Category Fitness

So Ali is back in town meaning my bed is no longer shared with a snoring, face licking, black and furry companion.  For the past two weeks I have had the dogs in the house more often than not.  They really enjoy the freedom the house offers them.  I have been leaving one of the lanai doors cracked so they could also venture into the yard and back as they see fit.

It’s always a bittersweet moment when I drop the dogs off after an extended stay.

Last night I got home later than normal.  I had to hurry because I wanted to get one last attempt in at the normal mode of this month’s BB challenge before daylight ran out.  I jumped right into it with little warm up.

I was disappointed I only shaved a few seconds off my time earlier in the month.  My pull up bar felt slimy/slippery on my hands because of the damp grass I was doing the push up sets on.  When my grip on the bar does not feel solid my reps suffer.

If you want to see the sets (10 sets of 5 pull ups and 5 push ups), click here.

Although my energy level feels pretty close to normal I am still subject to coughing fits and excessive nose blowing from whatever illness I came down with after Troy’s visit.  The one nostril actually was so raw it was bloody.

I don’t have much else floating through my brain at the moment.

So on Friday I was walking back out to the van from the grocery store.  I reach in my pocket for my keys and come up empty, feeling only my wallet.  I then dive into the other pocket and only feel the Iphone.  This can’t be the case, especially after losing a $50 bill on Tuesday.  I feel again in my jean pockets, knowing that my huge clump of keys are far too big to miss.  Logic would say they are also too big to not notice the noise they would make if they fell out.

So I start looking through the grocery bags, wondering if placed the keys in a bag and simply forgot? Nope, the bags were keyless.  Now my mind was starting to race, retracing my steps in the grocery store, trying to remember if I pulled them out at anytime.  Then I thought about what a HUGE pain in the ass it was going to be if I did truly lose them.

So the only thing I could think of is I pulled the keys out at the register to get my wallet out.  Surely I just left them there.  I marched back in the store quickly, leaving my cart by the side of the van.  I saw no keys and asked the cashier if she saw them, nope….. SHIT.  I was considering retracing my steps through the grocery store but I knew I had not dug anything out of my pockets while shopping.  I went to the customer service counter, hoping a kind Samaritan found the keys and turned them in, nope.

So I walked backed to the van, dejected, not quite sure what I was going to do.  As I was standing there running through my dwindling options I spot something on the ground about 30 feet away.  It looked like the red swipe card for my gym.  I walked towards it, thinking I couldn’t be so lucky.  I was, there my huge key chain laid.  I was amazed it could hit the parking lot without my noticing.  It had to happen when I was pushing the cart back out, that is the only noise that could have hidden the sound of impact.  I felt very fortunate to be hitting .500 in finding lost items for the week.

Since I got a lot of the chores done while I was sick (still am blowing nose and coughing), I had more free time on Saturday than normal.  Yes I suppose it would have been nice to use that time to allow myself to relax and recover from the annoying cold symptoms.  But that wasn’t happening, instead I decided it was time to get out the pressure washer.

However prior to firing up the washer I constructed a barrier around the pool utilizing chairs, cushions and pool tools.  The purpose of the barrier was to allow me to let the Roombas sweep the pool deck.

Since buying the Neato almost a year ago my Roombas have been collecting dust.  The Neato just does a much better job and requires nearly zero maintenance compared to the Irobot machines which require fastidious cleaning and maintenance to continue running.

I let the Dirt Dog, a robot specifically designed for outdoor/workshop cleaning and a conventional Roomba designed for indoor cleaning loose on the deck.  I wasn’t really concerned about using the indoor Roomba outdoors.  If it breaks, it breaks.

  I was not very happy when I saw I had a small hole in my pool barrier which the Dirt Dog unfortunately sniffed out.  I found it laying dead on the bottom of the pool.  Roombas do have edge detection sensors, designed to keep them from driving over edges.  However the smooth pool deck does not always allow enough stopping power, allowing the wheels to skid to the point where the bot tips over.

I know this because I have had it happen before, three or four times before actually.  That is the reason that I started creating physical barriers instead of relying on electronics to stop the robot.  My prior experience also assured me that just because the robot is underwater, that doesn’t mean it is necessarily dead for good.  Of the other pool mishaps, only once was I unable to get the robot up and running again.  The rehabilitation plan has been simply letting it bake in the sun to totally dry out and manually turn the various motors to get them un-siezed and working.

I set the bot on the table and hoped once again it would survive the drowning.

The main focus of the pressure washing were the storage sheds, both of them were suffering from the algae and black mildew that come with Florida climates, especially the back of the sheds that get no direct sunlight.

Before starting the pressure washing I finally got around to removing the two solar floodlights that were on the large shed for at least 5 or 6 years but only worked for the first year or so.  I’m not sure why I never got around to pulling them down before Saturday.  I did keep their solar panels, hoping for an Uncle Randy type of inspiration to hit me where I could use them to power something else.

The new pressure washer is really nice, the extra 600 to 800 PSI (3000 psi washer) really helps blast off crud.  I even took the extra step of climbing up on the roof of the big shed and blasting it as well, something that hasn’t been done in over a year.  The before and after shots show the dramatic difference some water pressure can make.

So once I was done with the small shed I still had gas in the tank.  As is often the case, pressure washing breeds more pressure washing.  After all I figure if I have it dragged out and hooked up I might as well pressure wash other stuff too.

I wound up blasting the patio stones in front of the water equipment, a few of the fence posts, the castle wall around Nicki’s palm trees and the dog deck.  In total I was probably out there for at least 3 hours.  I should have worn sunblock, I got a little fried in the face.

Saturday night I went to a monster truck show a mile away at the county fairgrounds.   I was quite surprised just how full it was, all 7 or 8 grandstands were stuffed with people.  The show was entertaining.  In addition to the monster trucks and their ear bleeding, car smashing fun, I got to see see impressive motocross stunts and quad runner racing.

I thought it was quite funny that end of the first quad race there was a fake, wrestling style on mic interview where the winner of the heat called out another racer he referred to as “fat boy”.  He challenged the guy to a solo race.  As expected, “fat boy” squeaked out a win in the last turn.

