Category SSR

Of course the latest surge in gas prices is hammering everyone hard.  I got a front row seat to just how hard that hit can be.  In the span of two days I spent over $250 filling three of the vehicles.  Wow.

In our upcoming separation Ali will definitely be in a much better spot when it comes to transportation. The Camry Hybrid is paid off, gets more than twice the gas mileage of the other vehicles and she is cutting almost 30 miles off any round trip that she will be making with her new address.

The Tacoma is the gas mileage leader in my pack rated at 17 in the city and 21 on the highway, yay.

In contrast I will be maintaining a 13 and 16 year old vehicle as well as the SSR which just developed a potentially expensive problem which I will detail next.  When I add in the insurance and vehicle registration costs of the three vehicles I have a huge vehicle related nut to manage.

Of course the timing of the SSR purchase, as much as I love the truck is not ideal at all based on what is coming down the pipe for me.  Just making the payments for the truck will be enough of a burden.  Well Friday a new potential burden arrived.

I took the truck to work as I do on most Fridays.  As I am now accustomed to, driving top down on the truck still makes me feel better about life as a whole, my personal four wheeled, topless therapist, even with the sharp turns that are now in my face.  The truck seemed to drive just fine while I was out on the road.

Well when I backed into the garage I heard a rattling noise.  At first it sounded like it was coming from the passenger side of the engine compartment.  I actually shot two different videos so the experts on SSRFanatics could give me some opinions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKGp150QYi0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxUrdM_sXa8

As you can hear, it does not sound good.  Immediately all sorts of bad scenarios ran through my head.  The last thing I need right now is another major vehicle repair bill.

When I crawled under the SSR it seemed like the noise was coming right from the junction of the engine and transmission.  The advice I received indicated there was a good possibility it was coming from the flywheel.

Evidently the SSR 6 speeds are factory equipped with an under-performing clutch set up which includes something called a dual mass flywheel.  This flywheel is designed with the intention of delivering smoother starts.  Unfortunately this design is not particularly good at dealing with the 400 HP the SSR LS2 motor put out.  The forums are filled with 6 speed owners that have gone through flywheels and clutches like mad.  It is just a bad design.

Unfortunately there is no way to know for sure until that area is ripped open which is a chore in itself.  If the problem is indeed the flywheel I could pay a shitload of money to have another OEM, poor performing flywheel installed and then wait for the issue to happen again.

However the option recommended to me by other Fanatics was to have a guy in Plant City do a swap of the clutch system with one designed for a Vette, a slightly more expensive solution but a much better long term solution.

Well neither solution fits into my financial jigsaw puzzle at this moment so as a result the SSR will be just resting in the garage until that situation changes.  So much for top down stress relief sessions.

On Saturday Ali was leaving in the afternoon to head to the east coast for her triathlon.  I spent the majority of the time leading up to it doing stuff around the house.  I did pretty much the full boat of chores, including cleaning.  I figure I might as well get used to it.

Once I dropped Ali off for her trip I headed home.  I spent a good portion of Saturday night researching the SSR problem and filled in the rest watching the rest of Walking Dead Season 2.  The show is very good but I suggest you don’t get too emotionally attached to any of the characters, there seems to be very few untouchables, anyone seems to be fair game at all times to be next up for Zombieville.

I got up early on Sunday to make the trek across the state with the dogs to watch Ali’s tri.  Originally we talked about me getting there before the race but that would have just been a mess between leaving incredibly early and trying to find Ali in the mass of pre-race humanity.  Instead I pulled out of the house at a more manageable 6:30 am, figuring Ali won’t be done until 10 am at the earliest since she was starting around 7.

The drive over to South Beach was tough early on as I drove through patches of extremely dense fog.  At points my visibility was dangerously short.  Nicki was driving me nuts, she was constantly up and down on the passenger seat that was already occupied by Sadie.  She was excited to be going somewhere but didn’t quite know why I guess.

As I approached the South Beach area I went over two bridges that already had people out on the bike course.  They had the normal exit I would use closed off, luckily I had the GPS along to help me navigate.

As I entered South Beach traffic was a mess because of the closed streets.  I had intentions of going to the public garage at 7th & Collins.  It took me a long time to get to the garage, carefully navigating the party van through the narrow streets with people buzzing all around.  When I did  finally arrive I was not happy.

I see the 6’8″ clearance sign hanging over the entrance.  I do not know the exact height of the van but I know 6’8″ is pretty damn close.  I rolled down the woman and asked her if she thought the van would fit, she said no.  Great.  I then asked where else there was a public garage.  She said up on 13th street so I headed up there.

Well I saw the same 6’8″ clearance sign on the other garage as well however I also spotted a small public parking lot on the other side of the street.  That will have to do.

By this time I had to take a leak like mad, something I knew I would be unable to do once I had two dogs attached to me via leash.  I locked the van and quickly looked for a place to relive myself.  I found a Starbucks around the corner that had bathrooms “for customers only”.  I grabbed a small coffee after relieving myself.  However as I was walking quickly back to the van I dumped the coffee after one sip, again realizing it would be impossible to drink once the dogs were in the picture.

I leashed up the excited girls, threw my backpack on which contained water and a dog bowl and headed towards the beach.  From a dog’s viewpoint South Beach was a wonderland of smells, they were both wanting to stop and sniff something every few feet.  I tried to humor them at first, later it became maddening.

On top of that, the sidewalks in much of South Beach are narrow and crowded.  I was wrangling the dogs non-stop to try to squeeze past other people without them jamming a wet nose into legs.

Finally I made my way down into Lummus Park, a spot I was familiar with since I played in several volleyball tournaments there over the years.  As we walked into the park we saw a bunch of runners, the elite people were running back towards the park, the not-so-elites were just heading out.  It was a little after 9 am at this point so I thought that if Ali was close to her goal of a 3 hour race that I might see her running out.  The one variable was when her wave started which I had no idea of.

I found a bench along the path that had some shade from neighboring palm trees, giving the girls a good spot to chill out.  I sat there for awhile watching the runners go by.  I was surprised by the half a dozen or so people that noticed my Tough Mudder shirt and commented as they ran by, fellow Mudders obviously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg62Kbk7RbM

I eventually spotted Ali running towards us and fired up the Flip just in time to shoot some video of her heading out onto the course.  Once she was out of sight I knew we had around an hour to kill so I just sort of meandered about.

As expected, South Beach was once again a spectacular place to just people watch.  I saw all sorts of interesting individuals.  There was the small group gathered around a black guy singing Christian Rock with a guitar and portable amp.  His audience included a chubby guy with a beard that was sleeping along with his full size poodle and her two small puppies.

Then there was the MMA looking fighter dude that was running on the pavement bare footed as he was shooting alternating jabs every few steps. In one store front there was a chubby guy wearing a much too small red, white and blue speedo with matching patriotic top hat and nothing else.

Skateboards are very popular in South Beach.  I saw a bunch of people doing a land based version of paddle boarding.  They were on long boards with a big stick that had a rubberized end.  They did all of the pushing off solely with the stick.  I also saw many people riding skateboards in a conventional manner, the funnies tof which was the guy that appeared to be delivering a pizza on one.

There were literally dozens of blog worthy sightings, I almost wish I had a notepad with to jot down some reminders.

So eventually I spotted Ali running back in.  The finish line was actually up and over the dune on the main beach area, somewhere dogs aren’t supposed to go.  Plus it would have been too hot out in the blazing sun so I thought it best to just stay in the park.  As Ali ran by I told her we would stay put so she could come find us.

It took awhile but eventually Ali returned to where we were, the dogs were of course thrilled to see her.  Ali briefly filled me in on her race saying she got a flat on the bike and then developed stomach cramps during her run.  It was a shame since she really had been training hard to throw a good number up for this race.

