Category Vehicle Maintenance

On my way home from work on Friday I swung by Ali’s place and picked up the girls.  I am dog sitting them until Thursday this week as Ali is in Costa Rica.  When we got back to the house I let them out in the back yard.  Sadie returned to the door sporting a nasty limp.  I did not watch them while they were in the yard so I am not sure what she did.  We checked her paws extensively and didn’t find anything lodged which could be causing her pain.  I am wondering if the rabbit that has been hanging around was out in plain view, causing Sadie to instantly haul ass after it.  Perhaps she pulled something in the process.  She has been limping all weekend.

My Saturday was very, very busy.  Shortly after 8 am I started on yard manicuring.  Weed whacking, mowing and a couple other outdoor todo’s took me until 11:30 to knock out.  After eating lunch I loaded up the girls in the party van for a ride up to exit 131.  I was returning the PC I set up for my accountants.  I didn’t want to pollute their home with dog fur so I just left the girls in the van with the AC cranking while I was inside.

After setting up the PC it was back in the van for the return trip of 35 miles back to the house where I had a mental list of indoor chores awaiting me.  I cleaned the bathrooms, the kitchen counters, dusted, watered the indoor plants, did laundry, and was working on running club membership stuff when Cindy walked in the door after work.

During the day I got not one but two calls from a lady that we probably will be buying our chickens from.  Evidently she is quite anxious to get them relocated because she said she needed room for a new goat.  I told her that I couldn’t get hens until I got back from PA next week.  She wants me to pick them up asap.  The hens we should be getting are a breed named Buff Orpington.  They are supposed to be good egg layers and docile.  The woman said they don’t mind being held at all.

Getting chickens is going to mean I have to be more mindful of what is going on in the backyard.  One such example is my never ending battle against fire ants.  My number one weapon against these little bastards is Amdro, it’s the only thing I have found that at least helps stem the red fire ant tide.  Well Amdro is deadly to chickens if they eat enough of it.  Typically I would just walk the yard and dump Amdro with reckless abandon.  If I am going to use it in the future I will need to cover the area so the chickens can’t get to it.  I am envisioning a large upside down empty pot as a good way to do this.

On Saturday night Cindy and I decided to just stay home.  I was beat from my day of labor and Cindy was sweating her ass off in the sweltering heat delivering mail all day.  We had a Netflix DVD in house so we just chilled with the girls and watched it.  The movie was Out of the Furnace with Christian Bale, Ben Afflecks brother, Woody Harrelson and Forrest Whitaker.  It was a good movie but is guaranteed to not make you feel better about the world when it is over.  A lot of pretty horrible shit goes down.  Still, I appreciate dark movies and would give this one a B+ bordering on A-.

Cindy and I started off our Sunday with the 20 mile Dunkin Donuts ride, the first time either of us have done any open road biking in a loong time.  I was expecting to struggle but thanks to a more or less neutral wind both directions we actually  held a good speed, 20+ mph for a large portion of the ride.  For the entire ride as a whole we averaged 19mph.  I was soaked with sweat when we got home.  I cooled off with a dip in the pool which Sadie appreciated, despite having her laps around the pool limited by her limp.

I had one project I wanted to complete on Sunday, replacing the rear hatch switch on Cindy’s Prius. In 2007 Toyota evidently had an issue with the rubber used for these switches which cause them to turn into a sticky tar consistency, especially in warmer climates.  The prior owner combated this problem by sticking some duct tape over the slimy switch. I was looking for a little more permanent and cleaner solution so I ordered a new switch assembly and wire harness.

My search for a how to video for the process came up empty, making it a prime candidate for another entry in my growing automotive maintenance YouTube collection.  I did find some text directions on the procedure which seemed pretty straightforward.  The worst part of the switch replacement was cleaning up the black goopy hole where the old switch resided.  I used half of a bottle of Goo Gone and a dozen shop towels in the clean up procedure.   The new switch works great and no longer coats your hand in road tar.

I had to do a few boring things like more laundry and pay my bills on Sunday but I also spent a lot of time geeking out playing Diablo, trying to get my monk through the expansion content.  I love that Cindy actually encourages me to just play games sometimes as she appreciates the various types of hard work I am doing the rest of the time.  She was quite content baking/cooking in the kitchen as I killed thousands of demon spawn.

Sunday night we finally almost closed out the original run of 24.  We have exactly one episode left in season 8.  I have to say that even though I thought it was impossible, Jack has somehow managed to set the bar even higher in lunacy during this season.  He flips back and forth between the roles of patriot, super hero, lover and cold blooded killer so frequently and easily it makes my head spin.  Just trying to document everything that happens to the guy in a 24 hour period and just how silly and far fetched it is for any human being would ruin the 24 experience.  Just strap in and hold on, check your sense of reality at the door.

So I told Ali I would try to help her move on Saturday.  I was unsure how my ab pain would be by then.  Luckily the pain seems to now be present only if I press on the area above my belly button.  I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing.  Also the closing on the new place did not come through, meaning we would be doing a half move, from Ali’s apartment into the back of the moving truck, a less than ideal scenario for sure.  I also brought the dogs out to the house so they could stay there while Ali’s living arrangements are in limbo.

I picked up Ali so we could go grab the moving truck.  I told her I could drive it since I have long straight body truck experience.  The 17 foot U-haul truck wasn’t huge but hopefully big enough to get the job done.