Over the weekend I noticed a distinct set of tires tracks that swerved off the road, across the driveway and back.   This more than likely drunk moron was at least 40 feet into my yard.  He only missed the parked vehicles by less than 10 feet.  I guess the good news is he didn’t smack the mailbox at least.  Although if he did, he would have had two very large rocks waiting to destroy his suspension. There a bunch of idiots that live in my area unfortunately.

During the day Sunday I got around to playing with my huge and heavy tires.  There are many ways they can be utilized in work outs.  My big challenge yesterday was flipping it about 125 feet out and back.  Flipping the 300 pound tire got tough very quickly.  My eventual goal is to be able to flip it to the fence line and back.  After that the goal is to do it again, faster.

On Sunday night I attended another Tarpons game.  Once again the game was woefully attended and had a woefully lopsided outcome.  The Tarpons won 62-0.  The game did include probably one of the most exciting plays I have seen in indoor football.

The Sarasota Thunder were close to actually scoring, on something like 5 yard line.  One of their players fumbled the ball which bounced into a Tarpon players arms in the end zone.  For a second you could tell the player was thinking about just kneeling down.  Instead he changes his mind and starts weaving his way through the crowd of bodies.  He used some dazzling moves and a well timed lateral to another player to return the ball all the way back for another Tarpons touchdown.  It was something to see.

There are a lot of very out of shape players in arena football.  However the Thunder had one that had the deadly combo of being  very short yet very fat.  I mean the kid couldn’t have been over 5’6″ but he had to be pushing 300 pounds.  He only lasted half the game, in the second half a slightly taller, slightly less heavy guy was wearing the same jersey.

The game got so bad that the Tarpons did an impromptu Harlem Shake routine in the middle of the game, drawing a 10 yard delay of game penalty.

If I had any doubt about the long term viability of the team, it was answered last night.  I am sure the Tarpons are done after this year.  The owner, whom I talked to on the phone and via email before, was in front of us talking to some other fans.  I asked him how his wireless internet company we talked about was doing.  He told me it was dead, he had to bail on it because he was putting any money he had into keeping the Tarpons afloat.  He told me how he has sold a bunch of stuff, including his Hummer in order to pump money into the team.  I kind of felt bad for him as I looked around at the seats that were 85% empty.

Hell I’ll be surprised if the team/league doesn’t fold before the year is over.  You can’t get away from the feeling that everything is being held together with shoestring and bubblegum.  Part of the problem is the dartboard schedule that has been changed a half dozen times since the 2013 line up was announced.  Part of it is the lack of quality games.  Ridiculous blow outs like this game just aren’t fun to watch, even if you are on the winning side of things.  There might be one or two teams outside the Tarpons that don’t totally suck.

It’s a shame, arena football can be a lot of fun and for the money is a good entertainment value.  It’s too bad that it just can’t seem to grab substantial fan base in my area.

So I left for my quick east coast visit with Randall and Tracy late Friday afternoon.  Time was of the essence since the Marlin – Phillies game started at 7.  I wanted to get across the alley as quickly as possible.  That plan was quickly derailed when I saw no less than 8 cars pulled over westbound with another half dozen state troopers waiting to nail more in a MASSIVE speed trap.  I was paranoid that a similar trap was waiting for me around some corner so I kept my speed generally no higher than 75 for most of the drive.

Despite my lower than anticipated cruising speed in the SSR I pulled into Tracy’s driveway right around 6.  After dumping my stuff and quickly changing we headed right out the door.  For some reason I thought it wouldn’t take that long to get to Miami, even on a Friday evening.  Boy what  a stupid thought that was. Traffic was in a word, awful.

I was quite glad Randall was driving.  He has adapted to the “everyone is an asshole” driving style which I simply can not stand.  This style requires non stop hard acceleration, hard braking and squeezing into any tiny opportunity to get your vehicle in front of the thousands clogging the roadway. It was crazy.

The traffic resulted in us not getting into the building until the third inning.  Before finding our seats we hit the food stand, I was hungry by then.  Two personal pizzas and two beers cost a FCKING ridiculous $37, a theme that repeated throughout the night.

So when Randall told me about the tickets he bought I quickly looked at a seating chart and thought they were good seats on the lower level somewhere.  Well I had no clue just how good they were.  We descended and descended until we were 5 rows off the first base line, the best seats I ever had at a MLB game, kudos to Randall.

I have been to Marlins stadium before but when I did the roof was closed.  Friday night it was wide open, giving the stadium a different feel.  To be honest, because of the high humidity I wouldn’t have minded if they closed it up and flipped on the AC.

The seats were fantastic, I couldn’t believe that Juan Samuel, the Phillies first base coach whom I remembered quite well from his days as a shortstop/2nd baseman, was within 50 feet of us.  It was very cool.  Being so close to the action was a new experience.

The Marlins, despite being in a brand new stadium for only the second year already have fallen right back into piss poor attendance.  The stadium might have been 20% full.  Of course the executives don’t help matters when they sell off their quality players year after year.  They gutted what was a potentially solid line up after the end of last year.  That and Miami has always been just a terrible place in terms of support for their football and baseball teams. We were surrounded by as many Phillies fans as Marlins fans.

I had decided, despite the ridiculous prices, I wanted to drink some beer.  I kept the flow of Bud Lights going for most of the game.  A loose wallet inventory at the end of the night revealed that in total I had spent around $90 on food/beer, crazy.

The alcohol kept what was sort of a boring game, exciting.  I had my first legitimate shot ever to get a foul ball, ironically I didn’t try to get it.  When it came our way I was pretty drunk and had an almost full Bud Light in my hand.  The ball came bouncing our way and popped up in a trajectory that was almost exactly over my head.  For whatever reason I was more interested in not spilling my beer than catching the ball.

