Category Rants

I figured I better gather the fragments of my memory before they are lost.  Friday was my first day of my impromptu 5 day staycation.  Cindy and I started it with a DD bike ride. It was the first time I was taking my freshly modified Trek 2.1 on the road.  Earlier in the week I added a stem extension and aero bars to enhance my riding position comfort.  Despite being a much better/lighter bike, the Trek has spent most of the last two years hanging upside down in my storage shed because it just was uncomfortable to ride.  Instead my 300 dollar Dawes bike was getting all of the road time. My alterations to the Trek had the effect I was hoping for.  It felt good on the road and the higher quality and lower weight of the bike felt noticeable. The 20 mile ride went by without incident.

After we got home I headed outside to get the weeding done while Cindy attended to the chickens and some other things.  After a quick dip in the pool we were ready to head out to Costco.  We wound up getting over $200 in groceries there which is some sort of record.  Hopefully we will be well stocked for awhile.  The grocery slice of my monthly expenditure pie chart in Quicken has been getting quite large lately.

Friday my new megaphone that I ordered for Green Machine Timing showed up.  It’s smaller than the others I have for the running club, only 40 watts max power, but that is part of it’s appeal, it’s easier to carry around.  However the biggest plus for me was it uses a rechargeable lithium battery pack that is encased inside of a built in charger.  The bigger megaphones use 8 C batteries that are a pain in the ass to maintain.  Plus the housing for the batteries is very imprecise so when you have the lid closed you may not get any sound until you jiggle things around.  It’s annoying.  I no longer will have that issue. Cindy and I used it to film a funny Periscope video that she posted on FB.

Friday night was a normal pizza night.  It felt great knowing I had another four days off remaining.

On Saturday morning Cindy and I were up early to go volunteer at the kids triathlon the local triathlete group puts on.   Cindy and my primary responsibility was in the bike transition area where we helped the kids ranging in age from 7-13 stage their bikes and help them as needed during transition.  I also brought my GoPro with to film the event.  I was frustrated that I missed a lot of the little kids with a malfunction early that I got figured out later on.  You can see the kids in action here.  By the time the event was over at 9:30 it felt sweltering hot.

During the afternoon the it became quite rainy and stayed that way for most of the day.  Cindy and I kept ourselves entertained indoors.  There were no movies that came out this week that interested us enough to spend movie theater money for.  Instead we just kept things simple and enjoyed a nice meal while watching my latest Netflix rental, Tracers.  The film was basically one long parkour video but I found it entertaining enough to give an average B rating to the flick.

Sunday we did our second DD ride in three days, something I don’t think I ever did before.  It also meant that in 8 days I rode a total of 70 miles, again new territory for me.  Cindy actually cracked the century mark for those same 8 days since she did an additional 30 mile ride during the week with a friend of hers.  I strapped the GoPro on to my right handlebar for the ride.  It gives an interesting perspective/visual when combined with a soundtrack and ample captioning to fight off the boredom.

After another pool bath we were back in the car to go pick up Nicki and Sadie.  After grabbing them we made a couple stops on the way home.  Sunday afternoon Cindy was quite busy cooking.  She recorded her efforts for her YouTube channel.  I did a lot of video editing, gaming (now have 7 level 100 WoW characters) and paid my bills.

One of the things I wanted to address was the failure email I got from my DD perks account saying the automatic reload of my coffee card failed.  When I logged into my account I saw that the credit card I had associated had the wrong expiration date.  Ok, no problem, I will go in and edit the credit card information.  Well after 10 minutes of futzing around I realized that there is absolutely no way to change the CC info.  Ok, I guess I will just delete the credit card and reenter it with the correct info.  Nope, it won’t let you do that either.  The ONLY way you fix this is with a phone call to them which I made on Monday.  The call required 20-25 minutes of wait time to speak to a person.  After explaining the issue the phone rep says it will take TWO DAYS to clear the card from the system.  I asked her in disbelief “Are you serious?”.  She said it is a limitation of their current set up for credit cards and they are looking to change things in the future.  It seems so odd because in many ways Dunkin Donuts seems very modern and tech savy in their business practices.  To have such a ridiculously inefficient set up to manage credit cards seems very odd.

Monday morning Cindy and I took Nicki (and Sadie) to the vet.  I made an appointment for Nicki to have some large masses on her belly looked at further.  She has had them for awhile but they seem to be really growing and I wanted to get an updated opinion from the vet about them to see if he thought anything needed to be done at this point.  This was the same vet that did the eyelid surgery that drastically helped Nicki’s vision.

He agreed the lumps were getting pretty big but said that labs are prone to growing fatty masses as they age.  The general advice is if they are not causing the dog pain or discomfort the best course of action is to just let them be as the risk of surgery on an old dog could outweigh the benefit of removal.  I mentioned how Nicki’s bark has been sounding progressively weaker.  He said it is likely due to another old lab trait where the tissue that covers the larynx (forget medical term), becomes partially paralyzed.  The end result is difficulty in breathing.  (Nicki also pants all the time)

The vet did aspirate one of the masses to send it out for testing to be sure. (a $200 gotcha) However we basically just confirmed that Nicki is old and is having old dog issues.  I wish I could wave a wand and make it go away.  While we were there both dogs got their nails trimmed which was very needed.