When we got back none of the recruited help was there yet so Ali and I started moving the dozens of boxes down into the garage, making room for the big furniture items to get moved out.  Some of the additional people showed up so we got busy.  I wanted to get the sleeper sofa out of there first as it is probably the biggest and heaviest item there was to deal with. Once that was out of the way I figured it would be downhill.  Getting the sofa out was a challenge but successful.

The crew we had there worked diligently for maybe 90 minutes getting all of the furniture items out of the apartment and into the back of the truck.  Once they finished up everyone enjoyed the coffee, donuts and bagels Ali bought before they headed out.  There was still a lot of little items scattered about but that wasn’t the type of thing they could help much with so they headed out.

I could tell Ali was feeling burned out from the process so I tried to come up with a plan to get things to more manageable state.  First we totally cleaned out her office so she could sweep it out.  We then moved the bed pad and topping to the office so she could use it as crude sleeping quarters temporarily. We then cleaned out the master bedroom so that could get swept out as well.  We moved pretty much everything besides the clothes and shoes in her closet to the landing area by the steps.

Christy showed up and helped Ali sort and box up some of the remaining loose items.  My job was to take all of these completed boxes and storage containers and fit them into the truck Tetris style, trying to get as much in while keeping the load as stable as possible.  By the time the last box was in place the truck was pretty much filled floor to ceiling, front to back.  There are still things in the apartment that need to come out but it’s pretty minor compared to where we started.

The game plan now was to leave her stuff in the truck and as soon as the bank is ready to close on the new place, try to get her moved that evening.  The problem is there is no firm date for that to happen, quite annoying considering Ali was originally told her closing date would be 4/15.  I left her place around 2PM.  Ali was very thankful for my help.  It was a lot of work to be sure but I’ll be glad to see Ali established in her own place and don’t mind helping her get there.

Saturday evening I was quite beat as you can imagine.  Cindy and I stayed in.  She made a great dinner which included eggplant that came from the garden.  She is very good at improvising meals.  We watched Dallas Buyers Club Saturday night, the movie Matt McMconaughey won an Oscar for.  Wow his frail, gaunt appearance in the movie was very disturbing but lent credibility in his portrayal as a man with AIDS.  The movie was very well done and shined a light on the lunacy of medicine in the United States.  I’d give it a solid A.

Sunday morning, despite busting ass the day before, was designated to be a training brick.  Cindy and I headed to the waterpark to do a bike/swim brick.  We had done neither training discipline in quite a long time, 4-5 weeks at least.  The bike ride was difficult with the typical headwind when riding south but we maintained an average of 18.7 mph which isn’t bad at all.

I was worried that the swimming movement would aggravate my abdominal thing but I was able to get 1200 yards without feeling pain.  I was surprised I was able to keep my 400 yard segments under 9 minutes.  In fact I did a negative split for all three legs. (8:55, 8:40, 8:35) On the way home we grabbed some well deserved DD coffee as well as making a few other stops.  The girls greeted us like we had been gone for weeks of course.

My Sunday afternoon was mostly consumed by another Tacoma maintenance project. redoing the front brakes/rotors.  The brakes on the truck have been pulsating pretty badly for quite awhile.  I ordered the parts online from Autozone last week.  I went this route instead of simply going to the store to score two $25 AZ gift cards which I still have not located.

I had replaced the rotors on the Tacoma several years ago so I didn’t bother doing any refresh on how to do it, I figured it would come back to me, which it pretty much did, however it didn’t take long until I had my first issue.  The brake pads that AutoZone sent me were the wrong ones.  My Tacoma is the Pre-Runner variety which has upgraded brakes with different pads.  So I had to waste 90 minutes running to AutoZone to return what was sent to me and get the right type.

Doing the actual work wasn’t too bad.  I did take the pins that the brake pads slide on and throw them in the vice.  I used a paint stripper attachment in my drill to remove caked on gunk from the pins that was surely making the old pads get hung up, probably contributing to the old rotors getting warped.

While I had the hood up I did a partial brake fluid swap, sucking out the reservoir of the coffee colored brake fluid with a turkey baster and refilling it with fresh synthetic fluid.  I also replaced the air box for the second time in roughly a year.  The replacement air box I installed a year ago broke in exactly the same manner as the OEM box it replaced.  This time I bought the new airbox from AutoZone so I am hoping it holds up better than the first one which came from Ebay.

When I road tested the Tacoma the brakes felt smooth and strong, just as I hoped.  Feel free to spend 13 minutes of your life watching how I did it.

This morning I had a good report from my dentist.  Unlike the rest of my body, my teeth seem to be the one thing that has actually gotten better with age.

So last night I started the prep for the trip albeit minor prep.  I stopped and grabbed food for Sadie  on the way home from work, washed the bedding in the van and started to pull out a few things for the trip.  This morning I dumped my two used oil containers at Wal-mart and picked up fresh oil in to put in the van tonight since it just hit 3000 miles since the  last change in September.

I had a funny encounter with one of the guys in the automotive department that helped me dump the oil.  I have seen this guy before, he is older, short, with glasses and a straggly beard that is half gray.  He almost reminds me of a dwarf from Lord of the Rings.  Well I have seen this guy before, he has a noticeably different personality, somewhat eccentric but noticeably happy and upbeat, despite working in what is surely a stressful job.  Dealing with people that get their cars serviced at Wal-mart cannot be much fun.

Anyway as he was dumping my used oil he started singing.  The fact that he was singing was somewhat unusual but what he chose to sing is what really made it’s mark, “Fairy tales do come true, it can happen to you, if you’re young at heart…”  Good for him.

Tonight’s van prep will include the oil change, topping off the antifreeze level and the washer fluid.  I also need to look closely at my bills so I can pay anything that comes due while I am out of town.

