPro was more or less pointed at the pull up bar.  I set the transmitter on the table and got to work.  The copter drifted around slightly due to wind but with the wide angle lens it didn’t matter.  I think it turned out quite well, I will surely dig deeper into this video recording method in the future.  Here is the finished product.

After the challenge was over I flew around some more, capturing some more cool aerial footage.  I am having ideas float around in my head of some future uses of my flying aerial rig that could be pretty cool.

My enjoyable night was rounded out with some gaming time playing both WoW (dinged 90 with my second toon) and Hearthstone (kicked some ass with my Warlock & Hunter).  It felt good to have a  night of doing nothing except what I want to do instead of things I have to do.

I had a weird dream last night.

I was back at the house I grew up at in Gouglersville.  I was walking down the road near the bottom of the hill with my dad.  We had Sadie along.  Dad had her on a long extend-a-leash.  The creek that runs along the road was much bigger than I remember, looking more like a small river.

Sadie, as she often does, was far ahead exploring.  She headed down the slope that lead into the creek/river and started wading in.  Before I knew it she was a good 15 feet from shore with my dad still holding the leash.  I yell to my dad, “You shouldn’t let her go in there, there are sharks!”  “I know, I know” my dad said in his mildly dismissive tone.  Dad is never one to take much heed to potential danger, confident that he will always somehow fall outside the odds.

Well as soon as my dad gets done speaking I see two large shadows moving quickly in the water which was no more than knee deep.  As my eyes focused I saw it was not one but TWO sharks and big ones at that, 7-8 feet long at least.  I scream at my dad, who was now in the creek/river himself as Sadie pulled along,  about the sharks.  He says he sees them and starts “running” as fast as you can in knee high water, pulling Sadie back behind him.

As Dad is hauling ass towards the bank the sharks pass directly in front of him, I was sure he was going to either step on them or trip over them.  He somehow avoids them and makes it to shore, however he momentarily forgets that Sadie is still in the water.  I run towards him and yell, “GO, GO, GO” meaning he needed to pull Sadie out the rest of the way.

My eyes widened as Sadie was moving towards land, both sharks had swung around and were hauling ass straight towards her, like twin torpedoes.  As Sadie came out of the water the sharks shot out of the water, missing her barely before they both roll back into the river/creek.

Sadie had no idea anything was wrong at all, standing there with her typical dog smile after she shook off the water.  End of dream.

So last night my new GoPro camera showed.  Thanks to a glutton of Amazon spiff points from my online Xmas shopping I wound up paying a lot less than retail. (love my Amazon Rewards card) The box included a ton of parts utilized for the vast myriad of mounting options for the camera.  I am pretty amazed they can jam optics that good along with copious amounts of tech into a camera that is so small and light.

The cam comes with a slick remote control which allows you remote access to the camera even if it is far away from you.  However what I really like is the GoPro app which allows me a near real time view finder and remote control of the cam.  This will be awesome for Phantom aerial videos as I will be able to see exactly what the camera is looking at. (as long as I stay in wi-fi range) I look forward to giving the camera extensive testing soon.  It should up the video quality of everything I shoot considerably, even boring pull up videos.

I was multi-tasking last night working on other things as well, including getting my paperwork together to send to my accountant for taxes.  To be honest, now that I am single I don’t know that I really need to be having the accountant do them, Ali’s business was the primary reason we did it.  With just myself to account for there is only my W-2, a 1099, my mortgage interest and property tax bill to send off.  Still, I have used them for so long it’s like a security blanket so I shipped the papers off this morning.

Ever since Ali became a contractor we benefited tax wise since a lot of things could be written off as business expenses.  We have had pretty big tax refunds most years.  This year I really have no idea what to expect filing as single for the first time in 15 years.  Hopefully I can get a few bucks back to put towards some repairs/improvements I have in mind for the house.

I also edited the GoPro video Randall shot of our ride out to Ave Maria, condensing it down to a nice and tidy 7 minutes.  Check it out if you like.

Several of my calisthenic FB friends have been posting pics of themselves in deep A2G (ass to ground) squat position as part of some challenge called 30/30.   I finally looked into what it is all about.

The 30/30 challenge is to spend a total of 30 minutes per day in the A2G squat position for 30 days straight.  The benefit of doing so is multi-faceted.  This hold will help open up your hips, knees, and overall flexibility.  Since my lower body is quite stiff these benefits would be something I could really use.

So I got down into as low of a squat position as I could manage and held it.  Almost immediately I felt very uncomfortable pressure and pain in my twice operated on right knee.  My hips did not feel very happy either.

I wound up doing a total of 6 minutes of hold in squat.  Each time it felt slightly, and I mean slightly better.  I have 3 minutes today, two of them in my office.  I am hoping to be able to just drop down for a minute randomly throughout the day.

Here is the promo for the challenge and here is a link to the FB page for it. How low can you go? (and stay there)

Saturday morning Cindy and I were involved with a packet stuffing party for the half marathon at one of our generous board members home.  It was quite the production getting 2500 envelopes stuffed with pins, twist ties, hand outs, a race bib and timing chip.  We broke the process apart into sections where different people had different roles.  As in most things I tackle, I had a general mental framework of how I thought things would go but didn’t have anything written down.

I was primarily working on the processes where numbers mattered, as in applying numbered labels to the envelopes and then later making sure those numbered envelopes got a race bib and timing chip that matched.  Cindy played a very important role, the human sorter.  She was handed stacks and stacks of envelopes that were in order but in different numeric ranges.  She had to make sure they were in order twice, once when they left our packet labeling operation and a second time after we put the bibs and chips in them at the end.  She was on the move non-stop.

