Category Gaming

Last night I went home early to cover the landscape again.  I had seen a predicted low of 40 degrees for Wednesday.  Well when I looked again at the hourly forecast and saw the predicted low for Wednesday morning was actually in the 50’s.  The super cold blast of air hits THURSDAY.  I was already home so I recovered the banana tree although not nearly as expertly as Cindy did a few days prior. I figure tonight I will pull stuff back over the garden as well.

Speaking of the cold temps, Cindy’s massive blanketing of the banana trees did actually save them from a frosty death.  The uncovered banana trees in the back of the yard were mushy brown lumps after Sunday morning’s cold temps.   The covered bananas were showing some signs of stress but nothing that looked fatal.

The garden took some hits.  The huge eggplant that has never produced anything was shriveled up and will be cut back hard.  The tomatoes, that were covered with regular frost cloth took some major damage.  The tomatoes that were covered with an old curtain actually took less of a hit due to the thicker material. The lone pepper plant isn’t looking too happy either. The kale, cauliflower and lettuce crops don’t seem to care much about the cold temps.

Unfortunately the next several days of forecast lows are below 45 degrees, meaning I will probably just be leaving everything covered till the weekend.  I love Florida winters until they get to be a little bit too much like real winter, like the northeast once again experienced yesterday, sheesh.

Last night I got some Hearthstone time in.  I also live streamed some of the play, including me playing Cindy a few games. You may find it interesting or fcking stupid.  Yes when playing Hearthstone I often partially cover my face with my t-shirt.  No, I don’t know why.

Watch live video from Fragu67 on TwitchTV

Last night was on the quiet side.  Cindy was out to dinner with her daughter and Alfred so I had a nice night at home with the girls.  One of the things I did was my first indoor flight with the Phantom, I wanted to see how it’s stability would translate indoors.  The answer was, very well. I had no issue keeping the copter under control with one hand while shooting video with the other.  It would drift around a bit due to poor GPS signal but it was very easy to keep it safe from any potential impact objects, despite it’s size.

The pets were not at all happy with my indoor flight session. The Phantom is loud and pushes large amounts of air around.  Tuki hid behind the stand on the top of his cage, Sadie stayed put in the dining room and Nicki retired to the quieter bedroom.  It was fun hovering the Phantom indoors but obviously it is much better suited for outdoor flight where it has room to spread it’s wings (propellers) .

I ordered a prop balancer for the copter.  Evidently pretty much every prop you buy will be slightly unbalanced.  This causes slight vibration which can show up in aerial video.  In order to balance a prop you mount it on the balancer, turn it so it is parallel to the table and release it.  If it falls to one side or the other that is the heavy side.  You take sandpaper and sand the heavy side slightly and repeat until the prop stays perfectly balanced.  It sounds potentially tedious but everything I have read says it is one of things you really should do.

Ali flies home this afternoon.  I will be returning the dogs to her place after work.  It seems like the girls have been with me for a long time, so long that it almost felt like I was transported back to the days where the dogs lived at the house full time.

I have been fortunate to be able to accommodate them being at the house during weekdays between the kindness of my neighbor who let them out for me several days, and Cindy, who reappropriated vacation time so she could make sure the girls were taken care of.

Both of the dogs seem to have positive results from their longest uninterrupted house stay since the split.  Sadie, who has been getting increasingly chunkified has definitely lost some weight with her nearly unlimited access to the backyard, allowing her to run off some chub. Nicki’s energy level and mobility are noticeably better as well.  Watching her be able to do more than just plod along slowly has been great.  Watching her run a little bit around the shed the other day was one of highlights of the new year so far. Waking up tomorrow without them will feel weird for sure.

I am mired in a very bad losing streak in Hearthstone, which continued last night.  Strategies that were consistently working for me no longer do.  Looks like it’s time to reevaluate.

I had to just stand in the background and quietly laugh to myself over all of the new pope hoopla yesterday.  It almost seemed like Super Bowl style coverage. The tight chimney video feed so people could see if the smoke was black or white, the evening news broadcasts live on site at the Vatican,  the endless shots of massive crowds going wild, it was crazy.

Once it was announced I heard a lot of people in my immediate environment buzzing as well, talking of how exciting it was to have a new pope.  One woman was excited that he was “only” 76.  Others were impressed that he was a jesuit, the first ever to be pope.  Others thought it was cool that he wore a plain wooden cross instead of an ornate gold cross that most popes chose to wield.