Randall, who was on my right and a young guy that was on my left had different ideas.  They both sprang up and grabbed wildly for the ball.  The kid outreached Randall but the ball bounced off his hand and into the lap of a Phillies fan a couple seats to my right.  I probably could have easily outreached both Randall and the kid but if I caught the ball I would have wound up giving it away to a close by kid anyway.

The game wound up going extra innings with the Phillies winning in the 10th after Chase Utley hit a RBI triple.  Randall and I stuck around for the post game fireworks.  It seemed weird the Marlins put on a fireworks show after a loss.  As a Phillies fan it seemed totally appropriate. 🙂

Randall and I didn’t get back to Tracy’s house until a very late hour.  I don’t think my head hit the pillow until a little after midnight.  I was exhausted and drunk.  This was an issue because of a commitment I made earlier in the night.

Somehow I missed the fact that Tracy was training for her first ever full marathon, in Alaska, no less.  She had mentioned she was doing a 16 mile training run Saturday, starting at a bright and early 5:30 am.  I had my SSR meet up on Saturday but it didn’t start until 9:30.  Some quick math in my head worked out that I could do both without a major problem.  Too bad part of that math didn’t figure in that I never ran 16 miles before.

So despite getting home late, drunk and tired, I set my alarm on the phone for 4:30 am and pulled myself out of bed.  When Tracy saw me up she laughed and reminded me I totally didn’t have to come.  I told her it was fine.  Once I mentally commit to doing something, even something ill advised as this, I have a hard time derailing it.

A rational person would have never even considered doing this.  The farthest I have ever run is the 13.1 mile half marathon distance and the last time I did that was at the Hooters Half Marathon the first weekend of March.  Since then I have run 6 or 7 miles, once a week.  Jumping up to a 16 mile run from that level  would be stupid in any conventional running wisdom book.

Tracy was doing the run with her local Team in Training group.  She was concerned that they would be keeping a pace she wouldn’t be able to maintain which is why I offered to tag along, to keep her company.

So we showed up a little before the run start time.  They had a nice spread of pre-run food and drink available.  I had heard of team in training before but I never knew the level of support they offered.  They had several groups out on the road, different pace groups, ranging from walking pace to fast running pace.  Each group included at least one Team in Training coach or captain who was responsible for making sure the group was ok as well as offering encouragement and advice.

So we headed out into the dark streets, walking for what felt like close to a half mile before we started running.  The pace was intentionally slow since the distance covered was going to be quite long.  Tracy was worried I would mind running so slow, I assured her I didn’t care, especially when venturing into distances I never had seen before.

The Team in Training style of run isn’t something that would appeal to me if I was training for a race.  There was a lot of stopping during the run, too much for my tastes but something that works better for a less competitive mindset.  Not only did T in T have the food and water at the start, they had no less than a half dozen water stops set up along the course.  They really put a lot of effort into supporting runners in their program.

The mileage early felt ok but not great.  It didn’t take long for my right hip to start throbbing.  As we got into double digit mileage everything else from the waist down chimed in with their mutual dislike of being asked to carry my body along for such a long distance.

During the run there were lots of “interesting” people to see.  The most memorable for me was the guy that had what looked to be a male “tramp stamp” on his pelvis, easily visible above his low hanging shorts.  There was a 10 minute section of the run where we were subjected to the maddening sound of sea wall being driven deep into the sand with a pile driver.  Damn that was annoying.

Although the pace was never enough to make me really breathe heavy, except when we went up some bridges, my legs felt like total cement as the run came to a close.  I just wanted to stop the pain.  Finally, roughly three and a half hours after we started, the 16 miles was behind us.

In my head, there was too much stop and go for me to count it as an official run but that is just the way my brain works.  My body disagreed, I was beat.

By the time we got back I had to jump in the shower and then head immediately out to the SSR event, despite an overwhelming urge to just crash on a couch for a couple hours.  I didn’t wind up getting on site until after 10:30.  Since I wasn’t having any scheduled work done it wasn’t really a big deal.

The format of this event was different than the last tech session which was very hands on.  At this location we had use of a garage that was fully staffed with mechanics whom were tasked with doing most of the work for the SSRFanatics.  To be honest, I would have preferred a more hands on event.  Even so, a lot of the fanatics were giving the mechanics tips on how to complete certain tasks since they had more hands on experience with the trucks.

I basically did a lot of observing, coffee drinking and donut eating along with mingling with the other SSR guys.  One guy showed me this cool rag/cloth that can give similar results to clay bar’ing your car with much less work.  Another guy showed me the way he handled the fading rubber on the running boards.  The group is filled with endless tips and tricks.

I bought a set of cool LED projection lights.  Once installed they project the SSR logo on the ground.  I’m not quite sure how/when I will install them but it should be kind of cool once I do.

I did bring my Craiglist, factory chrome wheel along, hoping that maybe I would be able to get it swapped out with the badly pitted wheel that is on the truck now.  Luckily they had a kid free that could do it for me.  He moved the tire to the “new” wheel without major incident.

The wheel that was pulled was in the worst shape of the 4 by far.  To be honest the wheels now look good enough that I might not even feel the need to look for long term replacements.

I was feeling increasingly zombie-like as the event went on due to the long run.  I cut out around 1:30.  I definitely enjoyed myself more at the first get together but I still had fun regardless. You can see all my pics from the event here.

When I got back to the house I snuck in a quick nap after an ice cream/grocery store run with Randall and Tracy.  Randall and Tracy were invited to a birthday party Saturday night.  I told Randall I was fine tagging along.  With enough alcohol I can manage to blend in, even in a situation where I don’t really know anyone.  Randall brought a number of BLP’s to assist me in the process.

The party was fun, held at a cute house that was on a canal, complete with a dock and boat.  Everybody there was nice and I never had an issue bouncing around between various groups.  I drank every BLP that was there and ate way too much of the very good food laid out on the table.

It felt good to sleep Saturday night.  I woke up at a very late for me, 8:30 am.  I had told Randall I was heading out late morning.  That gave us time to go out and have breakfast.  Tracy had suggested we go to a place she heard a lot of good stuff about named OB House.