For some reason I thought the 3 hours we allocated to the project (9-12)was overly generous.  Somehow I thought it would take less time.  We used every bit of the 3 hours and then some.  It was just a ton of stuff to do, thank goodness we had upwards of 15 people there lending a hand at one point.  My dining room table now is completely covered in boxes of packets, ready to hand out.

The funny thing is I am actually going to have to make some more packets tonight.  The numbers for this years race are already 150 participants higher than last year with nearly a week to go.  I need to stay ahead of the curve.

We didn’t get home from the packet stuffing till almost 2PM.  I wasted little time before I was outside attending to outside chores.  When I was done with chores I set up the slackline again for more balance training.  I set it up between trees that are much closer together than last week.  The line was probably only 25 feet across.

The shorter line combined with utilizing some beginner tips I saw on a few videos helped me do better than the week before.   I had a couple slow and controlled steps that looked much better than the flail-fest I put on the week before. Cindy did very well too.  She discovered she is pretty adept at walking backwards on the line.  She even pulled off a couple 180 degree turns while we were out there.

Slacklining works muscles and joints in a way that I am not accustomed to.  Both of my hips are extremely sore.  Like anything else, continued practice should reduce the physical side effects. If you want to see a brief clip from our session, here you go.

On Saturday night Cindy and I saw Lone Survivor.  For the second consecutive visit, the normally quiet and lightly attended Cocounut Pointe theater was MOBBED, worse than last time.  Luckily the theater has the capacity to support large amounts of people but I don’t know why all of a sudden the movie population there has swelled so much.

My theory is that Cindy and I see a TON of movies in the theaters, way more than I ever did in the past.  I think I may have been just generally avoiding going to the movies during season in years past.  It is only now that I am seeing the belly of the beast the snowbirds bring with them.

The movie was compelling, tense and tragic.  It will give you a greater appreciation of what our troops go through in the name of service to our country, if you needed more more reason to appreciate them.  It gets a solid A.

Sunday morning Cindy and I resumed our weekend endurance training, doing the 20 mile round trip DD ride.  The ride there had some favorable wind resulting in a 20+ mph average pace.  The ride back was much less favorable but we still managed an overall pace for the 20 miles of over 18 mph.

While we were enjoying our DD coffee at the halfway point of the ride I created a FB event for a Super Bowl party at my place.  Cindy and I had been talking about it for a few days.  Ali and I did several SB parties in the past and although they were never hugely attended, everyone involved had a good time.  I would hope for similar fun levels  this time around.  I have a pretty big invitation list so hopefully a 73 inch tv with a nice spread of beer and food is enough to entice people to make the drive out to the house.  People that live more centrally in Naples view the Estates as living on the other side of the state practically.

Sunday afternoon my buddy Sean, his girlfriend and her two kids stopped out at the house.  They had been hiking at the nearby swamp where I sometimes take the dogs so I invited them over.  We had a great time with them and the kids in the backyard practicing slacklining, running the RC car / quadracopter, and messing around in the bar park.  It was a lot of fun.

Sunday evening we watched Hangover 3, something I even questioned using a Netflix rental on.  I had already heard it was lackluster at best.  The original Hangover had me laughing so hard, so many times it was hard to believe.  Hangover 2 was ok but used almost an identical storyline from the original.  With the 3rd film they at least changed up the story but it was for the worse.  Sure I laughed out loud a few times but overall the movie just wasn’t great.  Thankfully it appears this will be the last time we will be seeing the crew together. I’ll give it a B.

This week I will be mired mostly in half marathon related work.  We already have the largest field EVER for the race with a week to go.  There are so many things to do, so many T’s to cross and I’s to dot.  I hope to not run out of ink.

So Saturday it was cold, dreary and rainy pretty much all day.  I decided I was going to use the bad weather as a reason to get a lot of stuff done indoors.  I was a chore whirlwind, knocking out all cleaning, watering, laundry, dusting, vacuuming and any other indoor task that came to mind.  I finished up my marathon chore session late afternoon.  The Eagles didn’t play until 8 so I decided to run out to Target to get a couple things.

Once I was in Target I happened to walk by the remaining Xmas inventory that was marked down a ridiculous 90% to blow stuff out.  I couldn’t help myself but to take a look.  I wound up getting 4 rolls of Xmas wrapping paper for a crazy 25 cents per roll, score.

Well when I walked in the store I didn’t grab a cart since the items I was targeting were small.  Well the addition of 4 rolls of wrapping paper all of a sudden made going cart-less very difficult.  It was made more annoying by my inability to find calendars in the store.  Despite directions from different Target employees, telling me the calendars were in a certain area, I was unable to find them.  Looking for calendars while holding 4 rolls of wrapping paper, fish food, and a card really taxed my patience.  I was shifting my grip strategy every couple minutes.  I eventually gave up my calendar search and figured I could look in World Market a couple doors down.

So I walk in WM and see they do indeed have 2014 calendars AND they are 60% off! Sweet.  The selection wasn’t great but I snagged a Peanuts calendar for the kitchen and a french countryside photo calendar for the office.  So there were two lines open for checkout.  Both of them only had one customer in them but both of the cashiers seemed to be having some sort of complication while checking them out.  I picked the line with the young, mildly attractive girl.  Well, I chose poorly. I literally spent 15 minutes waiting.

The first problem was some stupid candy bar where she couldn’t read the bar code.  She scanned the thing 10 times without success.  She even had the customer try scanning it.  I was wondering why she couldn’t just manually punch in the numbers in the UPC code.  When she called a manager up front to help her, they did just that, punched in the numbers.