I am planning to take my Phantom/GoPro along to PA.  I think it would be pretty epic to capture some winter aerial scenery although I’m not sure how the quad is going to like flying in below freezing temperatures.

I saw the weather forecast for the next few days for the east coast, there is a bad storm rolling in that has the potential to drop a lot of ice in the more southern states.  The “good” news is that it is supposed to go down in the Wednesday/Thursday time frame.

The forecast in my dad’s area looks quite brisk.  I am pretty sure Cindy will get a full appreciation of snow and winter in the first 24 hours.  🙂

Saturday morning I followed through with my plan to reboot my running program.  Cindy and I did a little over 3 miles at the nearby track.  Running on the track can deliver a pretty high dosage of boredom as you circle the same 400 meters again and again but it is also nice to know exactly how far you have gone and how far you have yet to go without a GPS.

I had to derail Cindy from her usual talk heavy tendencies as the run went on.  Since I hadn’t run since New Year’s Day I wasn’t feeling all that great.  When I don’t feel all that great I try to insulate my mind from my body by letting it drift to whatever subject it lands on.  Responding to someone else’s conversation breaks that process.  The good thing is Cindy knows that and if I give her the NTZ (no talk zone) indicator, she is pretty good at just letting me be.

My GPS and Cindy’s had a pretty large disagreement on how far and how fast we ran.  My Garmin said we logged something like 3.29 miles at an 8:33 pace.  Cindy’s said we did something like 3.17 at a 9:00 pace.  I liked my numbers better.  Either way I felt well exerted and as a bonus left the track without a limp.  My right knee felt ok.

When I got back to the house I headed outside to tend to outdoor chores.  Despite the extensive efforts that were put into the protecting the garden during recent cold spells the tomatoes have officially bit the dust.  I ripped out the two dead plants.

I had everything finished up by noon clearing the way for my next automotive project, bypassing the transmission cooler on my Tacoma.

You may wonder why I was bypassing my perfectly good factory trans cooler?  Well recently a guy commented on one of my other Tacoma videos, thanking me for the guidance it gave him on his repair.  He also clued me in to another common failure of Tacomas around the age of mine, trans cooler ruptures.  Evidently the factory transmission  cooler, which is enclosed within the radiator has a history of failing.  If that happens, antifreeze is pumped into the transmission which will kill it shortly thereafter.  Well the last thing I need to is to replace the transmission on my 15 year old truck so I figured installing a $40 trans cooler was a good insurance policy.

I won’t go into vast detail on the trials and tribulations of the replacement (there were many) as they are outlined in the video.  The end result was I got the cooler installed albeit using methods that are less than ideal in my book.  I will be keeping an eye on the front end of the truck to make sure I don’t see any trans fluid puddles going forward.  So far, so good.

On Saturday night we watched Don Jon, a movie about a guy that is majorly addicted to porn.  The movie was entertaining enough but I can’t really tell you much about the plot, I am not sure if there really was much of one. It was a solid Netflix rental but if you are a sexual prude, steer clear. It gets a firm (no pun intended) B.

Sunday morning was utilized mostly to get more maintenance done, both the automotive and landscape variety.  Cindy’s Miata was due for an oil change.  She helped me do the work and actually enjoyed participating.  After that I recharged her AC system as it was not blowing cold air anymore, despite the large chunk of money Cindy spent getting the compressor replaced last year.

Adding coolant to the system got it blowing cold again.  I am hoping whatever is leaking is doing so in small quantity so I can just recharge it every couple of months of instead of throwing more repair money into the Miata which is already firmly in the “throwing good money after bad” category when it comes to repair costs.

After car maintenance was completed we headed to the backyard for landscape work.  The areca palms outer fronds had all turned brown from the cold temps.  I wanted to give them a nice haircut, they were overgrown anyway.  I threw the hedge trimming attachment on my weed whacker and went nuts, leaving piles of decapitated palm fronds in my wake.

Cindy was on clean up duty, picking up the fronds and throwing them in the yard cart I had attached to the tractor, dumping them in the trench in the rear of the yard.  Having her help made the task go MUCH faster than it would have flying solo.

Most of Sunday afternoon was low key.  Sometime mid-afternoon a thought hit me as I glanced at the calendar while doing my bills.  I noticed that next Monday was President’s Day, a day off for me.  I recalled that Cindy said she had off Friday and Saturday as well.  I wondered if somehow I could turn this into a short notice road trip to PA to visit my dad and step mom?

In March I have work and race commitments that would make a trip impossible.  If I wanted to do it in 2014 it would have to be now.  When I mentioned the idea to Cindy she was all for it, she was excited about the prospect of seeing and playing in snow in person, something she never has had a chance to do, ever.  Of course this was all preliminary, I had to get a number of things lined up, first of all checking with Dad if he is ok with a short notice visit.

Dad was surprised by my proposal but happy to hear it.  After verifying with my step mom, since she is the one who winds up doing most work associated with having company, he said he was cool with us coming up.

Next up I floated the idea to Ali. Ideally I would have liked to take both dogs along for the visit, despite the fecal disaster I encountered last year from Nicki.  Ali was not agreeable to my taking Nicki again for fear of a relapse of that very poopy scenario so Sadie will be making the trek solo.  However once we get to my dad’s place she will have my dad’s three dogs to keep her company.  She will have a TON of fun.

Today I got the green light from work to take the time off so the trip is officially a go.