Ali said the hotel she was staying at was close by, we could go back there with the dogs so she could shower.  We went in a back entrance to smuggle the dogs in.  The Hilton actually is pet friendly, unfortunately only to pets that weigh less than 20 pounds.  We figured having our 50-60 pound monsters in there for an hour or so would not be a big deal.

Ali’s accommodations were certainly plush with marble floors and granite counter tops and even a bidet.  Unfortunately she said she had issues with a very loud altercation right outside her door at 3:45 am during the night.

The dogs certainly enjoyed cooling off on the marble floor.  I just hung out in the room and enjoyed the view of South Beach from the balcony.

Ali had made plans to join the woman she drove over with and another guy in his training group for lunch.  To be honest I would have been fine just heading out.  I was kind of burned out from managing the dogs. I didn’t want to dampen Ali’s plans though so we wheeled her bike, two of her bags, my backpack and the two dogs to a place called The Pink a few blocks away.

We of course had to sit outdoors with the dogs in tow but we also had all of this stuff.  I told Ali I would load up all the stuff and walk all the way up to 13th street where I was parked (restaurant was on 2nd).  Ali asked if I was sure I wanted to do that as in total I would be carrying three bags as well as maneuvering the bike.  I assured her I would be fine and just told her to order something for me and I would be back.

Well in the first block and a half I stopped 4 or 5 times to try new configurations to carry everything.  What I finally wound up doing was throwing my back pack on my back in a conventional manner.  I then took Ali’s backpack and threw it over my head and under my one armpit, sort of the way some women wear a purse.  I then held the remaining bag in my one hand and used the other hand to guide the bike.

It was not a comfortable configuration as the strap from Ali’s pack was pressing against the veins in my neck.  Adding to the discomfort was the hot sun and sidewalk that got more and more narrow the closer I got to 13th street.  There were many spots where there was barely enough room for one person to pass.  Trying to do so with a bike and three bags in tow basically sucked.

I was getting increasingly angry and frustrated as I trudged along, wishing death upon clueless pedestrians that would not yield their right of way.  I tried to maintain sanity by viewing the journey to the van like a Tough Mudder challenge. It helped a tiny bit.

Finally I arrived at the van and put all of the items inside.  By this time the lot which only had a few vehicles in it when I parked was now jammed with mongers circling about.  I was asked “are you leaving” 5 or 6 times during the few minutes I was there.

So now I started walking back at a much quicker pace since I was now freed of my baggage, the only thing I brought back with me was a water bottle and dog bowl for the girls.  Ali called me when I was at 5th street, saying the food had arrived.  I told her I should be back in a few minutes.

I arrived to a huge veggie burger and a bucket of fries.  It was quite good but I resorted to eating it with a fork and left half of the huge bun along with a bunch of fries.  It was kind of weird sitting there eating lunch with the other members of Ali’s group acting like we are just another couple.  I believe they all know what the deal is so I can imagine it was a bit weird for them as well.

After lunch I asked Ali if we could walk back via the park.  I wanted to stop at the bars they have on the beach to do some muscle ups.  The bars at South Beach are actually the first place I ever saw somebody do a muscle up in person years ago.  I remember thinking how crazy the move was, not able to comprehend how you could do a pull up so hard that you wind up on top of the bar.  I didn’t know when I would be getting back to South Beach again so  I didn’t want to squander the opportunity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvC4XRMGmmk

I did a couple reps on three different spots, the one set of bars had tons of sway in them and didn’t feel good for muscle ups at all.  None of my reps were very clean at all looking back at the video.  The best thing was probably my upper body only pole climb.  Oh well, it was still fun to mark “Muscle ups at South Beach” on the DONE list.

The drive home from South Beach wasn’t too horrible although navigating the van through the heavy traffic is always challenging.  Eventually, after scoring a large DD coffee we were out on the highway heading west.

Ali and the dogs dozed off for a good portion of the journey, all three of them were tired for different reasons. We didn’t wind up getting home until almost 5pm, much later than I anticipated originally.

I spent the majority of the rest of the night working on paying the bills, a process I am getting reacquainted with after letting Ali exclusively handle it for at least 6 or 7 years if not longer.  Doing so has been a real eye opener as I looked in depth at some of our spending, identifying tons of things that we were dropping a bunch of money on.

The grocery receipt was a huge example.  I realized that we were spending almost $60 a month on BIRD SEED.  One box of cereal, $5, my multi-vitamin was an incredible $15.  In two weeks alone over $350 was spent at the grocery store, it is insanity.

Now Ali has never been the type to scrutinize expenditures much, her attitude has normally been we can afford it so we can pay it.  I have always been the one that policed spending.  Admittedly, when it comes to normal spending like this I haven’t done much if any policing just because I let Ali bear full responsibility for the finances.  I was being lazy about it.

Well laziness can no longer be afforded in this area.  After spending a long time plowing through the numbers I emerged from the process thoroughly depressed.  I know we both will eventually navigate our way though this new financial maze but I have a whole bunch of anxiety about how I am going to create that path.  The numbers right now do not look promising in the least from my side.

So we are coming up to one week to go before we move Ali to her new place.  We have been trying to work through the various details for how things will work in the short term.  I am confident that we will be able to handle any issues that come up, that is what we do.

One of those details is how I am going to configure Ali’s computer to function as a remote participant in my local home network.  I am going to mess around with using Microsoft’s remote access features to try to tie everything together.  It is a feature I haven’t had much experience with so it will serve double duty as a learning opportunity.

My new financial reality makes me look at everyday expenses in a whole new light, for instance when I filled up the SSR today.  Not only does the Corvette motor in the truck require expensive, high octane gas, it also has a HUGE gas tank, I am guessing it is close to 25 gallons.  Dropping 82 bucks to fill it used to be an event that would not cause a second of pause.  That is not the case any longer.

This money awareness has already affected other behaviors.  Around the house I am much more conscious of leaving lights on, computers unattended but turned on and any other activity that could be unnecessarily sucking money out of my pocket.

The trip across the alley in the party van to watch Ali’s race now has a price tag associated with it as I imagine the gas costs to push the 16 year old party van back and forth across the state.  It is just the way things are going to have to be, unconscious spending is no longer a luxury either of us can afford.

Besides Ali’s race on Sunday and the regular house chores, I am sure this weekend will be the official start to packing.  Ali has at least 50 boxes in the dining room waiting to be filled.

I have still found myself to be in cylon mode recently, not feeling any of the waves of emotion that hit me the first couple days after we decided to separate.  I told Ali that maybe it is because I am focused on the logisitics of what has to happen to make it all go down.  Maybe it is just a self defense mechanism.

The announcement of Ali and my separation seems to add to the steady stream of other long time couples splitting up recently in our circle.  Over the past year there have been a number of people that either split up or in the process of doing so.  It’s not a bandwagon that I am all that happy about jumping on but oh well.

So my blog entry yesterday was like my cyber press conference announcing our upcoming parting of ways.  As expected a number of people were taken by surprise by the announcement but universally nothing but kind words and support for both of us have been put forth which we both appreciate.

So both of us have started on the mountain of details that will need to be handled in order to facilitate our separation.  Yesterday I worked on changing a number of accounts that were set up to use the American Express credit card that going forward will be solely used by Ali.  I changed them all to bill to my Amazon rewards card instead.  I was surprised by just how many accounts there were, I bet in total I had to change almost a dozen.

Then I turned my attention to the necessary process of reducing monthly expenditures as money will now become something I have to pay much closer to attention to than I have for the last decade.

The first thing I did was kill a universal life policy that I have had active since my 20’s.  It was only for 100k and it’s premiums were rising quarterly.  I have life insurance through work and a much larger policy Ali and I set up a couple years back so there was no reason to keep this one active.

Cancelling it was sort of a lackluster experience.  The phone rep on the other end could have cared less I was cancelling a policy I had in place for around 20 years.  She basically said she didn’t have to cancel the policy, I just had to stop paying for it and it would die.