When we got home I got a bug in my head to pressure wash the pool deck and cage.  I HATE this house maintenance chore but a glance at the pure green scuzz on some sections of the cage combined with my extra time off made it seem like I would be an idiot for not doing it now.  The end result was several hours shoulder/forearm burning labor as I directed the 3000 psi wand overhead with sometimes as much as an 9 foot extension hanging off of it.  It is miserable.  Doing it during the crushing heat of the afternoon added to the misery.

I wasn’t happy that at a few spots on the pool deck which we carefully prepped and double coated with pool deck stain lifted off under pressure.  It was in areas where the deck is especially smooth.  Maybe it needs to be roughed up a bit before we touch it up.  Anyway, the pool area looked tremendously better by the time I was done.  Hopefully it will be the holidays before I have to think about it again.

After I took the dogs back to Ali’s place Cindy and I chilled most of the night catching up on a backlog of dvr’d content.  For my final day of my staycation I have no major plans other than some type of workout and whatever other minor things come to mind.  We already had excitement this morning, the unwelcomed type.  There was a hawk no more than 25 feet away from the pond area the chickens were hanging under.  It was sitting in the palm tree.  It was oddly unafraid of me.  I was able to walk right up to the tree with my bb gun in hand without it moving.  I yelled at it to get lost but he only retreated a short distance away.  I then used my weapon to fire a few warning shots and again they were ineffective.  I kept walking and firing until the hawk was a 100 yards off in a tree behind the back fence line.

Yes it makes both Cindy and I nervous to have hawks scouting out the chickens.  The good thing is the property has a bunch of hiding spots for our birds and all of them are healthy, decent sized and fast.  Hopefully this and our continued warning shots makes the hawks realize there are easier targets elsewhere.

My dad has been on the phone with me a couple times in the last few days looking for some technical assistance.  He needed to figure out how he can broadcast a Bernie Sanders speech to his TV from his laptop.  He is formally hosting an event to help Bernie’s campaign. Marienville, PA is a political hot bed after all, not.  🙂  On the democratic side of 2016 presidential campaign there has been a lot of Hilary Clinton focus.  Hilary is a very polarizing candidate that unfortunately reinforces the political line in the sand since she is pretty much hated by many republicans.  However there are other democratic candidates out there and one of them gaining some momentum is Bernie Sanders.

Many of Bernie’s ideas are focused on the financial state of America and the income inequality that now rivals what happened in the 1920’s before the Great Depression.  A lot of Bernie’s positions are aligned with Robert Reich, someone who I have followed for many years.  In a nutshell he is a greater good type of guy.  Many tea party zealots would call him a socialist.

I like Bernie’s passion for what he believes in.  He is absolutely fearless in his assaults on America’s billionaire class that has seized control of the country’s direction with an iron tight grip.  Unfortunately in reality that will more than likely be his downfall.  In 2015 it is basically impossible for a presidential candidate to be successful without being beholden to corporate behemoths.  Gaining votes is sadly more about mental manipulation funded by lakes of cash top campaigns generate today.

So although I am happy my dad feels strongly enough about Bernie to host a campaign event for him, the realist in me thinks that nobody can knock Hilary off her throne since she has the biggest piggy bank.  If somehow Bernie managed to secure the democratic candidacy it would mean that finally a segment of America is fed up enough to put up a candidate that will truly take off the gloves instead of shadow boxing.

I have to say that I am proud that my dad, despite in demographics/income being squarely in what is usually a me first, fck everyone else crowd, still is able to see the big picture through the fog of disinformation.

So while I was shopping at Costco after work on Friday I got a text from Cindy.  She said the woman she talked to from Dunkin Donuts that was interested in adopting Jaina wanted to come over to pick her up.  I told her it was fine.  I got home shortly after the woman arrived with her mom and two kids.   After I unloaded the groceries I went out back to join them.  Cindy was in the middle of giving them the chicken coop tour.

It then came time to collect Jaina.  I grabbed my large cat carrier to let Anna borrow for chicken transport.  At 10 pounds, Jaina is bigger than many cats.  Cindy and I were able to corral the bird and get her into the carrier. (even though Jaina is probably a rooster he is still a she to me)

It didn’t take me very long to feel sad.  We had Jaina on the ground in the carrier while we were talking a bit.  She/he started making the noises she always does when she is looking for the other four chicks she grew up with.  Almost instantly the four other “babies” came over to the carrier and actually started pecking at the carrier in almost a “hey let our friend out of there” way.  It sort of broke my heart to split them up.