All of a sudden I now I have a massive list of things to get handled before the early Friday morning departure.  I have a lot of mental checklists to mark off.  Of course a lot of those marks are party van related.  Everytime I push off for another road trip in the van it is always a leap of faith to some degree since it is an 18 year old vehicle.  However each time I have called it into action it has gotten me to and from my numerous destinations with only a few small bumps in the road.

This winter in PA has been brutal, cold and long.  The temps at my dad’s place have been non-stop frigid almost every day since Christmas. We will be lucky to see a couple days that get above freezing. It will be quite the eye opener for Cindy since she gets cold when temps dip into the 60’s. Seeing the new sheep and llama additions to my dad and stepmom’s animal menagerie should be fun as well.

I got a call from my accountant yesterday letting me know he was done with my taxes already.  I am hoping the refund I am getting will be enough to cover getting the pool enclosure re-screened, something that is probably a year or two overdue.  There are a number of panels on the top of the cage that are torn along the spline.

My Saturday was pretty jam packed.  I first headed outside to work the normal outdoors maintenance which was sorely needed since the last two weekends race logistics and/or Randall housing kept me from my normal rounds.  The garden was pretty messy.  I spent time removing things that were killed or severely damaged from the cold few days we had the last couple weeks.  I walked around and picked up a lot of yard shrapnel and then made my rounds with the weed whacker, something that hasn’t been done in weeks.

I then moved inside where I cleaned and did additional prep for the party.  It just felt like there was tons to do even though in the back of my mind I realized I had most of the day Sunday to prep as well if needed. I just hate procrastinating.

One of the big things I needed to get knocked out on Saturday was making my chocolate birthday cake, as it was promised as one of the features of the SB party.  I once again filmed the cake creation process, this time being much more concise in documenting it.  The entire video is less than 5 minutes.  I think this cake turned out the best of any attempts I have done.  The cake itself was super moist and the icing turned out just about perfect in flavor and texture.

Cindy and I went to see I Frankenstein Saturday night.  The movie was dead smack in the middle for me.  It was fine but would have been equally fine viewing at home and definitely was not worth the premium to see it in 3D.  It gets a B.

So Sunday morning Cindy and I tossed around the idea of doing a DD bike ride however it was really foggy early on so we scrapped the idea in favor of getting a head start on party prep.  Cindy had planned on a nice varied selection of food items so her primary job was food prep although she had really put a lot of planning into other elements of the party as well.  Most of my contribution was technical and logistical, move that, set up this, etc…

One of the ideas I had was to set up a second tv on the pool deck so people could enjoy the game outdoors if seating got to be a pain indoors.  I had bought a cheap portable antenna to pull in the signal from the Ft Myers tower.  I set the tv up, attached the antenna and had a crystal clear HD picture.    Too bad it turned out that not a single person watched the game outside, instead the game was broadcast outdoors for whatever gnats were hanging around.  Part of my Sunday also included hopping on the tractor and quickly mowing the yard to compliment the weed whacking I performed the day before.

I had to do some work on a server at work from home Sunday.  At least it was supposed to be from home.  Unfortunately something went wrong with my remote control session and I had no choice but to haul ass into work to fix it and then haul ass back out to the house to help in the final prep.

While I was in the shower Randall had shown up, fresh off his first ever half marathon in Miami that morning. (grats dude)  It was VERY hot for early February, not a good day to run at all.  I was glad to see he survived it, that is all you are really trying to do your first time.

So surprisingly people did actual start showing up around 5 to take advantage of my backyard playground. Before we long we had 10 people+ outside taking turns on the slackline, flipping tires, and messing around on my pull up bars.  It was a fun way to start the event. I was the only one to successfully traverse the line the entire distance, twice, just saying. 😉

So the party then moved indoors and the drinking began in earnest.  I had planned for people bringing a lot of their own beer in addition to the 4 cases I bought.  I turned the utility sink into an auxiliary cooler by cleaning it up, lining it with a trash bag and dumping in a bag of ice.  It worked out pretty well.

With people bringing their own  adult beverages we just had a ridiculous amount of alcohol on hand, enough to fulfill the drinking needs of a group four times the size of what we had.  We were over provisioned for food as well but not to quite the same degree thank goodness.

So the game started and the fun ramped up.  Most of the room was pulling for the Broncos, my buddy Sean was really the only person really pulling for the Seahawks, and in a very demonstrative manner at that.  He was so into it that I grabbed my ancient number 55 Brian Bosworth Seahawks jersey that I bought for some odd reason two decades ago, and gave it to him. I even personalized the jersey with his name.

The game was surprising in many ways, starting with the Seahawks scoring a safety on the very first play of the game.  If someone would have picked SAFETY as the first type of score on the betting board they would have cleaned up.  The Seahawks absolutely demolished the Broncos from start to finish.  The number one defense versus number one offense match up was a clear beat down, something like the 2nd or third biggest blow out in Super Bowl (no I am not going to say the Big Game, fcking ridiculous) history.

I thought the commercials this year were very strong although because of the noise in the room I had a hard time hearing some of them from time to time.  I won’t bother reviewing them, my general opinion follows most others in what were the best.  There was some very creative and funny advertising genius on display for sure.

A group of people had to head out around halftime for various reasons but there was still a strong core group that lasted to the end of the game. Despite our encouragement for others to take food/drink with them, for the most part we wound up keeping enough food/beer to feed a small army.

All in all I think the party was a huge success, everyone appeared to have a lot of fun which is all you hope for when hosting something like this.  Heaping amounts of credit needs to go on Cindy’s back.  She really did a hell of a job making sure people were taken care of. After everyone left it was just Randall, Cindy and I.  Randall took Monday off so he could just crash at my place.  We stayed up for awhile trying to get as much cleaned up as possible.  There was quite a bit as you can imagine.