I remember when I was pitched the policy in the 90’s it was presented as not only a life insurance policy but an investment vehicle that could potentially generate some serious dollars.  Lol, what a joke, the cash value on the policy is basically nothing.

Next up I called Truly Nolen, the company that we have utilized for pest control at our house since it was built.  They have been annoying me for awhile, raising their rates several times over recent years.  I got a woman on the phone named Wendi.

I told Wendi that I just received the latest notification of a rate hike and I was thinking about cancelling the contract altogether as it is just too expensive.  Wendi said she could exempt me from the rate hike if I liked, ONLY charging me $127 for the 15-20 minutes the guy spends at our house once every 3 months.

I told her I still felt that number was excessive.  Wendi became obviously annoyed that I didn’t lavish her with praise for offering to not raise my rate further.  She then asked me what I would consider a reasonable rate.  I told her something less than $100.

I could hear Wendi rolling her eyes through the phone as she told me in a perturbed tone there was no way they could do that.  Hmm so I guess ZERO dollars is better than a 100 bucks.  Without any further attempts at remediation she said she would cancel my account.  When I asked her if there was some sort of confirmation number of the cancellation she said “Use my name and today’s date, GOOD BYE”  Haha you are welcome for 10 years of business Truly Nolen, I’ll be sure to look elsewhere if I look to reestablish pest control in the future, you pricks.

My final cost cutting of the day was a call to ADT whom we pay for monitoring our security system.  The security system was something that we did entirely to help Ali’s feeling security living out in the boonies.  Once we got the dogs, especially the addition of Sadie it was hardly necessary as the dogs sound like dual Cujo’s whenever someone approaches the house.

Anyway, I called up ADT and told them I was interested in cancelling.  Unlike Truly Nolen, they seemed more interested in keeping my business, offering several reduced rates before finally accepting my repeated desire to just cancel, although I did thank the rep for their efforts.

So thus ended the first round of cost cutting measures, I am sure there will be additional austerity measures on the way.

I am conflicted though, there are a couple items for the SSR that I really should take care of, the panhard bar and an upgraded radiator fan.  The bent panhard bar that resides under the truck now could literally allow the rear tires to hit the wheel well if I cornered hard.

The stock fan on an SSR is dramatically underpowered.  When I sit in traffic the engine temp routinely will climb to 235 degrees.  With the brutally hot Florida summer on it’s way I really should replace the fan with the upgraded unit.  This fan swap is something most owners on SSRFANATICS have already done.

I will have to decide if I want to bite the bullet and spend the money now.  It should be the only two items on the upgrade list that are mechanically important as opposed to other vanity/performance upgrades.

Over the weekend I had one of those parasitic home related expenses that seem to pop up so routinely.  The weed whacker died.  There was something wrong with the clutch, as I was running it the area around my hand was getting very hot and it coordinated with a  dramatic loos of power at the trimming head.  The engine was cranking but it felt like the head was “slipping”.

It was a cheap weed whacker to start with so there was no point in spending money to fix it.  I put the old weed whacker and the even older whacker with a gummed up carburetor I was holding on to for some dumb reason, out front where they were picked up by somebody in less than a half hour.  It’s always nice to have a built in neighborhood trash removal.  Almost anything I put by the road finds a new home somewhere, regardless of it’s condition.

I picked up a Poulan Pro weed whacker as a replacement.  It seemed to work quite well to finish up the second half of the property.

My new lunch box arrived over the weekend.  Well, new to me, it is actually a used box I grabbed on ebay.  It is an updated version of the 20 year old box it is replacing.  It looks slightly bigger on the outside but it’s interior dimensions are the same which is all that matters.

It feels kind of weird carrying in a box that does not have pieces of plastic falling off.  It seems to work just as well as old faithful.  My original lunch box will find it’s way onto some shelf on the property. I just don’t feel like tossing it out.

Last night I tried to keep some of my normal routines in place, heading outside for a brief work out.  You can see the first video of a GUTS routine along with my attempt at Bar-baric mode of this month’s challenge, dragon flags.

It was the first time I ever got a full ROM dragon flag on video.  This move is really tough for me since I have such a long build.  After the third rep I literally started seeing stars so I stopped there. 🙂

On Friday I received another hard drive to put in my Tivo Premiere.  Our unit has been having some pretty regular lock up problems that are typical of hard drive problems.  Hell I was considering if I even wanted to spend the money to fix it. Tivo at this point is really on the fringe of necessary items with my use of internet provided video via Hulu, Netflix and Playon.tv.  Really the ONLY reason I still have the Tivo is the convenience of being able to access the latest versions of our shows with only a couple button presses and the ability to completely bypass commercials in a couple seconds.  To pay $15 a month for this minor convenience seems less and less feasible all the time.  To be honest if Hulu Plus was a bit more user friendly and had no commercials I would have totally dropped Tivo awhile ago.

Anyway I have done a lot of work on my Tivos over the years.  Hell back in the early 2000’s I had a second, hacked Tivo that I had hooked into an assortment of tools running on my local pc that provided guide content on the down low.  I also have replaced/upgraded Tivo hard drives many times.

Now in the past, replacing the hard drive required me to utilize my PC and a special Linux boot CD.  I would boot to the cd and use a series of commands to perform the hard drive operations.  This time I tried a new approach, using a hardware based SATA disk duplicator.

Now if you were upgrading your hard drive to a larger capacity drive this would not be a good choice since it will only duplicate what is on one drive to another, it will not expand the partition on the destination drive.  Since I was replacing my drive with the exact same size drive this was a viable option.

It worked great.  After removing the old drive from the Tivo I placed it and the new drive in the duplicator and hit the start button before going to bed.  I woke up Saturday with a perfect copy on the new hard drive which worked perfectly once I installed it back into the Premiere.

On Friday my ear was still hurting me badly so I had our health clinic call in a prescription for an oral antibiotic.  I was surprised that the medicine cost me exactly ZERO dollars at the local Publix.  Evidently there are certain generic meds that you can get for free, Cipro is one of them.

Anyway it didn’t take long for the pills to start working, I was already feeling better on Saturday and went the entire weekend without having to pop any Advil, something I lived on for the previous 4 days.

Although I was feeling better, I opted out of doing the Saturday club run just to be safe.  I also knew that Ali was talking about that 90 ride / 60 run thing on Sunday so I figured I would save myself for that anyway since I don’t want to run on back to back days if I don’t have to.

Before mom left for work Saturday I ran over to her place with the dogs in the van.  I had her taxes paperwork and some extra vegetables to give her.  It was a quick visit where I got a brief update on how things have been going.  Her job has been very busy during season which is good from a boredom standpoint.  Since mom has started working there the shop has had it’s highest grossing sales ever.  I wish the shop owner would reward my mom a little more for her contribution,  some sort of small commission in addition to her hourly wage would sound more fair to me.

Mom recently had routine normal blood work which had some less than good numbers.  The doctor told her that smoking is one of the reasons. If mom would have only taking my hiding her cigarettes as a child as a cue that maybe she should quit once and for all, I wonder how her health would be today? Sigh….

As is the norm, I kept quite busy on Saturday.  I rotated the tires on the Tacoma, you know the service I was promised by Tire Choice that they forgot about?  Spending some time around the bottom of the truck reveals how just how long in the tooth it is becoming. It is really starting to look like an old vehicle, complete with a shoddy looking exterior and an under carriage that is showing it’s age.

After completing the tire rotation I had ideas of installing the new plugs I bought online for the truck.  These were supposed to be part of the treatment of the warm starting issue although they obviously were not the cause.

I was a bit confused when I looked at the engine.  The drive side of the motor had what looked to be conventional spark plugs in conventional locations.  However when I followed the spark plug wires over to the passenger side of the vehicle I saw they terminated in modules that are adjacent to the plugs on that side.  When I casually looked at these modules over the years I assumed they were fuel injectors. They are not.