We arrived and saw a big crowd waiting outside.  Tracy put in our name and was told we had about a 30 minute wait.  Randall and I walked around a bit while we were waiting, first to take a look at a city wide bike rental thing where you can grab a bike from one location and return it to another.

We then walked by the science museum/Imax theater.  The museum includes this incredibly cool perpetual machine type thing where balls make their way along a wire mesh track that is HUGE.  I could have sat and watched it for a long time.

We finally got to sit down, the wait was probably closer to 45 minutes.  The indoor seating area was pretty small but cozy.  The one negative that hit me right away was the noise level.  The hard floor and walls teamed with a small area made for a very loud space requiring substantial effort to make the person across the table from you hear what you were saying.

The food itself lived up to the billing, all three of us liked what we ordered quite a bit.  The $8 orange juice made me cringe a bit but Randall was nice enough to pick up the bill. I threw down the tip.  As we were leaving we were interacting with his incredibly friendly and cute french bulldog.

He LOVED people and would go from person to person looking for affection.  He was so cute.  We also ran into some other friends of Randall and Tracy that were coming as we were going.

So once we got back I packed up and got ready to roll.  I thanked Tracy and Randall for the hospitality as always.  It was great to see them.  I had a lot of fun jammed into a small block of time.

The ride back across the state was entirely top down despite the bright sun and hot, muggy air.  I arrived back at the house with a toasted face, not a good thing for someone with a history of basal cell skin cancer.  I spent the rest of my Sunday attending to only the bare essential must do chores.

Next weekend is going to follow a similar blueprint with Troy rolling into town on Saturday for a 4 day visit.

If you want to see all of my pictures from the weekend look here.

On Saturday I handled most of the stuff that needed to get done for the weekend, including tending the garden.  I harvested another big load of broccoli.  My broccoli crop this year has been the most productive in recent memory.  I bet I have been pulling florets for close to 3 months at this point with no signs of it slowing down.

I had the girls out at the house with me most of the day Saturday.  As always, their presence makes anything I am doing better.

I also had a chance to watch Battleship, the latest Netflix dvd that was sitting on my counter for a week or so.  It was a quality action film that kept me entertained from start to finish.  It’s a strong rental if you like this type of genre, B+.

I had to do the prep for the big 10K race I was timing on Saturday.  With this race I take on some additional responsibilities beyond race registration and timing, namely making sure the registration area is set up and running efficiently.  I got the truck all loaded up and ready to go Saturday night, I wanted to be on the road EARLY.

The alarm clock went off at a very unwelcomed 3:30 AM but I pulled myself out of the sheets, the drive to get the task accomplished taking control.  I was on site at 4:30 AM, a full 3 hours before the race start and an hour earlier than I normally would show up for any other race.

I was the only person there other than the security guard for the Philharmonic who let me inside so I could set up the registration tables.  I worked solo for nearly an hour, it was kind of weird, knowing that in a short period of time the area was going to be swarming with people.  I enjoyed the calm before the storm. By the time others started to stream in I had the registration area ready to go and had done everything I could until the equipment truck showed up.

The timing for the race went well, even with over 800 runners signed up.  Other than a few minor things everything ran smoothly.  I got off site by 10 AM, not bad for a 10K event.  Unfortunately I still had a bunch of race work to do once I got home as well.  This race has some additional requirements, similar to the half marathon which require me to do some data massaging.  I had a frustrating issue getting a file created for the race photographer, something I had done before, which made it more frustrating.

Right was in the midst of this aggravation I received an email from a race participant.  The man was complaining that we based age group awards on gun time (time when race starts to when you cross the finish line), instead of chip time. (time you cross timing mats at start line to the finish line).   I responded back to him saying we always base awards on gun time, thinking that would be enough to satisfy him.  No, instead I get this back in a few minutes.

Thanks for the reply. But I remain curious as to the reason?

I find it useful to be able to compare my true chip time time amongst the entire field of participants.

If GCR uses a computer program – this ranking can be done in seconds.

Just some feedback.

Well maybe I was just cranky from being up since 3:30 or it was the building frustration from my data export problems, but these few sentences really annoyed the shit out of me.  Especially the suggestion that I could meet his needs in a few seconds if we used a “computer program”.

I wound up deleting my original draft email which was chock full of sarcasm.  Instead I took a few seconds to locate an article that explained that the primary reason this is done is because it is the official way a race is to be scored by the the USATF, the governing body of the sport.  Luckily, this response was sufficient to answer his curiosity and end the message thread. If it would have continued beyond that my inner smart ass would have run wild.

I finally figured out my data issue and decided to go blow off some stress in the SSR.  I hadn’t driven the truck for over two weeks.  I made a road trip up to the outlets.  A few hard acceleration starts where I chirped the tires in second gear followed by top down highway cruising with Linkin Park blaring was all I needed to ease my bad mood.

The outlet trip was to buy stuff for one of my Bar-baric buddies in Russia.  He won a contest back in January but his prize somehow managed to vanish in the shady Russian postal system, never arriving at his door.  So I bought some new prizes and am hopeful they arrive safely this time around.

On the way back I had a weird urge.  I wanted to find a set of pull up bars and do some reps.  I remembered someone telling me that Pine Ridge Middle School had a decent set of pull up bars as well as other outdoor exercise stations.  After finding the school I walked around, having no idea where the stuff was located.

The school grounds looked a bit dated by Collier County standards which has a number of modern, lavishly equipped schools dotting the area.  In contrast this place looked like it had been around for at least 30 years.

Finally I found a huge field behind the school and spotted the pull up bars.  The bars, like everything else outside looked old.  I hopped on and did 20 pull up reps, it felt solid enough.

I then started walking around the perimeter and came across 10 more fitness stations, including monkey bars, parallel bars and even a balance beam.  I did a little something at each station.  I imagined how cool it would be to make a full workout of the circuit.  I estimate the run around the outside of the field is at least a half mile long, probably longer.  Repping and running from station to station would be a great way to spend an hour or two.