Personally I am a bit disappointed that they didn’t go with the black candidate from Africa.  Now that would have been something that would have impressed me.  Of course I am sure they realized all the old, white, religious closet  racists would not be very excited to hang a picture of a brother on their wall.

Of course all of this excitement is lost on me.  From my non-religious viewpoint, I am pleased that “Francis” does at least not look like pure devil spawn as Benedict did.  However when I read a headline like this, where he states gay marriage is the work of the devil, he loses me instantly.

In the end, Francis is just the latest figurehead for an organization that has been responsible for some of the largest atrocities in history in the name of “God” and more recently, the worlds biggest cover/enabler for a network of serial child molesters.  Another 10 mil was just paid out to cover the tracks of another pedophile priest in LA the other day.

So I finished up episode 1 of the Walking Dead game.  I got frustrated for awhile when I was spinning my wheels trying to figure out how to get through certain points in the game.  I mean how was I supposed to know that to break the padlock on the security gate I needed to first drive to the motel, kill a bunch of zombies and then grab a fireman’s axe?

I am sure there is a step by step walk through out there of how to get through the game quickly but at this point I want to continue trying to progress “naked”.   My difficulties wound up in my staying up later than normal.  My eyelids paid the price this morning.

So I decided to try one more trick to get the Bar-barians web site to play nice with my shared hosting, setting up a CloudFlare account. CloudFare is web site accelerator but the way it does it is interesting.  It uses some of the same caching tricks as other WordPress accelerators however the big difference is how it cleans the traffic coming to your site.

To implement Cloudflare you actually have to change your domain name servers to point to Cloudflare DNS servers.  As a result all traffic is inspected by their service which has the ability to filter out the bullshit traffic that can hammer a WordPress based website.  Spam bots, web crawlers and most other non-human being traffic is picked off and never even touches your actual web site.  This has the potential to dramatically reduce the load on your site.

W3 Total Cache has built in support for CloudFlare so it was very easy to implement.  Really the only thing that made me nervous was pointing the DNS for the domain somewhere else but it seems to work just fine and is simple to reverse if need be.  I am using their free tier of service.

Of course I have no way to know how much impact this change has until I get a new report from IX since I can’t get it myself.  If this last ditch effort fails I plan to move the site to wpengine.com, one of the best places to host a WordPress site.  Yea it costs some money, but it appears to be money well spent based on the reviews I see about them.

I had a couple hours at home last night that felt pretty hectic.  I was compiling video, trying to fix a problem with my home server, doing laundry, making dinner and trying to set up a new Xbox 360 I got from Tim.  I was rotating between the various tasks trying to multitask the best I could.  Finally I got things under control.

As I was setting the new 360 up I wound up stumbling across the Walking Dead game on Xbox Live.  I fired it up, curious if it was any good.  Wow, it isn’t good, it’s f’ing great.

The game literally makes you feel like you are in the middle of a Walking Dead episode.  It is a pretty perfect combo of cinematic, action and exploring.  When you dialogue with various characters you have a choice of various responses.  The choices you make change the way the game plays out.

There are intense, scary moments where you need to perform certain actions in order to save your own ass.  I could feel my heart rate rocketing as I had to kick a zombie off me repeatedly before I grabbed a hammer to smash its head in.

As I was playing it I was wondering how in the world could I be playing this awesome game for free?  Well as I looked at the options screen I saw how.  They break the game into chapters, they give you chapter one for free, to hook you in.  If you want to continue subsequent chapters they will start sucking Xbox credits out of your account.  They might grab a few of my credits, it really is an immersive game, especially when played with the lights low, surround sound on and a 73 inch TV to put the action in your face.

Saturday morning I left the house at 5:20 AM to go do the club run.  I was a bit nervous leaving Nicki home that early in the morning even though she took a dump before I left.  The morning is Nicki’s witching hour when it comes to defecation.

Even though the purpose of the club run is to run with other people, I actually ran the first half of the 7 miles by myself.  After my fastest ever 5K I wanted to try to keep pushing the pace.  As I was approaching the 3.5 mile halfway water stop I passed a big pack of people (mostly speedy women) that are all typically faster than me.  I never passed any of them before, ever, in any situation.

Of course in order to do so I had to be doing my all out race pace, while the pack of people I passed were firmly in their training pace, able to hold casual conversation among them.  I on the other hand was barely able to grunt out a word as I passed them.  Still, it felt good to actually “beat” them for once.