Ok great, I thought I was in the clear.  Well then the customer plops down some $10 off coupon.  Well again the coupon had the clerk baffled, she said it scanned ok but it was not applying the discount.  This delay went on forever.  This time the same manager chick came up and this time was unable to fix the issue.  Now if I was the customer I would have said 10 minutes ago, f the coupon, f the candy bar.  Evidently the sugar fix and $10 was really important to them.

Of course I was annoyed and I could have easily jumped into the other cashier line which had started moving.  For some reason I stayed put, thinking to myself it was a good test of patience.  In fact it almost became comical, just how insistent the customer was and how inept the clerk was.  Well the end result of all of this fcking around was the guy did not get his 10 bucks off, the coupon in fine print had an expiration date of 1/1/14.  Lol. When I finally got to check out I assured the girl I didn’t need any candy bars and had no expired coupons to present.

So before the Eagles game I got to take in about the last half of the Chiefs/Colts game.  I was amazed how badly the Chief were destroying the Colts, holding as much as a 38-10 lead in the early 3rd quarter.  I was them amazed as the Chiefs imploded allowing that lead to evaporate, giving the Colts the second largest comeback victory in the history of the NFL.

I had odd feelings as I watched Fat Andy walk off the field dejectedly.  I had seen this scenario play out so many times when he was wearing Midnight Green, big leads blown, shitty time management, team crumbling when the game is on the line, in a weird way I was glad to see it happen to another team instead of my beloved Eagles.  A small part of me felt badly but that part sat quietly in a corner.

So the Eagles game had a lot of hype focusing on the Saints poor performance on the road and their failure to ever win a road playoff game.  There was also talk of playing in the open air of Philly in January but that wasn’t a huge factor.  Temps in the mid-20’s with almost no wind didn’t really put a huge cramp in the Saints game plan.

The game was closely contested where a few key plays could have made a large difference.  I have to question Chip Kelly’s apparent like of going on it on 4th and short when the offense has proven repeatedly they aren’t good at it.  McCoy may be the leagues best rusher this year but must have short yardage plays are not his thing.  Conversely, the Saints DESTROYED the Eagles in short yardage.  Drew Brees did a number of QB sneaks where the entire offensive line steamrolled the Eagles D, getting 3-4 yards when they needed one.

Despite their problems the Eagles actually grabbed the lead with a few minutes to go with a late touchdown.  The first thought that went through my head was there is too much time left.  The special teams then fell on their face, allowing a big return punctuated with a horse collar tackle penalty that gave the Saints a ridiculous starting position of the Eagles 48 yard line, 20 yards from field goal range. To win the game, the Eagles defense had to come up huge with no room to spare.  Well they didn’t, allowing the Saints to move the sticks easily before they kicked a playoff ending field goal as time expired. Damn.

I was disappointed but not crushed by the loss.  It was way better than the way Andy’s Chiefs went down, snatching defeat from the jaws of 99% assured victory.  The Eagles turn around from the halfway point this year had been dramatic, so much so that perhaps I had drank just a little too much Kool Aid, thinking the team actually had a shot to go deeper in the playoffs.

The good news is the team seems to be on the right track now, but make no mistake they still have holes to fill, especially on defense and special teams.  All things considered, year one of the Chip Kelly era is definitely a success.

I did so much on Saturday around the house that Sunday it felt like I tons of time to spare.  We didn’t do our psuedo-normal Sunday bike ride because of a late morning brunch that was scheduled for Cindy’s daughters birthday. (which was later cancelled)  I started off my Sunday slow, playing a bunch of Hearthstone.  I used to start my weekend mornings off with WoW play all the time however if I do it now I almost feel guilty.

The slow start to the day seemed to carry through, it felt like I got little done.

There were things that happened of course.  I installed the slackline that I bought for Cindy for Xmas.  I strung it between two palm trees roughly 50 feet apart.  Obviously a slackline needs to be very tight to support a human beings weight.  I had no idea how to judge if I was exceeding the 85 pounds of torque that is established as the red line in the instructions.

Both Cindy and my initial attempts on the line were very, very short.  The instability of the line felt impossible to overcome.  Cindy was practicing much, much more than I was and did much better.

If you have 12 minutes to spare you can see how day one of slackline training went.

I also got my Phantom up in the air for some more aerial video.  I bought some moon gel, a substance that is used primarily by musicians for vibration dampening.  Well I read it also works well for absorbing vibration associated with aerial video.  My clumsy camera mount looked funny but definitely worked better than my first attempt.  Even without using YouTube stabilization, the video was noticeably less shaky.  Eventually I need to snag myself a used/cheap GoPro to use for aerial footage.  You can see the videos I shot here and here.  On the second video I pointed the camera more forward instead of straight down.

I did manage to rip the dash of the SSR off again to crank down the stereo volume gain.  I think I have found a decent balance point now.

I then got wrapped up in a very frustrating battle with Cindy’s old iPhone and her laptop.  I still had not successfully gotten her music collection pulled off the iPhone.  Itunes would not see the phone and as a result I could not see her music.  Before I knew it it was close to 7PM and Sunday had almost expired.  It felt like I wasted the day, even though I was busy doing various things as depicted here.  I told Cindy my mood almost felt full moonish, even though we are two weeks away from the next cycle.

Tonight I get to do the cold weather scramble.  A huge blast of icy air is coming our way, necessitating the aggravating and often fruitless task of trying to protect the garden and fragile landscape plants.  Thank goodness Cindy is off so she can help me.

The transplanted fish seem to be doing ok in their new surroundings although the pond water is already looking murkier than I recall it being before they moved in.  I went down to get the remaining fish from the foreclosed houses pond but came up empty.  On Saturday a crew was in there cleaning the landscape up, mowing the grass, weed whacking and trimming up plants.