Evidently the Tacoma has these weird (to me) coils that serve two plugs each, one on each side of the engine.  To remove the plug on the passenger side requires you to remove this coil module first and then the plug is buried underneath that.  I was somewhat deterred from performing the swap when I realized this. This was compiled with difficult access to the plugs on the driver side which looked like they would require me to use my recently acquired wobble socket extensions.  I also was concerned that since these are probably the original, 13 year old plugs that they would be practically welded in the sockets at this point.

Well I had the new plugs, I may as well jump in, or so I thought.  I ordered the new plugs online from Autozone at the same time as when I ordered the new IAC valve.  At that time I plugged in my vehicle specs to make sure I got compatible plugs.  I even went upscale and got the Bosch Iridium plugs.

When I pulled a plug out of the box I scratched my head, it was a single electrode plug.  On the timing belt cover on the truck it specifically says to ONLY use twin electrode plugs in the engine.  WTF?  Well that was enough to scuttle the project for me until I could find out exactly what model plugs I should put in the truck.  I figure I should also grab plug wires while I am at it this time.

I then turned my attention to the van, adding some antifreeze.  As long as I have had the van it has always had a smell of antifreeze coming from the engine compartment although I have never seen any apparent leak.  I once again filled up the reservoir tank, started the van and looked for any signs of leakage.  Once again I saw nothing.  I am wondering if the smell is coming from the radiator cap which is in poor shape.

After completing the normal indoor chores I turned attention to my desk, specifically my top two desk drawers.  These drawers have become a dumping ground for various items over the past decade.  For whatever reason I decided it was time to finally clean them out.

Methodically I went through the various items.  There were a lot of screws, computer parts and other knick knacks that I just didn’t need so into the trash they went.  After about 45 minutes of sorting/organizing I had the drawers cleaned up to my satisfaction.

I found some old ID cards during the process, including my Meridian security id that I used when doing PC maintenance back in the 90’s.  It’s always weird seeing old pictures of yourself.  It feels hard to believe that this picture is now 17 years old, geezus…

Saturday night we went to a birthday party for one of the elder statesman of our running club.  He will be 80 years old this week.  Despite being around for going on eight decades he is still very active and mentally all there and then some.

The party was held at our running club president’s home, I had never been there before.  All I can say is wow, the house was borderline palatial.  It was just massive and beautiful.  The house needed every available square foot of space though because there were a TON of people there.  I bet the number was damn close to 100 at one point.

Of course big crowds and I don’t typically mix very well.  I tried to address the problem by drinking a few beers, including a brand I never tried before, Stella Artrois?  It wasn’t good with a bitter after taste but it had the required ingredient of alcohol.

I didn’t go balls to the wall like I did at the GCR Xmas party since I knew I wasn’t going to let Ali relearn stick shift in the SSR if I was too hammered to drive.  I had maybe 4 beers total, enough to take off some of the edge.

Even with the alcohol it was a lot of people, I just have a rough time functioning well in that environment.  After the cake was cut and happy birthday was sung Ali and I headed out.  She was fine with leaving as she was tired and we had the plans to be at the water park at 7:30 am Sunday to do the 90/60.

So I woke up with the alarm at 5:30 am on Sunday.  It was not one of those pop out of bed mornings.  I was feeling pretty low energy and lightly motivated, something that has plagued me for the majority of this month. (more on that later) Regardless, I drug myself out of bed with the orders to wake up Ali around 6:15.

After I informed Ali it was her designated time she came out to me in the office a few minutes later and asked me how invested I was in doing the workout.  I told her that I didn’t really care as I was feeling pretty crappy myself between the alcohol the night before and residual ear issues.  We officially called it off and Ali went back to bed.

Even though I told Ali I was fine with missing the workout, which I thought I was, it bothered me for whatever reason.  When I saw 7:30 come up on the clock I thought how we would be getting ready to head out and then when it was 9:30, how we would be well into the run, on the way back to the water park.

The fact that we decided to bow out of the work out made me feel like a failure as odd as that seems.  It’s just the way I am hooked into exercise I guess.  My entire Sunday felt somewhat tainted by the omission of our morning 90/60, which was supposed to be followed by some hanging out at the water park.

Late in the morning we decided we would take the dogs to the swamp.  We had a nice walk although the dogs both were obviously struggling with the temperatures that shot up quickly to the low 80’s.  We saw several gators, a turtle, a hawk and a number of butterflies.

Sunday afternoon I decided to tackle another long standing organizational task.  I wanted to clean up the workbench/pegboard that I have in the garage.  I use this area frequently, as a result it has become a bit of a mess from stuff haphazardly being piled/hung wherever I could find space.

After pulling both vehicles out of the garage I set up our fold up table as a temporary holding spot for the tons of stuff I had in the workbench area.  I decided the best plan of attack was to pull EVERYTHING off the bench and pegboards to start fresh.

This method also allowed me to do some additional housecleaning, getting rid of many worthless or unneeded items.  It seems like over the years whenever I had some left over fasteners from an item or project I kept them for a rainy day.  Well a huge number of those things wound up in the trash since I still have thousands of various size nuts, screws, nails and washers waiting to take their place.

I tried to be more thoughtful and logical when putting stuff back into the area.  I was pleasantly surprised that when I was done I actually had a little spare peg board real estate available for future expansions.  I probably spent around two hours on the project altogether.  Cleaning shit up feels good.

I tried to make up for not doing the cardio session in the morning by taping my first attempt at hard mode for this month’s Bar-barian challenge.  The 17 reps I managed weren’t great, but not horrible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFL6gmjhFk8

I think my beloved lunch box that has been my trusty sidekick for somewhere around 22 years is getting close to kicking the bucket.  The plastic that surround the handle inserts is deteriorating rapidly.  Today walking in from the parking lot the box abruptly dropped off the handle onto the asphalt below.  I am sure I looked like an idiot to the passing vehicles as I reassembled my lunch box on the spot.

Once I got inside I tried to McGyver the lunch box by applying some super glue to the broken plastic to try to reenforce it.  At best I expect this to only buy me a little more time before the box becomes completely unusable.  In the past I have searched for a replacement box but only saw smaller models at retail stores that would not serve my needs.

I did a new search today, I saw some used boxes that appear to be the same size as my beloved lunch box.  I would have no issues buying a used box since I know how long they can potentially last.  Regardless of my ultimate direction, the day I dump my old lunch box in the recycle bin will be a sad day indeed.  I’ll always remember when it was a brand spanking new red box sitting by my side as I rode around in the Goodwill delivery truck picking up old shit that other people didn’t want.  This box has been by my side for literally half of my life.

My March has been pretty crappy so far.  It started out nicely with my surprisingly good performance at the half marathon, soundly knocking out one of my 2012 fitness goals.   However after that the month has slid downward.

I had the annoying issues with the Tacoma, culminating with the inflated bill to ultimately fix it at a garage.  The ear infection of the past week was a downer as well and knocked my sense of well being down several notches.

But even without those items I have just been feeling like I am lacking otherwise.  My motivation level feels low and my overall outlook on things is not rosy.  The rut is feeling pretty deep.  I am not sure where to turn.

I have to say it was nice yesterday being able to leave the gym without having to deal with a sputtering truck for the drive back to the office. Although I paid dearly to have the issue fixed, at least it is fixed.

Early yesterday afternoon I touched my right ear and felt pain.  I knew immediately I was once again developing an ear infection, something I do on a pretty regular basis.  I can only assume it was the end result of my 1600 swim on Sunday for which I did not wear ear plugs.

I typically never wear ear plugs when swimming in a pool, figuring the chlorinated water negates the problem.  When I swim in something like the gulf or ocean I would always try to use ear plugs.  I have a life long issue with ear infections / swimmers ear.  I guess the way the inside of my ear is laid out it makes it very easy for water to collect in there.