I covered the first 3.5 miles in 29 minutes. I had pretty much blown myself out and was looking for someone to run back with at a slower pace.  After a drink and stretching I hadn’t seen a suitable candidate so I started heading back again on my own.  I just happened to emerge out on the road the same time as another guy was passing by.  I didn’t recognize him from a distance but he yelled back to me “You coming?” like he knew me. I quickly caught up to him and said hi.

This was actually some guy I never met before named Bob.  Bob was just an avid runner that would rather run with someone than alone.  It also just happened Bob was getting over a cold and running at a more casual 9 minute mile pace which was about perfect for me for the return trip.

Bob was an older guy in his early 60’s but he still is very, very active.  He has run 10 marathons and even was in an Ironman triathlon although he had to drop mid-race due to injury.  Despite his age he isn’t slowing down, something I obviously admire.  He is signed up to the Disney Goofy, a very appropriate name for a race since you have to be goofy to do it.  You do a half marathon one day and then do a full marathon the next.

I enjoyed my time running with Bob and thanked him as we pulled back into the parking lot.  The conversation made the last 3.5 miles go by quickly.

I pulled back into the driveway worried I was going to be entering a house smelling ripe with dog shit.  I was quite happy Nicki held it.  It’s funny as I walked the house going room to room Nicki followed me around with a smile on her face that seems like she is saying “look I was a good girl! I didn’t shit in the house!”

Once I got home I ripped into housework.  In order to keep me on point I brought back “the list”.  For years, every weekend I would create myself a to do list of things I wanted to get done.  I found it was a great way to keep me motivated plus the act of scratching an item off the list gave a nice little shot of satisfaction.

Alison HATED my lists.  She felt they put undue pressure on her opportunity to enjoy weekends.  I eventually stopped making the lists to appease her, instead trying to rely on mental checklists which I found to be less effective.  There is something about drawing a line through a list item that scratches an itch.

Well anyway, I have been complaining about feeling like I am behind the curve in things I want to get done.  I figured reviving the list is one step in getting that feeling alleviated.  When the list is done I can officially relax.

So after scribbling out the list I got busy on completing it.  The house needed a thorough cleaning.  Since being on my own and having the dogs under a new roof most of the time I have found the old every other week cleaning schedule not all that crucial.  If I stretch it to 3 weeks or even 4 most people would not be able to tell.  My Neato running 3 times a week keeps the floor surfaces looking fresh and I do daily minor upkeep that keeps things looking decent.

It had been a long time since I did a full cleaning which included the bathrooms, counters, dusting, full house sweeping and Scooba hard surface follow up. I figured since my Dad would be accompanying me back from PA it made sense to give the house a thorough once over now.

After the cleaning was done I pulled the van up to the garage to give it a bath.  I am not sure why I do this since the van is sure to get quite cruddy after a 2400 mile trek to the cold north and back.   The inside is what really needed attention.  The seats and carpet had bushels of dog hair.  I spent a good 20 minutes with the shop vac de-hairing the interior.

I did a couple other things like top off the coolant and windshield washer fluid reservoir.  I’ll check the oil disptick and tire pressure before pulling out as well.  I am crossing my fingers the trip is void of mechanical issues, I have not been very lucky with that with my last few road trips.

Ali is nervous about the trip, worried about me trekking that distance by myself with the dogs.  It will be my first major road trip solo.  Doing so while wrangling the two dogs will be a challenge for sure but nothing I can’t handle.

My last list item involved doing some additional testing of the Ipico bib chips we are using for this year’s half marathon.  I am a bit nervous since we never have used the tags officially in a race before.

I turned the pool deck into a makeshift finish line complete with both timing boxes, a laptop and two timing mats.  I had to laugh when both girls decided to use the one timing mat as a resting spot.  They remained there for awhile as I walked bibs across the mats.

I tested over 100 bibs and got a read every time except when I had 4 of them piled on top of each other which wouldn’t happen in a race anyway.   The test made me feel better about using the bib devices for the race.  Here is a video of some of the testing.

My Sunday was pretty chore free thanks to my efforts on Saturday.  I still managed to keep busy and spent some of the afternoon helping my boss set up a cable modem and wireless router at her condo.  She signed up for the Blast internet package which is SUPER fast.

It made me want to upgrade my service.  As a cost cutting measure when we separated I downgraded my Comcast internet down to a slower, less expensive speed.  The utilities budget column has enough of a pad in it that I should be able to bump back up to faster service without feeling much of a pinch.