Well one of the things they trimmed was bush that hung over the pond.  They trimmed it hard, leaving the pond wide open.  The water, sitting on top of the shit bottom was actually still and clear and devoid of any fish.  My guess is once it was opened up a hungry bird came in and helped themselves.  I felt like I failed the left over fish a bit, no fish left behind….

Short on time so I’ll be short on words.  Yesterday’s highlight was my outdoor squatting and deadlifting session where I used lifting straps.  The straps allowed me to set a new personal best, pulling 340 pounds for 8 reps.  Deadlifting outside is tough on sandy soil.  There is no bounce at the bottom, instead the weights sink into the ground with each rep.  By the time I was done I had a 1-2 inch trench.

When class was done I headed out to Sam’s Club in the SSR.  I had a few things to buy for myself and others.  Plus if I am being honest, I just wanted an excuse to take the truck out as well.

As I walked back to the truck the sun was setting so I snapped a pic.  It just looked sort of awesome.

I had a very atypical Thursday morning.  Cindy was off today and had made the suggestion earlier in the week that we try to get a 30 mile Ave Maria ride in before my class starts at 10.  Sure, I said.

Well this morning rolls around and the thermometer shows 53 degrees.  I was still game and Cindy agreed to give it a try as well although she hates cold air.  She layered up as did I.

The ride was very cold at first.  As the sun rose and our body temperatures elevated it became tolerable.  It was a pretty ride out to the college and back although we certainly didn’t set any speed records.  It felt like we had decent head wind both directions somehow.

That’s all folks.

Yesterday was another long day of virtual classroom training.  Sure it is great to sit at home in your underwear and be “working”.  However the Microsoft training format can be pretty dry.  A lot of the subject matter being covered does not apply to networks as small as what I manage.  I try to pay attention best I can.

There also is a lot of repetition, needless repetition if you ask me.  The instructor will talk about a subject and then go through a demo of the subject.  Then the student is supposed to do a lab where you do the exact same shit the instructor just did.  It just doesn’t seem like a very effective use of time.

My hope for this class is to use it as a starting point for upgrading my Microsoft server certification to the 2012 level. (currently at 2008)  The prep to do this is again not an effective use of time.  I wind up memorizing a bunch of details about a bunch of features of the product that I will never use.  Once the test is passed that information will quickly vanish from my brain, never to be found again.  But at least I’ll have a nice piece of paper to show for it.

I had the dogs out here with me yesterday to keep me company.  During my lunch hour I had an unconventional workout that was backed up by an unconventional video (by my standards).  Check it out.

After class left out I headed outside to work on the van.  When Cindy borrowed the van to go to Key West she had a couple incidents.  The first encounter with a big palm frond left part of the rubber air dam dangling.  This was easily fixed with some spare fasteners I had laying around.

The second issue was she pushed the driver side door lock cylinder out.  That cylinder had been loose for a long time so I just had been babying it when inserting the key.  Well I hadn’t warned Cindy ahead of time of the issue so when she stuck the key in full force it popped the cylinder in and down into the body of the door.

Getting this corrected was far more tedious.  After removing the inside door panel I spent a good half hour trying to awkwardly position the cylinder back in place.  The lock is behind sheet metal with a few holes in it.  I was trying to peer through the holes while balancing/rotating the lock with my one hand that was jammed behind the sheet metal.  I also had various rods and other door hardware to contend with.

The lock only went in one way as there was a slot that had to be in just the right position.  Finally after much futzing around and a lot of muttering under my breath I got it.  Not only did the lock slide back in, it also was once again secure, no longer sliding back and forth when the key is inserted, bonus.

Did I mention that for the second year in a row I am in my fantasy football league’s championship game?  I won my last game easily.  This is also the second year in a row that I have risen from the ashes.  I started this season either 1-3 or 0-4.  All of a sudden my team caught fire, just like last year.  The funny  thing is I am pretty sure I put the least amount of planning/thought into my team of any of the owners in the league.  If I somehow manage to win it all it would be a testament to poor planning and minimal effort.

Today is shaping up to be another day similar to yesterday.

Friday night Cindy and I pulled out for Sebring, the spot we were staying to be closer to the Tough Mudder, which was held in River Ranch, about an hour further away.  The La Quinta we stayed in was surprisingly nice, it looked/smelled almost brand new.  The room was very nice as well with a big huge bed.  Unfortunately for whatever reason the nice accommodations did not translate into a good nights sleep.  I tossed and turned quite a bit and probably woke up at least dozen times throughout the night.  The 4:30 alarm was not welcomed.

We fueled up with Pop Tarts and chocolate milk that we grabbed the night before.  I also tried to learn from my mistakes from last year where the only pre-race hydration I did was a single 5 hour energy. I drank a good amount of water both the night before and on the way to the race.

The GPS in the truck seems to purposely give you a worst case time estimate.  Every destination I punched in I wound up arriving around 33% faster than first predicted.  I actually prefer that to an overly optimistic figure.  This tendency was once again the case for the trip to the Mudder site, we arrived somewhere around 6:30, nice and early for our 7:45 am scheduled start.  We parked in our PREMIUM $25 parking location, at least it was close as promised.

I had never had a start time this early, the 7:45 time was the first wave of the weekend.  It was so early that registration check in wasn’t even open.  We stood in a line for a good 20 minutes until they started shuffling bodies through about 7:05.  Because we were on the last day before DST ends it was still quite dark as we got checked in.

I was surprised this year they didn’t require your race number be scribed across your forehead, it was only put on my right arm.  A few minutes later I went back and asked a volunteer to write it on my forehead as well, I felt naked without it.