I carried the carrier out front to their car and placed Jaina in the front seat.  Anna said she will take good care of the chicken.  Although at first she is going to be keeping Jaina in a modified doghouse, they have plans to build a real coop and get more chickens.  I couldn’t help but think about Jaina repeatedly over the weekend, imagining how upset she must be without her familiar flock close by.

So on Friday during the day Cindy had busted major ass around the house, getting done pretty much all of the outside chores that clutter the first part of my weekend.  Instead of using this freed up block of time for rest or relaxation I instead decided to just plug another project in there, cleaning the large shed. The shed has gotten rather messy and cluttered.  I probably have not given it a total cleaning/reorganization since I was actively married.  It was time.

The formula for the project was pretty simple.  Pull almost everything out and separate it into stuff you want to throw out, give away, and keep.  Cindy joked that I was a hoarder.  I would say a non-waster is more accurate.  A lot of stuff that was in there were left over materials from the endless home projects over the years.  Scraps of wood, pieces of gutter, leftover pots, and pvc pipe made up a large portion of what I pulled out.  The giveaway items got thrown in the back of the Tacoma and deposited roadside where almost all of it was picked up by neighborhood pack rats during the rest of the weekend.

Speaking of rats, we discovered an active field mouse nest in the shed.  It was carefully created behind the plywood storm shutters and came complete with a mouse.  When I leaned the board back he was down there looking up at me.  I lifted the one board to try to encourage him to take off.   When I heard a crying noise at my feet I realized I inadvertently pinned him under one of the boards.  I lifted it up and he scampered towards the back of the shed.  I then saw him running along the framing up near the roof of the shed.  I was able to scare him out of the shed and over to the pond area.  I have little doubt he will take up residence inside the shed again at some point.

So after most everything was pulled out Cindy worked on sweeping out all of the sand and dirt while I worked further on separating and sorting.  As expected the process had a number of “wow I didnt realize I had this” moments as well as little memory triggers the various items presented when tied to the projects they were from.  One cool item was a small can that I got from either my grandfather or great uncle.  It turns out it was an 85 year old film canister from the 30’s.  It was holding left over fasteners.

Putting the “keep” items back in the shed took much less time than the pull out phase since we were returning significantly less stuff to the 12 x 20 shed.  The AFTER picture of the shed shows the dramatic reduction of items in there.  It’s odd how simply cleaning or organizing a space can dramatically change the feel when you walk in there.  All of a sudden I felt good walking into the shed instead of annoyed.

Shed cleaning is a project that I would normally reserve for the cooler and more pleasant winter months.  After sweating through it Saturday I plan to return it to as a winter solstice only activity.

On Saturday night Cindy and headed out to go see Ant Man, a movie I was excited to see, a feeling Cindy did not really share.  Despite it being opening weekend we got to enjoy a sparsely populated theater with no more than 30 people sharing the large space with us.

I knew of the Ant Man hero but I can’t say I ever read any of the comics.  However at this point, Marvel has my blind trust when it comes to movie making.  I knew nothing about Guardians of the Galaxy and came out of it thinking it was one of the best movies all saw all year.    I can’t tell you the last Marvel film I saw that I did not enjoy.  I’m happy to say the Ant Man has continued that streak, taking a small (pun intended) facet of the Marvel universe and turning it into a thoroughly enjoyable film.  I also liked how they tied it into the current Marvel films with tie ins to the Avengers and Shield.  Of course as is the case with most Marvel films be sure to sit through the end credits.  It was a solid A film and I am happy to say Cindy wound up enjoying the movie as well.  She was pleasantly surprised.

Sunday morning Cindy and I got on our bikes for a Dunkin Donuts ride.  We didn’t get on the road until close to 9:30 meaning we were going to be well into the heat of the day.   I let Cindy lead the entire 10 miles west.  I told her to go whatever speed was comfortable.  I didn’t have my GPS with but my internal effort meter indicated that she was pushing the pace.  She told me her Cats Eye showed we were 20 mph + for a good 5-6 miles straight.

On the way back I pulled the entire way into the mild headwind.  I stayed on my aero bars and kept my pedal cadence speed up.  I managed to average in the 17’s for the return trip which wasn’t bad.   As soon as we got home I jumped in the pool for a rapid cool down of my highly elevated body temperature.

Before too long I was in the backyard filming another exercise session.  I had decided I wanted to do some backyard deadlifting, something I had not done since 2014.  Since joining Planet Fitness I have not been doing any deadlifting, they just dont have the equipment or space to really accommodate it.  For whatever reason yesterday I wanted to see what I was still able to pull.

I kept my amount of reps at higher weights low as my goal was to see just what I could still pull off the ground with no deadlift training at all.  I was surprised I was able to use a normal pronated grip up to 345 pounds although part of the reason was I was only single repping at that point.  I only went mixed grip for my final pull at 370 pounds which I barely managed.  Getting twice my current bodyweight off the ground was good enough for me with my lack of training.  I filmed the session, something I haven’t been doing much of lately.