I spent a good portion of the day working on various computer related tasks like updating websites, doing half marathon related things and some work on another web site I am revamping.

As I was plodding away I was thinking about how odd it is that I feel like I have such sparse time to do brainless entertainment items like playing WoW or the Xbox. I imagined that once I was on my own I would have tons of time to indulge any and all entertainment my heart desired.  It just has not been the case.  I haven’t logged into WoW for at least 2 or 3 weeks and the way the rest of my January is shaping up it may be February until I get to drop into my virtual home once again.

I will have a very busy two days ahead of me until the party van leaves the dock in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

Our appointment to skydive was at 10 am.  We got there a little early, neither Charlie or I are fans of being late.  We were surprised there was a good collection of people jumping with us.  We thought a Monday morning would be pretty empty.

The check in process was orchestrated by a woman that looked to be a 2 pack a day smoker.  Her youthful energy didn’t seem to fit the leathery, extremely wrinkled face that came with it.

She presented us with a TWELVE PAGE waiver.  No less than four times did we have to sign, initial and date that we basically had no rights whatsoever.  It made the Tough Mudder death waiver look tame.  Hell I may have agreed to donate my liver in all that legalese. It was just over the top.  Well regardless, all of us worked diligently on signing our lives away.

After paying for the jump we all moved out to the main hangar.  Charlie and I were talking to a couple people there.  The one group had a guy that jumped three times before as well as his 55 year old father in law whom never jumped before. They found our Tough Mudder stories entertaining.

We also discovered one of the guys that worked at the facility did the Tough Mudder on Sunday afternoon.  It sounded like he got a watered down version of the course as I expected.  He said the Arctic Enema was just water when he did it and the shock delivered at the end wasn’t too bad.  Obviously the batteries start to weaken after delivering a 100,000 shocks or so.

So we then get to “orientation” .  Charlie and I thought this was going to be a long drawn out thing where you sit in a classroom and they give you a skydiving 101 course.  Nope it was nothing like that.  Instead your instructor/guy you will be strapped to gives you no more than a 5 minute outline of how the jump goes.  In a nutshell he said that even if we forget everything he tells us he will be making corrections and reminding us as the jump is in progress.  Ok, I think.

My instructors name was Nick.  He was significantly smaller than me, I wondered if that would present any possible problems when jumping.

I also got to meet Burtis, a tall South African guy who was going to be my personal film crew.  Burtis seemed like a cool guy.  He shot some brief pre-jump interview footage.

So we were the second set of jumpers.  Charlie and I got to watch the first set go ahead of us and slowly reappear above us several minutes later all with various looks on their face ranging from thrilling to fatigued.

Charlie and I were freaking out when we saw how fast some of the solo photographers descended towards the ground.  They looked on the verge of crashing before managing to quickly flatten out less than 50 feet above the ground.

So now it was our turn to climb above the plane.  I was towards the back of the plane which equated to being the first person out, lucky me.  My seat also happened to be right in front of the opening we jumped out of so I had a pretty freaky vantage point the entire way up to 18,000 feet.  Despite this, I think I did a pretty good job of remaining calm, not thinking about the idea I was going to be hurdling out of a plane in a few minutes.

In case you were wondering, 18,000 feet is really, really high.  We were something like 10,000 feet ABOVE the clouds.  You saw nothing but white out the window, the same vantage point you have when sitting comfortably in a 747.

If there wasn’t enough to be freaked out about, the plane itself almost felt like it was prop hanging.  The angle at the back as we ascended felt really severe.  It didn’t do much to make me feel warm and fuzzy about what was to come.

So the engines throttle back and the jump light turns from red to green.  Burtis was the first out so he can film my exit.  He gets out and hangs on the back of the door.

I am pushed forward and am forced to kneel in a position that my right knee was not willing to go into.  Luckily I had other things on my mind that blocked the pain, like looking down.

So I lean forward as Nick instructs me without hesitation, I knew an Arctic Enema approach was the only way to go when it comes to the jump moment.  In a split second I am out in the open falling rapidly away from the plane.

When you first leave the plane you are instructed to keep your hands grasped on your harness.  Then when Nick tapped me that meant I could bring them out to more of a spread eagle position.  When we first exited the plane we were rotating a bit which was disorienting, that settled down pretty quickly.

Now what set in was a sensation I never experienced before.  The air at 18,000 feet is cold and thin.  It felt like I was having a hard time breathing.  We were instructed to try to smile  as we dove, they said if you don’t the wind pressure will make you look like a freak on the video.  Well the wind pressure might have made me look like a freak but it also freaked me out a bit.