As I expected, we did not actually start at 7:45, it was closer to 8:05 when we took off.  Cindy, due to adrenalin and a desire to get out of the colored smoke bomb they set off at the start, took off like a rabbit.  I did not, immediately taking on my preferred Tough Mudder run pace, slow and steady.

The first thing I noticed was the open field running was not as treacherous as last year where I destroyed my right knee.  You still wanted to watch your foot placement but it wasn’t nearly as rutty and uneven.  The next thing I noticed was the course was not laid out as the online map indicated.  I wasn’t sure if this was on purpose, to throw a wrench in the Mudders psyche or just a screw up.

I won’t go obstacle by obstacle as some were pretty routine after three years of Mudder races.  You know, stuff like climbing dirt hills separated by mini-moats is old hat by now.  Yes they are still annoying and tiring, running with wet, mud covered sneakers just is not much fun.

One of the first really annoying obstacles was called Sack Up.  You picked up a pretty heavy bag of sand and had to carry it around the circumference of a large lake.  Part of the walk was through mid-thigh high disgusting smelling water with uneven footing down below.  Every Mudder has some sort of carry obstacle but this by far was the longest I ever had to do.  There were no “girl” bags of sand, Cindy carried the same bags us macho men did and carried it well.

Cindy again surprised me (and others) with her carrying skills at the wounded warrior carry.  In this obstacle you pick up someone and carry them maybe 50 yards (last year this was longer).  Of course having Cindy hop on my back and walk was not a tough task for me however I really didn’t feel it was a great idea for Cindy to try to carry my lanky 180 pounds down the course.  Cindy however had different ideas and wanted me to hop on her back.  I did as she asked, feeling pretty sure it was going to be a fail.

It felt like we were on the verge of tipping backward but Cindy kept moving forward with my long limbs wrapped around her.  She carried me the entire required distance, surprising me and other Mudder competitors that congratulated her.  It was impressive.

I had my first ever obstacle fail this year on a new challenge called Hang Tough.  It was a series of gymnast rings hung over a water pit.  The goal is to swing from ring to ring to the other side.  In normal conditions I would expect I could do this obstacle no problem however we were just coming off a obstacle that covered my gloves in wet sand.  The rings themselves were thick plastic, thicker than the bars you grab on the funky monkey.  The rings were also spaced quite far apart, they seemed to widen towards the end.  As I reached for the fourth ring my hand slipped off because of slickness not fatigue.  Plopping down in the water was not a feeling of failure I enjoyed and I considered going back and trying again.  If I would have I would have pulled off the gloves beforehand.  Cindy also dropped into the water on this one.  I accepted my fail and moved on.

Another new obstacle this year was call The Phoenix.  In last years race fire was noticeably missing from the course.  In the Phoenix you belly crawled through an area of “ashes” and then emerged from the other side where you jumped a sizable wall of flames 2-3 feet high and landed in water on the other side.  Although you only were in the flames for a fraction of a second you could feel the heat enough to get an idea of how a hamburger feels.

They had a wall type obstacle I never did before called Glory Blades.  Imagine a Berlin Wall (but shorter) leaning towards you.  The angle meant using your legs for assist was not happening.  Cindy used the side support frame to get herself started but pulled herself over the rest of the way.  I was able to use my muscle up training to get me over the blades without major problems.

The Jesus Walk that was outlined several spots on the course turned out to be nothing.  When you looked this obstacle up online it showed shallow water with multiple holes dug out which are hidden, causing people repeated wet face plants.  All of our Jesus Walks were basically just walks through shin high water with no holes.

The Electric Eel was a lot more difficult this year.  In this obstacle you belly crawl in shallow water with electrified cords hanging down.  Last year the wires were in straight lines so as long as you stayed straight and low you could avoid electrocution.   This year the wires were staggered all over the place.  I was sure I was going to get tagged.

Some people threw caution to the wind and just plowed straight ahead, taking multiple jolts along the way.  I acted like I was crawling through a minefield and somehow managed to snake my 6′ 3″ body through the maze of wires without getting zapped once.  Cindy was not so lucky, she took a good snap to the calf towards the end which caused an expletive to immediately fly out of her mouth.

As we were running the course Cindy and I noticed that the race organizers seem to not be very good at marking distance, some of the miles seemed to be very short while others seemed slightly long.  The course was very winding so it is possible that my sense of distance was distorted but it couldn’t have been that far off.  At one point Cindy, who was wearing her watch in chrono mode said we only had 7 minutes between two mile markers which obviously could not be the case if the distance was correct.

Another new obstacle was the Cage Crawl which Cindy said was her favorite.  There again was a body of water (you got very wet in this course) with a low chain link fence on top of it.  You flipped on your back and used the fence to pull yourself along.  It was kind of fun.

Another staple obstacle of the Tough Mudder is the Funky Monkey which are greased monkey bars that first angle up and then down.  I have always cleared this obstacle and I did once again this year sticking to the safer one rung at a time technique to ensure a solid grip.  Cindy was worried about this obstacle going in.  I don’t think I ever saw a woman complete it in person.

I went first and Cindy followed.  I heard a woman drop behind me and I assumed it was her.  When I reached the final rung I spun around and assumed I would see Cindy swimming towards the platform.  Nope, she was on the downward part of the bars, holy shit.  I went to the side and encouraged her, she was almost to the end.  Just as I stepped back onto the exit platform, hoping I could pull her in, her grip failed, only a couple rungs from completing it.  I couldn’t believe she got that far.  She was both disappointed and proud at the same time as I hoisted her up.  I told her she had nothing to be disappointed about as I watched multiple men drop in the water far behind where she got to.