This was the first place I have found outside of my back yard in the Naples area that has legit calisthenics equipment.  I was very pleased with my discovery.  If you want to see the pics of the different stuff you can see it here.

The combo of the SSR ride and the the quick bodyweight work out soothed my inner beast.  It was a good weekend.

So I picked up Ali from the airport and dropped the dogs back off at her place yesterday afternoon.  It’s always a weird feeling after I have the dogs for a few days and the house returns to just being me and the bird that hates me.  Sure it’s nice to not have the Neato choked with dog hair, not picking up dog toys that Sadie leaves strewn through out the house and not deal with other ancillary dog related items.  But despite that I still found myself feeling sad as I got ready for bed without two dogs already nestled in, one on top of the bed, the other underneath it.

Last night after work I got the idea in my head that I wanted to set a new personal best in push up reps.  I have been going through one of those brief monthly periods where my physical energy level is highest so I figured I should take advantage of it.

My prior best in chest to floor push ups was 60 reps, accomplished a month or so ago.  I flipped on Linkin Park and had at it, not stopping until I squeezed out a 75th rep some 3 minutes later, obliterating my prior best.  I am hoping 2013 will be like last year where I keep setting personal bests, regardless of how high the pile of ripped off calendar pages gets.

I finally got to see the season finale of Walking Dead and the premiere of Game of Thrones.  Walking Dead was awesome as usual although as expected I have a lot of curiosity about how they are going to twist the plot from here based on what went down.  Game of Thrones was excellent as well and made me quite glad I have something to step right in to almost fill Walking Dead’s shoes.

So I posted some of my online chat interaction with a Comcast rep yesterday.  This interaction was spurred by my seeing the latest bill from Comcast which had rocketed up to more than $60 for just internet service.  When Ali and I first split I had secured a 12 month promo rate for internet that was dirt cheap, $29.99 although it was for the “Performance” internet which is not as fast as their “Blast” service. So anyway, just as I have done in the past, I utilized Comcast’s online chat system to try to secure a new promo rate, $60 for just internet is pretty outrageous in my opinion.

So as you read the chat log you saw I made no progress with my online interaction with Willmore.  The best he could offer was a measly $5 off the full rate and when I asked to be transferred to his supervisor to further pursue things, he flat out refused.

You keep hearing how Comcast is losing market share by the truckload.  I was sort of surprised Willmore was so willing to piss me off.  His suggestion was that I contact the local office to see if I could get a better deal which made no sense.  Comcast is Comcast, why do I need to jump around the same company looking for a better deal?

So I got off the chat finally after wasting at least a half hour and called up my local office.  I explained that I needed to save money on my internet bill else I would have to look at lower cost alternatives like Century Link DSL.  The guy I talked to said he wasn’t seeing any good promos available but suggested he transfer me to the “retention” department since they supposedly have more flexibility.  I said fine.

I was on hold FOREVER, I bet it was 10-15 minutes until someone picked up.  Evidently Comcast has quite a few people that need to be “retained”.  The woman I got on the phone was nice enough but it became quickly apparent she either was not all that sharp or had just started there and was getting trained.

She had absolutely no grasp of what options she had available to her, she was just flipping through screens and asking me the same questions two, three, four times.  For whatever reason I never flipped the prick switch on for this woman, calling her out for being absolutely terrible at her job.  I guess because I could tell she wasn’t trying to be incompetent. I just patiently hung on the phone for a long, long, long time.

In total I think I spent close to an hour on the phone with this woman, literally smacking myself in the forehead in frustration with the receiver towards the end.  Who knows, maybe this is an intentional maneuver by Comcast, man the phones with incompetent people so you get so frustrated you just hang up and pay the damn bill.

So the end result of all of this was my getting Blast internet and digital cable for 49.99 for 6 months.  As you may know, my house has been running off of an HD antenna for quite awhile, I have no real need for conventional cable tv anymore but if they are going to throw it, fine.  I might hook it up in one room of the house although it will take some creative tweaking of my attic splitter configuration.

Needless to say, the experience yesterday lowered my already low opinion of Comcast.

Yesterday was my last night with the girls, Ali flies home today.  Just as I have many times in the past few days, I hung out in the back yard with the dogs for an extended period of time.  Nicki really seems to enjoy yard hang out time now, as much if not more than anytime I can recall in her life.

She loves to alternate between chewing on sticks, rolling around on and eventually sleeping in the grass.  After Sadie and I went inside, Nicki remained in the yard happily snoozing away.  She particularly loves laying on the St Augustine parts of the yard.

After awhile I went back outside and snapped a couple pictures of her, this was my favorite.

Part of my time outside was spent shooting various footage for this month’s BB forums challenge, take a look at normal mode here if you like.

Today I had a physical, my first one in over 5 years.  I really have a dislike of going to the doctor and have been lucky that I have a healthy history that hasn’t required me to visit doctors on a regular basis.  Well the harsh reality is at 45 years old you NEED to get checked out now and then as a preventative measure.

The worst part of this for men that are approaching or past their 40th birthday is the adding of a DRE (digital rectal exam) to the physical.  When I was younger I thought a “turn your head and cough” hernia check was bad enough.  A DRE is the ultimate in male humiliation.

This was my second time enduring the procedure.  If there is a small consolation, this time around it was not as painful as my initial foray into ass play.  I just kept reminding myself that this guy does this same thing countless times, it’s like me sending an email.  The probing was done in less than 10 seconds, thankfully.

In a couple weeks I will hear the results of the blood work.  I am hoping I can wait another 5 years until having to submit to the humiliation once again.

Today is the one year anniversary of when I announced my marital separation on the blog.  I can not a believe 365 days have raced by already…

So late last week I received an email from Facebook saying that I had just hit 100 likes on my Dufisthenics FB page. Dufisthenics is a bodyweight fitness oriented blog that I have had going for over a year. Anyway, Facebook said that they were giving me $50 in Facebook ad credits that I could use to promote the site.