So anyway, I had no doubt I was on the road to yet another infection so I called our onsite employee clinic and was lucky to be able to get in right away.  The PA looked in my right ear and said it looked very red and inflamed already.  I was given a script for antibiotic ear drops which I started last night.

Despite catching the infection early and having two treatments of drops in my head already my ear hurts badly today.  The pain is radiating outward, into my jaw and even a little bit into my throat.  You know the pain you feel when flying and your ears won’t “pop”?  That is pretty much what it feels like full time.  I am hoping the symptoms start to improve instead of worsen soon.

After my series of failed repair attempts on the Tacoma I was due for a win.  I got it the other day when I successfully resurrected our Hayward Navigator although again, it took multiple tries to do so.

The pool vacuum has had an issue where it was hardly moving around the floor of the pool.  The first thing I tried was replacing the rubber feet.  Over time these harden and get smooth, losing their ability to push the vacuum efficiently.  The new feet did nothing to improve the problem.

The next thing I did was get a new set of hoses since the old ones were getting brittle on their ends with pieces of plastic breaking off. My theory was the hoses were leaking, causing inadequate suction.  A new set still made no difference.

My final purchase was a Navigator “tune up kit”.  This included new feet, wings, front/rear flapper and pods.  I didn’t swap out the feet and wings since they were still in good shape.  I did replace the flappers and the pods. I was quite happy when I saw the vacuum once again scampering quickly across the pool floor after the tune up.  I am pretty sure the actual problem was the pods.  When I took the old ones off a spring fell out in my hand.

I am happy we now have an extra hour of daylight in the evening.  It helps me get more stuff done on weeknights.  Last night I took advantage of the daylight by repairing the rear view mirror on the Tacoma (fell off) and giving the SSR a much needed bath after it inadvertently got sprayed with scummy sprinkler water over the weekend.

I am collecting info for the next SSR project which will be replacing the bent panhard bar.  It appears to be something I can replace myself utilizing jack stands and my floor jack however I will probably need to get a 4 wheel alignment after I am done.

I read this morning that Santorum won the Alabama and Mississippi primaries.  Supposedly it was somewhat of a surprise but I am not quite sure why since those states are breeding grounds for white trash stupidity.

Of course I am not saying that Mitt is a good choice either but people voting for Santorum is such a sad statement about the mindset of our country.  Check out this link if you aren’t sure why that is.

The absolute primary reason he is getting votes is because he is a bible thumper and precious little else.  If you look at his political track record you quickly see he has precious little else to offer.  There is a reason he was catapulted out of congress during his last reelection bid, he simply sucks.

So over the weekend I had a chance to test my latest repair effort on the Tacoma, which was replacing the engine coolant temperature sensor on Friday.  I brought the engine up to temperature, turned it off and back on and once again, the horrible sputtering idle returned.

I have now officially given up diagnosing the problem myself and am taking the truck to a place I have used before that is run by two ex-Toyota dealer mechanics.  It just isn’t worth the hassle/danger I have been dealing with since the problem started several months ago.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early with Ali who was going to the club run.  I wasn’t going to the run but I had an early morning destination as well, I was heading back to Tire Choice.  I wanted to have something simple done, the slow leak fixed in the driver side front tire of the SSR which has been a problem since I bought the truck.  Every week or two I have to add air to the tire as the pressure drops all the way down to 20 PSI.

You may recall I ranted about my last Tire Choice visit where I wound up waiting nearly three hours for them to fix a nail in a tire after being told it should take about 90 minutes.  I followed up that visit with a complaint email to their offices which was responded to apologetically.  I even got a call from the manager at that location saying they were interested in making it up to me.

So anyway, I looked online and saw the garage opens up at 7AM.  My plan was to get there right after they opened, figuring it should be an easy fix.  I pulled into their parking lot at 7:08 and walked into an empty customer area.  The chime on the door prompted the clerk to come out to greet me.

I told the guy that I simply had a slow leak I needed fixed.  The guy tells me there are already two people ahead of me, two people that evidently were not waiting in the lobby I assume.  When I asked him how long it would take to get in he said 90 minutes to two hours.  Once again he used the line I have heard almost every time I walk in the place, “I only have one guy here right now”

I pushed him about this since I hear this line so much, asking if someone called in sick.  He said no, they only schedule one guy first thing in the morning and then bring in other crew as the day goes on.  What really got my annoyed was he said this after a few sentences ago he stated that they are ALWAYS busy first thing in the morning, especially on a Saturday.  He said it is normal to have people waiting at the door.

Well what the fck then?  If you know that it is always busy first thing in the morning, why do you not staff for it?  It is like you are deliberating creating a back log first thing in the morning. That is ridiculous.  I told him I couldn’t wait that long and got the F out of there.

So on the way home I knew there was another garage/tire place that I could check out.  Maybe they would be able to do the repair without a massive delay.  Well this place was even worse.  I was told they only worked by appointment on Saturdays and the earliest they could look at my slow leak was 11:30, some 4 hours in the future.  Haha, f that, no thanks.

Well I was ready to take my slow leak back home with me when I remembered there was another garage, a Tuffy, right around the corner.  As I pulled up I saw one thing that looked promising, there were at least three mechanics there.

So I went inside and met up with Brad, whom I later found out was the manager.  Brad’s first impression was not good, not good at all.  I asked him if he could look at the slow leak and without so much as a “hello” or “can I help you”  he just blurts out “give me your keys”.

Well although I was put off by the lack of a friendly greeting it was balanced by the fact they were going to take my SSR in right away to look at it, cool.  My view of Brad didn’t get much better when a guy came in stating his wife got an oil change there recently and now the check engine light was on.  Brad was very indifferent about the issue and sort of just mumbled something although once again, he immediately took the keys from the guy and took the SUV in to look at it.

As I was waiting in the lobby with the oil change guy we traded different war stories of dealing with local garages, it seems like shitty service is more the norm than the exception.   As we were talking Brad came back in and joined the conversation.  He offered up a few opinions about other garages.

For example when I told him that Tire Choice told me there would be a two hour wait to look at my slow leak, Brad said that was because they don’t want to do that sort of work, there is no money in it.  However he said he approaches it differently.  He thinks that if he takes the time to handle the little issues that customers will come back for the bigger issues as well which will benefit him in the long run.

I was quite surprised to hear that come out of his mouth based on my interaction with him up to that point but it made me all of a sudden view him quite differently.  Despite his outward indifferent/grumpy exterior maybe he actually gets what makes a service industry work?

As an example, Brad said he didn’t plan to charge me for the slow leak repair.  I was shocked by this, and told I have no problem paying for it.  He said it was fine, as the manager he has the ability to do this in certain situations.  Maybe he just liked my cool truck? 🙂

My additional reservation by oil change guys issue was lessened when Brad found out his wife did not JUST get the oil change, it was a month ago and the check engine light was simply due to a loose gas cap.

The mechanic that was working on my wheel called me out to the garage area to take a look at the bare rim.  The inner surface was pock marked with severe pitting/blistering, another side effect of the poor quality chrome job that was laid over the original factory satin wheels.  The blisters were preventing the tire from forming a good seal.

The mechanic said he can grind the blisters off to fix the seal.  He and I agreed that the other three wheels surely have something similar going on inside.  I really need to get some factory chrome wheels at some point for the truck.

So in all I bet the shop spent between 30-45 minutes fixing my problem and true to his word, Brad didn’t charge me a penny.  The only thing he asked was I take one of the cards on the counter that had their website on it so I could fill out a positive review which I did shortly after getting back home.  The reviews on them were about a 50/50 split negative to positive.

When Ali got home I relayed my surprising story of good customer service.  She could hardly believe it either.  You just don’t see many places that go out of their way to impress a customer.  I plan to give the place a chance to further impress me in the future with my other auto repair needs.  With a fleet of four vehicles those needs come up pretty routinely, even with me trying to play junior mechanic from time to time.