The force of a 120 mph wind on your body is something I have never experienced before.  Maintaining a smile was not easy.  Having my mouth open felt like you had a leaf blower jammed down your throat.  It was really an uncomfortable sensation.  In some of the shots from the jump I look like Fireman Bill from In Living Color as the wind blew my lips wide open.

As we were descending both Burtis and Nick were flashing me a thumbs up.  I wasn’t sure if they were checking to see if I was ok or if I was enjoying myself.  Eventually the cloud cover approached.  As we dropped through it I could feel the coolness and moisture from the cloud for a couple moments.  It was surreal that I just happened to be falling through one.

It was funny when I see the pictures and video of the dive, I look like I am being melted by the wind while Nick is just calmly hanging out above with his hair hardly getting messed up.  I guess that is because I was basically a big windshield for him.  Our size difference almost make it look like he was riding a pterodacytl.

So finally the parachute was deployed around 5000 feet, a moment I was looking forward to.  The free fall portion of the jump was honestly pretty freaky.  The pull when the chute was deployed was strong but not as bad as the G’s you get on some high thrill amusement rides.

So now I had a birds eye view of the ground way below me with nothing between us.  That view, while scary, was something I could deal with.  Nick gave me the opportunity to pull the steering lines on the parachute which sent us into a corkscrew pattern.

I felt the stress on my harness increase greatly as we spun around, it made me feel a little out of control.  The spin had the unwanted side effect of starting up a nauseous feeling that didn’t leave me until an hour or two after the jump.

As we approached the ground my job was to keep my legs up until Nick said so.  When I dropped them on command he was hoping we would stay upright but instead I wound up on my ass.  The ground felt good to sit on.

Charlie touched down shortly after me with big smiles on his face where as I had a look of a guy that just slammed a six pack.  From watching back Charlie’s video and seeing his pictures he obviously had less problems than I did up there.

Charlie and I both opted for the less expensive of the two video packages which included all the footage shot by your videographer.  However even though we didn’t pay for it, our instructor was shooting footage the entire time with their wrist based camera as well.

After you land they try to pitch the additional footage to you since it is basically jump to ground coverage of your experience.  I was fine with the 3rd person footage, it did a fine job of capturing my struggles, I didn’t need more of it.

When I talked to the 55 year old after his jump, which was from a little lower 15,000 feet, he said he had an experience similar to mine, he was very anxious to get out of the free fall portion of the jump.  He was not having fun.

After getting our dvd’s that included the finished videos and a number of still pics we were on our way.  Charlie and I fist bumped to celebrate knocking off a big checklist item.  For me, skydiving  wasn’t about picking  up a new hobby or scoring a huge adrenalin rush.  It was about facing a potentially deadly and fearful situation and stepping forward anyway.  It’s symbolism is what I will carry with me moving forward.

Would I do it again? Yes. Do I need to? No, not at all.

So after eating lunch and reminiscing about our experiences with the skydive, we headed over to Kennedy Space Center.  Our plan was to start Monday afternoon and finish up Tuesday since the pass is good for two days, or it used to be when we went 5 or 6 years ago.

So we park and walk up to the ticket counter.  I tell the lady I wanted a ticket but just wanted to verify I could still use the ticket Tuesday as well.  She says nope. She confirmed they used to do that but it changed a couple years back.  If I bought a ticket now it would only be good for that day.

Well it was already one o’clock and KSC closes at 5, it would be ridiculous to spend 50 today and another 50 tomorrow so after conferring with Charlie we agreed to just show up first thing when it opened at 9 AM on Tuesday. I was annoyed walking back to the SSR thinking about the policy change.

I then got more annoyed when I realized I just spent 10 dollars to park! As we headed out I pulled off to the side of the road and walked over to the parking lot attendant that I had just driven past 10 minutes earlier.  I explained to her that we didn’t know they no longer honored the pass for two days and we were going to have to come back tomorrow.  I asked if it would be possible if I could get my parking fee back.

She said she couldn’t do that but she did say all I had to do was flash my receipt at them the next morning and they would let me in.  She said my truck would be easy to remember.  🙂  Cool.

On the way back we swung into the Astronaut Hall of Fame, curious how much it cost.  When I saw $27 per person I winced but then as I looked closer I saw if you bought the $50 KSC pass it included free access to the hall of fame.