I was kind of skeptical of the effectiveness of FB paid ads but if it wasn’t going to cost me anything I figured I might as well try it out.  I set up my ad and budgeted it to use $10 of ad dollars per day for 5 days.   It didn’t take very long till I received an email notification that I had a new Dufisthenics like.  Shortly I received another, and another, the flow of new likes was very steady.  All of a sudden Dufisthenics was getting in front of all of these people I had no connection to whatsoever.

Now 4 days into my ad campaign, I look at the stats for my ad.  The click through rate was a small 1/4 of 1 percent, but it was put in front of close to 7000 people. That tiny percentage has now more than doubled my total likes on the page which now sits around 225.   That is a HUGE response.  I am now a FB ad believer. The trick now is posting content that these new FB followers find interesting.

Saturday morning I had a race to time, the only event on the calendar that is actually held on the beach.  It is my least favorite event because of the clean up involved after the race.  Not only did I have to clean the very sandy timing mat, I also had to wash every timing chip that was used since they all had a a gritty coating.

Other than clean up, the timing of the event went smoothly.  I was off site a little after 9AM.

I made arrangements to go see a movie with Ali Saturday night.  In the back of my mind I thought it might be nice if I got a short nap in beforehand.  Unfortunately my workload had no breaks in it.  By the time I got done doing all of the post race clean up, weeding, mowing and weed whacking the property I had about 25 minutes left to take a shower and head out the door.

The movie we decided to see was Olympus has Fallen, starring Gerard Butler, the man who indirectly got me interested in bodyweight work outs after reading about the “300 workout” many of the actors in the film 300 participated in.  King Leonidas is one of my favorite characters of all time.

So anyway the premise of the movie is North Koreans manage to attack the White House and the only thing between them and success is Gerard Butler.  The movie had all of the ingredients of an action film I normally like, non-stop action, crazy special effects and violence. But in this case a rare thing happened, the film actually went a little too heavy on the graphic violence for my tastes.

There were way too many and unnecessary up close and personal shots.  Ok fine, if you want to show a few head shots to portray the brutality of a scene, fine.  But it seemed the film pigged out on head shots and was over indulgent in gratuitous violence.   Coming from me, someone whom has grown up on violent films, that is saying a lot.  For me it clearly stepped over the line, a line which I didn’t really know existed although the last Rambo movie probably crossed it as well.

The movie certainly didn’t do much to make me feel good about the fighting ability of the secret service.  I find it hard to believe the agents would come marching out of a narrow doorway revolutionary war style as human target practice when a North Korean heavy artillery machine gun is ripping holes into the front of the building.

Gerard Butlers character seemed like he was a mutant combo of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He killed Koreans like he was tying his shoes.  I love Gerard but damn it was a little silly, even for me.

After the movie I heard the mostly senior crowd making comments about it, some saying they thought the premise of North Korea launching a ground attack on the White House as ludicrous while others said after 9-11 nothing was out of bounds.  I was somewhere in the middle.

So anyway, overall the overuse of violence as a story telling tool took away from my overall enjoyment of the movie but it definitely delivered on excitement, drama and adrenalin. B+  I kind of expected Ali to be more turned off by the violence than she was.  She wrote it off as the way the world is, always turning up the (violence) dial until it hits the final detente.

Sunday morning I originally had ideas of doing a long approximately 25 mile ride followed by a swim at the water park.  However when I woke up the skies looked very stormy and the trees were getting blown around.  I also got a later start than I planned so I modified my plans down to the standard 12.5 mile ride and a 1200 swim.

On the ride out I had the ferocious wind at my back.  I enjoyed being pushed to speeds over 25 mph at times but knew I was going to be paying dearly on the ride back in.  I was right.  The ride back was brutal.

I spent the entire time down on my drops, trying to make my long frame as aerodynamic as possible.  At times gusts knocked my speed all the way down into the 11’s.  There were several moments where I just wanted to stop, my quads and hips were burning.

The lighting fast first half of the ride followed by the pulling a parachute second half averaged out to about 17.5 mph overall for the ride.  I was surely glad I opted for doing the short course, I was exhausted.  The 1200 swim went pretty well.  My speed actually wasn’t as strong as the week before but my endurance felt better.

Late yesterday afternoon I went to the opening game for the Tarpons.  My season ticket seats are in a nice spot although there were plenty of other open seats available.  If I were to guess the place might have been 20% full.  The game was close, something unusual when compared to last season when every regular season game we saw was a huge blowout win.  The Tarpons prevailed in the end, holding on to a narrow 5 point lead by snagging an interception in the final minute.

It’s been very cool watching FGCU, which is only 12 miles up the highway from us, have their historic run in the NCAA tournament.  The school only came into existence in 1997 and only become eligible for the tourney last year.  Their success is really going to put the school on the map and should have a huge positive impact on their future recruiting efforts.  Our entire area has Eagle Fever.

I picked up the dogs on the way home from work.  Nicki has developed this weird behavior when I get them now from dog daycare.  She comes over to the door of the truck but then lays down, like she doesn’t want to get in the truck.  It’s weird.  So I scoop her up and place her on the front seat and she then makes her way into the back behind my seat like she always did.  I don’t know what the reason is for her latest quirk, she has a lot of them.

When I got home I headed outside to try my hand at BB mode of this month’s forum challenge.  The weather was fantastic.  The temperature was in the upper 70’s and the sky was a deep, rich blue with hardly a cloud in the sky.  It was the kind of setting that just made you feel good being outside.

I remember one thing that I always appreciated when I first moved to Florida was just how awesome the blue skies are, much more so than I ever recall living in PA for over 30 years.  It’s also something that I suppose I take for granted most of the time, now that I have lived in Florida for over a dozen years.  For whatever reason, last night I appreciated it.

The girls appreciated the weather as well.  They were quite content to hang out in the yard as long as I was out there.

By the time I ate dinner, caught an episode of Kitchen Nightmares and cleaned up the night was almost over.  I closed down my Tuesday watching this week’s Walking Dead episode.