Ali was going back out during the afternoon to help at a social event.  I stayed behind to buzz through various items at home.  I was QUITE busy.  I even attended to some low frequency maintenance items like changing the oil in the tractor and generator.

The dogs got to go on two different rides in the process.  The second ride was to pick up some more sod to put in a couple areas of the yard that had ugly looking bare spots that used to be occupied by weeds that died off during the winter cold snaps.

I finally took the time to redo the neighborhood email list sign that was looking ratty.  Originally I used stick on letters covered in packing tape.  The weather conditions eventually made them almost completely fall off.  After removing the old letters I redid the sign by painting the info on.    I originally was going to use stencils to do it but could not find the set I bought awhile back.  Instead I just drew the outline in magic marker and then painted inside the lines.  No it doesn’t look classy but it will get the job done.

Saturday night I suggested to Ali we check out Zookie’s, a sports bar that is not too far away from us.  The place is always busy at night, Ali and I commented multiple times we needed to check it out so we finally did.

We arrived around 6:15 to a predictably full parking lot.  Our initial experience with the hostess was not a great one, she appeared to have poor communication skills.  We walked in, she asked for our name but didn’t say anything about a wait and then walked over towards a table so I assumed we were supposed to follow her.  She then rather rudely told me, “Um no, there is a wait”  Ok whatever, Ali and I had a seat at the large bar.

Looking around there were a couple dozen tv’s, lots of memorabilia, a pool table and a few other games.  In addition there is a no frills conventional seating area.  I was pleasantly surprised when the tab for my draft beer was only $2.25.

The poor people skill girl came up to the bar maybe 10 minutes later and said indifferently, “There is a table open now if you still want it”  Of course we want it.

One thing that was obvious from looking at the almost entirely female staff was Zookies was trying to steal a page from the Hooters formula.  Every woman was wearing short shorts with a top that emphasized whatever they were carrying up above.  Hey why mess with a formula that obviously works, T&A in a sports bar?

Thankfully our waitress although very busy, was nicer than the hostess.  Ali ordered a custom thin crust pizza and I got some tomato basil pasta.  We both were very pleased with our meals.  Unfortunately I wound up wearing a nice portion of mine when a piece of pasta dropped off my fork and rolled down my shirt.  I have a long history of food collateral damage.

We boxed up our left overs so we had room to split a piece of very good peanut butter pie. We both left there with an overall positive outlook of Zookies and I am sure we will frequent it again in the future.

Sunday morning Ali was supposed to do a big brick involving 90 minutes of bike time followed by 60 minutes of running.  She was surprised that I offered to do the entire thing with her, especially since I was banged up early in the week from the half marathon.

We got started early since we had two and a half hours of cardio in front of us, we arrived at the water park around 7:30 am.  The time felt even earlier due to the time change this weekend.

We hopped on the biked and headed down the road to the near by neighborhood area that Ali prefers to bike in.  I let Ali set the pace which for the most part was on the slow side, but fast or slow, sitting on the bike for that long isn’t much fun.  By the time we got back to the water park 90 minutes later we had put in between 21 and 22 miles.

Christy had agreed to come meet us to do the run portion of the brick which would be the big 10k Oakes loop around the park.  After hydrating, changing our footwear and taking a Goo we headed back out.  I wasn’t looking to break any land speed records.  I just wanted to run at steady pace and hope my legs would feel ok, which they did.

After we stopped to drink the water we planted ahead of time around the halfway mark Ali ran ahead and I stayed back with Christy who was feeling a bit fatigued.  Since I was just taking it easy I had no problem keeping her company.

When we got back we thanked Christy for running with us and then headed into the water park.  I wanted to make my training day to be similar length-wise to an Olympic distance triathlon which includes a 25 mile ride, 10k run and .9 mile swim (1500 meters).

I hopped in the pool and knocked out 1600 meters in something like 34:45, completing the circuit.  It was a tough swim since I have done very, very little swimming in the last 6 months.  To be able to pull off a 1600 out of the blue was encouraging.

After I was done I was understandably beat.  Ali was nice enough to wait in the incredibly slow moving food line at the water park while I vegged out at a table.  After eating our lunch we headed home with a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts for an XL coffee that I hoped would help replenish my energy stores.

Ali retired to for a nap shortly after we got home.  The coffee helped me for a short period of time.  I even had ideas of starting my garage/workspace clean up/organization project.  Well as soon as the caffeine surge wore off I was dead and retreated back to the bedroom as well for a two hour nap.  I was quite glad I got everything done on Saturday because very little got accomplished around the house on Sunday.

Last night I pryed my eyes open until 1:15 am watching season 2 episodes of 24.  I am getting close to the end, it’s very addictive.  Yes, I am tired.

The lower half of my body feels significantly better in the span of the last 24 hours.  I had a decent gym session yesterday and I am no longer limping.

Because I didn’t get a chance to install the new idle air control valve in the Tacoma yet I decided to take the SSR to work yesterday.  It gave me a good opportunity to give my radio install it’s best test yet.

As I was cruising to work, streaming Sirius via Bluetooth via my Iphone and using the GPS to estimate my arrival at work while watching the rear view of the road via my back up camera, I was quite pleased with the end result of all of my work getting the new system installed.  The SSR now has basically the same techno-geek coolness that I like in the new Camaros.

Hell I like the new radio so much it makes me want to put a similar head unit in my daily driver Tacoma.  The second time around I am sure the install would go much smoother.

The SSR has some more needs, the first of which will be replacing the bent panhard bar, the end result of some carelessness when the vehicle was lowered.  That actually is a potential hazard if I would try to corner hard.

I also need to get an upgraded radiator fan for the SSR.  The factory cooling system is underpowered, allowing the engine temps to hit 235 when stuck in traffic.  It should ideally never cross 210 or so. I may also add a front air dam to push more air over the radiator.

In addition I plan to get a Magnaflow muffler and some upgraded exhaust tips which should beef up the exhaust note considerably. After that the only other longer term item would be to replace the pitted, shitty chrome job wheels with factory chrome wheels that will hold up much better.

So last night I wanted to get the new IAC valve installed on the Tacoma, hoping this will be the final fix for my warm starting woes.  I had to work quickly since daylight was going to be at a premium, so after making the dogs dinner I hurried outside to begin.

My experience removing the original IAC for cleaning was a huge help in performing the swap this time around.  I knew exactly what I had to do.  I managed to have the job totally done in the span of 40 minutes.  I also swapped out the PCV valve while I was in there, something I don’t think has ever been done.  I read somewhere that could be another potential trouble spot.

I have a new set of spark plugs for the Tacoma as well, I figure the 13 year old plugs that have 135,000 miles on them are overdue to be replaced.  I will probably replace the spark plug wires as well but I didn’t have time to do that last night.

Unfortunately I will not know if the new IAC fixes my warm start problem until I leave the gym today, when it typically occurs.  I am crossing my fingers hard that I have squashed this issue once and for all.

Let’s start with the SSR audio upgrade project which at this point I am considering to be finally finished.

Those of you that are familiar with the project know I had the radio in the car but there were a number of warts with the install such as very low voice guidance volume as well as low overall radio volume, fit issues where the faceplate of the radio was causing the dash to bulge out just enough to cause the HVAC controls to bind, sound that was bouncing back and forth between the speakers and I hadn’t done any of the work to mount the rear view camera.

In my research regarding the volume problem the first step recommended was to tweak the potentiometer on the GMOS-04 adapter to increase the signal fed to the amp. Of course to do this I had to rip the entire dash apart again.  I actually went a step farther and removed the top dash cover.  The reason I did that was to allow me better access to the back of the radio, hoping to be able to better place/organize the huge collection of wire/connectors/modules that are associated with the install.