I followed up with my second video of the day, this time utilizing my GoPro and Amazon Echo in another head shaving video.  It’s an odd thing how after automotive repair videos, head shaving occupies the second most viewed segment of my YouTube channel.  There is a weird cult head shaving enthusiast underground out there.  Shaving my head in the kitchen without a mirror in front of me full time was annoying.

So over the weekend Donald Trump’s big mouth got him in trouble again as he said that John McCain wasn’t a real war hero and how he prefers war heroes that do not get captured.  It was a pretty outrageous and ridiculous comment for a presidential candidate to make.  However if you have paid any attention to Trump over the years you know he has a long history of saying pretty stupid things.  Despite his enormous wealth, he reacts like a teenager when somebody disagrees with something he does/said.  In this case Trump was angry that McCain didn’t like Donald’s, Mexicans are rapists, verbal brilliance a few weeks back.

Few fellow republican candidates said much about Donald’s anti-mexican rant as they did not want to draw the immature insults that would surely be reflected back at them as a result.  However the ant-McCain comments has drawn bipartisan criticism.  In true Trump behavior, he refused to apologize for the remarks and instead tried to steer the heat back at McCain.  I wonder how many of those Trump bandwagon jumpers that grabbed on to his anti-immigrant talk have jumped back off that wagon and are now walking down the sidewalk with their hands in their pockets and whistling, trying to act like their support of his candidacy never actually happened.  I never thought for a second that Trump had a snowballs’s chance in hell of being nominated but I didn’t think his mouth would derail him quite so quickly.

In an attempt to address what feels like a perpetual sleep shortage I have moved my weekday alarm clock from 5:30AM to 6:00.  The 5:30 alarm time is something that dates back 10 years or more and was established when I was letting out the dogs, making my breakfast, packing my lunch and cleaning up every morning.  Since Cindy started living with me three of those four things usually are taken care of by her yet I continued with the 5:30 alarm.  The extra time was basically just used surfing my Facebook feed.

I think applying that extra 30 minutes to sleep will be a far more beneficial utilization of my time in the long run.

Most of the complications we are currently dealing with in chicken world revolve around Jaina.  Jaina eating constantly, Jaina making more manure than a horse, Jaina getting disgustingly dirty since she can’t perch, Jaina wandering the coop at night. Jaina, Jaina Jaina….   Well now we have a new Jaina issue, she may be a rooster.

This morning Cindy caught Jaina crowing on tape in a very rooster-esque fashion.  If you look at “her” she already has a big comb and large waddle, other indicators of roosterhood.  If she is a rooster it is rather annoying since Rural King had her bin listed as pullets (females) only.

The crowing comes the day after Cindy was surfing the internet reading horror story after horror story of people trying to raise cornish X birds into adulthood.  Some of them can literally get to be the size of turkeys, crossing the 20 pound mark.  At that size Jaina would not even fit through the chicken door to the coop.  Obviously something needs to be done.

With our hopeful upcoming road trip we need to have our chicken situation settled before we leave.  I think the only way we will be able to do that is to subtract Jaina (Cindy now calls her Bruce) from the equation.  The likelihood we can rehome her to a place that won’t use her for meat is next to zero.  Cornish X were engineered as meat birds much like corn that is engineered to resist weed killer.  She is sort of a freak of nature.

I told Cindy she can start looking at options for Jaina.  I really don’t think we have much choice if we are looking down the road at what he/she will grow into.

Tonight should be the last sleep over night for the dogs.  The week has gone by pretty quick.  They slide right into life at the house very easily.  Seeing both of them out in the yard content brings smiles to the faces of Cindy and I every time.

I need to carve out more sleep time during the week.  Recently I have been not closing my eyes until around 11.  With a 5:30 AM normal alarm time I wake up most days feeling tired.  I think one additional hour would hit the sweet spot of my sleep needs.

I have to admit I find it very entertaining watching what is going on the republican presidential race.  Donald Trump who has entertained me on tv has suddenly become very popular with white, middle aged and older Americans because he basically said Mexican illegal immigrants suck.  It almost seems like he is the 2016 version of Sarah Palin.

Then there is the endless stream of republican candidates that have declared themselves as potential presidential material.  I could not come close to naming everyone that has declared but I know it’s well into the double digits.  It seems counter productive to me.  It seems like on the democratic side it is already pretty much a one person race which can be seen as a good or bad thing depending on your viewpoint of Hilary Clinton.

Personally I am at the point that no matter which candidate wins in the end from either party I really don’t care all that much.  I am convinced that no matter who is sitting in the White House, the true masters of this country are outside the boundaries of national elections.  They are the ultra-rich corporations and their minion lobbyists that dictate the direction the country is going, regardless of the current political climate.

If you aren’t a Stern fan the next few paragraphs will mean nothing to you, feel free to jump ahead.