This year the dreaded Arctic Enema was much further into the course than previously, not coming up until mile 9.  This was the obstacle that Cindy feared the most due to her fear of water, asthma and extremely low tolerance to cold.  I advised her going into it to just to not think and go, fast.  We got up on top of the tank side by side.  I immediately jumped, far, landing right next to the wall you have to go under.  I stayed under and pulled myself under the wall and quickly got out of the frigid water that was somewhere around 35 degrees.  I looked back assuming Cindy would be either out or almost out as well.

Instead she was still on the far side, shivering and panicked.  The icy water hit her really hard.  She was apologizing to me, saying she was sorry.  She then pushed herself up on the side of the tank, leaving her lower body frozen.  I told her it was ok if she got out and the volunteer was ready to hoist her out.  I was pretty sure she was going to just hop out, she was obviously not in good shape.  However she changed her mind and said she didn’t want to quit.

The TM guy said she could just drop under the water and he would pull her under the wall.  Cindy dropped off the wall and he did just that.  Myself and others were at the far end of the tank to help pull her out since her lower body at this point had been in the water for over a minute.  She was crying when we got her back onto dry land.  Her breathing was all whacked out from the cold but she was just scared from it all.  She expected the ice bath to be hard but not make her almost black out. After a short while she had calmed down enough for her to continue.  We walked a little bit and then resumed our slow but steady run.

Even though I was obviously tired from the long course and obstacles I felt pretty intact other than some bruises, cuts and scrapes.  We were in the home stretch with only two obstacles to go, the Everest 1/4 pipe and Electroshock Therapy.  For the second year in a row I cleared Everest easily, getting up and over with no outside assistance.  I’m quite sure why I had so many problems the first year I did it.  Either it was significantly more slippery or I didn’t run into it hard enough.

After I got up I knelt down to give Cindy a hand.  It just so worked out that Cindy and I were the only ones on the obstacle at the time.  The loud crowd of spectators gave Cindy loud cheers of encouragement which was very cool.  She ran hard at the pipe and got her hand up to the top where I grabbed it just to make sure she didn’t slide back down.  She pulled herself up triumphantly.

So to get down the other side of Everest you have to scale down a “ladder” of 2×4’s, spaced about a foot apart.  Somehow as I was coming down my left foot slipped.  Instinctively I shifted my weight to my right side.  I awkwardly pinned my leg under me, and in doing so fully compressed my right knee, something that it normally will not do because of the scar tissue from years of abuse.  As it compressed I heard a sickening SNAP that along with shooting pain made me think I really f’d something up.

I was pissed off that I hurt myself not only so close to the end but on something as dumb as coming off of an obstacle.  When I got to the bottom at first I could hardly put weight on the leg.  I just limped along for a period of time.  As I walked on it it felt slightly better, good enough that I resumed a slow jog up to the mouth of the shock obstacle.

Once again they made this final obstacle annoying, putting two large mounds in the chute which both slow you down and trip you up.  I went first and didn’t even think about my knee as I tried to get through as quickly as possible.  I actually stumbled and fell at the first mound and then got up and hauled ass over the second one.  I only felt a couple tingles, nothing nearly as severe as the body immobilizing jolts I got last year.

I looked back and Cindy was mid obstacle, looking like she fell as well.  Once again she had the crowd behind her, she got up and hauled ass through the rest of it and ran quickly to the finish line,  passing me easily as I was trying to run without hurting my knee further.  We both snagged our t-shirt, headband and one free beer. We finished the course in right around two and a half hours, a very good time.  We ran the entire time between obstacles.

Before we even had the beers down Cindy was doing the Under Armour challenge station.  You flipped a big tire 6 times, did 15 box jumps and 3 pull ups (for girls) as fast as you can.  She did well, especially considering she just finished the race.  I would have tried it as well but my tweaked knee made me reconsider that option.

We walked around the main area.  Our “lunch” was splitting a funnel cake and downing a bowl of free Wheaties in chocolate milk that they were giving away.  Of course we walked through the overpriced Tough Mudder gear tent but bought nothing but a small sticker for the back of Cindy’s Miata.

I was disappointed to see the Air Force pull up bar was a no show this year meaning my post-Mudder tradition of doing 20 pull ups met an unexpected end. Oh well.

We didn’t stick around all that long after “showering” with a garden hose.  The skies were looking pretty foreboding as rain was in the forecast.  During the drive home that rain arrived.  I was glad we cleared out when we did.   Being in an early wave is so much better for so many reasons, better parking, course is in better shape, less wait at obstacles.  If you are doing a Mudder, do it early.

The drive home went quickly thank goodness, I was beat, even with downing a DD coffee along the way.  We originally had ideas  of going out to see Enders Game Saturday night.  We wisely reconsidered and instead just crashed at the house and watched No Country for Old Men instead. I was beat. My knee, although painful, did not blow up like the year before which is a good thing.  I laid around with an ice pack strapped to the knee to try to minimize any long term effects from whatever I did.

Saturday night I was awakened by the phone around 4AM.  The first time through I didn’t answer it but when it started again I drug myself out of bed, seeing it was PA number.  It was my grandmothers nursing home.  The woman said they were trying to reach my mom but her phone was busy.  I told them that mom takes her phone off the hook at night.  They said they were only authorized to tell my mom details about my grandmother but the nurse told me there has been a change in grandma’s health.

I talked to mom later.  She said that my grandmothers blood sugar levels are sky high and insulin is doing nothing to bring them down.  More than likely she is on the last part of a tragic last decade where Alzeheimers/senility has robbed her of any memories of her past.  I sincerely wish her suffering would have ended a long time ago.  The only people that feel differently are the nursing home bookkeepers.  Old age can  be such a horrible, horrible prison.  I have no desire to become incarcerated within my own withered mind.  I hope grandma’s suffering ends, soon.