Turning up the dial on the GMOS-04 did indeed appear to address my volume issue.

In addition to the top dash pad I had the “waterfall” removed as well.  I read there was a fuse box behind there where I could splice in the reverse signal wire, the wire that flips the radio to rear camera view when the truck is put in reverse.  At one point I had the interior of the truck so ripped apart that I was feeling a bit despondent, I questioned my ability to get everything back together in an acceptable manner.

I then turned my attention to getting the rear camera installed.  I had scrapped my idea of getting my reverse signal from the waterfall fuse box.  The location of the wire I was supposed to tap into was really in a bad spot.  I instead decided to just tap into the back up light harness in the back of the truck and then just run that wire along with the camera wire back to the passenger compartment.

Based on a SSRFanatic’s advice I put both wires inside of a wire loom to protect them from the elements.  Routing them up to the front of the truck was a bit challenging, it was tough finding a route that did not get close to the exhaust system.    I used zip ties to hold the loom in place along the way.

Once I got up to the passenger compartment I needed a way to get into it.  I didn’t see any easy way to do so, so I made my own, drilling a small hole in the floor of the SSR under the passenger side sill cover.  I then fed the wire loom through that hole.  The camera wire went to the control box I had behind the passenger seat, the reverse signal wire was routed up to the radio harness.

Originally I had ideas of maybe soldering my wire connections in the harness instead of just relying on wires twisted and then crimped in bell caps.  I decided to not go that route, instead I used small wire ties around the wires to further provide stress relief.

So I finally thought I was in the home stretch, I had everything back together and was ready to call the job DONE.  I took the SSR out for a quick road test and was immediately annoyed.  I was annoyed by the distinctive sound of alternator whine coming through the speakers.  The sound followed the rpm’s of the truck.  I hadn’t heard this noise before because all of my testing was with the engine turned OFF. Well I knew this would drive me nuts so I had no choice but to rip the dash open AGAIN.

Upon reading on the internet about alternator whine it indicated this can often be caused by a faulty ground.  Well I tested my ground, it appeared rock solid.  I then took turns disconnecting one connection at a time on the harness to see if I could isolate one component causing the issue.  I spent a TON of time screwing with it but got nowhere.  I was really frustrated.

Well on a whim I decided to try backing the potentiometer on the GMOS-04 back down a bit.  When I had the volume problem initially I could turn the radio to max volume and not have things all that loud.  After my tweak at half volume it sounded like it was ready to blow the speakers.  So I backed the dial back about halfway between where I started and where I finished.

That seemed to help, I heard a faint whine but hardly discernible, I could only guess the GMOS-04 was just adding too much gain.  I put the damn thing back together one final time and called it good enough.

At one point when I was in the midst of installation hell I was mildly complaining to Ali about it.   She said to me, and correctly so “Well this is what you got it for right?”  I did indeed want a vehicle as my hobby.  Part of that hobby is getting your hands dirty.  This project certainly left me thoroughly cruddy.

Along with Ali’s lack of compassion for my plight she also seemed to lack any appreciation for what I navigated to get the truck back in one piece.  I can’t blame her I guess, it would be like her telling me the complex calculations she had to do with a tube feed at work I guess.

Anyway, if you would like to see all of the pictures I took along the way you can see them here.  I also shot some video of the mess I went through, the 24-25 minute adventure can be viewed below. Anyway, the moral of this story is in the big picture, although I learned a great deal about how to take my SSR interior apart, in a practical sense I would have been much better served just paying an installer to do the work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6x2qFblMh4

Saturday we timed a 5K, it went fine, let’s move along.

So the Hooters Half Marathon was Sunday morning.  I was feeling upbeat about the weather forecast when I first saw it with predicted lows on Sunday in the low 50’s, great temps to run in.  Those hopes were later dashed when I saw that low temp was not going to hit until Sunday NIGHT.  Sunday morning the temperature at 7Am was supposed to be a balmy 75 degrees, shit.

When I woke up Sunday morning it was extremely windy.  I saw there was actually a wind advisory for later in the day.  Oh boy this is going to be fun.

We arrived at the race site a little after 6AM, the race started at 7.  After getting our bib number and race packet we hooked up with some of our fellow GCR members to hang out.  Most of the talk was about how tough the conditions were going to be with the wind.  I had decided ahead of time I was going to run shirtless because of the higher temperatures.  It would help keep me cooler and eliminate the painful nipple chafe I had last year.

As daylight increased we got a better look at the skies overhead, they looked quite menacing with low gray clouds zipping overhead at a rapid rate.

The race actually started about 10 minutes late which is pretty bad.  They made some long winded announcements that no one could hear as well as playing both the national anthem and Gold Bless America.  Ali and I wished each other luck and off we went.

So despite my severe lack of serious training and assorted nagging injuries leading up to the race I took off with the idea of still breaking the two hour goal I set as one of 2012’s to do’s.   It didn’t take long until that goal seemed to be very much in question.

No more than a few minutes into the race the skies opened up, it started to rain very, very hard.  The cold rain was wind blown and actually stung my exposed face and chest.  In no time at all the roads were bodies of water.  Everybody was thoroughly soaked from head to toe.

One of my first thoughts was “oh man, this is going to just crush the spirits of Ali & Christy”, both of whom were less than enthusiastic going into the event anyway.  Ali generally hates getting wet I could only imagine what she was thinking as each stride splashed down beneath her.

I was quite surprised when I found out later that the rain really didn’t bother her at all.  She said in fact she sort of enjoyed it.

The running with sopping wet sneakers immediately flashed me back to the Tough Mudder experience.  Thinking of that race also helped me mentally, realizing that compared to what we went through in the TM, getting rained on wasn’t a big deal.

The rain continued for a good 15-20 minutes.  In a way it was a good thing as it helped pull the humidity out of the air somewhat, helping to keep my body temp down.

Early on I was trying to find a run pacer target. The guy on the left was my first potential pacer.  He looked like a serious runner and was checking his pace often on his watch. (something I didn’t do the entire race)  He also appeared to be somewhere around my age.

For maybe a mile or so I stayed just off his back shoulder but then he started to slow down a bit and I felt like I needed to go faster if I was going to hit my goal so I passed him for good very early on.

A little later on I spotted another potential pacer, a younger muscle bound guy with a t-shirt that seemed to indicate he was part of a fire department.  I wound up following him for even less distance before I determined his pace was also too slow.

During the downpour there were a few brave spectators that didn’t mind getting wet to cheer us on which was really appreciated.  The most noticeable of all was the guy wailing on his bag pipes in the middle of the deluge with absolutely no cover overhead.

So since I couldn’t find what felt like an adequate pacer I spent most of the first half of the race just using rear ends as my “carrot”.  I slowly but surely picked off one rear end at a time.  In general I did almost exclusively passing for the race.  I bet for every one person that passed me I passed 15 more.

So I was coming up on the most difficult part of the race, the up and back over the 1 mile long bridge.  This was made exponentially more difficult by the very strong wind from the west that was smacking you in the face on the run out.

Usually when you get to the top of the bridge and begin the descent on the other side your speed picks up considerably.  Well this was the hardest I ever worked running DOWNHILL in my life.  The wind was so strong it resisted every step.

Of course the good news was on the way back across the bridge this wind was now helping to push you along.  The wind also was at your back for a good portion of the remainder of the race.

Once I got off the bridge at around the 9 mile mark I knew my two hour goal was in reach.  I also happened to finally pick up pace partner on the bridge.  Once again like last year, it was a woman.  I realized all I had to do was stick with her after she told me how she did two ultra-marathons last year as well as qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

Being able to carry an off and on conversation with her during the last third of the race really helped making those tough miles fall off pretty easily.  I was physically uncomfortable of course but not dying.  The skies had remained overcast the entire race so this really helped keep the temperatures reasonable.