This morning I woke up not really feeling hung over at all, just tired.  Although I drank probably a six pack at the party or a little more, I shut it down pretty early instead of drinking right up to the bell which probably helped.

When Randall got up I fired up Season 2 of The Walking Dead video game.  I had bought the game a couple weeks ago but hadn’t tried playing it yet.  I bought it on the bedroom Xbox so I had to download it to the great room Xbox before I could play.

So I fire up the game and start playing.  After maybe 20 minutes of play I zig when I should have zagged and die.  No problem, the game does auto saves along the way so if you die you can jump back in close to that point.  Well on the death screen there is a prompt to hit the A button to continue.  I hit it, nothing, oh, maybe it’s doing something in the back ground. I wait some more and hit it again, nothing.  What the fck??

Ok well it appeared obvious the game was hung.  I assumed it was just a glitch so I exited the game and figured I would be back to my last save point.  Wrong.  I launched the game and was transported back to square one, well that is annoying as shit.  I handed the controller over to Randall so he could go through it the second time.  I wrote it off to the Xbox just fcking up.

So Randall does well and gets well past the point where I died before he bites the dust.  He put in at least a half hour of time in.  Again I am presented with hit A to continue screen and again it does nothing.  What the fck??????????!!!!!!  I had no option but to again exit the game and again we lost all progress, we now had put well over an hour into the damn game and our reward was to start over again.

Well before I got on the hamster wheel on more time I decided to check online to see if this annoying problem was isolated to me or not.  The answer was not.  Evidently the problem is the end result of Microsoft’s stupid licensing restrictions.  Basically, because I bought the game on my other Xbox, it wasn’t allowing me to save the game on another one.

This behavior is annoying enough as is.  To me, if I bought a game I should be able to download and play it on any Xbox I own.  But even if you set that belief aside, allowing me to install the game on another console with no warning of any sort alerting me to the fact that I will wind up wasting tons of time if I ever die, is ridiculous.

I did find a “fix” for the behavior.  Basically you do a license transfer of your downloaded content from one Xbox to another however this is a one way trip.  Now I can no longer play the game on my bedroom Xbox and Microsoft only allows you to do a license transfer once every 4 months.  This sort of restrictive use policy is bullshit in my opinion.  If I bought a hard disc copy of the game I could load and play it on either system without issue.  Just because I buy a copy of a game that is digital only format doesn’t mean that ability should be removed.

After Randall left I still had a number of to do’s.  I ran out to get supplies to change the oil in the SSR, Tacoma and Cindy’s Miata.  All three vehicles were overdue for an oil change.  Cindy’s won’t get done till this weekend but I knocked out the SSR and Tacoma this afternoon.  I also swapped out the air filters in both vehicles.

Overall things went well before I received a dirty oil facial while working on the Tacoma.  The truck was parked in the same direction as the wind was blowing rather strongly.  Once I removed the oil drain plug the stream of warm, dirty oil was immediately misdirected out of the oil catch pan and all over the driveway and my upper body.  It was a mess.

I had some ideas of installing the auxiliary trans cooler I bought for the Tacoma but I decided my time would be better spent putting the rest of the party hangover items away.  I repacked the unused beer in the boxes it came in.  I had a full case of Michelob Ultra and nearly full cases of Coors, Bud Light and Miller Lite when I was done.  During the afternoon I was able to give  away half of my beer surplus, donating the Coors to my neighbor next door and the Mich Ultra to my other neighbor across the street.  They both appreciated my Super Bowl party surplus.

About 4PM I finally had the house more or less back to the way it was prior to the party.

During the afternoon, the sandhill cranes that up until this point had been seen exclusively in my neighbors yard, decided to come check out things on the other side of the fence.  These birds are incredibly loud when they communicate, the loudest bird I ever heard first hand.  Today the were quiet as they walked around the yard.  I hope they decide to hang out more, they are a beautiful and awesome addition to the various wildlife that hangs out around the house.  Now if they only would scare off armadillos….

Tomorrow my normal routine returns although physically I don’t know if I am quite ready for it.  The combo of squatting and deadlifting followed by a day of ass to grass squat holds has really laid me out.  Even today, some 4 days later I have some very acute soreness from it in my legs.  Getting old isn’t for sissies.

So when I got home last night I headed back outside to recover the garden from the latest blast of cold air.  When I woke up this morning it was 39 freaking degrees outside.  What makes it more aggravating is when I look at the forecast for the next few days I see lows that are dancing right along the edge of dangerous, meaning a slight mis-forecast could mean more landscape carnage if it isn’t covered.  So at this point ti looks like I am just leaving everything bundled up until the weekend, f it.

So the other day I got a comment on one of my Tacoma repair videos, thanking me for making it and saying how it helped them replace their own valve cover gaskets.  The commentator added that if I haven’t already done so, I should perform a transmission cooler bypass.   I replied back to him for details.

Evidently there is pretty common problem with this generation of trucks where the transmission cooler, which is embedded inside of the main radiator fails/ruptures.  If this occurs, the transmission fluid becomes contaminated with anti-freeze and will fail in short order.  Replacing a transmission is a major and VERY expensive repair.

The proactive way to prevent this is to install an auxiliary transmission cooler, bypassing the internal trans cooler.  When I saw I could buy a trans cooler kit off Amazon for $40 with free Prime shipping it was a no brainer.  I’ll trade 40 bucks and a couple hours of driveway labor for a $1500+ transmission replacement down the road any day.