So I have been a Stern show listener since the late 90’s.  I jumped right on board and started paying my monthly fee to Sirius when he left terrestrial radio back in 2006, I enjoyed the show that much.  The first few years on satellite were awesome.  Being freed from the constraints of regular radio resulted in some incredibly different, creative and entertaining content.

The start of the decline was when Stern announced he was no longer doing 5 days a week, the show would now only run Mondays-Thursdays plus the nearly two months of vacation they take on top of that.  When that first reduction in content was announced I recall ranting about it pretty hard.  However upon reflection the reality was Howard was approaching 60 years old and he certainly has earned the right to work as much or as little as he wants.

Well the last 3-4 years have seen a further reduction in the content being provided by the two Stern channels on Sirius.  The list of cuts is pretty staggering.  Almost all of the one off shows that used to run on 101 are gone.  Instead they have filled 101 with almost nothing but reruns, except for the occasional Riley Martin show or Jay Thomas (whom I find un-listenable)

Howard TV, the video part of the show that provided the visual portion of the entertainment experience was shut down with little to no explanation on air from Howard.  The departure of the tv content meant the departure of a number of people whose on air personalities were entertaining and interesting as well.  Despite my dislike of his political views, I really miss hearing Scott DePace on air among others.

The Howard News team has been slowly pruned back as well, their staff and on air minutes have dwindled down to next to nothing.  John Leiberman, who is extremely good, had his own short daily show that also vanished for some unknown reason.  Lisa G, another long time news crew member departed recently, again with little to no on air discussion about the reasons.

Finally, Howard trimmed yet another day off his broadcasting schedule, now only doing live shows Monday-Wednesday.  Having only 3 days has had some additional side effects besides the obvious shortage of live content.  The shows have become overly interview-centric.  Howard is a good interviewer and for the most part the interviews are interesting but they take up way too much show time now that there are only 60% of the broadcast hours there used to be.  The best part of the show was the unscripted interactions between Howard and the staff.  There just is not much time to allow those type of interactions to develop when you have two or three celebrity interviews lined up every show.

Speaking of celebrity interviews, they made another recent change that made no sense.  In an effort to offer fans at least a little more live content the channels put on The Wrap Up Show where topics from that day’s show are discussed.  The Wrap Up Show used to be a round table of various Stern staffers discussing/arguing various points.  It was funny and entertaining to hear the staff be able to expand on their points of view while not being under the ADD arm of Howard who runs out of patience quickly when anyone other than himself is talking.

Some genius totally scrapped that format.  Now the Wrap Up Show consists of Gary and John talking to random “celebrities”, most of which the audience knows little about, each day about the show.  It totally removed any enjoyment I got from TWUS.  I have no interest in hearing some 3rd party I know little to nothing about who happens to like the show talk about it.  Give me more Sal, Ronnie, Richard, JD, and the rest of the back office crew.  Even on their worst day they are funnier than what TWUS has been putting on air nowadays.

There are many more examples of subtractions from the show (why no discussion of Tim Sabean leaving, interns, Jackie, Bubba) I could lay out but you get the drift.

Howard is approaching the end of his second 5 year Sirius contract and as he usually does, he has been waffling about his intentions to sign back up.  He is now something like 61 years old so it would seem to most that would be a good time to call it quits.  I am starting to come to that same conclusion but not because I don’t think Howard still has “it”.  He still has all the tools/staff at his disposal to make great content.  But if his intentions are to become more and more like a dirtier version of Barbara Walters while pulling back on all the other parts of the show that brought us all so many laughs in the past I am just not that interested.  It’s frustrating to me that despite his clear intent to produce less live content personally, Howard seems unwilling to let other members of his staff step in to fill the void.  Man I would love to see/hear a Sal and Richard show.

One much shorter show related rant has to do with Survivor, a show I still enjoy and had it’s 30th season finale on Wednesday.  I don’t understand why they decided to make the finals of the show three players instead of two several years ago.  It dilutes the ending of the show and pretty much everytime, one of the three people in the finals gets zero votes.  I would love to know how the producers of the show think 3>2 in this scenario.  I can’t imagine any explanation that makes sense.

Last night we did the big integration of the two sets of chicks.  When I got home Cindy was inside the chicken run that has been in the garage.  She was trying to attach some plastic netting to allow us to flip the run upside down and use the netting as a retractable roof.  She had been working hard in cramped spaces and was not having fun.

Perhaps that is why she did not immediately warm up to my alternative suggestion of carting the main chicken tractor up to the garage and letting all 11 chicks hang out there.  After all they will be living in the tractor for around another month yet outdoors so I figured it would be good to get them used to it.  Like I said Cindy at first was skeptical since it was not quite as long as the chicken run.  I told her I was positive it would be enough space for the chicks plus it has the deluxe second level coop accommodations they can hang in as well.