Like I mentioned I hadn’t hardly looked at my watch other than to check my time at certain mileage markers.  Patty was doing it for me, telling me that we were running a strong 8:30 pace and that hitting my two hour goal was basically assured.

With about a mile to go I ran into one of the other GCR board members who was taking it easy by running an easy for him 2 hour pace.  I thanked Patty for helping me along and accelerated some more leaving her a little behind me.

At first I was having a bit of a hard time keeping up with Craig, I now was feeling pretty damn beat, that last half mile or so felt very long.  Once the finish line was a few hundred yards away I kicked in what I had left, leaving Craig behind as well.  I was very excited when I saw I could finish almost a full 5 minutes ahead of my what seemed to be ambitious 2 hour goal.  I crossed in 1:55:17, more than 16 minutes faster than my time last year. Here are the official results.

After collecting my finisher medal from the good looking Hooters girl I leaned over on the railing and briefly took in my achievement.  To smash my goal even with those type of race conditions was really something special to me.  I have always preached that actions are much more impressive than words.  It felt good to back that up.

So after downing a finish area Snickers bar and chugging a bottle of water I started looking for Ali.  Like I said, with the weather conditions I had no idea when she would finish.  I started walking back out on to the course, hoping to intersect with her and then help run her into the finish line.

I back tracked somewhere between a quarter and a half mile before I saw her.  I turned around and started jogging in with her.  Ali said nothing, I could tell by her heavy breathing she was really trying to finish hard.  When we got close I saw we were actually close to her 1/2 marathon PR time.  She wound up finishing just 21 seconds beyond her PR, a disappointment for her but based on the conditions and the course it was a really strong effort.

Like I said, before I saw her at the end I was almost positive the early rain and wind was going to suck the motivation right out of her.  Surprisingly she said she felt quite good almost the entire race.

We then waited for Christy who finished about 12 minutes behind Ali, putting in a strong showing for her as well, again made more impressive by the elements.

Ali was stoked to hear how well I did.  I told her that it was quite weird, when I woke up Sunday morning the number 1:55 literally was the first thing in my head.  I kid you not.  I thought it was odd I would even think about a finish time in that neighborhood.  It was amazing it came to be.  Visualization is powerful I guess huh?

So after the race we hung out for awhile.  At this point the cold front was blowing in, temperatures had dropped a good 10 degrees from the start of the race.  We stayed until maybe 10:30 before heading out, we were both cold and exhausted.

On the way home we both talked about various aspects of the race.  We were both happy with the way things turned out although Ali wished she could have found a spare 22 seconds somewhere.  It is hard to believe that I was not even going to do the race as late as last week and still managed to put in that showing.  So much of endurance racing is in your head, although I still attribute my significantly higher overall fitness level compared to the year before as a major contributor to my final result.

As you can imagine the rest of our Sunday was pretty tame.  I laid down for a couple hours with Ali but couldn’t get any real solid zzzz’s.  I wound up spending the rest of the day mostly toiling on the SSR audio project.

When I woke up Monday my stomach was feeling pretty awful and I was limping around severely.  My IT band felt like it was a foot too short.  I called off work to give myself a recovery day.  I feel much more human today.

The new IAC for the Tacoma showed up yesterday so it looks like I will get no break from my automotive upgrade/repair follies.  I want to get the new IAC in ASAP.  My hope is to be able to do it after work tonight.  I am hoping since I have run through the process once I can do it quickly this time around.

Just for the hell of it I punched in my work address in the 930BT this morning to test out the navigation function of the radio.  I was pleased that my parking brake bypass evidently works, allowing me to use the navigation system when the truck is moving.  I however was not pleased that I couldn’t hear the voice NAV guidance.

I was getting annoyed when it sounded like the podcast I was listening to via wireless bluetooth seemed to be bouncing between the right and left speaker.  What I realized was this bouncing was when the navigation voice was speaking, it was just so low that I couldn’t hear it.

When I stopped to put air in a tire I verified that I have the voice volume option turned up to max volume.  However it almost sounded like the voice wasn’t coming through the speakers as all, it almost sounds like it is coming through the GMOS-04 adapter that is buried in the dash which has a small speaker used to replicate the factory chimes.

Why this would be the case is beyond me although it must mean I have something miswired in the harness.  I guess it is a good thing I plan to rip the entire thing apart again anyway.  I need a whole day to dedicate to nothing but getting this project cleaned up.

So I have been taking it a bit easy at the gym this week doing no running or leg weight work in anticipation of the extreme workload I will be placing upon them on Sunday in the half marathon.  Knock on wood my left knee/calf has felt ok for the last couple days.

Last night after work I filmed a video to introduce March’s BB challenge.  I am not quite sure how it wound up being over 8 minutes long.  For some reason in exercise videos where I am speaking to a camera I am far more chatty than I typically would be in most conversations with a flesh and blood human being.  Anyway, here is the video.

As I mentioned yesterday this weekend promises to be quite busy, trying to wedge in house chores and SSR audio work around timing one race and running another.  Oh well, it is better than sitting around collecting dust.

I was amazed when I saw the new pair of New Balance running sneakers Ali snagged for me were actually made in the USA, something that is simply unheard of anymore.

Now NB only manufactures about 25% of it’s sneakers in the US (7,000,000 or so) but that is 25% more than anybody else.  It definitely will make me lean towards buying New Balance for all my future athletic footwear.

So although I have the new Pioneer stereo is installed in the SSR and all functions working, except for the rear camera which is not hooked up yet, I will be ripping back into the car sometime soon.  There are several issues I am not happy with and want to address.

The first is the fact that the radio appears to be just a fraction of an inch too far forward, causing that area of the dash to not go back together as it should.  My plan to resolve this is to totally pull apart the dash AND the top dash cover so I can get a bird’s eye view of what is going on behind the radio.  This will also allow me to make sure I am not inadvertently pinching something that shouldn’t be.  After my car totaling electrical fire in the 71 Buick years ago I am a bit sensitive to this possibility.

I also want to enable the system to automatically flip to the rear camera view when the truck is put in reverse.  In order to do this I need to connect a wire in the radio harness to a supply wire that is hot when the truck is put in reverse.  I found out there is such a wire behind the fuse box that is located behind the passenger seat.  Unfortunately to gain access to it I have to remove the “waterfall” and the fuse box case.

Of course I also have to actually mount the rear view camera which I think will wind up going right above the license plate.  I also need to decide exactly how I want to route the cable from the camera to the control box.  Obviously it needs to be out of harm’s way with minimal exposure to the elements.

I am also considering removing all my crimped wire connections and soldering them since that is the best way to ensure nothing works it’s way loose long term.

Anyway it all adds up to a bunch of additional hours digging around inside the SSR.  I’d like to get to to work on it this weekend but free time will be a bit hard to come by since we have to time a race Saturday and then run a half marathon Sunday.  Plus the replacement IAC for the Tacoma should be showing up soon.  That needs to be replaced ASAP.  Driving the truck after a warm start is downright hazardous at this point.

Last night I made my final attempt at the February Bar-barian challenge.  This was my third video taped attempt.  I wanted to try something different.  For my other attempts I was doing larger numbers of reps early on with some small breaks in between the exercises. This time I was going to try a strategy I saw others use successfully, mini-sets.

Basically I did a decent sized first set with 15 pull ups and 30 push ups.  After that I just bounced back and forth between each exercise, trying to just do as many reps as I could without taking a long pause during the set.  It worked out well, netting me 5 extra pull ups over my previous attempts but a few less push ups.  Overall it worked out to my highest point total of the month.

I have started watching season two of 24. It has been entertaining so far but it sort of seems like Jack has absolutely lost touch with reality.  I mean how is he allowed to shoot, kill and behead a federally protected witness, even if they threw in the qualifier that the witness was into kiddie porn? It was pretty insane.  Regardless I am strapped in and ready to enjoy the ride.