Sunday morning I had to catch up on all of the chores which with Cindy’s help went pretty well.  The weather was BEAUTIFUL with dry. mild air pushed around with decent wind.  All the windows in the house were open most of the day.

We decided to do something different and catch Enders Game as a matinee since the Eagles didn’t play until 4PM.  We saw it at Silverspot which is always a treat with it’s luxurious accommodations.  I thought the movie was decent for most of it but sort of fell apart at the end.  I think the last time I can recall thinking Harrison Ford had a strong acting performance was Airforce 1.  Everything since then has just been sort of shitty…

I could see how Enders would make a better book than a movie.  The shortcuts required to make a movie meant certain pivot points in the movie had to be rushed along, resulting in an overall dissatisfying experience.  I left the theater feeling somewhat disappointed. Overall I’d give it a B to a low end B+.

That Eagles game was crazy.  How does a team that scored ZERO touchdown the last two games go on the road, to the west coast, and tack on 49 points against once of the top 10 statistical defense in the league???  I have no idea either but I certainly enjoyed it.  All of a sudden Nick Foles, whom looked totally lost against the Cowboys two games ago now looked like Peyton Manning, picking apart the Raiders for an NFL record tying 7 touchdown passes.  It was just insane and like I was in an alternate universe compared to the drudgery I just witnessed the two prior games.

Foles performance surely has firmly planted him in the starter position for the foreseeable future.  Vick will have a lot of time to rest that tweaked hammy.

Do I think this game signified some sort of remarkable turnaround for the team where they are going to soar to a playoff run?  I highly doubt it but I would LOVE to be flat out wrong.

Yesterday I was treated to this image by my friend Jeremy.  You may wonder exactly wtf it is?  It is a cropped version of his Chrome browser, the top area to be exact, where the tabs are kept.    Once you realize this, you also realize that he had around 100 different internet pages open simultaneously. Wow.

I immediately formed my own ideas about what would drive someone to do something like this however I first posted the image to FB to get other opinions.  Some of the commentary that came back where things like ADDHD, hoarder, fear of commitment, spread too thin(inside joke) and even Illuminati, which made me laugh.  I would certainly throw OCD into that barrel of possible diagnosis as well.

When compared to my own personal surfing preference, once I hit 4 or 5 tabs, it means it’s time to close the ones I no longer need or perhaps open another browser window to separate and organize my internet activity.  The tab hoarder takes a different approach, instead opening tab after tab until he needs a magnifying glass to see what each window contains or Chrome crashes, whichever comes first.

Because of my generally organized tendencies and aversion to procrastination, I find tab hoarding as illogical and borderline manic behavior. However to the tab addict this behavior must feel totally normal and insignificant.  It’s all about perspective.

Last night after work I headed outside to make an attempt at hard mode of this month’s BB challenge, a one arm dead hang.  Holding all of your bodyweight with one hand gets pretty uncomfortable quickly.  I managed to hold on for 1:09, only 2 seconds less than I held last year when I weighed around 10 pounds less.  I was ok with the effort.

I went to bed early last night, I was tired, which is pretty much status quo for me most nights once the clock passes 9 pm. (love being old)  After taking my shower I barely made it through two articles in Wired before I was out like a light.

So Saturday morning I suggested to Cindy that instead of getting up hella early to drive all the way into the club run that we instead run laps at the nearby middle school track.  I used to run this track quite a bit but I haven’t been there since my epic 10 mile Tough Mudder training run last year.  The temps had actually dipped into the high 60’s for the first time in 6 months Saturday morning so I figured getting a little later start would be fine.

The optimal goal was to do 10 miles, splitting it into four 2.5 mile segments for water breaks.  We started off and it didn’t take long for me to start feeling warm and bothered.  Despite the relatively lower air temps, the sun was unobstructed in the clear blue sky and felt like it was melting me.  By the time we got to the 5 mile water break I felt gassed and was debating pulling the plug right there.  I reset my goal to complete one more 2.5 mile segment.

During this segment I felt miserable, I was hot, tired and not in the state of mind I needed to be.  I failed to even complete my revised goal and bailed after exactly 7 miles on my GPS.  Cindy ran 7.5 miles and then for good measure wanted to see how fast she could run a single 400 meter lap.  The answer was, pretty damn fast.  She circled the track in about 1:37 which works out to be just above a 6 minute mile pace.  It was very impressive.

As I was leaning on a recycle bin sucking wind next to one of the light towers I felt something hit my head.   I instinctively reached up with my hand and came back with something black and wet.  I look up and see a starling about 75 feet up on top of the tower.  The damn thing shit on my head.  It was quite the shot from so far up.

So I felt like a failure for missing even my downward shifted goal.  Cindy on the other hand could have kept going I am sure, all the way to 10 miles if I had the energy to do so.  It’s good that she pushes me but frustrating when I don’t answer the bell like I should.

When we got home we were in the driveway and Cindy made a comment about a wasp dive bombing her as she walked by.  For several weeks I have allowed a wasp nest to be built under the left cut out of the garage entrance.  In my sometimes neurotic compassion for animals, I have not knocked it down because of the effort the wasps have put into constructing the nest.  I have walked by it many times without incident so I figured I would just continue to let it go.

So to demonstrate to Cindy that the wasp nest was harmless I walked towards it and stopped less than 6 feet away from it.  I said “Aw, good wasps, good wasps…” in a voice I usually reserve for my conversations with my pets.  Almost the instant I finished speaking, a wasp launched itself from the nest and rocketed at my face, stinging me less than an inch from my right eye.  I stumbled back in disbelief as I flailed at the air.  I could not believe the mf’ing wasp stung me.  Where was a camera when you needed it?