I found out today that my mom has not smoked a cigarette in two weeks.  I had no idea she was going to be trying to stop (despite my decades long encouragement to do so), but I was thrilled to  hear it.  Mom said her primary reasons for doing so were financial, eliminating cigarettes from her budget is akin to giving herself a big fat raise.  In only two weeks she has saved a big chunk of cash.

Although I welcome the positive financial impact it will have on our life I am even happier that it will be a positive influence on her health.  Quitting smoking is not for wimps.  I am quite proud of mom for taking it on.

So I am back from my week long at home virtual training and to be honest, I’m pretty glad about it.  I really don’t know if my sanity could have endured another day of seemingly endless lecture on topics I had very minimal interest in.  Coming back to the office is made even sweeter by the fact that I have a nice and tidy one day work week.  We get off Xmas Eve and Xmas but I tacked two vacation days on the back end to make for an awesomely long weekend.  I am quite glad I maintained the blog from home last week, trying to regurgitate all of last week would have been cumbersome.

On Saturday I timed the race in Marco.  This race perennially has had organizational issues and this year was no different.  The most glaring oversight this time around was the lack of any port-potties for runners to use.  Participants were forced to use Burger King and Publix if mother nature called.

Cindy and I basically set up the registration area ourselves.  Our normal volunteer coordinator was not involved with this race so nobody really knew what roles they were doing ahead of time and had to be quickly briefed/trained on the spot.  It made for a very hectic pre-race environment however somehow we got through it like we always do.

Once the race got under way things settled down.  Timing the event went very smoothly without hardly a hiccup to report.  Cindy also ran the event and did well, finishing the very hilly and difficult course in less than 42 minutes.  Since the race didn’t start until 8 and it was five miles long I didn’t get offsite until almost 10 AM.  On the way home we made additional pit stops which meant I didn’t pull back in the driveway until right around noon, a long morning.

Saturday afternoon was quite busy as well as I attended to the post-race duties, house chores and Cindy’s Miata.  Month’s ago her car refused to start.  I got the thing running by removing and reinstalling the fuel pump assembly somehow.  When I did, I noticed the pump obviously had been dug into before.  The ground wire to the connector had been cut, spliced and routed through a drilled hole where it wired directly to the fuel pump.  It looked very rigged so I wasn’t surprised it was problematic.

Last week her car stopped starting again and again I tried to jostle the pump to get the fuel flowing.  I was unsuccessful.  A quick look up online indicated if the car was taken to a dealer, a new fuel pump assembly could easily run $500 plus.  Instead I rolled the dice and bought a used assembly from Ebay for $60.

Prior to installing the used part I did some splicing of my own, reconnecting the ground wire to the factory connector as it was supposed to be.  Swapping out the fuel pump rig was pretty easy/quick since I had it half ripped apart already.  When I turned the key and heard the pump whirring away it was like music to my ears.  The car started up immediately and per Cindy has run better than it ever has since she assumed ownership.  I love when a plan comes together.

On Saturday night Cindy, our friend Alfred and Cindy’s daughter went to an Everblades hockey game, I hadn’t been to one in many years.  There was a good sized crowd present, much more than the anemic gathering I have become accustomed to for Tarpon games.  The game itself was fun, despite the 8-4 losing outcome.  I enhanced my fun meter with a number of beers and people watching.

We were behind a couple that were obviously DIE HARD Everblades fans.  These people take their minor league hockey very seriously.  They were wearing matching custom Everblades jerseys that if I was being honest, were hideously ugly.  Their seats were right behind a railing.  They had that railing fully decorated, attaching various stuffed animals, souvenirs and Xmas decorations.  Obviously I quickly realized how serious these fans were but I didn’t realize just how much planning went into their fandom until the game was over.

After the game ended the two of them quickly pulled out a hanging sign that had the words “Merry Christmas” strung together.  They scurried down to the glass surrounding the rink and pressed the sign against the glass proudly, hoping the Everblades players that were exiting the rink 15 feet away would glance up, see the holiday greeting and somehow recognize the fans effort.  I felt a degree of disappointment in my heart for them as 20+ players skated by the Merry Christmas sign without a single one even looking their direction.  The fans were left without the payoff they were hoping for.  There’s always next year.

Yesterday was a very welcomed slow starting day that did not include the use of an alarm clock.   Cindy was out running Xmas related items a good chunk of the day.  I did some running around of my own including dropping off a birthday card for Ali from the dogs.

Speaking of the dogs, I will be picking them up on my way home from work today for an extended holiday stay.  Ali is going to be up in PA for the entire Christmas/New Years holiday.  It’s going to be a very canine Christmas.

Yesterday afternoon Cindy and I went outside to do a workout.  Cindy did a lot more working than I did.  I shot some video of her in action that you can see here if you like.  It included her first ever real deadlifting, she did very well.

Last night the Eagles CRUSHED the Bears, setting up a do or die game next week against the Cowboys which should be epic.  Unfortunately my team got CRUSHED in my fantasy football championship.  The only member of my team that had a great day were the Bills defense.  Every other player in my line up underperformed by a bunch.  In contrast my opponent had everyone hitting for big days, lead by Peyton Manning.  Oh well, with the amount of effort I put into my FF team, second place two years in a row is something I can hang my hat on.

After I got done with class yesterday I headed out to do some work on Cindy’s Miata which has been sitting dead in my driveway all week.  I have a used fuel pump assembly on the way to hopefully fix her intermittent starting issue once and for all.  The pump was supposed to show up yesterday but it didn’t.