I carted the coop up to the garage from the back yard and we worked on getting it ready.  Once it was set up we first let the older chicks in.  They have been in the chicken tractor outside a few times so it wasn’t a big deal to them.  When we added the younger chicks in things got interesting.  At first we were very surprised, a couple of the younger chicks were actually acting aggressively towards the older, bigger ones.  Later on some of the older chicks were picking on the younger birds.   Despite the squabbles I thought it actually could be more dramatic.  All of the chicks shared food/water side by side at one point or another so long term I think they will be fine.  At this point there seems to be a clear light chick/dark chick segregation going on.  The five youngsters and six older chicks mostly group up with their own flock.  Cindy and I can’t wait till it’s one big happy feathered family.

I am looking forward to my four day long Memorial Day weekend.  Having 4 days off gives me time to get stuff done and still be able to stretch out and smell the roses, or play WoW.

Last week Jeremy turned me onto a sweet deal for custom 3′ x 6′ vinyl signs.  I had no signage for GMT yet so I saw it as a good opportunity.  For the rock bottom price of $23 shipped to my door I had this sign made.  It appears to be very high quality and will look good hanging from a timing table.

Another package yesterday contained a small UPS for the chicken coop, yes the chicken coop.  Now your gut reaction might be “What the f do you need a battery back up for in a chicken coop??” Well there actually is a very legitimate reason for doing so.  The automatic chicken door motor is triggered by a power cycle, each time power goes off and then on the door either raises or closes thanks to the timer it is connected to.

Out in my neck of the woods, especially during the summer months, brief power hits are very common.  It is normal to come home to a bunch of blinking clocks.  Well if this happened now the end result would be the chicken coop door going up or down at an unintended time which would not be a good thing.  The small UPS will ensure the door stays in it’s intended position regardless of how many power burps occur during a day.

I also had three more boxes show up at my door yesterday from Ipico, the company whose hardware I use to time races.  It was 3000 race timing bibs.  When I opened the boxes to randomly test a few of the bibs I was not very happy at the condition of the brand new bibs.  A bunch of them were packed in such a way that the timing ring was bent, something that it says in big letters to NOT do on the timing device.

In addition the packs of 50 bibs felt like they were glued together.  You literally had to peel each bib off the pile.  The adhesion was so bad on many of them that it ripped off the print from the bib beneath it which looked like shit.

Considering these bibs were the replacements for the original order I placed which had the wrong type of timing device just added to the annoyance.  I did a spot check of about 50 bibs to make sure they still were functional, which they were, but the quality control at Ipico still is lacking obviously.

DJI recently announced the Phantom 3 quadcopter.  It has a TON of upgrades from my Phantom, including built in FPV system and an INCREDIBLE range of around 1.25 MILES.  Yes, I will be getting one at some point.

So surely you have read about the Baltimore riots, yet another shameful example of human beings turning into two legged lemmings, lighting fires, stealing, and destroying property for a reason that most of them likely know very little, if anything about.   This scenario has played out repeatedly over the years and I have yet to hear one person deliver a logical explanation of how violence, theft, and destruction of property accomplishes anything except more violence, theft, and destruction of property.

Yesterday marked two years since Cindy went to a Tarpons game with me which evolved unexpectedly into something much more.  It seems bizarre that two years have already passed since that night.

Cindy’s devotion, support, and love she shows for me everyday has changed the way I bump along in life for the better, the much better.  As I have said before, our symbiotic relationship just works for each of us.  We don’t need a lot of outside distractions to keep us happy.  We are content together pretty much anywhere, whether that place is driving across the country, working in the yard, or just sitting on the couch. In two years we have already accumulated an overflowing basket of great memories.  I am looking forward to filling many more baskets in the years to come.

Last night was not a good one from a sleep perspective.  I woke up at 1:15 to take a leak.  As I laid down I recall thinking to myself, “wow it would suck if I couldn’t fall back asleep”  Well of course this is often a self fulfilling prophecy.  I wound up laying there for at least two hours trying to fall back asleep.  Several times I was on the verge of rolling out of bed to go do some middle of the night WoW’ing.  The two things that stopped me were the repercussions if I only got three hours of sleep and my desire to not penalize Cindy for my restlessness.  She is a very light sleeper and it is nearly impossible for me to get out of bed and close the door without her waking up.  I will more than likely be grabbing some coffee for the drive home so I don’t doze off.

Speaking of coffee I have a little rant about the Dunkin Donuts near my office, which is the location I typically hit if I need coffee after work.  I have had issues with the staff that works at this time of day for awhile, they are slow, inept and weird.  Well the other day they annoyed me enough to fire off a complaint about the location on the DD website.

I was the only person at the drive thru and placed my simple order for a single large coffee.  I pull up to the window and after a short delay I pay for the coffee.  The clerk then steps away from the window for a minute or two and then comes back without coffee in hand.  He tells me I should pull forward to the white line, 20 feet ahead of me and they would bring the coffee out to me. (they did this once before).