After confirming I was ok, aside from a burning sensation by my eye, Cindy and I lol’d at the irony.  Still, I have not knocked down the nest, but if I get attacked again my benevolence will have reached it’s end.  When I woke up Sunday morning it looked like I was smacked in the right eye, it was all swollen.

On the way to the movies I had one more interaction with nature, this time saving a turtle that was just about to make a very unwise trip into three lanes of traffic.  I spun the SSR around at the first intersection I could and headed back.  I scooped the turtle up, carrying him down to the canal I assume he was trying to reach.  I see so many roadkill turtles.  It angers the hell out of me that people are too lazy, stupid or oblivious to avoid them.  It isn’t like a rabbit or a deer that dashes in the road in front of you, it’s a TURTLE.  Idiots.

The movie we saw was Captain Phillips, the Tom Hanks movie about the 2009 incident where Somali pirates hijacked an American freighter.  As expected Tom delivers a stellar acting performance but that is the norm.  I thought the movie was very well done.  It made me think about the reality of living in a destitute place like Somalia.  Imagine living conditions so awful and options that are so limited that being a pirate was one of only a few choices you have to put food on the table.  People are a product of their environment.  If all you have know your entire life is misery, that becomes your norm. Anyway, good movie, I’d give it an A-.

Over the weekend I put out my limited amount of Halloween decorations.  My favorite item is the blow up pumpkin with the silly looking grin.

The back part of the yard finally got mowed.  It had attained true jungle status from weeks of being untouchable due to the never ending rain.  We finally had nearly a completely dry week allowing water to seep back into the ground.  Even with going slow and the mowing deck at max height the tractor couldn’t come anywhere close to doing a clean cut.  The grass looks like my head would if someone would cut my hair with a butter knife. If time allows this week I may zip back out there on the tractor to do a secondary speed mow.

On Sunday morning I did my second endurance training session of the weekend, doing the 20 mile DD ride.  It’s funny, I have pretty much switched back to riding my dirt cheap, heavy,  Dawes road bike instead of my Trek 2.1.  The aero bars and general body position I use on the Dawes is just a lot more comfortable for longer rides than the extremely low handlebars on the Trek which cause me to put so much weight on my hands.

Sometime in the future I may see if I can simply get a different stem for the Trek but for now it is all Dawes, all the time.

I picked up the girls late morning to spend the day out at the house.  I have stopped giving Nicki “elevator rides” and picking her up for lift assist unless she clearly wants it.  3 times she has peed when I picked her up, acting like she is afraid something bad was going to happen.  She managed to get into the van herself on Sunday but it wasn’t easy.

The Eagles game went surprisingly well.  Both the offense and even the defense (at times) played well which I was glad to see.  Of course I temper my praise with the knowledge that they were playing the 0-4 Buccaneers.  But hey, a win is a win.

There was one moment late in the game that the announcers totally glossed over.  To me it was a totally incredulous (and stupid) decision by Chip Kelly.  The Eagles were ahead by 8 points with three minutes to go and were facing a 4th an inches inside the Bucs 20 yard line, an easy chip shot field goal.  I was in disbelief when I saw he sent the offense back on the field to go for it.

Why the fck would you do that? A field goal makes it a two score game, virtually sealing the win for the Birds.  The Eagles snapped the ball, Foles dropped back to pass and was sacked for a loss.  LUCKILY, the defense was off sides, giving the Eagles a first down.  Now the announcers and the media in general did not identify what a potentially dumb call this was.  Yes, drawing them off sides is a viable strategy in that situation but if that is your intention, you DONT SNAP THE BALL.  You hard count them and if they don’t fall for it you call a time out.  I don’t understand why everyone is ignoring how risky and foolish that decision was.

But hey the Eagles are 3-3 in the horrible NFC East, things could be worse.

Sunday evening I took advantage of the mowed and dried out backyard, taking my Blade MQX out there for some open air flying.    My hope was that the lack of obstacles would allow me to work out some of the issues I am having flying the quad copter.  The good news is the grass makes as a great cushion for crash landings. The bad news is I still am unable to do simple, controlled circles with it.     It is so easy to get disoriented.  I will continue practicing outdoors although that comes with it’s on set of hazards.  Several times a gust of wind sent the Blade soaring in directions I did not anticipate.

Sunday night we finished up watching Avatar in 3D.  It looked so damn sweet on the new tv.  Too bad I was so damn sleepy that I was nodding off and on throughout.

Last night after eating dinner, mowing down some dried out high spots and doing a quick attempt at this month’s BB challenge I wanted to work on familiarizing myself more with the capabilities of my new 3D tv.  After registering the set with LG I dug into the multitude of features, settings and applications available.   I played around with various features including Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Pandora, YouTube and more.

I also played around with the 2D to 3D on the fly conversion while watching some Boardwalk Empire but only saw a subtle difference.  I need to try it on one of my videos, who wouldn’t want Duf in 3D? 🙂

However the coolest thing I discovered was the LG remote tv app for my Iphone.  It allows me to turn my phone into a smart remote, using it to navigate the screens, enter text and move the onscreen mouse with ease, MUCH easier than trying to use to conventional remote control. You can also stream whatever video is on the tv to your phone if the need arises, pretty cool.

The picture on the LED tv is so sharp and bright.  It’s a pure visual orgasm.

My right knee is really annoying me.  I will be fine one second and limping the next.  This morning I woke up and all of a sudden had pain in the knee. 45 minutes later, whatever was getting pinched had moved elsewhere and I was able to walk normally again.  With the Tough Mudder less than a month away this is not a good thing.  I have a feeling I may once again have an elephant sized right knee by the time it’s over.