Friday night after work Ali dropped the dogs off at the house so we could go check out this years version of the Collier County Fair.  Although we aren’t living under the same roof we still share our bizarre interest in the fair.  When we left the house the sun was up, I felt plenty warm in my jeans and Big Dogs long sleeve shirt.  Grabbing a sweatshirt felt totally unnecessary.

I don’t think we ever attended the fair on a Friday night, wow was it busy.  We merged into a long line of cars waiting to get into the fairgrounds.   Once we parked and got inside the gate we immediately saw an act going on we were interested in, a dog frisbee show.  We came in on the tail end of the show but what we saw was pretty cool.  This couple rescues dogs, trains them, and then adopts them out to families to the tune to about 20 dogs a year.  That is awesome.

We walked through the tent that is “church row” .  It houses 5 or 6 church stands including the anti-abortion people.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t go to a fair looking to be “saved”.

As soon as the sun went down I knew I was going to regret not grabbing an auxiliary article of clothing for my upper body.  The temps were hurtling down quickly.  If I am cold that means Ali was frozen.

We walked through the animal area once again.  Last years fair actually was the moment in time when I decided to stop eating beef, pork, and poultry products.  This year simply reenforced that feeling.  If you take the time to observe cows and pigs, especially pigs, you can see that they are not dumb animals devoid of intelligence or feeling.

Ali and I were especially touched by these two pigs that were laying snout to snout in a reassuring manner, similar to the way Nicki and Sadie will do.

We saw two more animal acts while we were there, bears and bengal tigers.  I felt much better about the bear act.  The couple that ran it are local and described the open 2.5 acre habitat their bears roam on.   The tigers got stuffed back into these tiny compartments in a trailer.  I have a feeling they spend the majority of their time confined in a similar manner.

We walked into the heart of the carnies where the majority of the rides and games of (little) chance reside.  Ali and I were impressed in the rides this year in both quantity and quality, although we didn’t get to ride any.  Luckily since there were a lot of people at the fair, we didn’t have as many solicitations from bored carnies as in years past.

Part of the fair experience is downing fair food.  We warmed up with some pizza that was low quality, even for fair food.  We finished up with arepa’s, which is two corn patties with cheese in between.  Those were better than the pizza but by the time I finished up what was left over from Ali’s, I had enough fair food.

Last year I greatly enhanced my fair experience by hitting the beer tent pretty hard.  I tried to revisit that strategy but I only downed a single beer.  I was just too damn cold.  Unfortunately the cold weather sort of steered us towards the exit a little quicker than we may have if the thermometer was 10 degrees higher.  There was a wrestling show at 9:30 that we didn’t stick around for due to the cold. Although I was plenty cold, I saw plenty of unfortunate people walking around in shorts and t-shirts, ouch.

In years past I would usually try to find the scariest ride on the grounds and try it.  I sort of felt bad that I didn’t do any rides, it makes me feel like an old fart.  One of the unwelcome side effects of being 45 is something changes in your head that makes getting nauseous a very accessible side effect of amusement rides.   Skipping the rides actually bothered me enough that I might  go back to the fair during arm band night where you pay 10 bucks and can do unlimited rides.

I can hear the PA system of the fair very clearly from my house at night.  Hearing all the commotion makes me feel like I am missing out on something.

After the fair Ali actually headed home sans dogs, they slept over since I was going to have them for a good portion of Saturday as well.  Whenever they sleep over it is bittersweet.  I enjoy having Sadie snoring next to me but then when they go home, the next night feels very lonely.

Sadie also seems to enjoy minimizing my sleep when she is sharing the bed.  Early Saturday morning, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-5:30 am she jammed her nose into my shoulder and then sat upright next to me, staring,  requesting attention.  Well of course my first concern is that there is some sort of urgent bathroom need so I drug myself out of bed and let her out.  She took a leak but it was far from urgent.  It’s funny how she still likes to get me up early when she is at the house, since with Ali, she won’t ever try to wake her up.  She has adopted a dual internal alarm clock depending on which bed she is in.

So Saturday morning I picked up Ali once again.  I wanted to go pick up my season tickets for the Tarpons.  While we were up there we each had a 40% off coupon for the Gap outlet that is right next door in the big Miromar Outlets.  I actually only bought one cheap shirt at Gap.  I wound up spending the majority of my money at the Adidas outlet getting another pair of training pants and shorts.  Ali scored deals from several places.

After dropping Ali back off at her place I headed home to tackle my major project of the weekend, replacing the valve cover gaskets on the Tacoma.

My prep for this job was watching a YouTube video of some guy doing the same job on a 98 Forerunner.  I left the video up on my computer as a reference although I only referred back to it a couple times.

The disassembly process wasn’t horrible although I found a couple additional steps I had to do that were not on the video, perhaps a difference between the Tacoma versus a Forerunner.  One tip that I am glad was in the video was to cover the intake opening once the plenums are removed.  The point of this is to prevent foreign objects from falling in which would be a disaster.

This tip saved my ass when I started to pull the wire loom for the fuel injectors out of the way. The loom was made out of plastic.  After 14 years the plastic had become extremely brittle.  As I lifted on it pieces flew off.  I am pretty sure if I didn’t have the intake covered plastic shrapnel would have fallen in.

When I tried to actually pull the driver side valve cover off it was sticking.  When it did finally jerk free it crashed into the loom, breaking it further, way beyond the point of no return.  I broke the remaining fragments off, knowing I would have to come up with some other way to shield the wires.  I ran into a similar problem on the other side.

When I was unbolting the valve covers it became quite obvious why they were leaking, besides old gaskets.  The bolts that hold the valve cover on were all loose, very loose.  I guess years of vibration backed them out.  It’s no wonder they were leaking oil.

My gasket set included new fittings for the spark plug tubes.  After f’ing around with replacing just one for almost 15 minutes I decided the remaining 5 old gaskets were adequate.  The new, blue Fel-pro gaskets fit the valve covers perfectly.  It was a good thing that they are seated in a ridge on the cover, keeping them snugly in place during reassembly.  Getting the covers back on is a pain in the ass.