I wanted to at least get the rigged wiring eliminated awhile.  Some prior owner snipped the ground wire to the connector plug, jumpered in a long wire, drilled a hole in the top of the fuel pump assembly and directly connected it to the fuel pump for some reason.  I removed that mess and spliced the wire back into the factory connector like it is supposed to be.

Last night Cindy and I went out in the SSR to look at the Christmas lights in Victoria Park, a small development where they go all out with Xmas decorations.   It was great fun cruising around topless at a snails pace with the other onlookers as we took in one awesome display of holiday spirit after another.

As we were cruising we saw a bunch of runners in Xmas garb trot by.  It turns out Ali was within the group, funny.

I didn’t remember seeing the Victoria Park display in person before but Ali reminded me that we drove through there years ago with my mom in tow.

After seeing the VP display, on the way home I suggested we swing out to Ave Maria as well, the same place we biked to in the morning.  I thought maybe they had some sort of interesting decorations going on.  There was nothing extravagant but the church and town square looked really pretty.  I showed Cindy the massive Ave Maria water park that is hardly used while we were out there.  I wish they allowed non-Catholic towners to use the facility but it appears to only be restricted to Ave Maria residents, students or their guests.

The weather was a bit chilly for top down driving but nothing the floor heater and heated seats couldn’t negate.

Today is thankfully my last day of class.  They jam so much into 5 days that the instructor literally has no choice but to ramble non-stop for most of it.  Sure I cherry picked some good info so far but most of it has been just a big blah blah drone-fest.

This weekend I have another race to time, again out in the far reaches of Marco Island.  This means extra early alarms to compensate for the LONG drive.  Tomorrows race will be more challenging because Ali will not be around, meaning I get to juggle yet another ball before the race as being the lone data entry personnel.  Luckily the race is on the small side and 5 miles long so I have some extra time before runners start crossing to get everything done.

Saturday night we are going to a hockey game and whatever time that is left will be equally spread between chores, watching football and attending to final Christmas prep needs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So Friday after work was one of those lotsa stops nights.  After work I stopped at 4 different places before getting home.   One of those places was Sam’s.   As I was passing through the front of the store I saw one of those LG sound bars that I noticed a few weeks prior.    They had it on special, $30 off it’s normal already discounted SC price.  I had thoughts of adding a sound bar to my new kick ass bedroom LG 3D tv.  I submitted to the impulse and threw it in my cart.  I guess I will write it off as my first ever self Halloween gift to myself.

I got around to setting it up late that night.  It’s a pretty awesome set up.  Not only do you get the sound bar which includes 6 small speakers you also get a remote subwoofer that connects to the bar via Bluetooth, meaning you can stick it anywhere.  I opted to put it in the corner next to the laundry unit with the opening facing the side wall, allowing thumping bass to bounce off the wall and back into the room. The bar has two optical inputs, a conventional audio headphone input jack, a usb port and the ability to connect to your phone via BT to stream audio.  It also integrates directly with the TV, meaning when I hit the volume on the original TV remote it automatically controls the sound bar instead. It’s pretty awesome.

The one thing that is not awesome is how crowded the top of my dresser is getting.  With the tv, cable box, Xbox 360, sound bar, white noise fan, and Blu-Ray player I have now consumed pretty much all available space.  I am considering if I want to take on wall mounting the TV.  The sound bar can be wall mounted as well.  It would really clean up the look and let me reclaim some dresser real estate.  I always get a bit nervous cutting into walls but I am sure with a “measure twice cut once” attitude I could get the stuff on the wall and looking good.

The weather on Saturday morning was GLORIOUS with temps in the low 60’s and not a hint of humidity.  It was actually enjoyable to go out and weed the property in the crisp air.  It makes me think that eventually I will land in some place where this kind of weather is more prevalent.  90/90 for 6 months a year gets to be a drag.

After I got done with that I turned my attention to my two trucks.  First I wanted to try to isolate where in the driveshaft my Tacoma was squeaking.  My method for doing so looked a bit dangerous.  I backed the truck down to the flat portion of the driveway.  I then drug down my big floor jack and the rubber tire stop.  After putting the stop in front of the driver side tire I put the floor jack under the rear differential and jacked the back end of the truck into the air.  I then reached into the truck and put it in DRIVE so the rear wheels (and driveshaft) would spin.

Yes, I realized this had some potential danger.  I had already envisioned my course of action if the truck somehow came down with the wheels spinning and the wheel stop didn’t hold.  The truck was facing towards the house, meaning any forward movement would be slowed by the hill.  I also left the driver door open for quick access to the brake pedal.

So I engaged the shifter with some trepidation.  The rear wheels started to turn and the truck seemed stable.  I got down beside the Tacoma and looked/ listened.  I could not see or hear anything unusual of course.  I had Cindy tap the gas while I was down low observing to see if I could get any trace of the maddening squeal, nothing.

I turned the truck off and brought down my jackstands.  I thought that maybe if I supported the rear end with jack stands on the rear end instead of the differential it could yield different results.  It didn’t, I still heard nothing unusual.    I did use the spinning wheels as an opportunity to shoot the spinning driveshaft with copious amounts of WD-40 on the joints, hoping this would do at least something to relieve the symptoms.

I then turned my attention to the SSR.  For quite awhile there has been a noticeable clunk in the front end, especially noticeable when making left turns at a decent speed.  I sort of ignored it and sort of babied the truck when turning left.  I have very little experience with suspension/steering issues but it didn’t stop me from jacking up the front end and peeking around.