I asked the woman at the counter if I bought the KSC pass now, could I go to the Hall of Fame today and then KSC on Tuesday? Yep, no problem.  So that was what we did.

We spent a good hour or so going through the various exhibits.  It was interesting stuff.  The most interesting was the interactive learning area where Charlie and I played some of the games before heading out.

Monday night we had another dinner at the attached restaurant.  This time Charlie dialed up the fun ordering first a Long Island Iced Tea followed by a drink named Red Death.  I stuck to the more predictable Miller Lite.

So we headed back to KSC Tuesday morning early, a little too early.  We actually had time to kill.  At first I proposed we kill the time by heading past the entrance  of KSC and seeing what was further down the road.  Well we quickly found out what was there was a guard shack that required some sort of security badge to enter the heart of the complex.  I did a less than graceful U-turn across the grassy median and headed the other way.

We wound up just parking in an old lot a few miles up the road where I drank my DD coffee and took a few scenic SSR pictures.

We got to the front gate almost exactly at 9 AM and started exploring.  The park was decorated for the holidays so that added a cool twist to things.

The first thing we noticed was the place was pretty empty.  Evidently early December is a great time to visit the Space Center.

We walked into the rocket garden first.  It’s an impressive array of rockets all mounted in a relatively small area.  We got to walk on the actual walkway that Apollo astronauts utilized to cross the support tower to their Saturn rocket.  That was kind of cool.

Charlie and I had a loose plan of what order we needed to do things.  We wanted to catch the first tour bus at 10 am to get to the Saturn building.  I remembered this building from my prior visit, it has a lot of cool presentations/simulations as well as an actual massive Saturn V rocket hanging in the main corridor of the building, it is simply AWESOME. To imagine human beings can build something this massive and powerful is mind blowing.

I remembered from my last visit  there was another building we went to (LC 39) that included the area where space station modules were built as well as an up close view of some of the launch pads.

I asked one of the workers how do we get there.  She said the building is basically not used anymore since the space station is complete.  She said they only open the building on the weekends and all you can do is just see the launch pads from it, bummer.

After eating lunch Charlie and I hopped back on the bus and rode back to the main facility.  We got dumped off right by the Space Shuttle simulator ride, something we both were looking forward to.    When I was last at KSC they were still constructing the ride.

The ride was cool but fell a bit short of my expectations.  The AV experience leading up to the ride was actually more impressive than the 5 or 6 minutes you spent strapped in.  Basically you get in, you get tipped to a position where you are flat on your back, shook around a bit and then the cargo bay doors open and you see Earth above you, ride over.   Charlie and I both agreed it could have been a little better.

As we walked around I saw they had a building that was housing Santa Claus for the kids.  Well evidently business was slow for Santa.  He was standing by the door waving at me.  I walked inside and saw Santa had no business.  The whole set was there, his chair, decorations and “elves” taking pictures but there wasn’t a child to be seen anywhere.  It was dead as a doornail.

I talked to one of the female elves about how slow it was.  She also gave me some insight about the future construction plans at the space center which include knocking down the big gift shop, relocating it and replacing it with a “misting station” whatever that is.  I told her I would try to send kids her way.  They looked so bored.

So the majority of the rest of our stay at KSC was spent watching two Imax movies, one about the space station and another about the Hubble telescope.  I found both of the films very entertaining.  The huge 3D Imax screens really added to the experience.  The images of space were breath taking and inspiring.  Both Charlie and I enjoyed the films a bunch.

By the time we got out of the last film it was around 4.  We did one thorough run through the massive gift shop where I picked up a few items and then were on our way.  It was a fun day that reopened my eyes to just how awesome space is and how minute we all are in the scope of the universe.  We are specks on specks of specks.

For the long drive home we went the conventional highway route since it would be too dark to see anything anyway.  We managed to cover the 277 miles in less than four and a half hours which included a DD Coffee/bathroom stop along the way.  We pulled into the driveway shortly before 9PM.

So despite the late hour, my need to attend work the next day and Charlie’s 8AM flight we decided to fire up Call of Duty one last time, playing until quarter till midnight.  It was a fun way to close out what was a very memorable trip.

This morning I drug myself out of bed and delivered Charlie to the airport before 7.  I encouraged him to visit again soon, hopefully he takes me up on it.  Charlie may literally be the nicest person I know.

I now get dumped right into the midst of a super busy 3 days…..