The wires/wire loom is never removed, it is just loosened.  To remove/install the valve covers you have to work it under the wires awkwardly.  There are also a bunch of vacuum lines nearby that provide further obstacles to get around.  I did my best to maintain calm as I tried various angles of attack until I eventually found a winner.

So I got the driver side valve cover done and was almost down to putting the last bolt in the passenger side cover.  As I pushed the socket on the bolt it came loose and the bolt tumbled down below, coming to rest somewhere on the skid plates under the truck.  I crawled down there with a flash light and felt around for awhile, reaching my hand into incredibly dirty, oily, greasy places, trying to feel for the bolt.  I was unsuccessful.

At this point I was already 3 hours into the job, an hour longer than the instructional video said it should take a “novice”. The last thing I felt like doing was pulling off the skid plates.  I already knew I was going to AutoZone to get some generic wire loom so I figured I will just get another bolt while I am there, screw it.

So I had about a 90 minute round trip to and from the store where I bought some 3/4″ wire loom and two different kind of bolts, one had the right style panhead but was about 5MM shorter than the factory bolt, the second bolt had a conventional nut head but was the same length as the factory hardware.  I wanted to have my bases covered.

So by the time I got back to the house it was getting close to 5.  I had mentally resigned myself to not getting the truck back together on Saturday as I was already beat, tired and didn’t want to stay out there into the darkness.  I figured I would work until maybe 6 or so and call it a day.

Well surprisingly the reassembly process went pretty smoothly. There were a lot of vacuum hoses and electrical connectors that had to be reattached along the way.  When I was taking it apart I was concerned I might not be able to remember where it all went but most of it fell right into place.

I did use some visual aids when it came to reinstalling the spark plug wires.  I drew myself a small diagram illustrating how the two sides connected together as well as laying the wires out on my folding table in the same layout as they were removed.

I had everything back together in around an hour.  I was very nervous when I turned the key, hoping I didn’t forget to attach something along the way.  A smile crept across my tired face as the truck started up and sounded normal, whew.

It was a challenging job, made more challenging by the brittle plastic.  Luckily the generic wire loom I used seems like it will be adequate to protect the injector wires going forward.  In total I was out there for close to 5 hours.  I was stiff and sore.  However those pains were dulled by the knowledge that I succeeded in a repair task that I probably would have stayed away from a few years ago.  Unfortunately I wont really know how effective my new gaskets are until some time passes.

So I Saturday night it felt like my brain was punching a ticket that my body was not willing to cash in.  I got it in my head I wanted to do a personal triathlon Sunday morning incorporating running, riding and swimming.  Saturday I was walking around stiff legged and slow, hardly the way I want to feel before asking my body to endure a triple brick a few hours later.

Well Sunday morning I drug myself out of bed.  I wasn’t feeling great but better than 7 hours prior.  I still had the mental need to complete this fitness goal so I gathered my stuff to do so.  I decided since it was St Patricks Day it would be appropriate to wear the bike jersey I bought in Ireland.  It is too small for me, it’s only a medium but I figured for one day I could jam myself into it.

I pulled into the water park a little after 8:30.  First up was a two lap run around the outside of the park grounds which adds up to 4 miles.  It was my first running since the half marathon.  Early on I did not feel great, my legs were feeling the side effects of the Tacoma work.  It felt like the first mile or so I had a slight limp in my stride.

As I was on the back stretch of the last lap I pulled down on the bike jersey that I had on under a t-shirt, it was sliding up my belly.  A few seconds later I heard what sounded like a piece of wood hit the path behind me.  I wondered if a small branch dropped but did not bother to turn around to look.

So I got back to the truck after my 4 miles and reached around to the back of my bike jersey, I had put the key to the truck in one of the bottle pockets that are on the back, figuring that would be the safest, least obtrusive spot.  Hmm weird, I didn’t feel the key.  Again I patted down my back and felt nothing but skin, what the fck??!!!

I then awkwardly get my hand inside one of the pockets and feel my finger poke out a large hole!  Obviously this must be the pocket where the key formally resided.  Great.

Well my mind immediately recalled the noise on the pathway.  I hoped that noise was actually the key falling out.  I hopped on the bike and sped over in that direction, hoping nobody picked the key up.  I breathed a sigh of relief when I spotted the key.  I was very lucky.  If it dropped out in the grassy portion of the run I would have never heard/found it.

So the bike leg of my tri got a late start.  I had a good ride, slightly slower than the previous week but with a 4 mile run to pre-fatigue my body it is to be expected.  With the wind to my back I was over 20 mph, with it in my face I was in the 17’s.

The swim portion of the tri went fine, I did 1000 yards of swimming broken into 400,400, 200 segments.  My right shoulder hurts quite a bit during the early portion of the swim but feels pretty good by the end of it.  I decided to opt out of a post workout pool pizza lunch, instead heading directly home.

During Sunday afternoon I attended to various left over duties around the house.  I also had a brief visit from Randall’s girlfriend and her friend Ceci.  They had run a half marathon up in Sarasota that morning and stopped by to pick up stuff I was giving to Randall (old 360, Bose system).   They couldn’t stay long since they still had a long drive across the alley and St Patrick Day drinking plans.

Speaking of which, I maintained my odd tradition of a dry St Patricks Day.  I didn’t go out. I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol.  It really isn’t a conscious effort.  Nobody invited me out to celebrate and it wasn’t important enough for me to actively seek out St Patty’s madness.

Instead I spent my Sunday night watching Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter.  I remember when I saw the preview for this in theaters last year I thought it was an incredibly silly premise.  I later heard the film had a huge budget but as expected, did not do well at the box office.

Well I wanted to see just how they managed to portray one of the most famous presidents in history as a vampire hunter so I threw it in my Netflix queue.  Well it turns out they did a pretty decent job of making it work.

Of course nothing can make you forget the strangeness of the plot but if you allow yourself to just go with the flow of the movie and not do much reality checking you will find a mostly enjoyable experience.  I thought the movie was fun and surely worth a Netflix rental.  I never thought I would see Lincoln kicking ass and taking names with a silver tipped axe but now that I have, I like it. B+