Just jacking the truck up is a bit of a chore.  Because of it’s lowered profile, I can’t get my heavy duty floor jack under the frame.  I actually have to put my light weight floor jack under there first.  It has a slightly lower profile. I used it to get the truck up an inch or two and then switched back to the 7500 pound Big Red jack.

So I first did a visual inspection, nothing looked particularly unusual or damaged.  I then started tugging on things, tight, tight, tight, loose….  Hmmm, I found a short rod that I later saw identified as a “stabilizer bar”  The bottom nut on this was loose, loose enough that I could easily move the bar back and forth.  I went to the passenger side and pulled on the same bar, rock solid.   Hmmmm, did I just find the problem?

I thought back to when Cindy and I took the SSR up to Seaworld.  During the trip I hit a MONSTER pothole on the way to Universal.  I remember thinking at the time “that had to screw something up”, well I think I just confirmed it did.

The fitting that was loose was an odd set up.  The bolt the nut was threaded onto had an allen wrench fitting inside of it.  I assume it was to allow for adjustment.  I didn’t really adjust anything, I just held the bolt in place with an allen wrench and tightened up the nut with a 7/8″ crescent wrench.  As I lowered the SSR back to the ground I thought I could not possibly get this lucky, could that be all that was wrong?

I took the truck out for a quick road test which included several hard left turns, no clunks! I pulled back into the garage quite pleased that I appeared to at least have addressed a problem with one of the two trucks.

Saturday afternoon Cindy and I attended the running clubs Oktoberfest.  I was technically “working” the event as I was stationed at the registration table checking guests in and working the Ipad to take credit card payments from walk up guests.

As mentioned Friday, I was not expecting to have a great time at the event.  I am not a big fan of anything German, especially Germans blabbing away when I am hiking the grand Canyon. 🙂  Well I was wrong, I had a great time.

Now of course this experience was greatly enhanced by the free refills I was receiving in my Oktoberfest beer stein.  I am not quite sure how many Michelob Ultras I had but it was enough to certainly keep me smiling all afternoon long.

The event had poor pre-registration numbers but a strong walk up crowd.  I would estimate in total there were 200 people that attended the event.  I am pretty sure everyone that showed up had a good time.

Sunday was another 4:15 AM alarm, this time to go time a rare Sunday 8K.  The event was not well attended unfortunately but the costumed runners that did show up were quite entertaining to see.  Despite the small turnout there were news crews from two of the local network affiliates covering the race.  Must have been a slow news day. Cindy ran the race and did quite well, winning her age group.  I don’t know if I could currently maintain the 8:07 pace she did for the full 5 miles.

On the way home from the race we stopped at Ali’s place to pick up Nicki, Sadie and Zoe.  Who is Zoe you ask?  Zoe (a Jack Russel)is the dog of our old neighbor whom moved away and recently back to the Naples area.  Zoe was Nicki’s first dog friend years and years ago.  Zoe used to be a regular visitor to the house. Rick is away on a cruise so Ali has been dogsitting her.  We thought it would be nice to take Zoe back to where she lived for many years.

Unfortunately Zoe is not doing very well health-wise nowadays.  She is 13 or 14 years old and is nearly blind and deaf.  Despite these handicaps she still seemed quite interested in exploring the yard.  She was out there with Nicki and Sadie for a long time.  Of course we could not leave her unattended with her limited sight.  A couple times we had to redirect her but for the most part Zoe seemed to be quite content just walking unencumbered around the large fenced in area.

Even with her problems I found it funny that she still begs for treats.  She always used to do that by rubbing a cabinet with her paw accompanied with a tireless bark.  The barking has stopped and she sometimes winds up pawing a door, wall or dishwasher but you still get the idea.  Having all three dogs together in the back yard was like being in a 10 year ago time machine for a short while.  It was great just to see them all hanging out and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Well it appears the NFL has totally figured out Chip Kelly’s offense.  The Eagles limped to yet another home loss against the dreadful Giants.  The loss extended the clubs record setting consecutive streak of losses at home, yay! The team looked like shit, plain and simple.  Once again the defense played ok but the offense that seemed to be so dynamic and explosive early in the season, failed to produce a single touchdown for the second game in a row, ouch.

I was surprised when they took Vick out although his play was pretty awful.  Evidently when Vick can’t run, he can’t play.  I knew the game was done at that point although Matt Barkely is kind of fun to watch.  I like his fact pace and quick release.  He seems to really  put everything he has into every throw.  In fact his QB style remains me a little bit of Dan Marino, except for one thing, he turns the ball over like mad.  In his roughly three quarters of play I think he has turned the ball over 5 or 6 times?

Even better news is it looks like both Vick and Foles are questionable for next weeks game at Oakland so Barkley might be our new starter.  Yes, I think the season is pretty much done at this point.  Oh well, I really kind of expected it anyway.

Last night I watched the most recent Die Hard in the bedroom with the freshly installed sound bar.  The movie was ridiculously unbelievable but hey, it’s Die Hard it is supposed to be that way.  The movie was also non-stop action and destroyed more vehicles than ethanol gas.  It was also the perfect film to test the sound bar with.

The smaller enclosed space of the bedroom was a great fitt for the new system.  The endless gunfire and explosions rocked the walls of the bedroom.  It really felt like a theater experience.  Although I give the movie a solid B rating the LG sound bar gets a shiny A+!

This week I will be easing off the gas pedal in regards to my normal exercise routine.  This upcoming weekend is the Tough Mudder, I don’t want to do anything that could hinder my ability to survive it.