This act made no sense to me.  My pulling up does nothing to increase efficiency as my vehicle was still blocking the drive thru lane.  All this did was allow the one car behind me to pay for their coffee and wait at the window instead of behind me waiting at the window.  Plus it obviously takes longer to walk the coffee out of the store than to just hand it to me through the window,  I waited at least 5 minutes to have my coffee brought out.  When I took a sip and it tasted like hot water with coffee flavor I mentally committed to sharing my experience with someone that could influence future staffing decisions at the location.

On my way home last night I stopped at the Wellness Center to officially cancel my membership.  The commute to the facility was long outside of season and borderline maddening during the last several weeks.  The building is nice, the gym area is nice, the locker rooms and showers are very nice but none of it made up for me losing 15 minutes of my allocated workout time each day dealing with traffic and parking.

I never really felt at home at NCH.  Despite there being a lot more people at the facility there was a lot less interaction between people than I have been accustomed to.  I also never liked that despite all of the equipment in there they did not have a simple pull up bar, the closest thing I could use was awkwardly hanging off the Smith machine bar or the low quality power tower rig they have.  I actually think I will be happier and more productive at Planet Fitness, which seems blasphemous to say.

So late last week I purchased a used iPad Air from Gazelle.com.  You may have heard their ads, they buy your used electronics and resell them.  I bought it as a pseudo Valentine’s Day present for Cindy although I would certainly use it as well.  It would be great for the personal trainer certification course she is working on.  It had a healthy 64 gigs of ram as well as ATT LTE service, freeing it from the shackles of wi-fi.  I was excited to spring it on Cindy.

So I tracked the package with FedEx.  It was arriving yesterday. I saw the package had a signature required parameter so I proactively hung a sign on the front door asking the driver to get the signature from our next door neighbor, which he did.  When I got home Cindy had already retrieved the box for me because I asked her to although she still had no idea what it was.

My first impression of the box was not good.  It looked like something that would have been shipped to me from a seller on Ebay.  It was a generic looking box with a sloppy looking tape job.  Once I opened the box I continued being unimpressed.  The packing material was a piece of spare foam folded in half and jammed inside.  There was no paperwork, no invoice, only a small branded Gazelle card.  The shitty packaging quickly became a minor issue as I saw the side profile of the iPad, it was in a V shape. What in the fck….

I pull the device out and verify it is destroyed. It literally looked like it had been stomped on.  I didn’t even bother removing it from the bubble wrap.  I looked again at the box and saw a small rip in the middle near an edge, probably the end result of whatever/whomever crushed the box.  I was PISSED.

When I told Cindy this mess was supposed to be a gift for her she appreciated my intentions and shared my disappointment.  Yes obviously the package had some sort of violent impact inflicted upon it but the lackluster packaging certainly did nothing to protect it.  At the very least, if they are going to send out electronics in sub-standard packaging a few FRAGILE labels applied to the box would make sense.

My frustration was amplified when I discovered Gazelle only answers the phone from 9AM to 6PM, meaning I was going to have to wait until today to vent.  I am afraid this is going to be a long drawn out process if Gazelle is going to seek remediation from FedEx before replacing the unit.  Obviously I will be lobbying for that to be not the case.

Yesterday we had a very inefficient evening of driving.  Cindy and I carpooled yesterday.  I picked her up after work and drove home.  After no more than 30 minutes at home we got back in the Prius and drove back to Cheesecake Factory which is right across the street from Cindy’s workplace.  The nearly 50 miles of extra driving was a combination of wanting to tend to the chickens while navigating scheduling to meet up with Cindy’s daughter for her birthday dinner.

Katie is a big fan of Cheesecake Factory.  I am not.  I think prior to last night I had been there two times in my life.  There are a number of things that bothered me about the place.  The Egyptian style decor inside is bizarre and makes no sense to me.  I am not sure if this decor is unique to the Naples location or chain wide.  The lack of any sort of queuing system for people waiting to be seated is annoying, forcing you to have to huddle nearby the hostess area, waiting to have your name screamed out by staff. Finally the food never seemed good and they doubled down by giving you too much of it. But who knows, maybe things have changed.

Cindy and I lugged in Katie’s presents into the restaurant.  Cindy’s mom was already there waiting. As is customary Katie and her boyfriend were last to arrive.  Katie’s cousin Stephanie was also there to help celebrate which was cool.

I used a couple huge 22 ounce Miller Lite drafts to help take the edge off. I wasn’t in a fantastic mood entering the festivities so the alcohol helped mellow me out a bit. Katie had her first legal drink, ordering a pina colada for her 21st birthday, a big moment for young adults.

For my meal I ordered shrimp tacos off the “skinny” menu, trying to avoid one of the typical CF monster meals with 4 digit calorie penalties.  The tacos were only ok at best and the side of vegetables it came with were pretty much inedible.  It was a cold vegetable “salad” with some sort of seasoning I could not identify but had no desire to ingest anytime in the future.