Yesterday on the way home from work, the radio show I listen to, Stan & Haney, were taking calls from people about old video games.  Haney, whom is around my age is still a very avid gamer.  After hearing people call in and reminiscing about games like Pac Man, Space Invaders, Asteroids and more I was ready to call in myself and chip in, unfortunately I didn’t have the studio number available.

I don’t know if I ever talked in detail on just how big video games were in my life as I was growing up, so now I will.  Read on.

I think the first exposure I had to electronic games of any sort was the handheld Mattel Football game.  The game was incredibly simplistic,  You controlled a red LED via 3 directional buttons and simply tried to avoid being touched by the lighter colored LED’s (the defense).  I remember when my mom bought it for me from Two Guys department store.  I felt like I had just been handed a pot of gold.

My first home console was an Intellivision, I never owned an Atari 2600.  The Intellivision was more advanced than the the Atari, with better graphics, an unique disc controller with keypad buttons and even games with voice! (later)

My brother and I played that thing to DEATH.  We especially enjoyed the sport titles for the Intellivision.  I can not tell you how many thousands of games of baseball we played.  I can only tell you I won more than I lost. 🙂

Of course arcades were extremely popular back then.  An arcade to me was like a drug dealer for a crack head.  A pocket jammed with quarters meant I had a couple hours of video game “high” ahead of me.

I played all the early favorites incessantly, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Missile Command, and literally hundreds more.  I was never fantastic at these games, I would put my skill level at mildly good.

The arcade that I most frequently visited was at the local bowling alley which was within bike riding distance.  I can still imagine quite vividly the smell of the place, the mixture of the oil used on the lanes, stale cigarette smoke and the antiseptic they spray in the rental bowling shoes.  If I added up the hours I spent in that place it would be staggering.

A real treat would be when I went to the Berkshire Mall and visited the huge arcade up on the second floor.  They had all the latest and greatest games.

I could literally do a few books describing my experiences and thoughts about various games.  Like the exhausting, huge trackball football game where you literally controlled X’s and O’s on the field.  Or how about the laser disc games like Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace that sucked enough quarters out of my pocket to pay off the national debt.  They were maddeningly addictive.

My hard core video game habit even lead me to a life of crime.  One time when we were on vacation in Rehoboth (boardwalk arcades were AWESOME), I actually snuck money out of my mom’s wallet once my own personal stash of quarters was consumed.  I felt really bad about it and eventually confessed my larceny to mom.  I remember after that happened it made me really evaluate just how much time/money I was spending on video games.

Even with my slightly less obsessed attitude towards gaming, I have continued to love the hobby all through out adulthood.  I have owned an Intellivision, Colecovision, Neo Geo, Sega Master System,  Sega Genesis, NES,  Super NES, Wii, Playstation, Original Xbox, and Xbox 360.  I may be forgetting a couple.

Well into my adult years, I spent a lot of time and energy on console gaming.  I remember when my idea of a good time was going to malls/video game stores and seeing what new titles were available.  I would actually drive 50 miles to other areas in the hope they had something I could not find locally.

Although I obviously am still quite tied up in the virtual world of today it is a bit different.  My love of console gaming has faded in the past decade or so even though if I throw a game in my 360 I almost always enjoy my time playing.  But for whatever reason the desire to get me to throw a game in there just isn’t present.

If I do game it is either on the PC (Wow) or the occasional game on the Iphone or Kindle Fire.

I do credit my life of gaming to some positives as well.  It definitely helped mold my mind into the troubleshooting tool that I use both with my line of work and in my personal life.  Speaking of work, my love of gaming definitely helped steer me to my career in IT which I have done very well in.

So if you ever want me to talk your ear off, bring up old video games.  It’s one subject I can never run out of things to say about.

This weekend I will have a new dog under the roof, Lucky.  Lucky is the dog of my friend from work whom is going out of town for the weekend.  Instead of kenneling the pooch he asked me if I would watch him which I of course agreed to do.  I met Lucky before, he is a good boy and reminds me of Sadie in a number of ways.

It should be interesting to see how he adjusts to my surroundings for a few days.  I know he will love having the backyard to go crazy in.  I also look forward to having Nicki and Sadie come out to meet him.  Sadie will appreciate having a set of younger dog legs to run around with.

Today is my mom’s 65th birthday.  It’s hard to believe that number, almost as hard to believe as my number will be 45 next month.  The years click by so damn fast at this point.  I am taking mom to dinner Saturday night to celebrate even though I don’t think either of us really feel that “celebrating” birthdays is very genuine at this point. The last birthday I recall being excited about was 24 years ago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There have been a number of changes obviously in my life over the last several months since Ali and I separated.  One of those changes was kind of unexpected.

If you have read my blog over the years, you know that despite my age I have continued to enjoy gaming albeit the vast majority of that gaming has been via the MMORPG, World of Warcraft.  The game used to consume a LOT of my spare time.

I kind of figured that I would be doing more gaming once I was home alone since I wasn’t cutting into time spent with anyone else but me, ,myself and I.  When Diablo 3 came out in April I played a decent amount of it but that has sort of fizzled for me as well.  I literally haven’t touched WoW in at least 2 months, probably closer to 3, the longest period of time I have ever gone without playing the game.

So when I analyze this change I come up with a few answers.

My attitude towards most stuff in general has shifted since the split.  I am now very interested in doing things I have not done before.  I almost feel like if I am not pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone I am missing the boat of life.  WoW is definitely part of my comfort zone that I sunk into over the last 7 years, a virtual existence that allowed me to insulate from real world problems.

Plus in general I just have more to do now with half the amount of hands on deck to handle the myriad of responsibilities associated with the house.  Most nights by the time I am ready to settle down I just don’t feel like playing, in many cases I would rather just catch up on some Tivo programs or watch some of the new tv content now available to me via my HboGo hookup. (last night up until 12:30 watching episodes of 24)

Hell maybe I am finally outgrowing gaming, something I never thought could happen.  My console gaming systems are basically never used for gaming.  My Xbox 360’s are internet video hubs almost exclusively.

Does this mean I am done with WoW for good?  I don’t know,  but I can pretty much guarantee the weeks where I spent upwards of 30 hours in it’s virtual world are ancient history. That’s a good thing no matter how you look at it.

Earlier this week I used some of my Amazon spiff points to buy a couple pieces of fitness gear.

The first item was something called Fat Gripz.  These hard pieces of blue rubber are designed to be used with barbells, dumbbells and pull up bars to make the grip area significantly bigger.

What is the point you ask?  Hand, forearm, and grip strength.  These things have tremendous reviews from pretty much everyone that uses them.  A fat grip equates to much more difficulty.  If you do a set of curls with 30 pound dumbbells and then do another set after slapping the Fat Gripz on you will be amazed at the additional effort required.

I will be using the Gripz primarily on my pull up bar but I will try them out for different movements as well.

The other item I got was a dip belt.  The belt will make doing weighted dips and pull ups much easier instead of holding a dumbbell between my knees.  It will be accompanying me to the gym today.

Last night I decided I wanted to take a chunk out of my weekend workload by mowing and weed whacking the property.  Since summer/wet season seems to have gotten an early start this year the grass needed full grooming.  I didn’t get done until after 8.  I threw together a wrap for dinner that included hard boiled eggs, tomato, carrots, hummus  and swiss cheese.

So I have now had a chance to play three different classes in Diablo 3, the barbarian, the witch doctor and the monk.  All three are a lot of fun in different ways.

The barbarian and his brute force, in your face smash mouth style of play is great for stress relief.  The witch doctor with his zombie dogs, endless jars of spiders and assortment of spells are just eye candy to watch.  The monk utilizes a Bruce Lee fists of fury play style that is fast paced and devastating.

If I had to pick a favorite out of the 3 so far I would probably take the monk by a slim margin.  I always did like Bruce Lee.

Yesterday I saw a video that outlined the procedure to replace a broken ceramic tile.  I have had a broken tile in front of the fridge for a few years that I first just covered with a throw rug and later tried to fill with some similar color grout filler.

Well after watching the video I realized I should just replace the damn tile, it isn’t rocket science.

This weekend I have several things I’d like to get knocked out but nothing set in stone.  Speaking of the tile replacement, I am going to rebuilding my home project list which was ripped off the fridge awhile ago.  I find having that list in front of me serves me well as motivation to eliminate items from it instead of having things drag on forever without ever getting done.

That list will have several items on it in addition to the tile replacement. Painting the bedroom, master bath, and garage will be on there.  I also am looking to replace the twice replaced landscape timber border around the pool with concrete landscape blocks.  Wood rots, concrete doesn’t.

As part of painting the bathroom, I am hoping to score a left over piece of granite/Corian from someplace that I can use to cover the big flat surface in the bathroom next to the sink.  Right now it is just white drywall that looks like shit.

Of course projects cost money so besides the tile replacement, most of these will be delayed until I have some more time to get a solid feel for what my new financial thresholds will be.