It seemed like the others, especially Katie, enjoyed their meals which was good.  My lackluster meal was made better by the key lime cheesecake Cindy and I split for desert.  The waitress brought out Katie’s desert with a candle on it which we accompanied with a Happy Birthday rendition.

Katie opened all of her presents but mine in the restaurant, the box was too big to accommodate in a cramped booth.  She already knew it was a SpotBot, something that will come in quite handy in an apartment with two young dogs.

By the time Cindy and I got home I was quite tired.  I think once I closed my eyes in bed I was out in 60 seconds.

So I have had a very odd issue at work that has been going on for over a week that involves our Comcast Business internet service.  I called in about it on Friday morning and was told the issue would be escalated to another group.  I was told I should definitely should get a call back by 3PM that day.  Of course no call came.

On Monday I called again, letting the phone rep know I was promised a Friday call back.  The rep said the ticket shows it is in the queue of this other group and he was sure I would hear back from them shortly.  I expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of urgency in attending to our issue but agreed to wait for the already previously promised call back.  Well the business day Monday came and went with no call.

So AGAIN, I call on Tuesday.  Much more irritated of course as nothing annoys me more than people making paper promises.  I talk to my 3rd support person in as many days and once again get the same basic bullshit.  He tells me he sees the ticket was moved into a different support groups queue this morning but that is the end of the information.  I told the guy this was ridiculous.

I asked him if he has anyway to tell  what action has been taken by these other groups that are now in possession of my ticket.  “No”.  I ask him how do I go about talking to somebody in these other support areas to push for resolution. “You can’t”

I sat there on the other line silent for a few moments as I gathered my thoughts and tried to disarm the verbal bomb that was burning on the tip of my tongue.  I wanted to just rip this guy apart for being part of the Comcast quagmire of poor customer support.  I took a breath and started again.  “You understand why this is so frustrating to me, right?  It seems insane that after three days there is absolutely no documented action taken besides a ticket being passed between queues”  The guy said to me “Tell me about it, I have been dealing with this for four years” indicating he at least understood just how fucked up this process is.

Covering the guy in verbal diarrhea wouldn’t have done me any good so I again agreed to wait one more business day for action to be taken.  Of course, nothing happened.  So today I will be rattling chains in a major way, I will be getting some action one way or another, bet on it.

Last night I had a great birthday evening with Cindy.  We went to the Naples Carrabbas, the restaurant I have frequented more than any other since moving to Florida in 2000. I really loved the lay out, mood and decor of the restaurant, hence why I patronized it so often.

I have lamented repeatedly over the years how they have been systematically changing/removing many of the things I liked about the place.  You can find rants about decor changes, smaller beer glasses, no italian tapes in the bathroom, cheaper bread baskets and many more things buried within the blog.

The last time Cindy and I were at Carrabbas was in June when Randall and Lily visited.  Since then I noticed that they refaced the front of the building, totally changing it’s appearance.  Well I did not realize that at the same time they TOTALLY gutted the interior.  It is 100% different and bears no semblance to the place I cherished a decade ago.

Now to be fair, it looks nice, modern and open.  It just is a totally different place now.  It’s interesting how they changed the eating arrangements.  As you walk in the conventional tables are on the right, on the left side next to the bar are a bunch of additional high top tables that are first come first serve.   Even though there were literally dozens of spots on the bar side to sit, we waited to get a seat on the conventional side since Cindy did call ahead reservations.

Another casualty is the 2 for 1 happy hour that I found so endearing.  There was nothing like having two draft beers shoved in front of you for the price of one.  Instead they now do half price drafts for happy hour which in theory is getting you the same thing without the same visual impact or fun factor.  I used the new system while consuming two Budweisers in the tall but painfully skinny beer glasses.

Throughout the meal I found myself looking around the space, amazed at just how complete the transformation was, it literally involved every square foot of floor space.  Both Cindy and I enjoyed our food and we had a cute, friendly little waitress that reminded both of us of Cindy Lou Who.  I enjoyed my meal at the completely renovated Carrabbas and of course will go there again but I couldn’t help feeling remorseful that my old familiar eating establishment had been completely obliterated, never to be seen again.

When we got home we enjoyed birthday cake and I opened my remaining gift. Cindy had already given me two in the morning, three was just way over the top.  So despite having to put in an 8-5 day at work, overall my birthday, even with it being my 47th, was quite enjoyable.   Of course that is all courtesy of Cindy.  Despite all of the good vibes there was a persistent sad pull on my heart strings not having mom involved in my birthday celebrations for the first time.  It just feels very odd.

Many thanks to all of the people that chirped in on FB as well with well wishes, I know a good portion of them read this drivel.

One side note, yesterday I finally confirmed that another cog in the process of unraveling my mom’s estate was finally put in place.  My beneficiary IRA has been set up and funded.  The only remaining piece are 32 stock certificates that Todd has been working on getting sold and split.  It sounds like we are close to having that wrapped up as well.  I guess four months in the big picture isn’t a bad time frame to get the estate resolved but it has felt like much longer.